The Bremer Detail

by Frank Gallagher,John M. Del Vecchio

  One morning around 0630, while waiting for the ambassador to come out of the villa, I got a call on my radio that there was something that I just had to see. I headed out to the parking area and saw my stone-cold-killer PSD team standing there staring up in the sky.

  “Can you believe this?”

  “Oh my God, I never thought we’d see them again.”

  “Wow.”

  My guys were staring at clouds. There had been zero clouds since I arrived in August, and now floating peacefully in the Iraqi sky there they were. It was quite a sight, especially when a group like this was staring, slack-jawed, at Mother Nature. It’s the little things that sometimes make for a good day. In hindsight I can remember it raining only twice the entire time I was there. Both times for about twenty minutes. The clouds were cool.

  Early on another morning, I got a call from the “Force Protection” commander (a Marine major in charge of overall security for the palace grounds); he asked me if one of my guys had an accidental discharge at the airport PX the day before. An accidental discharge occurs when someone fires his or her weapon when the person is not expecting it to go off. It is also referred to by professionals as a negligent discharge because if you are carrying a weapon there are no accidents, just negligence. I responded that I had not heard anything about it but would look into it.

  I called the advance team and detail team leaders over to my trailer, and asked them if they knew anything about this. They did. And, of course, had hoped that I would never catch wind of it. With around forty-six guys now on the ground it was impossible for me to be everywhere at all times, and I relied upon the different group leaders to keep me in the loop. I was pissed. It seems that one of the new guys had tried to unload his Glock before entering the PX and had managed to squeeze off a round into the clearing barrel. This guy was a former SEAL who had been brought over to my team after a stint with The Dirty 30. He had been described as a weapons expert, weapons instructor, sniper, and a great guy by their team leader. I had found it odd; if he was all that and a bag of chips, why had they let him go? I soon found out.

  I called Blackwater and told them I was sending another guy home. As a SEAL-centric organization, the leaders at Blackwater were very protective of their brother SEALs. I was soon to find out just how protective they were, and how protective they had been. Ken managed to get this guy a plane ride out the next day and off he went. I hated losing another guy, but Blackwater and my reputation were at stake here. A negligent discharge is unacceptable anywhere in the world. It was even truer in a war zone. We were supposed to be the best of the best, and this incident gave us a huge black eye. I was now asked repeatedly about my “high-speed, low-drag superninja operators.”

  At the chow hall the next day I ran into several of my friends from The Dirty 30. They had heard what had happened, and they were enjoying my pain immensely. They could not understand why I had even agreed to take him after what had happened to him on their team. I had no idea what they were talking about. I said I had heard nothing but great things about him from their team leader and Blackwater HQ. It seems as though this guy had a negligent discharge while he was with them and had actually shot himself in the leg. I was stunned. The light came on very quickly that I had been played like a fool by Blackwater. They had apparently hoped I would never find out, and that the guy would somehow save his reputation by working on The Bremer Detail. I was beyond pissed off. Needless to say, I exchanged some unpleasantries with their team leader, and from that day forward their access to my helos was severely limited. As long as that particular team leader was there, they could not use them. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. I could no longer trust him, and I never did again.

  As though I did not have enough other things to occupy my time, a few days later another memo about drinking in-country and fraternizing with women came down the wire from Blackwater HQ. This was getting ridiculous. I knew where this was coming from, but could never prove it. I posted the memo without comment, and I never mentioned it again. I don’t even know if the guys read it. The funny part is, just two days before this we had attended a party with the Dirty 30 guys. They had a bar set up at their place where they served drinks to any and all.

  We had made a run out to the airport to pick someone up and had decided to stop by and say hello. As we approached the Dirty 30 camp we could see flames soaring forty feet into the air. They had strung Christmas lights up, and the music was blasting. On the walls of some buildings, .50 caliber machine gun impact holes etched out their familiar pattern. It was like a scene from the old Apocalypse Now movie. There were two hundred people gyrating to the flames and under the lights. It was surreal. Every few minutes somebody would throw another pallet on the fire and the flames kept rising. The highlight of the evening was when one of the female attendees actually fell ass first into the fire. Fortunately she was not badly burned. So, somehow, these guys could operate a bar, but we could not have a beer. They could light women on fire, but we couldn’t fraternize with our female colleagues and coworkers. What was the deal? Apparently, according to them, they were never questioned about their after-hour activities. The HQ hypocrisy was overwhelming.

  As the party wound down it became time to head back to the Green Zone. It was about 0200, and we had to navigate the airport road. The prime time to be attacked traveling this stretch of highway was just after dark to dawn. The Iraqis would wait for dark to set up their ambushes and wait for the first unsuspecting coalition convoy to happen upon it. It could be an IED attack, a small-arms ambush, or an attack from vehicles lying in wait. They used the darkness to their advantage and they were very good at what they did. We were leaving in the prime attack hours. Q was driving one vehicle, a level-6 armored monster with a 500-hp McLaren engine. Travis T was in a Suburban. As we moved out onto the highway the speeds went up dramatically. Our best ally was speed, and speed is what we did. The best we could hope for was to throw off the timing of any possible attack. We wanted to blow past the IEDs that were waiting for us before the bad guys could react. Q was at 120 mph before I knew it. I was just along for the ride. The bad guys would have had to be extremely good to hit us. As we rounded the last overpass for the final stretch home the tires were chirping from the speed. We made it back safe and sound.

