We ended up in Karbala, Al Diwaniyah, Tikrit and a dozen other towns and ammunition junkyards throughout Iraq. The list of ammunition we were destroying on a daily basis grew out of control.
On some days we were managing to pile up hundreds of tonnes of ammunition at a time. Our record shot was an incredible 375 tonnes of rockets, missiles, mortars, artillery rounds and anything else that we could find. When we fired it a large aircraft hangar that was standing about one kilometre away completely disappeared when the blast wave slammed into it.
During the missions throughout Iraq I started to compile a growing list of ammunition and weapons that we were destroying. It wasn’t only the massive quantities of the ammunition that was amazing me, but where the items were coming from. Tripe and I often discussed what would happen if the world media got hold of the list that we updated on a daily basis.
Iraq, it seemed, had the second largest stockpile of ammunition in the world; second only to the United States. Saddam collected it like camels collect fleas. Obviously having a large collection of mega mansions and a huge stockpile of bombs and bullets was more important to him than simple things like food, education, health facilities, power, drinking water and most importantly peace for the people of his nation.
Saddam had Exocet missiles made by the French, long range missiles and chemical weapons made by the Russians, landmines made by Italy and Singapore. We found huge quantities of 155 millimetre artillery ammunition that was given free of charge to Iraq by none other than the US themselves during the Iraq–Iran war. The Iraqis copied just about everything they could but most of the time they had copious quantities of the real thing manufactured and supplied by most of the world’s most powerful nations.
Even though they didn’t have an air force that was capable of dropping bombs they still had thousands of tonnes of bombs ranging up to 1000 kilograms. Saddam’s forces had a huge stockpile of surface to air missiles and millions of anti-personnel and anti-tank landmines all of which were manufactured outside of Iraq. We even found proof that during the trade embargos there were literally thousands of tonnes of weapons and ammunition being sold and shipped into Iraq. There was proof that only days before the US invaded Iraq large convoys of trucks carrying small arms ammunition came across the Jordanian border, all carrying ammunition manufactured in Jordan. Hell, we even destroyed newly manufactured mortars that came from both North Korea and Iran. The markings on the boxes indicated that they were only manufactured in late 2002 so how the hell did they get into Iraq in such large quantities?
At this point the media was still being told that no weapons of mass destruction had been found. Our question was, What do you categorise a Russian 500 kilogram chemical bomb, KHAB-500? Because we were destroying them by the dozen. What do you class the hundreds of Soviet 544 millimetre surface to surface Frog 7 and Frog 7B rockets that we destroyed? These things can fly over whole countries and carry a huge amount of explosive that is surrounded by a massive fragmentation band, and yet the US and the British governments for some reason were passing them off as no more than a bad fart in a small elevator.
Surely if they weren’t going to admit that there were ‘weapons of mass destruction’ scattered all over Iraq then someone should have the balls to at least admit there were ‘mass weapons of destruction’.
8
Convoy to Babylon
Fragmentation Hand Grenade TIP F-1
Made in Romania. Anti-personnel fragmentation grenades are designed to explode and scatter steel fragments into a target. The body of the TIP F-1 has an external pre-formed, moulded steel frag sleeve. Most grenades are designed to detonate after a time delay, and can be divided into two main types: defensive and offensive. Defensive are designed to be used from a position of cover — from inside a trench or behind a wall and have an effective radius greater than the distance it can be thrown. There aren’t a lot of these around. Most armies use offensive grenades with a smaller effective fragmentation radius, for assaulting troops. The TIP F-1 falls into this category. Grenades like the TIP F-1 have a lethal zone of 5 metres and a wounding radius of 15 metres, but frag can be thrown about 40 metres and even more than 200 metres.
It was incredible to think that we had been in Iraq for almost 18 months now. Even though I got to get home every three months for a two-week break it was starting to get to me and everyone else on the team. I could see that people were starting to get more agitated every day and the tension between us and the Yanks was becoming a real problem. While I was away my two eldest daughters had both had babies — firstly a girl and then a boy. I couldn’t stop thinking about them and wondered if the piles of money I was making made up for the fact that once again I was away from my family when they needed me most.
Every once in a while we could get our hands on some contraband spirits or beer and get smashed. Tripe and I usually had a few bottles of Black Label hidden away somewhere and always had a few drams before the night was over. Most nights were spent lying back on my army issue stretcher with my laptop watching pirated DVDs. There were hawkers everywhere selling movies for around a dollar each. Most of the copies were absolute crap but it helped us get through the boring times back in camp when there was nothing else to do. Every now and then I managed to get onto the company’s sat phone and call home. At first it seemed like a good thing but after a while I realised it was only making the fact that I really wanted to be back home with my new grandkids worse. I knew that the contract couldn’t last forever and we all knew that once we had disposed of the majority of the ammo cache sites the Yanks would get rid of us before they would sack their own, regardless of the fact that we had proven time and time again that we were far more efficient.
