Mikey U was with Team 10 at the time. He was a great warrior and one of those people whom you know you can completely trust the first time they look you in the eye. While he was in Iraq, he coordinated the work with the ERU, and we worked closely while he was there. The platoon did upwards of eighty or ninety operations during the roughly six months they were in Baghdad. A good number were bloody, with militia members trying to ambush or directly fight the SEALs and other units wherever they operated, and the SEALs seeking out the worst of the groups for apprehension.
The SEALs weren’t permitted in certain areas or places, although sometimes the restrictions could seem very arbitrary. At one point while I was with Mikey U, we were assigned to look for a man working with the Shia militia. We ended up on a building right next to a mosque. It was so close that a person could literally step across from one roof to the other without any fear of falling.
I could do that. The SEALs couldn’t—they weren’t allowed on mosque grounds.
We were up on the house roof, looking for our jackpot, when I spotted a man not far away on the mosque’s roof. I walked over, alone. The man stood looking at me. He was obviously our jackpot; it was far too late for anyone to be on the roof unless they had just hopped over to escape our search.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He said something inane and innocuous.
“We are looking for Muhammad,” I told him.
“Muhammad? That is not me.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
He said his name—which, unfortunately for him, was the name of the man we were looking for.
“Prove it,” I said. “Let me see.”
He crossed to my roof, thinking he was free.
“I lied about who we were looking for,” I told him, repeating his full name and grabbing him. “You are coming with us.”
He came along quietly, knowing he had given himself away.
I DON’T WANT to leave you with the impression that every mission we had was successful or that things always went according to plan. In fact, things probably never went 100 percent as intended, and although we usually succeeded, there were plenty of frustrations and wasted nights.
One of our best and most elaborate plans, in fact, came to nothing. This was another mission with the Quiet Man, who could be quite clever when it came to designing operations.
The snipers were working in a Baghdad neighborhood but for some reason weren’t seeing any action. Apparently the bad guys somehow knew when they were coming and had enough sense to stay away. So the Quiet Man and I discussed the situation and came up with what in retrospect seems like a pretty obvious idea: make the bad guys come to us.
How?
The insurgents had a habit of ambushing Humvees and other vehicles hit by IEDs or disabled in some way. I suggested that we fake an incident and pick them off when they came.
One night just after twelve, a Humvee drove through an iffy Baghdad neighborhood and was disabled by a bomb. The wounded victims crawled into a nearby house. They were easy pickings; no American backup was nearby.
The men, in fact, were playacting. We’d taken over the house they’d crawled to several hours before and were hiding inside, waiting for them. The explosion, the wounds—everything was fake.
Three or four cars showed up a few minutes later, spun around the area, then took off. This was typical insurgent procedure. So was the arrival of children several minutes after that. You see, the insurgents didn’t want to expose themselves to danger, but had no compunction about sending kids. The children went through the Humvee, found the house where the men had gone to, then ran off.
Within seconds, the cars were back. The street flooded with men with AKs. Other men took out their cell phones and began calling for reinforcements.
But just as they were about to storm the house—and before we had fired—a single police car arrived. The man took a look around and began yelling at the others to leave.
The crowd of mujahideen took off. Our operation was a dud.
Was it just a coincidence that the cop arrived? Was he a good guy who had singlehandedly saved (he thought) some wounded Americans? A hero who risked his life against a dozen or more killers?
Or was he a member of the militia who’d somehow been tipped off or who otherwise guessed that the incident was staged?
We never found out. Either possibility—and maybe a few more—makes sense. In any event, the elaborate ruse went for naught. Days’ worth of preparation had been wasted.
That was Iraq.
ONE TRIP ESPECIALLY stands out from the fog of these years, a mission to Diyala Province. We were working with a unit of Army Rangers, trying to secure a terror cell led by a man the Americans called “the Prince.”
If he had some actual claim to royalty, it was never explained to me. More likely it was just a nickname or a code name they had invented to describe his role in the insurgency.
Diyala is in the northeast of Iraq, bordering on Iran. By this time in the war, Iran was contributing quite a bit to the violence, arming and advising Shia militia and other terrorists almost openly. Iran’s influence made things in Iraq considerably worse than they might have been—but I am getting away from my story.
The target building was rather large, and the plan to go in was worked out carefully by the SEALs, who would make the actual assault while the Rangers pulled security outside. Since we were anticipating meeting several people and hoped not to have to use our weapons, I was one of the first people in.
We got in without a problem—the main door was neither locked nor guarded, if I’m remembering right—and started moving down the hall. I noticed a dozen or more shoes outside one of the rooms at the far end and pointed it out to one of the SEALs.
“You should check that room,” I told him.
“Not yet,” he grunted. “We have to do it according to our plan. First we get these rooms.”
“Do what you want,” I told him. “There are a lot of sandals there. That means there a lot of people inside the room.”
