by Scott Fisher
On day one, I got no further than that hut. There were only a few flights available and none of them had room for me, or the Navy guy and Army colonel I’d shared the shuttle with. Those guys had both been recently called up for duty in Iraq, the Navy guy was from New York, the colonel a cop from Georgia.
Luckily, the shuttle bus driver had waited around to see if we caught a flight (it helped to be with a colonel). When we didn’t, he took us back to base. All of this before 9 a.m., so instead of going to Iraq that day, I just went to work, where no one was surprised I hadn’t got a flight – “It takes some people a week!”
We got luckier the second day – there was at least a chance to get a flight, so those on flight reservation duty ushered us into a waiting room hut closer to the runway. This new hut featured air-conditioning, satellite TV, and soldiers of the ‘Big Red One’ (the U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division) sprawled here and there across chairs and the floor. I lucked into a couple of empty chairs and was soon flopped across them and drifting off. I fell asleep realizing it was the first time I’d watched TV in a week.
Baghdad Early On
The first week in Iraq was spent frantically trying to figure out my job before James, the man I was replacing, rotated home. I only had a few days to learn not only my functions, but also how to accomplish the mission tasks our office, and I, were responsible for. This wasn’t like the Pentagon, with layers of people checking everything I did – here the war was right outside the window. A mistake didn’t mean a bad performance review, or an ass-chewing; giving incorrect information to our people in the field could get somebody hurt. Sheer fear of a colossal fuck-up had me dialed in and focused from day one. Getting myself killed was one thing; getting somebody else hurt was not the kind of nightmare I wanted to live with.
The dangers were brought home my very first night in camp. It was late in the evening when I first experienced the distant ‘whump’ and overhead whistles of incoming mortars and rockets. After the first couple, and realizing what it was (an odd realization actually, “Wow, someone out there is currently trying to kill me.”), I opened the door of the trailer to peek out, which got me a weird look from Marine Marcos, before he joined me. Then, when one landed close enough to rattle the trailer, he thought better of it and told me I should close the door and get back inside, “It’s not like these trailer walls give much protection, but still …”
The attack on my first night lasted the longest of any during my time in camp. Both mortars and rockets were used, totaling 8-10 altogether. As the days and weeks went by, we averaged one attack every few days, though usually only involving one or two launches. The attackers usually limited their salvos to two so they could scramble away before their position was discovered and return fire introduced them to Allah.
Helping guide that return fire was a small blimp, loaded with cameras and sensors and tethered to a monitoring station below, that watched over the base perimeter. It would attempt to track where any hostile fire came from, plus it kept a general watch over what was happening outside – no one wanted a large force approaching the perimeter walls unnoticed. The people doing the attacking were forever trying to hit the poor blimp, but fortunately their aim was pathetic. The only thing that ever brought the blimp down was a heavy wind.
An interesting thing about the attacks was their timing – nearly every one came in the late evening, around nine or ten, never much earlier, never much later. Which was fortunate because it meant no interrupted sleep. Given the amount of hours everyone was working, attacks that kept people awake half the night might have actually caused problems. Oddly, the one time they actually came close, really rocking the hell out of my little trailer, was the one time they attacked early in the morning, just after my alarm went off. Which, still groggily laying in bed, briefly made me wonder what the hell setting I’d put my alarm on.
The best thing about the first week, other than surviving my first attack, was Thanksgiving. I’ve been overseas for at least 10 Thanksgivings and the one with the military in Baghdad was by far the best. The food was fantastic, with all the trimmings and fixings you’d expect at home. Which, considering most of the guys in the DFAC (‘dining facility’) were from Nepal and India, I found pretty impressive. I spent most of the day working, but ate better than any other day in-country barring Christmas. Definitely no complaints about the food, quantity or quality.
The work that first week involved learning a jumble of systems and people from all reaches of the country and war effort. Learning my contacts and co-workers, related organizations, coalition nations, and even the computer systems, plus my actual job, meant minimum 12-hour days, even on Thanksgiving. James had been preparing for my arrival, or at least his departure, for weeks, and had lists of everything I needed to learn before he left.
He taught me how to look up old reports and how to file new ones, who’d be calling or emailing for info, what assets were available, plus how and when to use the blast shield. And, most importantly, where they parked the office Land Cruisers. Having a vehicle assigned to the office, which I found out actually meant assigned to me, turned out to be a huge benefit. We dealt with time sensitive materials and information that occasionally had to be express mailed, or presented to others on a nearby base, and being able to hop in the truck was great. I felt weird having the thing, as well as all the office equipment, in my name. If something got blown up, was I supposed to pay for it?
I gradually settled into a routine that first week. Up early to get to the shower trailer before the morning rush used up what little hot water was available. After that it was a short walk past the gym and rec buildings, both patched up remains of Hussein-era facilities, to the mess hall. Before entering the mess hall I cleared my weapon in the barrels set up outside. This involved racking it open to verify the chamber was clear while pointing it into a small hole in a well-sandbagged barrel. Next came an attempt at washing in the sinks outside the hall, then into the mess for breakfast. I skipped the hot stuff and just grabbed some cereal to take with me to the office.
