The Bremer Detail

by Frank Gallagher,John M. Del Vecchio

  When Ken wasn’t killing people with kindness to get things done he had an acerbic wit, was brutally honest, and didn’t take anyone’s shit. Hacksaw was not a fan of his. In addition to the business degree that caused Babs to select him as the operations and logistics manager for the CP, Ken had extensive weapons skills from his time assigned to the Special Boat Teams—a lesser-known Naval Special Warfare unit that conducted missions with SEALs and other U.S. Special Operations Forces. Ken had been up with the Ass Monkeys before, flying aerial surveillance and route recon with a camera during familiarization flights. He had even gone up to shoot pictures of post-VBIED damage at the Assassin’s Gate for the FBI. Ken wanted to be a door gunner. He had lobbied long and hard to get out of the office. I had previously allowed him to go on some low-key Green Zone advances since he had trained up with the rest of the detail and had been with the team since day one. Some of the air guys apparently didn’t like him and didn’t want him along, but he still wanted to fly. When we had this tryout, I broached the subject of Ken to Hacksaw. He dismissed the idea immediately. I later called Hacksaw and asked him, as a favor to me, to let Ken try out. Hacksaw was not happy, but out of professional courtesy to me, and against his better judgment, he said to send him over. I thanked him.

  The tryout was not easy. The guys had to field strip the SAW, put it back together, clear malfunctions, load, unload, and do it while being timed. Some guys washed out right there. The remainder flew out to an area in the desert outside of Baghdad where targets had been set up. The guys had to shoot a qualification course while the Little Birds went through all the maneuvers they might use while engaging bad guys. They started with the M-4 firing semiautomatic, then moved up to the SAW shooting fully automatic—all while herking and jerking around as if providing fire support in a real situation. It was not easy.

  The door gunners finished up around 1600. At 1602 my phone rang. It was Ken. “Frank, we need to talk.” This was never good.

  “I’m heading to the office now to check the schedule. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Roger.”

  I asked myself WTF happened.

  At 1604 my phone rings again. It was Hacksaw. “Frank, we need to talk NOW.”

  “Hacksaw, what happened?”

  “That motherfucker shot my helicopter.” He was livid.

  “You’re kidding, right?” I could not imagine this was even remotely possible.

  “I’m not fucking kidding. We have to put a new blade on it. We barely made it back to the LZ.” Fuck me.

  “I told you that SOB shouldn’t even have been allowed in my birds.” He was not happy at all. Just then I see Ken approaching, and I tell Hacksaw to fix the bird.

  “Frank, I fucked up. I wanted you to hear it directly from me, not through the rumor mill. I’ll understand if you want to offer me window or aisle. I’m sorry. You put it out there for me, and I let you down.”

  “Yeah, well … That is not going to happen. You’ve been here since the beginning and you have enough chips in the Frankwater bank to cover a fuckup.”

  “You heard what happened?”

  “I did. Shit happens. Nobody was hurt. Take the rest of the day off and relax.”

  He went back to his trailer embarrassed and feeling like an ass. I met with Sue and we covered the events for the next few days. I went up to our office about an hour later. There were a dozen guys in there howling hysterically. I glance around and saw what was so funny. Someone had made flyers advertising the Johnny Rotors Aerial Gunnery School. The guys could be vicious. Ken handled it well, with some good-natured “Fuck yous,” and “Talk shit when you don’t get your paycheck, motherfuckers.” He was not the first or last guy who had made a mistake.

  Hacksaw was still pissed when I saw him at chow. He reminded me how he had been against Ken’s tryout. There was nothing I could do but admit he was correct and I had been wrong. I asked him what happened. He said that when the bird banked, Ken didn’t adjust his line of fire or let off the trigger quickly enough. One round caught the tip cap, an aluminum end cap at the end of the rotor blade, causing the blade to lose its aerodynamic shape. They landed immediately and inspected the damage. Carl, who was flying the other bird, used a Gerber tool to file off the twisted metal at the end of the rotor blade in order to get it as close to a flying shape as possible so they could limp back to the LZ. The helo was vibrating badly the whole way back as the rotor was now out of its proper shape. While not fatal, if he hadn’t let off the trigger and stopped shooting when Hacksaw yelled, “Watch the rotor disc!,” it could have been a real disaster. Ken had violated Ass Monkey door gunner rule number one: Never shoot your own aircraft.