“But this is our plan.”
You can’t argue with a SEAL once he has his mind made up. The SEALs worked their way cautiously down the hall, secured the rest of the building, and only then discovered that everyone was inside the room I’d pointed out.
Given how quickly they moved, it wasn’t that big a deal. Still . . .
There were a dozen or so men in the room. None offered any resistance. We’d brought two other terps along for the mission so they could gain experience; both were relatively new. After making sure everything was under control, I left them to interview the men and went outside to get a smoke.
I found one of the Ranger sergeants in front of the building and started talking. Our conversation hadn’t gotten very far when suddenly we heard someone walking down the street. The sergeant raised his gun, and I raised mine.
Two men approached from the shadows. They had weapons strung on their bodies; one carried a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, its distinctive shape like a miniature minaret looming over his head.
“Stop!” I yelled. “Stop, stop.”
The men started to run—toward us. Their guns swung forward.
“Stop!” I repeated.
They were no more than a dozen yards away, clearly hostile. The sergeant fired, and I fired. Both men fell.
I walked over quickly with the Ranger. The men had grenades arranged on their chests; he theorized that they had planned on blowing themselves up once they got inside the building.
We pulled the bodies aside and resumed our watch, not talking now. This was one of those times when minutes and danger built together, where every second seemed to increase the potential for danger. Tension wrapped itself around my neck, stinging my muscles numb.
I went back inside the building, wondering why we were still here. The SEAL in charge told me that no one had admitted anything. He wasn’t going to leave without figuring out whether the men were innocent or not. The two te
rps hadn’t had much success in getting them to say anything beyond the names on their IDs.
Often the key to finding out what was going on was to find the first weak link; once one person talked, other mouths began to open. I had the men blindfolded and taken out to the garden in the back. I approached each one, pausing to ask a question or two. What I was really doing was looking for that weak link, touching them gently, invading their space. Their reactions told me a lot—a calm man who didn’t move would be harder to break, while a man who jerked back when I tapped his shoulder was a much better bet.
I found one who practically jumped out of his skin when I spoke to him.
The starting point.
“He comes with me,” I said.
We went through to the front of the building. The bodies of the men the sergeant and I had killed were still lying nearby.
“Take his blindfold off,” I told the SEALs who were guarding him. I didn’t give him a chance to thank me before continuing. “You see those guys? We shot them because they didn’t cooperate with us.”
A lie, yes, but a useful one. The man shook.
“I don’t want you to be the third one,” I continued. “I know you have a family. You want to go back to them, and I don’t blame you.”
“Yes, yes,” he stuttered.
“Which one is the Prince?”
“Oh, you know. Let me think. Let me think. Can I get a drink of water?”
Once anyone made a request, I knew they would cooperate. The trick was to make sure that what they said was the truth, not what they thought I wanted to hear.
I got him the water, and he thought for a while, and then agreed to help. He told me which of the men inside was the Prince.
The problem was that I couldn’t trust what he said. He was too fearful, too worried that I would do something to him. So I came up with another little ruse. I went back into the garden and had everyone’s blindfold removed, except for the man my informant had fingered as the Prince.
“Thank you. We have the Prince now,” I announced, starting to lead him away.
The others hung their heads, dispirited—if I’d been wrong, there would have been relief, at least from one of them.
We took the blindfolded Prince aside and began questioning him again. By now he realized we weren’t going to accept his lies and leave, and he gave himself up, admitting who he was. As so often happened, that admission led immediately to more information about the cell he’d run. He gave us other names and intel, all of which led to other arrests.
FEAR AND NERVOUSNESS were often important indicators, sometimes of truth, sometimes of lies—and always of the great danger that loomed at every corner. Back in Baghdad, we were assigned to help get information on a local al-Qaeda cell. An informant had been found who claimed to know where one of the al-Qaeda operatives was holed up; he agreed to take us to the safe house.
The SEALs were joined by an American observer, an officer who’d apparently come to see how they were doing things. I can’t recall now what his name or rank was; he was definitely an officer but not directly connected with the SEAL command.
I went over the mission with our informant before we started, asking him about where we were going and what else he knew. The area was in a place where al-Qaeda operated, and the suspect was on the list of people we were supposed to be looking for. But there was something a bit off about what the informant told us. What he was saying didn’t quite fit with the map of the area where he said we would find the jackpot.
The way he talked made it clear he was very nervous. That wasn’t necessarily unusual—there was always good reason to be nervous in Iraq—but I became suspicious. Was he worried that he would be killed? Or was he leading us to an ambush and was afraid I would figure it out?
I talked it over with the platoon leaders. Admittedly, my doubts were vague; I was working with emotion, not science. With no specific reason to stop the operation, the SEALs decided to proceed, mapping out a plan that would minimize our exposure if things went sour.