We’d spent the week back in Najaf preparing for our last away mission up towards the Kurdish region of Iraq, but we had a few short stopovers along the way to clean up a few small areas recently discovered by US satellites. We were loading the heavy expanded mobility tactical truck (HEMTT) trucks with all of our camping and demolition equipment as well as a new dunny and shower set-up we had designed and built. Hopefully this time we could at least have a hot shower and a sit-down porcelain crap at the end of a hard day in the sun. We were headed for Babylon City for our first stretch then, after a night in the camp there, it was another 50-odd kilometres on to Karbala and after that, the next and hopefully final mission way up north. We were actually looking forward to getting up into the Kurdish areas because we were told that they were safe and easy to operate in. We’d already blown up everything around Babylon so for us it was nothing more than an overnight stay.
Every time we loaded up for an away mission we always got the interest of the locals working around the camp so, as usual, we tried to keep our next destination quiet in an attempt to lessen the possibility of being shot up on the way. We told the locals that we were going somewhere, at some time, but even we didn’t know where or when until we were on our way.
One morning one of the local cleaners told me that he had relatives who lived in Karbala and asked if I could give them a job when we got there. He even knew about the ASP we were going to be working at and its location. I could not believe my ears. Some dickhead had obviously told people our plans. I took the cleaner into the main office and sat him down in the conference room. I wasn’t mad with him at all. It was clear that he was innocently enquiring to see if he could get his brother a job; I wanted whoever it was that gave him the information in the first place. We’d done well so far to keep our movements clandestine and I was pissed off that someone had leaked our next location.
I called up the security manager on the radio and asked if he could come into the conference room and then asked the site manager to attend as well. Luckily for us the cleaner spoke fairly good English and understood all of our questions. He explained that it was the main conversation on the work bus that morning coming into the ammunition supply point that we were leaving at 0600 the next morning and heading to the ASP north of Karbala. The security comm
ander and the site supervisor thanked him for his help and asked him to leave the room. They were fuming; after all of the work we had put into keeping this mission secret it was all but on the front page of the paper. Not only did everyone know where and when we were going they also knew we had 6-metre containers of explosives travelling with us. I wanted to delay the convoy for a few days but someone in Baghdad polishing a desk chair said we were ‘overreacting’ and ordered the move to go ahead as planned.
That night during our evening meeting and after a full day of investigation into the leaked information it was proven that the same idiot who was all twisted over the bus curtains in Kuwait got into a conversation with a large group of Iraqi workers in one of the bunkers. He told them that all of the stupid Australians were leaving at 6am in two days’ time and he was going to be in charge of the bunker teams. It was enough information to let every rebel with any need for 15 tonnes of high explosives to simply set up an ambush in any of the thousands of places on the way and almost have it handed to them on a plate.
As planned, at 6am the next morning we were driving out the gate on our way north. We had a small group of US hummers supposedly protecting the explosives truck and the rest of us were in the unarmoured pick-up trucks that may as well have ‘please shoot me’ written all over them. We all broke one of the major rules that were imposed upon us, which was that we weren’t supposed to carry weapons of any sort. We pointed out to the company directors that this was an American company and the majority of the employees were Americans who all were allowed by law to carry guns at home where they’re not at war, but here we were in a war zone, in a country where almost everyone is out to kill you, and we weren’t allowed to carry a weapon of any sort. Regardless of the fact that our documentation given to us at Fort Bliss clearly stated that we were authorised.
Anyway, once again common sense prevailed and each and every one of us managed to get our hands on an AK-47 somehow or another. Most of them came from captured weapons that were supposed to be destroyed within our ammunition explosions. How was anyone ever to know that we didn’t actually destroy each and every one of them? The way we looked at it we were putting them to good use and when we were finished with them or found something better we would simply throw them on top of a shot.
We also wore protective vests and Kevlar helmets. Although we all used the vests the helmets were a large and uncomfortable pain in the butt and we only put them on when entering or leaving the camps to give the impression that we were doing the right thing.
As soon as we were out of view from the Najaf camp we all threw off our brain buckets and pulled out our AK-47s that were hidden in folding chair bags and loaded them up. We had one of our security vehicles leading the convoy then had three F350s followed by another security vehicle, another three F350s and then a single hummer, the explosives truck and two more hummers bringing up the rear. In reality, every single vehicle in the convoy apart from the three hummers was a very soft and easy target. I was driving the second F350 following the security vehicle, with Tripod and a couple of the other boys. We all knew exactly what the score was; everyone switched right back into military mode. It was as if we had never been out of the army at all and we were just on another mission somewhere.
Everyone was aware of how much more dangerous this particular trip was and it was only made more so by the huge quantity of explosives following us. It could have been worse; it could have been one of us driving the truck. Even the rear three F350s that were close to the truck were very concerned. If this truck was hit by an IED and exploded the cargo the blast alone would definitely kill everyone within 300 metres. For this reason the drivers of those vehicles were constantly being told off by the convoy commander over the radio for being too far apart. Although I was driving the rear vehicle in the first group and quite a way from the explosives truck itself I still felt threatened when we closed up at intersections or were going through villages.
