by Oliver North
Lt. Col. Paul Kennedy and SgtMaj James Booker during a gunfight in Ramadi
During these engagements it was evident that the enemy was incapable of taking on a Marine battalion or an Army brigade in a toe-to-toe fight. But the terrorists were convinced that if they could inflict enough casualties on U.S. troops, American resolve would weaken and the politicians in Washington would have to withdraw from the fight, leaving Iraq without any prospect for a democratic outcome.
Terror leaders like Zarqawi and al Sadr kept such hope for good reason. After several probes into Fallujah, U.S. troops were ordered by Baghdad to withdraw from the city on 30 April, leaving it in the control of the terrorists. In the aftermath, public opinion polls in the U.S. showed that approval for the campaign in Iraq had plummeted.
The drop in support for the American commitment in Iraq reflected the way the media covered the conflict. Photos and videotape of Humvees blowing up and burning on Iraqi roads—many shot by Arab cameramen traveling with the terrorists—were quickly printed and broadcast throughout the U.S. and Europe. The willingness of the mainstream media to use these images meant that for the first time in our nation's history, most of what Americans were seeing from the battlefield was coming from the enemy.
BATTLEFIELD INNOVATION
The troops called this improvised metal plate "farmer armor"
During a well-publicized exchange in December 2004, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time." The comment created a firestorm of criticism in the press, but he was right.
In fact, well before he made the remark, combat-experienced soldiers, sailors, airmen, Guardsmen, and Marines fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan were adapting to every change in enemy tactics. By the time we returned to Iraq in April 2004, everyone we saw "in theater" was equipped with the newest body armor, complete with bullet-stopping ceramic armor plates.
As suicide bombers became the terrorists' primary offensive weapon and IEDs became their defensive weapon of choice, Marine and Army units improvised. Those units that didn't have "up armored" Humvees and trucks made their own. Motor transport mechanics were transformed into master welders who cut steel plates with torches and fit the "homemade" armor to the vehicles.
An EOD robot looking for explosives in Iraq
New unmanned aerial vehicles, small enough to be hand-launched by a rifle platoon on patrol, were being flown over the "battle space." Engineers and explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) experts had been provided with remote-controlled robots for disarming IEDs. And every soldier heading outside a forward operating base was equipped with the latest gunsights and the newest generation of night-vision equipment and communications gear. These were upgrades since the campaign began just a year earlier.
In addition to equipment and weapons innovations, combat-experienced small unit leaders and their troops developed what they called "street smarts." They learned the tricks of fighting a nameless, often faceless enemy most effectively at the lowest possible risk to U.S. and coalition personnel.
An incident I reported from Ramadi while I was embedded with 2nd Bn, 4th Marines, reflects the "combat savvy" of our troops.
A TOW missile streaks toward a VBIED . . .
Just after 9:00 p.m. the Iraqi police report discovering a 1975 Ford station wagon parked in the median of "Route Michigan"—the four-lane highway connecting Ramadi with Fallujah. The police suspect that the abandoned car is a Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device, or VBIED—in short, a car bomb. Minutes later, the QRF, comprised of an EOD team and a detachment from Weapons Company, is en route and armed for bear just in case it's all a set-up. Over us we can barely hear—but not see—an unmanned aerial vehicle scanning the route ahead, looking for any signs of an ambush.
We arrive at the site, and after placing security around the Marine vehicles, the EOD team unloads a small, tracked robot with a tiny TV camera on a telescoping arm. But before the robot can defuse the explosives, mortar rounds start impacting in the field off to our right. It won't take the terrorist gunners long to figure out that they missed us and adjust their fire. Staying here in the open isn't an option, but neither is leaving a VBIED behind.
I'm lying in the gravel on the left side of the road with my camera rolling as Sgt Jeremiah Randall from Weapons Company calls out, "Get the robot back and let's tow it." As the robot is being reeled in and I'm wondering who is going to be crazy enough to hook a chain up to a Ford station wagon full of Iraqi artillery rounds, another Humvee rolls up beside me. My tape is still rolling when the warning, "Firing TOW!" is shouted immediately above me.
My camera catches the "pop" of the wire-guided anti-tank missile being ejected from its tube, the ignition of its rocket motors, and its fiery trajectory toward the VBIED. The warhead performs as advertised, and there is a massive explosion as the artillery rounds hidden in the back of the car detonate. With my ears still ringing, I hear Sgt Randall's only comment over the radio: "Scratch one VBIED."
The Marines went back to base with no casualties.
. . . and safely obliterates it
"NO GREATER FRIEND, NO WORSE ENEMY"
Major General James Mattis had adopted the ancient Roman dictum, "No Greater Friend, No Worse Enemy," for the 1st Marine Division during the initial invasion of Iraq. By the summer of 2004, it was a maxim being practiced throughout Al Anbar. It didn't hurt that Lt. Gen. Jim Conway, the commander of I MEF, and Mattis were still "in country" and leading the same commands. The slogan—and all that it meant—was also well-known to the troops fighting in Al Anbar.