  We continued to work our asses off. The ambassador, we had become convinced, was a cyborg. He never got tired. He just kept going. He had a trip being organized to Spain. I notified Blackwater we had a pending international trip, and I began (or rather Ken began) the process of gun permits, visas, hotel rooms, etc. Everything was in motion when Blackwater called me and told me that international trips were not part of our contract with DOD. This was not my fight, so I approached Brian Mac. The DOD rep said yes, we were expected to provide protection for him anywhere he went with the exception of the United States. Okay … we continued to plan. Blackwater came back and said no, we would not be going. This back-and-forth took place over the next twenty-four hours before Blackwater finally confirmed we would be going. I began to question my own sanity. I had never seen the contract, so I had no idea who was right or wrong when it came to contractual issues.

  I chose six guys to go. The six had been around since the beginning of September; and I felt it was a good way for them to relax, eat some decent chow, and get a taste of real life for a few days before they rotated home. I would stay behind and train with the new guys.

  Our away team had been in Spain for about a day when the ambassador was called back to the United States. This concerned me, as I was always fearful of the guys not having any adult supervision. My fears were not unfounded. There really is no way that what happened could have been much worse. It was a disaster.

  In Baghdad we trained, went to the gym, took long-needed naps. After evening chow, Ski and I decided to relax and have a couple of drinks. Ski had been there since the beginning and was a great guy. About 2200 hours my cell phone rang. It w
as Ambassador­ Pat Kennedy, Bremer’s chief of staff, telling me to come immediately to his office. My heart sank. I knew this could not in any way, shape, or form be good. Ski and I headed straight over, and Ambassador Kennedy was in his office with Colonel Sabol. This was going to be way worse than I had imagined. Sweat soaked my shirt.

  Ambassador Kennedy was Ambassador Bremer’s right-hand man. He was a career diplomat who had been in charge of the Diplomatic Security Service for a period of time. He was a no-nonsense, straight shooter of the highest order. He had been a key ally of mine during the start-up phase of the Blackwater operation and had gone way beyond the call of duty to make sure we had whatever we needed to keep Ambassador Bremer safe. I liked him and respected him. He was smart and never asked a question to which he did not already know the answer. The conversation began: “Frank, if a member of your team assaulted a member of President Bush’s staff, what would you do?”

  “Sir, I would fire him.”

  “Frank, if this happened in Spain, what would you do?”

  “Sir, as soon as he got back, I’d have him on a plane out of here.”

  “Frank, do you think there are any flights directly from Spain to the United States?”

  “Yes, Sir, I’m sure there are.”

  “Frank, is there any good reason for bringing him back here instead of putting him on the next flight to JFK?”

  “None that I can think of, Sir.”

  “Good, can you arrange that tonight?”

  “Yes, Sir, I will.”

  “Good, have a great evening”

  “You too, Sir.”

  Fuck me. I got ahold of Ken and Blackwater, and we started the process. I got ahold of the guys in Spain and asked what had happened. Apparently after the boss departed, the party lamp had been lit. Two days of cavorting had led to two of the six guys being late for departure to the airport to board the C-130 back to Baghdad. When questioned as to why they were late, the individual in question (a former Marine, still drunk) got a tad surly with a member of the president’s staff. When further pressed as to the reason for being late, the guy asked the man if he knew what the capital of Thailand was. The man hesitated for a second, and my guy punched him square in his nut sack and yelled, “BANGKOK!” This can be funny in the proper setting, but this clearly was not the proper setting. The fight was on. Punches were thrown and the Spanish cops had to stop the fight. Cooler heads prevailed, and the president’s men declined to have the Spanish police arrest my guy. Thank God.

  I assigned two guys (Riceman and Tony T) to keep him in his room, telling them to stand by for instructions. If the incident wasn’t bad enough, this idiot had failed to check his weapon into the weapons box with all the other guns, so I now had a drunk guy in Spain with a gun. I did not know how I would get the weapon back to Iraq. Even getting the two guys who were babysitting back to Iraq was going to be tough. Fuck.

  The guy called me crying and sobbing hysterically and accusing me of not having his back. “Frank, what are you doing to me?”

  “You’re going home tomorrow.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “You smacked a member of the president’s staff.”

  “It wasn’t my fault.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You did it. Big boy rules. Have a safe flight home.”

  “I can’t believe you’re fucking me over like this.”

  “You did it. You own it.”

  “It’s not fair.”

  Whatever.

