Licensed to Kill

by Robert Young Pelton

  Outside, the constant din of gunfire has driven the bomb-sniffing Belgian Malinois and German shepherds of Blackwater Canine into a frenzy. We can hear the “pop ting, pop ting, pop ting” of a good shooter making hits on the white-painted steel silhouettes on the range outside the classroom, and the loud boom and crack of another range off in the distance where operators practice their .50 cal sniper skills. The metal sheds of the classrooms and target manufacturing plant add an eerie whine to the high-powered shots. Although the racket makes the students hungry to get on to the ranges and start shooting, we have to start the PowerPoints and videos. Luckily, the classroom material deals with such boring and erudite subjects as how to build a bomb. We discuss the tactics used in successful bomb attacks and the philosophy of different terrorist groups—all delivered from the terrorist’s point of view. On the breaks between being cooped up in the classroom and squeezed into tiny student chairs, the students go outside and do the sniff test. They bond over cigarettes and Skoal, feeling each other out and bestowing nicknames when they decide someone is okay with them. While Mike, John, and Janet may go outside for a break, Abu Asian, Angry Dwarf, and Soccer Mom return. The group bond has begun to develop.

  My classroom presentation isn’t until later in the week, so I decide to wander over to check out the main Blackwater headquarters. As I push through the glass doors, the blare of a TV permanently set to Fox News greets me. The room gives me the immediate impression of a gun store or taxidermy showcase, since it houses a stuffed black bear shot on the property, a mounted deer head, a bobcat perched on the drapery rod above the curtains, and a fox positioned in an eternally unrequited scene in which his mouth has been frozen midsnap just inches from a stuffed partridge.

  Most contractors cross the threshold of headquarters just to visit the gift shop, which sells an overwhelming array of bad-ass gear that can easily clean out a week’s worth of a contractor’s salary. In the shop, anyone can get geared up, and the well-heeled civvy can buy most of the gear needed to look like an IC. Erik has his own Blackwater clothing line modeled on what the fashionable contractor wears to work, but Royal Robbins 5.11 shirts and pants in tan are the most ubiquitous choice. The latest Su-unto “hockey puck” watch adds good accessory to the outfit. Tactical gear in a green and tan made by BlackHawk (not affiliated with Blackwater); adventure hiking shoes; web utility vests; Camelback hydration units; “go” bags; day packs; and plenty of gun gear like sights, holsters, and carrying cases can wreak havoc on credit cards. And, of course, the most important part of a contractor’s outfit—the sunglasses. A single pair of Wiley X, Oakley, Maui Jim, and other top-end shades can set an operator back over three hundred dollars. However, the right sunglasses are a must-have, since contractors say you can tell exactly what an operator is about by his shades. Maui Jims are for Frogs or SEALs, old-school wraparound Oakleys for Delta, Wiley X for SF, cool-guy Oakleys for marines. Experienced contractors consider knockoffs, or even Ray-Bans, the sign of an amateur. If a visitor plunked down between $800 and $2,500 in the store, he could walk out almost looking like the real thing.

  Back inside the classroom, the students are chafing at being kept inside for so long. We break for a dull cafeteria lunch, and then the afternoon exercises begin. In addition to shooting at targets, students will be shooting at each other. They will use Simunition, a plastic-tipped bullet casing with a reduced charge and filled with bright-colored gooey soap. Though nonlethal, the bullets can make painful and ugly red welts or blood blisters on close impact, so everyone puts on protective gear.

  In a standard PSD training class, the students would play the role of protecting the VIP while instructors would act as the terrorists or insurgents. In this course, however, since the students are working to learn the thought process of the terrorists, the roles are reversed. The instructors will play the bodyguards, and the students, trying to subsume the motivations, goals, and tactics of a terrorist, will try to identify the weaknesses in security and mount an attack. For our first field exercise, we have to ambush a VIP scheduled to drive down an L-shaped road. We are supposed to wait until the VIP car turns the L corner and cut them off in front and box them in from behind with our pickup trucks. We have to be prepared for resistance from a driver, two security guards, and the high-value target inside. They are all to be “killed.”