Outside the mess hall I’d walk along one of the moats leading to the palace, passing temporary buildings housing the post office and supply warehouse. Once I rounded the moat and came to the main doors of the palace, I’d walk in and flash my ID to the ‘Wal-Mart Greeter’ sitting behind the desk checking everyone’s ID. Nobody called them that, but they were mostly of an age and demeanor that reminded me of the people greeting you at the store, very unlike the armed guards I’d grown accustomed to at the Pentagon.
After that it was up some steps to open the office, fire up the coffee maker, raise the blast shield, and start wading through any emails that had come in overnight from the States. Then it was on to editing and sending out the reports coming in from Baghdad, around Iraq, and even from down in Qatar; plus passing along incoming queries to our analysts and collection teams. All that coming and going meant I spent the first few days hanging over James’ shoulder trying frantically to cram everything in. He had put together lists, which I added to, showing me how to do everything. In my entire time with the government, the personalized instructions he went out of his way to prepare were the best training I ever got. Learning from him, thankfully, had me up to speed pretty quickly.
Afternoon meant a trip back to the mess hall for lunch. The food was healthy, tasted decent, and had enough variety that I never got tired of it. Once a week or so they’d let the Indians, Nepalese, or Filipinos working in the kitchens fix something from home. The spice and change of pace, especially after so many years living and traveling in Asia, broke up what could have become pretty monotonous.
Back at work it was more of the same, occasionally busy, usually slow, all depending on what reports came in and who stopped by or sent in questions. Our office was the clearinghouse through which a lot of the WMD search info flowed and the excitement of an inside look at that hunt and the war effort really powered me through the first couple of 80-hour weeks. My email list for the reports
our office sent out was serious business – the White House situation room, the main offices and ops centers of the Departments of State and Defense, the intel agencies, even places like the Treasury Department. I was nervous the first few times I hit the send key on that email chain.
Evening brought another trip to the mess before returning to work. After dinner most of the contractors went home, while most of the government workers and military headed back to the office for a couple of hours. By evening our time, DC was waking up and it was important to be in the office to answer the questions of people preparing the Big Shots’ early morning briefings. Other than Sundays, I almost never worked less than a 12-hour day my whole time in Baghdad, even on Thanksgiving and Christmas.
After working that last couple of hours it was back home, change, and off to the gym. Having a gym sounds luxurious, and it certainly did wonders for morale, but we’re not talking Bally’s here – it was just an old Hussein-era building outfitted with a few weights and treadmills. For a shower you went back to the shower trailer down the road. The combination of regular healthy meals, daily exercise, little or no drinking, and not much else to do helped a lot of people get in shape, including me.
After the gym came another trip to the shower trailer, though now, with no one around, it had plenty of hot water. After that it was finally back to my trailer to read or watch a movie, see if there was an attack and if I lived through it, then lights out. This pattern varied little during my entire time in camp, though as the functions of my office and the Survey Group got phased out, time in the office got less hectic. Occasionally something new would pop up, but for the most part life settled down into a relatively normal routine.
I found myself working about 75-80 hours a week, partly because there was a lot of work, partly because there was squat else to do. Leaving the base wasn’t much of an option, although I tried volunteering for jobs that’d take me outside the wire, in the end I only got off base once, for a trip to the Iraqi side of Baghdad’s airport.
By the end of my first couple of weeks, operating blind now that James had left, I was getting a feel for the place and had established enough of a routine to where explosions, all the weapons, and being confined to a military base seemed normal.
Halliburton
It wasn’t long after arrival that I started to realize the power U.S. government-licensed contractors held over life in the camps. I would eat in a mess hall controlled by Halliburton subsidiary KBR (Kellogg, Brown and Root), the Vice-President’s former company. I would sleep in a KBR trailer in a KBR bed with my government-issued clothes kept in a KBR closet. I would shower and shit in a KBR latrine, do my laundry in a KBR trailer, and go to see a KBR doctor in a KBR hospital when I got sick. My food was brought in by KBR and served by labor imported by KBR from India, Nepal and the Philippines. The gym, movie theater, and Internet connections were all controlled by Halliburton. Failure to follow Halliburton rules could get you in trouble with Halliburton security and banned from Halliburton facilities – all separate from whatever job you were doing in the warzone that should have, in theory at least, take precedence over private companies and war profiteering.
While the term ‘war profiteer’ may seem out of line, hear me out. Several weeks after I arrived at the camp, and in response to the rocket and mortar attacks, the Brits and Aussies suddenly ordered all of their personnel out of our quarters. They were moved into separate living facilities – with ceilings hardened against the incoming fire. The Halliburton buildings, with their flimsy trailer park roofs, were deemed too unsafe for British and Australian soldiers and workers.