  The next day he was gone. Ken and one of the other guys packed up his luggage and found some missing gear from the detail, including a $14,000 set of night vision goggles that was apparently going to find its way to his home when he left. They shipped his kit back to the States minus the almost-stolen gear. My guys took the illegal weapon to the embassy where Bill Miller had arranged for the regional security officer (RSO) in charge of the security at the U.S. embassy in Spain to somehow get it shipped back to Baghdad. It took my guys four days to return. The weapon arrived a month later. In the meantime, since we still had a mission to meet and were one gun short, Ken had to give up his own sidearm so one of the new detail guys would be armed while out with the ambassador.

  Ambassador Kennedy never mentioned the incident again. That’s the kind of man he was. Problem solved. Move on.

  The rotation of the men continued to be an issue for the ambassador and his staff. They were none too pleased as the newer guys continued to make the same elementary mistakes that the earlier guys had made and had stopped making. I did not blame them. It was making me crazy also. How many phone calls can you get about the same mistakes being made over and over? Again I notified Blackwater that this was an issue. Again I got the “shut up and color” speech. Blackwater did not like to hear constructive criticism, and I think they wished that I would stop questioning them or giving them a heads-up on anything. They would have been far happier if I sat in the corner with a box of crayons and a coloring book. All I could do was to try and keep everybody happy.

  One of our ongoing challenges was that we frequently had folks from D.C. visiting. It was far from unusual. For example, around this time, November 2003, Jim Cawley, one of the Secret Service guys who had done the original assessment, came back to Baghdad to “arrange” security for a pending visit from Senators Hillary Clinton and Jack Reed, and to see what and how we were doing. The senators were supposedly heading to Baghdad after a stop in Afghanistan. Jimmy Cawley was a great guy. He came over to the villa and inspected the improvements they had recommended and we had made to the ambassador’s primary residence, and we reviewed the tactics and techniques that we were employing. He told me if I ever had any issues to contact him directly, and he would contact the director of the Secret Service to make sure we got any and all support we required. The Blackwater contract was under tremendous scrutiny back in Washington. As the threats came in, all parties involved knew we could not fail. We had his full backing.

  Thanksgiving morning, Brian called me to the office saying the ambassador needed to speak with me. Later in the day we were scheduled to accompany the ambassador to a USO show at Baghdad International Airport. Midafternoon my advance team would be heading out to BIAP to begin the security preparations for our arrival. I walked into the office, and the ambassador asked me if I had set up security for the event. I told him the advance team would be heading over shortly. He said we should stand by and not head out there just yet as President Bush would be arriving and the Secret Service was there setting up the security. I almost fell over. He smiled and asked me if I was okay with the Secret Service taking the lead on this one. I replied through a smile that I thought they could handle it. He told me that I was now the third person at the palace to know about it.

  I called the detail leader and the advance team leader to my trailer and I told them to stand down. I advised them that for today we would not have the lead for security at the event. They looked at me like I had lost my damn mind. I said, “Trust me. When you get out there, just follow the directions from whoever you run into.” They did.

  The Secret Service directed the advance team to take a position fairly close by, but not close enough to be in their way. When the ambassador arrived, I was allowed in along with one other guy from our team. They asked if we were armed, we said we were, and in a huge show of respect they allowed us to keep our weapons. In the world of the Secret Service, they rarely if ever let anyone not part of their team carry a weapon around the president. It was a good day.

  The president arrived and met the ambassador, and they talked for a few minutes before the president marched into the mess hall to a huge ovation. I got goose bumps. Here was the president of the United States in Baghdad, serving Thanksgiving dinner to the troops. It was truly a moment I will never forget. The Secret Service guys were as professional as they always are. We exchanged a few words, and Jimmy Cawley introduced me to the directo
r of Protective Operations for the Secret Service, and a few other heavy hitters who were in attendance. Mark Sullivan told me again that if we ever need anything not to hesitate to call. I certainly knew I would if I had to. Eventually, in May, I would have to make that call when problems arose with some of our military counterparts.

  6 December 2003

  On a Red Zone run several days later, Ambassador Bremer came out of his meeting with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, at Hakim’s house in Baghdad, and turned to me and said he would be going to the airport with the secretary of defense. This was not part of my detailed plan for the day. We had expected to head directly back to the Green Zone and the palace. My initial reaction was to protest the move, but I could see from the look in his eyes that this was not open for debate. I answered “Yes, Sir” and relayed the information to the team.

  The road to BIAP was referred to in many ways—none of them favorable. We usually called it the highway of death, as the insurgents repeatedly targeted and killed coalition forces making the dangerous journey between the airport and the Green Zone. Adrenaline pumped as I made a mental checklist of items we had not been able to do to make this trip as safe as possible: no advance team; no helicopter briefing; the route had not been cleared; no idea/intel of events that had occurred on Route Irish that day. Many major components of a regular mission were not in place. The flip side was that, as this was an unscheduled visit, no one knew we were heading out there, and we would be traveling with the additional manpower and firepower that accompanied Secretary Rumsfeld. I notified the team that there had been a change in plans and that we were off to the VIP lounge at the airport. Needless to say, some of the radio traffic back to me expressed grave concern about doing the mission, à la “Are You Nuts?!”