My men had quietly pulled back from the city and points around Auja. We were coiled and ready to go. Without betraying the details to their soldiers, my commanders readied their troops who, in turn, prepared and maintained their weapons, ready for any contingency.
By mid-afternoon, Musslit was being contradictory, revealing just enough of the truth to appease the Americans while obscuring the real truth to protect Saddam. As the interrogators stepped up the pressure, several other events were set into motion. Other SOF teams from their parent task force in Baghdad would reinforce John’s SOF team. Dez Bailey arrived from Bayjii and was quickly refitting his unit after two weeks in the desert. Colonel Hickey had concluded his meeting with the Governor and headed directly for General Odierno’s headquarters. It was time to fully brief him, not on the radio or satellite phone, but in person.
In the Ironhorse Division headquarters, Colonel Hickey sat down in Major General Odierno’s office. He began to update Odierno, beginning with the capture of Mohammed al-Musslit.
“Sir, we’ve got him right now undergoing interrogation,” explained Hickey. “I intend to conduct a raid to kill or capture Saddam as soon as we get the information on his location.”
General Odierno had also been through this same scenario before. Colonel Hickey’s soldiers had participated in no fewer than a dozen specific raids with special operations forces to find Saddam.
“What do you think the chances of success are?” he asked.
“Sir, I think they are as good, if not better, than any previous mission we’ve conducted so far,” he offered.
General Odierno felt the momentum as well. Only a week before he had advised Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that he believed it was only a matter of time until they got Saddam. In that meeting, Rumsfeld had asked what more could he do, what more was needed. He told the Secretary that he believed that they had the resources they needed and were on the verge of success. Now, here he was face-to-face with his one field commander who had the best prospect of making it happen.
“Sir, we have as good a chance as we will ever get.” Hickey continued, “Only one other man may possibly know as much as Musslit, and he is still at large. I’m confident that we can get him. Our troops are at their peak of effectiveness and have been pursuing this with special operations forces for months.”
“Let me know what you need,” offered Odierno. “Keep me informed if anything new breaks.”
“Yes, sir,” answered Hickey. “Once we get the location, I should have the details of our plan pretty quick.”
As General Odierno and Colonel Hickey were conferring, Musslit was vacillating. He tried to insist that Saddam was on this side of the river or that side and kept the location ambiguous and generic. He spoke of an “underground facility.” He even suggested that Saddam had not been to this farm for four months. Game time was over. With pressure brought to bear on him, he yielded the location of a farm to which he had alluded earlier during an interrogation in Baghdad. It was near Ad Dawr on the east side of the river near the bank of the Tigris.
Special operations interrogators and Major Murphy’s intelligence shop pieced together the emerging information. It could be one of only a few farms north of Ad Dawr and just east-southeast of Auja. This would affect the force structure substantially. Unlike the western desert raids that produced Musslit’s brother, Rudman, and his business partner, Thaier Amin Ali, the terrain on the riverbank was densely vegetated with palm groves, orchards, and farm fields. A much tighter cordon and adjustments for armored vehicles would be required.
John’s men were ready to proceed, accompanied by Musslit and the information at hand. They conducted a stealthy reconnaissance of the area that Musslit had referenced and were able to narrow it down to an area of two farms with a possible third as a secondary target. The two farms were in an orchard on the east bank of the Tigris River a few kilometers north of Ad Dawr. From the Hadooshi farm bluff on the other side of the river, it was a mere three-kilometer straight line from bluff to bluff. Had Saddam been here all along?
After leaving General Odierno’s headquarters, Colonel Hickey went to the Water Palace to meet with John, who had just returned from the recon. They began to discuss the options. It was now about 4:00 p.m. and would be dark in three hours. Outside, two flights of Little Bird helicopters had arrived. Odd-looking armored vehicles had collected on-site along with other teams from the SOF task force brought up from Baghdad.