  I pull my students into a group huddle to discuss how the real Chechens would plan such an operation. Everyone gets jihadi nicknames, which shift around so the “spies” in our midst can never really identify us. I try to instill in them the audacious and energetic mind-set of a motivated guerrilla fighting against a large killing machine. I tell them we have to attack, attack, and attack, taking full advantage of our most powerful weapon—our complete willingness to die.

  Though we have been given guidelines on where to hide and how to carry out the operation, real terrorists would never be constrained by such expectations. The most successful terrorist or insurgent attacks always achieve an element of surprise. In Iraq, the insurgents have consistently altered their tactics once it becomes clear that coalition forces have grown to expect and anticipate a certain type of strike. For example, early in the insurgency, suicide bombers would attack security convoys with a speeding approach coming up from behind. After the PSDs became more attuned to watching their rear quadrant, the cars began to slow down in front of the convoys before detonating. When the PSDs adjusted to that tactic, the bombers developed a method of darting across the median from the opposing lane of traffic. As proposed, the exercise might teach my students how to ambush a car, but it doesn’t communicate any deeper lessons about terrorist thinking or tactics. So applying guerrilla thinking, I propose an unconventional plan.

  One great advantage terrorists or insurgents have over conventional forces is that members of the military have had the rules of conduct and warfare drilled so deeply into their heads that it subconsciously shapes their expectations. Insurgents and terrorists will exploit that lack of imagination, often using their enemies’ restricted rules of engagement or cultural presuppositions against them. This can most prominently be seen in certain terrorist or insurgent groups’ lack of restraint with regard to civilian targets. Another common ploy, though less frequently cited in the media, is the insurgents’ adoption of disguises to get their potential victims to let down their guard. Security contractors in Iraq have told me that many of them refuse to stop for the Iraqi police or military under any circumstances, since there have been so many incidents of insurgents using stolen uniforms or of infiltrators exploiting their official position to create the conditions for an attack. Most law-abiding Westerners have the idea that one must pull over for the police deeply ingrained in their thinking, and the insurgents have exploited this conditioned response to great effect. With this in mind, I remind one of my students, a Secret Service agent, about the undercover car with sirens and lights he had earlier mentioned he drove down from DC.

  When our turn comes up, my students hide themselves on either side of the road, ready to shoot in case any of our victims tries to escape. I strip off all my protective gear so I don’t look so conspicuous, and keep the undercover car idling as I sit in wait for the SUV with the VIP in it. When they pass me, heading to the ambush spot, I pull out from behind and begin following. Just before they enter the kill zone, I flip on the siren and flashing lights. Even though the driver knows he is in the middle of a scenario, he dutifully pulls over and stops. When I walk up to the car and motion for them to roll down their windows, they obediently comply. Then pulling out my gun, I “shoot” each occupant at point-blank range. I jump back in the car and speed away as the security guards stumble out and start firing back at me. When the “dead” guards both pause to simultaneously reload, I reverse back at high speed and shoot everyone dead again. Though we may not have done it in the conventional way, we achieve the objective of killing everyone. My Chechens understand the point of the lesson I was trying to teach them, but are still pissed that they did
n’t even get to fire a shot.

  For the next few days, we settle into a routine. When I wake up in the morning, the former British cop is usually doing one-handed push-ups in the dark. After the students roll out of bed, they do the rope spiderweb test, jog, have morning prayers, and then after breakfast head to the classroom for instruction. One day we watch a film about suicide bomb victims that illustrates the brutal realities of dealing with people who operate outside the laws of war. The students learn how to pick locks and about the explosive mechanisms of cell-phone-detonated bombs and other varieties of IEDs. The instructors with firsthand experience lecture on how the IRA blew up buildings, and how Hezbollah blew up the marine barracks in Lebanon. I lecture on how the motivation and mind-set of different terrorist factions influence their tactics. Field exercises simulating different scenarios of attack consume every afternoon, and as the week progresses, I can see the students adjusting their thinking to adopt a more unconventional approach to the operations.