  Plenty of guys on the team made mistakes, some worse than others—Ken’s just happened to cost $20,000 (lots cheaper than the recently totaled Suburban at about $125,000). Not a minimal mistake but far better than losing four men and an entire aircraft.

  Luck had saved us again. How much did we have left?

  For about a week after this incident the guys added “Johnny Rotors” to Ken’s list of call signs; until Carmine walked into the office one day and saw him sitting behind the computer reading or writing one of my e-mails and said, “You know who you look like? Harry Fucking Potter.” That stuck for the rest of his days working for The Bremer Detail.

  April had been a tough month. Four Blackwater guys had been killed in Fallujah, the Najaf incident had occurred, the country was in turmoil, attacks were rapidly escalating on the BIAP road—and still the ambassador was moving at 100 mph, which meant that we were too. We had two months left. HB, Drew B, Carmine, Mongo, G-Money, Clutch, Hillbilly, Sax, Jadicus, Kenny C, Russ T, Mid Day, Jeremy W, Matt 2 Ts, Doc Phil, Jimmy Dog, Randy Y, Mongo B, Todd G, and a few others were staying through to the end with me. With the country in crisis I wasn’t sure that date was still accurate. Our collective fingers were crossed.

  Kelli’s college graduation was fast approaching. I needed desperately to get the time off. I prayed for a period of relative peace so I could make my move. It never came. Attacks on the military and coalition forces continued unabated. Attacks on the Green Zone rose. Threats against the ambassador went off the charts. My guys were moving at warp speed, and I continued to press them to be perfect each and every day.

  I met with the intel guys, the RSO, the military, the CPA leadership, foreign PSD teams, the folks from Strategic Communications (StratComm), and all others who wanted or needed the ambassador. They would come to me to see what they could do to make sure a certain objective they wanted him to do was workable for all of us. It was great show of respect on everyone’s part. They knew that the sooner I was involved in a project, the more likely it was to happen, and happen smoothly. This was a far cry from the early days. We were no longer viewed as a nuisance to be tolerated; we were now a part of the process. They also realized that if the ambassador was present, it was also going to be safer for all of them, so it worked both ways. We may have made their lives a little more difficult, but we did bring value-added safety to their events. It’s hard to say it was pleasant. That’s not the right word. It was tough, but working together was easier for everyone involved, and that made each day seem better.

  As a show of appreciation to us the ambassador decided to throw a beer and pizza party for his PSD team. The guys were ecstatic. It meant a lot to the team. We finished up the day around 1400 and took the ambassador to his villa. He had bought about ten cases of beer and forty pizzas for the guys. He also told me he would stay at the villa for the rest of the evening, and to tell the guys to drink up. We were psyched. Since we had the villa security team in place at this time, I told the guys to go put their weapons away and come back in some clean clothes. There was no need for my guys to be carrying weapons while the villa guys had control. Sergeant Major Purdy had taken the SAWs and placed them in strategic locations around the place, and we were quite safe.

  About an hour
into the party Sue comes over and asks me who the “ragtag guys” are that just arrived outside who were helping themselves to the beer. I went out and saw four Blackwater guys from another contract standing there, drinking beer, wearing dirty T-shirts, body armor, ball caps, and carrying weapons. If this wasn’t bad enough, they had grenades hanging off their vests. I asked them what they were doing here, and they replied they had been told the ambassador was throwing a party for Blackwater. I told them that the party was for his PSD team not for Blackwater, and they had to leave. I went back inside and found the sergeant major. I told him to make sure they were gone ASAP. He came back to me and said they were refusing to leave. By now the ambassador’s military attaché wanted to know who the vagrants were and why they were in an area restricted to authorized personnel. The hits just kept coming.