Inside, Colonel Hickey, John, Brian Reed, team leaders, and their ops men began to structure the initial plan, based on the recon. Someone ripped a piece of butcher paper from an easel pad and laid it on the table. John proposed a timeline based on a hit time of 9:00 p.m. Units would move out by 8:00 p.m. and link up at a corn granary on the other side of the Tigris north of the farms by 8:30 p.m. Colonel Hickey wanted to change the time frame. He remembered at least two occasions on which he felt we had narrowly missed Saddam. An earlier raid might have netted him. He knew the information we had was good. The sooner we struck, the better.
John agreed but still had moving parts arriving from Baghdad. They reconfigured the timeline with a departure of 6:30 p.m. Scrawled on the butcher paper were the military times of 1830 for departure, 1900 for granary linkup, and 2000 for the hit time known as “H-Hour.” John added “ish” to 2000 to allow some flexibility. Therefore, “2000-ish” became the planned time.
So it was. One of the most important military raids in all of history was planned with Magic Markers on a piece of butcher paper with a “2000-ish” hit time. In reality, nothing more was needed for the operation. Our forces had worked together for more than six months. Colonel Hickey was right. We were at peak efficiency. Our relationship and trust with one another was complete. We knew that we could rely on each other to quickly assemble for any action.
The force would raid two farms. Dez Bailey’s G Troop would provide close inner cordon support to John’s men working the orchard and outbuildings with the other teams from his unit brought up from Baghdad. John’s men would be under the overall command of “Bill,” the higher-level special operations commander recently arrived for this raid.
To supplement the two farm targets, Colonel Jim Hickey and “Bill” the special operations commander, would bring their own forces to bear. An outer cordon was vital. Farm targets in a dense orchard on the bank of a river increased the prospect for the raid’s failure in a variety of ways. Saddam had eluded his would-be captors by swimming away once before from this exact location in 1959. A repeat performance was entirely possible. He could slip out again by swimming or rowing a small fishing boat across the river.
To cordon the objective, Colonel Hickey needed a tight noose around the area. Major Steve Pitt and the 4th Battalion, 42nd Field Artillery (normally under Lieutenant Colonel Dom Pompelia who was presently on leave in the States) would be responsible for the overall portion east of the river. Two howitzers would be prepped to support the assault force if things went badly.
Colonel Hickey ordered Lieutenant Colonel Mark Huron’s 299th Engineer Battalion to place forces on the west bank of the river. An additional screen on the west side would be flown by A Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Aviation in Apaches to prevent any situation from developing on the west side. My own forces under Mark Stouffer’s A Company would tie in south of Auja on the west bank of the river with those that Mark Huron would bring up from the south. Lieutenant Colonel Reg Allen from the 10th Cavalry Squadron would provide his A Troop as an armored reserve for the overall mission.
“Bill’s” SOF forces were more specialized than the conventional forces of Jim Hickey. The flights of Little Birds would provide both special operator transport and attack air support to the ground teams. If Saddam Hussein were captured, they would whisk him out as well. An MH-53 with a special ops surgeon would provide emergency medical support. Specialized armored vehicles would also support the ground teams. Combined with Jim Hickey’s forces, the total for the mission would number approximately
eight hundred soldiers.
With the basic plan now established, both conventional and unconventional forces went to work. Colonel Hickey updated his commanders. He informed me that Saddam’s location had been pinpointed near Ad Dawr on the east side of the river. The artillery would handle the outer cordon on that side, and he wanted to bring up Mark Huron’s troops to handle any potential water-crossing issues on the west bank in my area. While I would tie in my A Company with that cordon, his main orders to me were to have a ready reserve to send troops to either side of the river.
I assigned Brad Boyd the mission to prepare for an east side reinforcement. Mark Stouffer was already in position with the cordon just south of Auja. While we were all excited, I was also a little bummed. Cordons were nice, but instinct told me that this was the raid for which we had all been waiting. Every one of us wanted to be raiding that small farm objective. Even so, we had all worked very hard to get here. Hopefully, the cordon would never be tested, and my standby forces would never be needed. We now all waited for the move out.