The cost of getting some bags and filling them with the plentiful local sand, thus hardening the roofs of the trailers where U.S. soldiers and civilians lived, was deemed too expensive – leaving the buildings and everyone inside vulnerable. One wonders how many people will have to be killed in a mortar attack before Halliburton profits give way to U.S. lives. To save the cost of some bags and a few roof reinforcement bars, U.S. personnel live unprotected, while the Brits and Aussies live in hardened buildings, joking about the Halliburton bonus that must surely await VP Cheney when he returns to the private sector.
Of course I didn’t volunteer to go to a warzone because I wanted to be safe. No one does. Nor do I fail to see the expense that would be involved in protecting the far larger U.S. contingent in the same way the Brits and Aussies are protected. My point however, is that when I hear some politician on TV going on about how, “everything possible is being done to protect American servicemen and women in Iraq,” I can’t help but feel they are either lying or sorely mistaken.
“Everything” is not being done to protect Americans in Iraq, not even close. And, just like with the lack of up-armored Humvees issue a couple of years ago, it’s either going to take an embarrassing question from a G.I. at a press conference, or some deaths from a rocket attack on a trailer park, before “everything possible” will include putting sandbag protection over the trailers where my friends and colleagues live. No matter your acceptance of the term ‘war profiteer’, when it comes to protection vs. profits the winner in this case has clearly been profits.
Other contractors were plentiful too, but many of them were either Halliburton subsidiaries or sub-contractors working off the main Halliburton contract. As my office responsibilities faded away in Baghdad all that remained were two contractors and myself. Down in Qatar nearly all of the people in the office I was assigned to were also contractors, mainly retired or former military people. There was always a government or military person in charge, at least nominally, but a lot of work that would have been performed by the government or military in past wars, is being done by contractors in this one.
I worked at least two hours a day longer, plus several hours on Sunday, but only pulled in about 70-75% of what the contractors I was working with were paid. I’m not saying good or bad here, it is what it is. Relations between the various parts of the war effort – military, contractor, and government, at least at the personal level, were quite good. As most of the contractors had been in the military, either for a hitch or a career, they understood the culture and nature of the work far better than many of us in government.
In discussions with higher-ups the amount of work done by contractors was a concern occasionally voiced. What would happen if they suddenly up and left, lost their contract or (highly unlikely) went on strike for more money? Or if an emergency happened and they were needed to put in extra hours – would they do it? We all knew some who would, without even a second thought. But we also knew those who’d be less sanguine about the extra demands. At my level, and with the guys I worked with, this wasn’t a major worry, but I heard concerns voiced by those above me everywhere I worked in the Defense Department – the Pentagon, Qatar, and Iraq.
The best way to sum it up, from a government worker perspective anyway, was that the military gets all the respect, the contractors get all the money, and the government workers? Well, when we return home we get a nice certificate thanking us for our service.
Base
As I got more comfortable with the job and figured out a routine, plus got to know some of the people I was working with, I was able to get out and explore the vast areas near the airport under the control of U.S. and coalition forces. Dominating the center of our compound was a large artificial lake dotted with a couple of small islands and even stocked with fish. Before the war, the whole compound had been a walled-off rest and relaxation spot for the Hussein family and upper-level Baath Party members. Though somewhat rundown, bombed, and shot up, parts were still quite nice.
Partially destroyed interior of former Baath Party headquarters.
The former Baath Party headquarters, where the war started with missiles targeting Saddam, was on the other side of the lake. The building was partly collapsed from the attack, but even damaged and ransacked you could see how impressive it had once been. In a desert country, control of water shows power, and the headquarters had w
ater on three sides and even little inlets designed to let the lake flow through the building. Even the central courtyard was given over to water – all a unique expression of desert power.
Plenty of stories and rumors floated around about the buildings and complex. At least one of the islands was said to have contained a ‘rape house’, where Uday Hussein imprisoned some of his female victims. In a desert country, where few can swim, the agony of being unchained and free to move around only 50 short yards from possible escape, yet having no way of getting across the water, must have been a separate hell all its own.
In another part of our compound was a small manmade hill cut through with tiny tunnels and passageways. Now stinking of piss and filth, at one time it was a play area built for the Hussein grandkids to climb and explore. Cleaned up and looked at from a kid’s viewpoint, it must have been a lot of fun.
The next base over from ours, an easy 10-minute drive away, housed the headquarters of coalition military operations in Iraq. They also operated out of a palace, though theirs was much nicer. In the lobby they even had an ornate throne Hussein used to supposedly sit on – now it’s got to be about the most photographed chair in the world. It seemed that every passing serviceperson, civilian, and visitor got a shot of themselves in the big chair. Every time I went to the other palace for a meeting, there was always a new crop of people getting their throne pictures.
In addition to the headquarters palace, the other base contained just about everything needed for the war effort, plus a few luxuries. Whereas ours was a small community; theirs was a city unto its own. Barracks and trailer-park living quarters were everywhere, they had a couple of giant dining facilities that made our little place look like a shack, a huge PX, a Burger King (operating from a trailer and with a line out the door), huge parking and repair areas for equipment from Black Hawks to Humvees, and offices for everything from finance to records. Living in a trailer park while working in a palace was not how I’d imagined my time in a warzone, but it seemed the quickest and easiest way to get these camps up and running.