We boarded Strykers and drove to the general vicinity of the house the informant had marked. When we got out, I told the NCO in charge that I would take the informer and go a little ahead on foot to scout; they should follow at a safe distance. Anyone watching would think that we were two Iraqis not connected with the American force; this way we would find the target house and make sure there was no ambush without exposing the SEALs.
The informant and I walked down a narrow street, heading for the house he’d identified. His nervousness increased by the step. His breathing became less and less regular, and I’m sure his heart was pounding hard enough to leave his chest. It was late at night; the only light we had to guide us came from the moon and stars. He glanced around continually as we went, as if either he was unsure where he was or he expected something to come out of the shadows.
Big difference, but I couldn’t tell which it might be.
We reached an intersection and he paused, examining each way or maybe debating internally before deciding how to turn. After five more minutes of walking, he stopped in front of a house.
“This is it,” he said.
I glanced at the place. It looked nothing like the house he had described back at the base.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“No,” he admitted.
“No?”
“No . . . I . . . uh, I think I am wrong,” he confessed. “I’m sure I am wrong. This is not it.”
“Where then?”
“It must be this way.”
We started walking again. He stopped in front of another house, but his body language made it clear he was just as tentative as before.
“This isn’t the house,” I told him.
“No . . .”
“Where is the house?”
“I—it’s, uh . . .”
“Is there a house?”
“Yes . . . I . . . no . . . uh . . .”
I grabbed him and threw him against the wall. Then I pulled out my pistol and held it to his neck.
“I’ll kill you on the spot if you take us to an ambush,” I threatened. I pushed the pistol into his neck. The SEALs were too far away to see what was going on, and I wasn’t about to communicate this over the radio. “I have no trouble shooting you,” I told him. “Take us to the target’s house right now. Now!”
“Yes, yes, I will.”
I radioed back that we’d been a little confused but were now straightened out and they should keep following us. The informant took me to a house a short distance away. He seemed to have calmed a bit, as if seeing the gun had flipped a switch for him.
For good or ill, I couldn’t be sure.
The place he took me to was quiet and unlit. I could tell it was abandoned—the garage was wide open, unusual in Baghdad.
“I need an EOD guy to check the house,” I told the SEALs.
The explosives expert was called in and the house searched for booby traps as the area was secured.
Standard operating procedure called for the homes on both sides of the house to be evacuated, but in this case I suspected that we were being watched—I still thought in the back of my mind that this was a setup. If the families were taken outside, they might be targeted, so I told the SEALs to leave the families where they were and do the search with them in place. They did.
There were no booby traps and no explosives. But there were al-Qaeda documents in one of the rooms of the house, so it had been a real hiding place for them.
Why had the informant led me around in different directions? Why had he been so afraid?
The truth is, I don’t know. I didn’t know then, and I’ll never know now. Maybe he’d gotten lost earlier, or maybe he chickened out of a plan to lead us to a trap and took us to an old safe house instead. Maybe he wanted to do the right thing, then worried that he would be killed for it.
Maybe my threat convinced him I was the greater danger. Maybe he just decided he wanted to be righteous rather than evil.
I never saw him again, so I don’t know what his half of the story was.
When we got back to the base, we went over to the chow hall to get something to eat before debriefing the mission. The VIP guest started arguing with the SEALs. He wasn’t talking to me, but I would have had to have been deaf not to hear.
“I never heard of a terp leading a mission,” he told them. “I don’t understand why you’re letting him lead you.”
I interrupted before any of the SEALs could answer.
“Hey, buddy, let’s eat,” I told him. “Then you and I can talk.”
He grumbled something in response, but shut up. After we finished eating, we went to do the debrief. I’m not sure what he told the SEAL commanders or what they told him, but when they were done, he came to me and told me to explain myself. It was clear he thought I had too much autonomy. He seemed to think I should translate and do nothing else.
“The source made me uneasy,” I told him. “Maybe it was an ambush. Should I have sent the SEALs in? Should I have sacrificed my brothers?”
He wasn’t really satisfied. For some reason, he started talking about families whose houses were next door to the target, feeling it had been a huge violation of protocol not to evacuate them.
“You wanted to take the family into the street?” I said. “There were no obvious signs of bombs. If the mujahideen were watching, they would have shot the family, then blamed it on the Americans. What do you think would have happened with the media? Or the insurgents?”
Things had become so bad in Baghdad that the insurgents would routinely punish anyone seen to cooperate with Americans—even if that cooperation was simply avoiding a bomb. That was another reason to keep disruptions to a minimum; I didn’t want to hurt people by helping them.
I talked to the VIP for a while, explaining my advice and my decisions. He clearly didn’t know that much about Iraq, let alone how the terrorists we were dealing with operated, or what average Iraqis thought.
Code Name: Johnny Walker: The Extraordinary Story of the Iraqi Who Risked Everything to Fight with the U.S. Navy SEALs Page 23