Before a battalion-sized operation in Ramadi, Lt. Col. Kennedy told his company commanders to "hunt down" the terrorists and reminded them that the enemy "can't stand up to a Marine unit in a gunfight. They aren't as well trained, lack fire discipline, and aren't in shape. If you have to . . . send out invitations. Watch out for the IEDs and when they show themselves, shoot straight. Use only the force you need to eliminate the threat. Avoid civilian casualties and keep your communications up. And remember the division motto: 'No greater friend, no worse enemy.' Let them figure out which one they want you to be."
The "No Greater Friend" part was reserved for the Iraqi people who were in the crossfire between coalition forces and the terrorists. The units with which we were embedded conducted hundreds of civil affairs and information operations intended to build trust with the local civilians. There were frequent exchanges with the "locals" about water purification systems, electricity, job creation projects, schools—and always, the security of their homes and neighborhoods.
As a byproduct of these missions, U.S. commanders collected valuable intelligence about plans for disrupting reconstruction projects and upcoming elections, the location of IED "bomb factories," Al Qaeda "safe houses," and terrorist "propaganda mills" where they produced DVDs of their atrocities and made them available to radical Islamic Web sites—not to mention the rest of the media. One such site produced the grisly 11 May 2004 video of Nicholas Berg, a U.S. civilian hostage, being beheaded by his captors. As we discovered later, similar videos were being made in torture chambers inside Fallujah between April and November when the city was finally retaken by coalition forces.
"It's a gut-churning experience because you don't know if the guy on the other side of the door is going to meet you with an IED or an AK-47. These guys act all tough on the videos they make, as long as they have a mask on and all their buddies around. But you kick down their door in the middle of the night to arrest them, and they cry like little girls and beg for mercy. That's when you realize these men aren't soldiers, they're criminals and punks."
—U.S. Special Operations soldier
These "meet and greet" operations were much more than just handing out soccer balls and candy to children on the street. Human exploitation teams and intelligence specialists accompanying the civil affairs units
also uncovered corruption that might otherwise have gone undetected. After hearing complaints in these sessions about Ramadi's police chief, Lt. Col. Paul Kennedy launched a quiet investigation into the chief's activities. The probe proved not only corruption but collaboration with criminal gangs who were preying on Iraqi civilians and shooting at U.S. troops. The chief went to jail.
Lieutenant Jeffrey Craig, a platoon commander, said the reason for these operations was "to speak with the people who don't normally want to be seen talking to us. We give them information about why we're here, what we're doing, and reasons to believe in the coalition and the future of Iraq. In return we gather intelligence about what's happening in their neighborhoods."
Armed with information collected during the day, the troops often returned by night to track down terrorists in their lairs. We accompanied U.S. Army and Marine units on dozens of these missions, some of which included U.S. Special Operations units. Though we weren't allowed to videotape their faces or reveal their names, our cameras were there to document the action.
Weapons cache found at the Coalition for Iraqi National Unity headquarters in Ramadi, Iraq
NO GOOD NEWS?
Many of the so-called "insurgents" who fought the establishment of a stable government in Iraq weren't in it for political reasons; they were violent criminals preying on innocent Iraqi civilians. Throughout Al Anbar, violent, well-armed criminal gangs turned kidnapping for ransom, extortion, murder-for-hire, and armed robbery into a growing industry. The combination of criminal activity, sectarian death-squad murders, and increasingly lethal reprisals precipitated a cycle of violence that could be exploited by Sunni terrorists like Zarqawi and Shiite warlords like al Sadr. They told the Iraqi people that strict adherence to their tenets of radical Islam would protect them far better than the "U.S. occupiers" or the "puppet government in Baghdad."
The U.S. and international media, reporting from inside the capital's green zone, predicted that the country was on an irreversible descent into civil war and that the coalition could do nothing to stop it. That message was reinforced by the continued uproar over prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib detention facility, south of Baghdad. Outrageous photographs of Iraqi detainees being abused by American military guards had first circulated on 29 April. President Bush described the behavior at Abu Ghraib as "abhorrent," and the Pentagon announced that those responsible would be court-martialed. But that wasn't enough for the press and the president's opponents in an election year. By mid-May Abu Ghraib was a full-blown, nonstop scandal. Little other news from Iraq got any "ink" or air time.