  The last day of the course involves an assault on the “village,” an attempt to kill a VIP, and a truck bomb to blow up the building he is in. My students have learned by now that thinking outside the box and using the enemies’ own cultural rules and assumptions against them achieves the most dramatic success, so I tell them I will keep out of it and let them prepare and execute the entire operation. They impress me with a plan that involves multiple assaults, including giving a gun to a visiting news crew to shoot the VIP.

  The targets will be expecting the attackers to approach via one of the roads that leads into the village, so the Chechens sneak in from behind the berm of a live firing range and attack from behind, something that freaks out the lead instructor, but gives my team’s attack the perfect element of surprise. When the VIP’s bodyguards try to hustle him into the SUV for escape, the news crew’s cameraman pulls out the gun we smuggled to him and shoots the principal dead. While everyone is distracted by the unconventional methods and chaotic results my Chechens have unleashed, one of them drives straight into the village on the main road and “detonates” his car bomb next to the target building, “killing” himself and everyone nearby. My team has learned their lesson well. Hopefully, they’ll now be able to think like terrorists so they won’t be killed by one.

  CHAPTER 8

  * * *

  Running the Gauntlet

  “’Twas the night before Christmas in Baghdad, Iraq

  All the Mamba Crewmen were tucked in their rack

  The defenses were set in impeccable form

  And I had just settled down to surf Internet porn

  When out in the street I heard such a clatter

  It wasn’t a mortar so what was the matter?

  In full kit I ran out and what should appear

  It was Rudolf, he was wounded, he was one fucked up reindeer.

  He said Santa’s sleigh had been hit by a Strela

  The old man burned in and was captured by al Qaeda….”

  —EXCERPT FROM CHRISTMAS E-MAIL FROM THE MAMBA TEAM HOUSE

  The Blackwater team house sits off the main road inside the Green Zone, through a field of smoldering trash piles and dead dogs. The pungent smell of rotting carcasses and the smoke from melting plastic burns my nostrils. In a rudimentary form of security gate system, an armored blue truck blocks the turnoff toward the house. An Iraqi relaxing in a white plastic lawn chair gives us barely a glance before jumping into the truck to move it out of our way. The Triple Canopy contractors who have driven me from the airport talk shit about Blackwater’s apparent lack of security, bemoaning the Iraqi’s failure to even ask for IDs. I just view it as being polite. Who else would three bulky Americans in a black BMW 7 series be, other than fellow contractors?

  Most of the closely set houses lining the street look abandoned, though security firms or squatters have overtaken many. We pull up in front of the open gate of a walled compound. Two massive untrimmed date palms decorate the small front yard of Blackwater’s two-story nondescript dust-coated cinderblock box of a house. Even with squalid, trash-filled surroundings, real estate prices in Baghdad could match that of Paris, London, or New York, and this slightly dilapidated structure costs Blackwater $80,000 a year, a virtual steal since now nothing is available for less than $12,000 to $15,000 a month. Sandbags cover the windows; ammunition boxes, coolers, and broken lawn chairs litter the yard; and the thrumming of an uncovered diesel generator provides the background pulse of the scene.

  Inside, the Chileans are watching a Spanish satellite channel on the big-screen TV, while the Americans sit perched with large laptops, looking up briefly at my entrance before getting back to e-mails and Web surfing. Posted on the wall above them reads a sign warning, NO PORN, in a show of perhaps unintended irony. Men weighted down with tan utility rigs walk bowlegged in and out of the kitchen door where three smiling Iraqi women are frying indeterminate meat patties. I have arrived at what will be my home for the next month, since I’ve come to Baghdad to hang out with the Blackwater team and to ride along on their daily airport runs. I will be here through most of November and early December 2004, a time period that will coincidentally turn out to be the month with the highest rate of attacks on the airport road. The director of operations, Mike Rush, has been assigned to babysit me, but Mike seems to be out. No one seems to take particular notice of my presence, so I decide to take a look around on my own.