RED DAWN
Colonel Hickey made a last coordination with his executive officer, Major Troy Smith. Troy had the operations center set and ready to go. Captains Mike Wagner and Geoff McMurray had been assisting Major Brian Reed and knew the plan. Colonel Hickey had dubbed the objectives WOLVERINE 1 and WOLVERINE 2. There was no particular explanation for this, just names that bubbled up to Colonel Hickey’s mind, as often happens when commanders and operations officers need a moniker for a particular operation.
It seemed only fitting to McMurray then, as they worked on the fragmentary order with the simple sketches and imagery provided, that the operation should be named “Red Dawn” in a nod to John Milius’s 1984 classic movie Red Dawn starring Patrick Swayze. In the movie, communist forces invade, catching a small American town in Colorado unawares. A group of high school students led by Swayze decide to resist, using their school mascot name, the Wolverines, as the name of their group. The operation name stuck.
While Major Reed would accompany Colonel Hickey, Captain Mark Paine was ready as the battle captain supporting Troy Smith. Major Stan Murphy would also remain to coordinate the intelligence. Chief Bryan Gray would dispatch with Colonel Hickey.
The question on everyone’s mind was whether Musslit had stalled so long that Saddam might suspect that he had been compromised. We would soon find out. Colonel Hickey and Command Sergeant Major Wilson moved toward the linkup point.
John’s SOF team and the other teams were on the move as well. All units began to migrate toward the assault position. By 6:45 p.m., the assembly was complete at the granary near Highway 21, the north-south road running parallel to the Tigris River’s east bank. Jim Hickey and “Bill” deliberated while the assault leaders and commanders briefly rehearsed the sequence of attack. Dez Bailey’s men had already consulted with John’s SOF team and the other SOF task force teams. The sun was setting.
It seemed almost providential when the power went out suddenly in Ad Dawr at 7:45 p.m. This was about the same time that all the assault elements were departing the granary for that “2000-ish” hit time. With the aid of night vision and thermal vision, our forces would have a decided advantage.
The air was brisk on that December night. Soldiers wore gear for protection against the elements. They manned their weapons or readied themselves for the ground assault. Radios were silent. Vehicles were totally blacked out. In the far distance, Little Bird and Apache helicopters nosed toward the objective.
The two farms were dark. The orchards covering them were a mix of brown wintered vegetation mixed with green palms and bushes. Citrus fruit hung from trees interlacing the date palms. Hemming the orchard on the east side was a chain-link fence adorned with thousands of narrow palm fronds latticed into the diamond-shaped links, effectively concealing what lay behind it.
Extending out from the fence was a wheat field with several small storage barns, some sheathed in opaque plastic sheeting. A dirt road separated the fence from the wheat field while another road, not much better, led out toward Highway 24 in the distance. To the south lay the blacked-out city of Ad Dawr. To the northwest and just across the river lay Auja, Saddam’s birthplace, illuminated by the many generators still in the hands of Saddam’s privileged loyalists living within our ring of barbed wire. Between Auja and the orchard curved a rich farmland, cut mostly on the east side by the wide Tigris River.
The SOF soldiers forming the ground assault element swooped into place at 8:00 p.m., joined by assaulting elements in Little Birds. Dez Bailey’s platoon from G Troop pushed tight on them to form the inner cordon. Colonel Hickey and “Bill” rolled up behind them and co-located their command vehicles in the wheat field adjacent to the orchard. Major Brian Reed with the 1st Brigade command group Bradleys set up in overwatch nearby. Apaches patrolled the west bank of the Tigris, while below, Mark Huron’s Engineers and Mark Stouffer’s “Gators” from my battalion scanned the east bank where so much activity was now taking place.
Hearing the commotion, Qais Namaq Jassim and his brother spurred into a flurry of activity of their own. How could the Americans be here? There was no warning. Hoping to divert the soldiers, they quickly went into their concealment drill and then ran north into the orchard away from the farm now designated WOLVERINE 1.