Unfortunately, this meant that the American people were unlikely to hear or read about the courage and tenacity of the U.S. troops doing battle in Al Anbar—men like Sgt Kenneth Conde, a squad leader with the 2nd Bn, 4th Marines, in Ramadi. Conde was leading the point squad during a nighttime raid when his platoon was ambushed. In the opening minutes of the ensuing gunfight, he was hit in the shoulder. His Corpsman applied a battle dressing to the wound, and he stayed in the fray, leading from the front of his squad. By the time it was over they had killed six terrorists and captured a pile of enemy weapons and ordnance. Sgt Conde, because of his grievous wounds, could have had a ticket home, yet he decided to stay in the field. A few days after the action, he was awarded a Purple Heart. At the ceremony, I asked him why he decided to stay. "There was no other choice for a sergeant in the Marine Corps," Conde explained. "You have to lead your Marines."
HEARTS AND MINDS
On 28 June 2004, two days ahead of schedule, Paul Bremer, head of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, formally transferred sovereign power to an interim Iraqi government. This was an entity selected by Iraqis, not Americans or the U.N. The new prime minister, Iyad Allawi, promised to hold elections for a permanent government in January 2005, providing that the U.S.-led coalition remained in Iraq.
The change in Baghdad placated neither the enemy nor critics at home. If anything, radical Sunni and Shiite leaders were infuriated by the prospect of progress toward a representative government. On Islamist Web sites they promised to increase the violence. And they did.
Critics of keeping U.S. forces on the ground in Iraq stepped up their rhetorical attacks. They increased the volume on calls to "cut our losses" and "get out of Iraq" before U.S. elections in November. For the troops on the ground facing radical Shiites and Sunnis, it was just more of the same.
When our War Stories team—producer Greg Johnson, cameraman Mal James, and I—returned to Ramadi in July 2004, Paul Kennedy's 2nd Bn, 4th Marines, were still there, and so were the terrorists. Literally within minutes of arriving we were in a gunfight that went on for hours. It was 115 degrees in the shade—and there was no shade. During the long, hot summer of 2004, these kind of engagements occurred throughout Al Anbar province. The terrorists didn't make any distinction as to branch of service or rank.
Capt. Mark Carlton
On one torrid afternoon COL Buck Connor, the U.S. Army Brigade Combat Team commander, was nearly killed when his convoy was ambushed inside the city. The result was an extraordinary demonstration of Marine and Army teamwork and firepower, all documented by our cameras. Two heavily armed AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft loaded with laser and GPS-guided bombs overhead provided air support. Backed up by armored Humvees and Bradley fighting vehicles, U.S. Marine and Army infantrymen slugged it out with the terrorists house to house and room to room.
By the time it was over, a dozen enemy combatants were dead, four were wounded and taken prisoner, and fifteen others were detained. Nearly one hundred enemy weapons and truckloads of ammunition and explosives were captured. During the fight, eleven Marines were wounded. These included Capt. Mark Carlton, the Fox Company commander, who suffered scores of shrapnel wounds from an enemy RPG. He was one of more than a dozen of the officers in 2nd Bn, 4th Marines, who were wounded—and decorated for their courage—while we were with them.
In the midst of one engagement, I ran to take cover behind a Humvee and literally ran into Maj. Dave Harrill, the battalion operations officer. Despite AK-47 rounds whizzing by and RPGs impacting in the street, he was standing beside Lt. Col. Kennedy as each of them talked over radio handsets. While changing the tape in my camera, I asked, "How's it going?"
Harrill shrugged and said, "Just trying to win some hearts and minds. Tough to do while they're trying to kill us."
His citation for the Silver Star sums up what it was like for thousands of soldiers and Marines serving in Al Anbar that summer.
The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star medal to John D. Harrill III, Major, U.S. Marine Corps, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action against the enemy while serving as Operations Officer, 2nd Bn, 4th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I MEF, U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Central Command, in support of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM from February to September 2004. Maj. Harrill's leadership and heroism while under fire contributed materially to the battalion's success in preventing the fall of Ar Ramadi, Iraq. Throughout enemy attacks and offensive operations, he calmly led the battalion command element and coordinated maneuver of the battalion's combat units, while personally neutralizing enemy automatic weapon and RPG fire, resulting in the enemy's defeat. During a major insurgent attack against coalition forces, Maj. Harrill led the forward command element into the aim point of the enemy attack. Despite constant enemy fire, he focused the combat power of six companies as they battled in eight separate locations over a seven-hour period. Maj. Harrill's superior tactical acumen enabled the complete destruction of assaulting enemy forces. By his bold leadership, courageous actions, and loyal devotion to duty, Maj. Harrill reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.
THE FIGHT FOR FALLUJAH
On 7 November 2004, five days after George W. Bush was reelected president of the United
States and eighteen months after Saddam Hussein was toppled from power, interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi ordered the restoration of law and order in Fallujah. The following morning, a combined U.S. Marine, U.S. Army, and Iraqi military force launched "Operation Phantom Fury," a multibattalion attack to retake the city. The decision precipitated a firestorm of protest in the U.S. and the longest and bloodiest sustained battle in Iraq since the start of the campaign. For the U.S. units involved, it was the heaviest urban combat since the battle for Hue City in Vietnam during Tet, 1968.