  The house smells of cooked coffee, frozen hamburger patties, and sautéed onions. Past the front door is the kitchen, where most of the men will eat standing up and the coffeepot is always on brew. I note that it looks like the flies swarm as furiously inside the house as outside. The washing machine hums as it churns the sand out of tan clothes, and pyramids of glistening blue bottles of water stock all the available shelf space. Down the hall in the briefing room, a giant map of Baghdad with dozens of marker points indicating locations of recent attacks covers one wall.

  I peek inside the office marked with a sign reading KEEP DOOR CLOSED where a barrel-chested man with a salt-and-pepper goatee is sitting at a desk talking on the phone. “Yeah, we will send in air assets….” Looking up and noticing my presence, he growls, “Whoever you are, get the hell out of my office and close the door.”

  “That was Guy Gravino, former Special Forces reserve team sergeant on a mar ops team,” a contractor explains as I turn back to the hallway. Guy is former Special Forces but current C1 commander of the Mamba team. The Mamba team was initially created as a heavy, gunned-up rapid-response team for the Bremer detail but now runs contractors and VIPs to and from the Green Zone to BIAP.

  I’m advised that I can stow my backpack in one of the bedrooms, so I head for the stairs. On the second floor, stacks of M4 rifle cases, ammo boxes, and sandbags line the hallway. Postings on the wall outline defense perimeters and evac plans. Each bedroom sleeps three to six in a random mixture of bunk beds, foldout cots, and simple wooden-framed singles. The only common theme to the décor is that nothing looks permanent. Each man has a locker and his shaving kit, and collections of CDs, books, and mememtos. It’s clear from the lack of clutter and the perfect stacks and right angles of things that the military discipline of keeping personal space impeccably clean does not wear off. Even so, I have the odd feeling that I have moved in to a frat house filled with heavy weaponry.

  The roof has a deck covered with heavy netting where I will end up spending many late evenings drinking, smoking, and talking with the guys over the next month. What looks like new exercise equipment sits abandoned and coated in a thick layer of dust. Some of the apparatus looks homemade, like coffee tins filled with concrete, but some is the latest in high tech. Regular mortar and sniper attacks in the area make the open roof vulnerable, so most of the men work out at a gym in Saddam’s old palace.

  The roof offers a bleak view of the surrounding city—an endless panorama of featureless tan structures stretching into the distance on all sides. Just beyond the house, tanks and other tracked vehicles roar and clatter
up a road that looks boxed in like a canyon with its high concrete T-walls. Concertina wire decorates the back side of the T-walls, supposedly to keep the Iraqis from getting close to the road. Blackhawk and Apache helicopters rumble low across the sky, adding a mechanical soundtrack to this vision of a war zone.

  Heading back downstairs, I go into the TV room to get to know my new temporary housemates. Looking around at the guys hanging out in the TV room leaves no doubt that this is a type of tribal gathering. These men appear connected through their style of dress, manner of speaking, attitudes, and culture. Sharp-edged swirling tattoos, shaved heads, bulging biceps, and short beards or goatees comprise the common “look” they wear. Their inside jokes, reliance on acronyms, and use of nicknames makes them seem to even have their own particular way of communicating. Contractors each earn a radio call sign nickname, which often changes if the contractor does something new that deserves to be enshrined in permanence for future ribbing purposes. They can’t pick their own names but have to live with whatever the others may have chosen for them. For example, Shrek and Miyagi are named after film characters they resemble, while 86 and Cougar have done something to earn their titles.

  Barry, or “Baz,” an ex-SAS Kiwi, and Rick, aka “Baghdaddy,” a blond-haired American former police chief, run the house along with the gruff Guy Gravino. Miyagi leads the team I’ll be riding along with on the daily Mamba runs. He explains to me that I’ll meet “nothing but type A guys here.” In the peculiar parlance of the team, he says they are all “shit hot.”

  Although most people would assume that guns are the primary obsession of any contractor in Iraq, it is actually the laptop. Contractors can buy generic laptops cheaply at the PX in Camp Victory near the airport, and the computers provide a lifeline to their home, family, and news from outside the sandbox.