We stopped about an hour into the trip at a US Military roadside refuelling point. It wasn’t that we needed fuel — the military and the civvy security people wanted to give all of the drivers a serve in relation to maintaining vehicle distance during the convoy. A huge argument started between them and us. Their argument was that it made it too hard for them to protect us if we were spread too far apart, and ordinarily they would be 100 per cent correct. However, in this instance, on this particular convoy, it wasn’t the guys shooting at us with guns we were worried about. It was some dude with a rocket propelled grenade launcher aimed at the truck while we were within the danger area. The poor bloody truck driver was shaking; every one of our points involved him getting blown into millions of small pieces. Then the soldier who was the passenger of the truck decided that we were right and he flatly refused directly to his superior to get back into the truck, regardless of the consequences. He was a national guardsman who only two months ago was at university studying international business and only joined the guards to get a free education. Little did he realise that after he enlisted his country would invade Iraq.
After a half-hour it was decided, well, actually enforced, that we would split up into two convoys. Although we would be separated by a few hundred metres we would still be able to support each other if the shit did hit the fan. We left the safety of the fuel compound with one of the security vehicles in the lead followed by three F350s (I was driving the second of these) and an army hummer, three more F350s and the last security vehicle bringing up the rear. Three hundred metres behind was the explosives truck with a hummer front and back. The commander himself was sitting in the passenger seat of the truck only because all of his men followed the lead of the other guy and refused to get in. The convoy itself was now travelling very smoothly. All of the vehicles were maintaining a good distance from each other and the overall convoy speed was such that the truck could easily keep up.
9
Grabbed
RPG 7
Many people believe that RPG stands for rocket propelled grenade but it actually stands for ‘ruchnoy protivotankoviy granatomet’, which is Russian for ‘hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher’. The Russians based its design on the old US bazooka and German Panzerfaust anti-tank rocket launcher. It’s easy to operate and only needs one man to have a devastating effect on any target hit. More than a dozen countries now build their own RPGs that all use high explosive, high explosive fragmentation and high explosive anti-tank rounds. The RPG is very good at bringing down helicopters when used properly. It has what’s called a back blast danger area (BBDA), which is caused by the rocket’s jet blast shooting from the rear of the weapon. The fact that the RPG has a BBDA and anyone can shoot the thing has resulted in a heap of idiots frying themselves when they try to fire it from inside a vehicle or while standing in front of a wall. Fortunately for thousands of soldiers all around the world most of the time when an untrained Jihadist fires the RPG they simply run out into the open and fire the thing without aiming, normally missing their target by miles.
Here we were, a bunch of Aussies driving along through Iraq, armed to the teeth, AC/DC up full blast on the CD player, leading a truck full of bang and a couple of very scared soldiers through a badass area, when we came across another one of a thousand Iraqi Police checkpoints we’d had to endure during our time in this land of sand. This one was set up on a bridge that covered a small flowing creek about 6 metres across from one bank to the other and had 2.5-metre high sand-filled Hesco barriers set up like a dog leg at the checkpoint itself. Anyone who had spent any time moving around the country knew that any checkpoint constructed like this would have been built originally by the US Military during the initial part of the war; the Iraqi police and military were so lazy that their road blocks normally were constructed from roadside rubbish and a couple of rocks.
As usual we slowed down as we were waved through, but didn’t stop. Then over the radio the rear security vehicle called out that it looked like there was a problem with the truck getting through th
e checkpoint and to slow down a little. I could see in my rear-view mirror that the truck had stopped in the middle of the checkpoint on the bridge itself, its lead hummer was slowly driving out of the sand-filled gauntlet when the music we were playing was drowned out by the sound of heavy machine gunfire. I could see the gunner in the turret of the first hummer spraying the area with .50 cal. There were policemen diving for cover everywhere.
I saw one of the policemen climb up onto the driver’s side wheel of the truck and throw something into the cab through the driver’s open window. The cab of the truck instantly exploded blowing out the windscreen and doors. The man who threw the device into the truck disappeared in a ball of flame and smoke before he could get down. I could clearly make out the body of the convoy commander being blown like a ragdoll over the top of the Hesco barriers. What we’d thought was an Iraqi Police checkpoint was definitely not. I could hear the rear hummer firing its .50 cal as well but couldn’t see what was happening because of the high barriers.
The lead hummer of the last convoy started to speed ahead towards us when a rocket-propelled grenade was fired from out of a drain to the left side of it, exploding under the vehicle, lifting it into the air and dropping it off to the side of the road onto its turret, crushing the gunner. It all seemed to happen in a fraction of a second. The drivers and I had no choice but to follow the instructions given to us during the convoy brief back at Najaf and did everything we could to get out of the ambush as fast as we could, so that we could pull up and regroup further down the road in a safe area. Unfortunately this meant we had to leave the rear hummer to fend for itself. In reality there was nothing we could have done for them anyway as they were on the other side of the creek and there was no way we could get over to help them. We couldn’t even give them fire support because the bloody big Hesco barriers were between us and them.
Kicking Bombs Page 6