  I went out and told them, “Get the fuck out of here now!” They were pissed off. Once again I got the one team–one fight speech. They finally left. I was beyond pissed off and embarrassed as hell. What were these guys thinking? To add even more insult to injury, one of these ass clowns was the first guy I had sent home off the detail.

  The next day I got forwarded an e-mail from their team leader complaining to Blackwater HQ about my unprofessional behavior. Blackwater HQ wanted an explanation, which I gladly supplied. I could not type fast enough to explain these guys were brain-dead stupid fucks. Then I got a personal e-mail from this guy telling me that he was going to kick my ass the next time he got to Baghdad. I told him I was not hard to find and sent him my phone number and added, “Please call me at your earliest convenience.” He never called. Blackwater quickly sent out an e-mail reminding everyone that we were “The Bremer Detail,” to stay away from us, and that we had different standards, a different set of protocols, and a completely different mission than any other Blackwater team in Iraq. We were protecting a head of state; they were not. We were the equivalent of the Secret Service in our little part of the world. They were not. No hard feelings. It is what it is.

  May 2004

  Kelli’s graduation was in two weeks. I called Brian Mac and asked to see him. We met and I asked his advice on how best to broach the subject of a week away. He looked at me and shook his head. There was no way in hell he thought the ambassador would let me leave. He told me that many others had missed significant events in their lives in pursuit of the mission. Of course, he was correct. What was I thinking? I, myself, had told many of my guys that they could not leave. Who was I kidding? How would it have looked if I had taken off? I decided not to even broach the subject with the ambassador. Brian Mac had a firm grasp on how the boss thought, and right then there was way too much going on to distract anybody from their primary missions. I called Kelli and told her that I had lied; I would not make the graduation. She said she understood. My wife was pissed. In my honor, Kelli wore a Superman T-shirt under her graduation gown and sent me the picture.

  As the departure date drew closer Ambassador Bremer and Sue put together a list of all the people he wanted to personally thank before saying good-bye. The list was massive. Included were all the Iraqi diplomats he had worked closely with throughout his year. There were dinners and lunches proposed; office meetings and home visits. I asked Sue if the ambassador could possibly host these good-byes in the palace instead of heading out into the Red Zone. She responded in typical Sue fashion, “Are you fucking kidding me? Once he makes up his mind, that’s it.”

  You had to love Sue.

  We went across The 14th of July Bridge to another meeting at Abdul Aziz al-Hakim’s house. The scary element: there was really only one way in, and one way out. Darkness set in as we left. A grassy median between split the lanes of the road. Q was driving. As the motorcade picked up speed I noticed a car careening across the median directly toward the limo. I pointed at it as coolly as I could so as not to startle the ambassador. Q nodded, tromped on the gas pedal, and gently but firmly veered to the right, away from the car speeding toward us. He angled the vehicle so that he could slide next to the lead car and let them take the brunt of the explosion. I coolly talked into my microphone, “Eyes left.” The follow car saw the threat and moved to intercept. The CAT team commander told his guys to lock in on the target. All this in about two seconds. And then the car just stopped about forty yards from us. Nothing happens. Was it a test to see how we would react? Needless to say there were more than a few ass pucker marks on the seats when we got back to the palace.

  During the first week of May a huge car bomb exploded on The 14th of July Bridge. It was detonated at the military checkpoint that stopped vehicles heading close to the Green Zone. Scores of people were killed or injured. It rocked the palace and even broke windows in the ambassador’s house almost a half mile away. Another reminder of just how close the enemy was to us at all times.

  About this time Osama Bin Laden announced a bounty on the ambassador’s head. Bin Laden was offering ten thousand grams of gold to anyone who killed the ambassador. When I told Ambassador Bremer, he remarked that it sounded a little cheap as we were offering $25 million U.S. dollars for him. The ambassador always kept his sense of humor.