Whirring above them leading his flight of Little Birds, “DB” spotted movement in the orchard. The assault team saw them, too. After a brief chase, Sergeant John Iversen with Dez Bailey’s men apprehended the fugitives. They turned out to be Saddam’s cook and the cook’s brother. An intense search was now on as men wove through the orchard. To “DB,” “Pat” and “Brian” observing from their birds, the scene took on a concert-like appearance as the soldiers snooped around with their rifle lights.
After stumbling around a bit, Musslit, brought along on the raid for just this purpose, was able to pinpoint the area in which they should search. He was perched in the back of a Humvee, looking exceedingly unhappy.
Dez and his men joined the SOF ground effort, acting on scant info about an “underground facility.” The soldiers searched in earnest through the palm groves and even the garbage pit that serviced the two farms. During the search, Dez and John tried to assess the situation.
“Well, Dez,” commented John, “looks like it might be another dry hole.”
“Let’s check it one more time,” replied Dez. They agreed that Saddam had to be there.
A handful of SOF soldiers began to interrogate the captured men back at the southern farm they had tried to flee. The cook and his brother were not being very cooperative. Iraqis generally feared American working dogs, but even the presence of the sniffer dog did not compel them to capitulate. They offered misleading information in an attempt to draw the assault element away from the southern farm. John knew that they must be in the right location. Where was this “bunker” or this “underground facility” that Musslit mentioned? Did it even exist?
Enough was enough. John decided to grab Mohammed al-Musslit. The special ops men confronted him, saying, “You said he was here,” and saying some other colorful things as well. “Where is he? Where is the bunker?”
“He’s there. Trust me. Keep looking,” replied Musslit through the translator.
Instead, they again grabbed Musslit and brought him through the farm gate opening in the latticed fence. The farmhouse itself was not very big. Three disjointed, rectangular rooms formed a small “L” around a small concrete patio area. The rooms bore a kitchen, bedroom, and living area. A hasty search had already netted two AK-47s and a chest of American money.
JACKPOT
Mohammed al-Musslit was terrified. He spotted Saddam’s cook, Qais. A look passed between them, each hoping the other would expose Saddam. Musslit did not want to be seen or heard, but the soldiers continued to pepper him with demands to show them the location. The game, he knew, was already over. Telling them quietly and walking a few steps across the small patio, he began to gesture towar
d a foot mat. He tapped it with his foot. It looked quite normal positioned adjacent to the patio’s west edge.
Drawing it aside, the special ops soldiers noticed soft earth beneath the mat. Two of them kicked to brush away the dirt, exposing a bit of rope. After more digging, a soldier exposed what appeared to be handles. Musslit was taken away, along with the other two detainees.
“Sir, we may have a potential jackpot,” alerted John to Colonel Hickey.
“Roger,” answered Colonel Hickey, waiting patiently. Fifteen minutes had already passed. The two apprehended men were acting abnormally. Something, he sensed, was about to give. Even if it were not, Colonel Hickey was satisfied that he had a force sufficiently large to search every square inch of the area for as long as it took. Saddam had to be here. For now, he simply let the soldiers execute in the manner they knew best.
A small group of special ops soldiers gathered around as one began to brush the dirt away. A door or hatch of some kind began to take shape. The edges appeared to be Styrofoam. One of the men readied a flash-bang grenade while another lifted the handles. The others covered with their weapons.
A thick two-foot square of Styrofoam began to work its way from what now appeared to be a brickwork entrance to whatever was below. As the top was tossed away, a haggard man in a charcoal-colored dishdasha began to move. Lights and muzzles bore down on the man, illuminating him inside the darkness. Seeing no immediate weapon, the SOF men kept the flash-bang grenade at bay.
“Samir,” a soldier shouted, calling out to an Iraqi-American refugee working with the special ops team, “come and talk to him. Tell him to come out before he gets killed.”
We Got Him! Page 32