  Bin Laden entering the bounty game was troubling for us because up to this point he had not made a direct threat against the ambassador. The bad guys had been primarily Iraqis fighting a religious conflict between Sunnis and Shiites seeking control of the country and revenge for past mistreatment. We all knew al-Qaeda was around, but they had not really concerned us. Now they also had our attention.

  Slash called and said he had something important. We arranged to meet outside near the smoking area behind the rotunda. He told me that another raid had found more photos of me and other key team members—specifically Sax, Drew B, HB, Mongo, and Q. They also had additional video footage of our arrivals and departures. Damn. These bad guys were good. They were doing their homework and trying to figure out where and how we were vulnerable and the key folks to kill first. Q was on the list because if you killed the limo driver, you had more time to kill the ambassador because the limo would be trapped in the kill zone. Q had studied psychology in college so he always had unique psychological insights into things which many of the rest of us did not. I spent many hours on Dr. Q’s couch. In this case he was not amused, but became more wary and watchful.

  We had not spotted the surveillance being done on us. This reinforced my belief that members of the press corps were playing both sides of the street. Again I wanted to lock the press out of the ambassador’s meetings. Again I was reminded that if an event is not covered, it did not take place. Fuck.

  Around this time a different PSD team took their VIP to a meeting at the Ministry of Oil. They had not encountered any issues prior to this and apparently felt that their protectees were not very high on the bad guys’ radar. They had gotten into several bad habits. Upon arrival at the ministry, the drivers waited for the PSD team to take the protectee inside, then left their vehicles unattended while they grabbed a coffee or used the bathroom. Unbeknownst to them the bad guys had been watching and had noticed their habits and tendencies.

  On this particular day, after heading inside, a person or people approached the unattended vehicles and placed a bomb with a timer under the right-rear seat of the limo. This bomb was directly beneath the VIP. Approximately forty minutes later, and just five minutes away from the Green Zone, the bomb exploded. It instantly killed the VIP. The force of the explosion bent the frame of the armored vehicle, trapping the AIC and the driver inside. Then the gas tank exploded. Teammates watched the AIC and driver frantically trying to get the doors open, only to burn alive. It was another painful lesson to the PSD practitioners. Do not underestimate the bad guys. Do not leave your vehicles unattended. It proved once again that our anally retentive methods worked.

  Around this time we also started locking down all the venues to which we brought the ambassador. Once we had established our security perimeter no one else was allowed to enter. And
we really meant no one—regardless of rank or prestige. We arrived at the IGC one day at 1100 and set up our security. Around 1130 Jadicus called me on the radio to tell me that one of the Iraqi ministers and his security team had arrived and wanted to enter. The meeting was scheduled for 1100 and that meant no one else was getting in. I asked Jad if the minister had a watch on, and Jad reported that he did. I told Jad to tell him that 1100 meant 1100, not 1130. He had missed the window of opportunity to enter, and he was not getting in. Iraqi time was not our time. Tough shit. Security was security. If they could not get there on time, I was not going to allow the ambassador and my team to be put in danger. It would only take one man with a bomb strapped to his chest arriving late and avoiding the searches to kill the ambassador or a bunch of us. It was not going to happen.

  Soccer is Iraq’s national sport, and their national team is the pride of their country. Iraqis live and breathe with their team. After the U.S. invasion, one of the major goals of the Iraqi sports foundation was to qualify for, and play in, the Olympics. Ambassador Bremer spent a lot of time and energy trying to help make this dream a reality. We attended quite a few events that supported the soccer team’s, and the country’s, fervent desire to once again become relevant in the world of soccer.

  One morning we took the ambassador to an unrelated event for coalition forces at the Water Palace, and from there the plan was to fly to the National Soccer Stadium. The advance team had gone directly to the stadium and had set up security at the venue. The place was huge. The guys had a difficult time trying to cover all the potential attack positions to make sure that no one could harm the ambassador. The event had been publicized and I was again fearful of the press broadcasting the fact that we would be there. Sometimes I thought the press would much rather cover an assassination, or assassination attempt, than the regularly scheduled event.