Kicking Bombs
Page 21
When I was sure that the goons outside weren’t watching through the window or listening through the doorway I explained to her that I had been kidnapped by who I think was a group run by the Mahdi Army in Iraq but now it seemed like I was being treated like some sort of suspect or something and that I had no idea of what was going on or why I was being treated this way. No sooner had she responded with a little confused look on her face than one of the goons came in and sat in a chair beside the IV stand at the head of my bed. Obviously that stopped that conversation.
For the next six days the same team of air force investigators came into my room, set up the camera, made the same introductory statement and began asking me questions. They were always justifying the time we were spending as a way of reducing the possibility of others being taken captive by the enemy in the future. I could understand their reasoning and did everything I could to assist them and provide them with as much information as I could.
Finally, we ended up at the point where I was picked up by a military ambulance on the side of the river and that was that. Thank God! The camera was turned off and for an hour or so we discussed everything that happened to me in general conversation. They were honestly shocked by everything that had happened and how I’d got away. Just before they left the room each of them thanked me for the time and help I had given them. The female major leant over me and said, ‘Sir, you are an extraordinary man,’ then saluted me as if I were some sort of 9/11 survivor and left the room. I never saw any of them again.
I spent the next three days basically alone other than the normal nurses coming and going doing their rounds. I was given a bloody big flat screen TV on a rolling trolley along with a DVD player and a heap of movies to watch, for which I was extremely grateful. Other than the DVDs there was only German TV and the US Military’s own stars and stripes style of TV channels, and they soon became more painful than all of my injuries added together.
Finally the Aussie lieutenant colonel came back one morning for what I thought was going to be simply another visit. He sat beside my bed and we talked for a while about how I was being treated and so on. Apparently he was to thank for the TV and movies.
The conversation soon got really serious as he explained that during my travels I had inadvertently become involved with people who had been working directly for the US Military. Most of them had either Iraqi Military or political positions. One of them, and he refused to tell me which one, was a senior member of the new Iraqi Government. I was completely shocked; I had no idea what to say. It wasn’t long before I started to shake as a million things started going through my head.
I started to think, Was the reason they didn’t rescue me because they didn’t want to upset some Iraqi politician? What about Tripe and all the others who died in the ambush? Did they know where I was the whole time? Did they know what was happening to me? Did they know about the others who suffered and the poor bastards who died at the hands of these fucking animals? The colonel assured me that it was nothing like that, but to this very day I’m still not sure. I really don’t know if the US intelligence organisations would do something like that as a cover-up for their own incompetence so some highly positioned person wouldn’t get his arse kicked and lose his job. Would they just sit back for a while and watch so they could see what these Iraqi traitorous backstabbers would do next? If this did get out what would happen if it ended up in some sort of US investigation?
All I had to go on was all of the stories and reports I had heard in the past of major cover-ups. Hell, how many movies have been made of shit like this based on true stories? There is always something coming to the surface and an American senator accusing some head of some US secret organisation of fucking up somehow. The possibilities were endless!
Late the same afternoon Bob returned with a select group of offsiders tagging along behind him, all of them carrying files and A4 envelopes covered in stamps and stickers. This time he sat down beside me while the rest of the group remained standing. He started by saying how much he admired me for what I had survived through and how a lesser man would have given up and simply died. He asked one of the men to stay and politely asked the others to ‘step outside’.
The man who remained passed Bob an envelope. Bob opened it up and handed me a few pages stapled together in a corner. He explained to me that this was the original copy of the Official Secrets Act that I signed back at Fort Bliss. He asked me if the signature was mine; obviously it was. He then started to read paragraphs from it explaining in detail their meanings as he read.
When he finished his recital he asked me if I had any questions about anything he had just read or if I wasn’t aware of any of these points when I signed the document. At this point I was pretty confused, but I could clearly see where this was heading. I had no choice but to admit that I understood everything and that I was aware of the clauses within the document before I signed it. Finally he read out the bit that detailed the repercussions of not complying with the Act and slowed down at the bit that mentioned life imprisonment.
I just lay back in bed and shook my head in disbelief.
It was at that point when the bloke accompanying ‘Bob’ passed him another piece of paper and again ‘Bob’ started to read. Something along these lines:
‘It has been assessed by senior advisors of the United States Security Services that divulging the details of my abduction and specifically the identities of some of those responsible for or associated with my abduction would cause major discord between the coalition forces within Iraq and senior members of the new Iraqi Government.
‘This would jeopardise the possibility of a swift and successful conclusion within the region.
‘Therefore I am warning you that this is an internationally binding Act and the United States has the right to seek an extradition order for you to return to the United States to stand trial if necessary. I am hereby ordering you to comply with the Official Secrets Act that you have signed on the date shown beside your signature.’ Here he pointed it out to me as if I didn’t know where it was on the paperwork. He went on to say that if I disclosed any information whatsoever to anyone not authorised to receive it, or outside a sanctioned interview session, I could be tried and sentenced for non-conformance of the Act.
I just lay there in my bed and stared at him, slowly shaking my bald head in complete disbelief. Finally I just said, ‘You’re fucking joking aren’t you? You’re pulling the piss!’
Suddenly he went right off the handle, turned red as a beetroot and started screaming at me; every word was blended with what seemed to be a gallon of spittle.
‘Goddamn it!’ he said, ‘there are things involved here that you don’t understand! There were people involved with your capture that we are trying to make peace with. If we manage to make these arseholes our allies and not our goddamned nemeses this whole shitfight will be over a shitload faster and a heap of men will get to keep their lives. Do you under-fucking-stand that?
‘If you go back to your cosy little backwater Australian town and spill your guts to every reporter who wants your “tear-jerking” story it will only make things worse. We are trying to get Muqtada al-Sadr onto our side. We know it was his Sadrist Movement or the goddamned Mahdi Army or whoever the fuck they calling themselves today that attacked the convoy. They wanted the explosives for fuck sake.’
‘Are you telling me you knew he was going to attack the convoy?’ I asked.
‘No! Hell no,’ he said. ‘What kind of people do you think we are? If we knew that there was an ambush planned we would have stopped it. Of course we would have. Fuck, do you think we would have wanted Sadr to take 20 tonnes of our explosives to use against us? We actually thought he was coming around before all of this shit went down. Hell, it’s political, son, don’t you understand that? He’s the so-called goddamned Devil We Know! Can you understand that?’
I sat up, stared him in the face and screamed at him, ‘Bullshit! Absolute bullshit! You don’t want me to tell the
press what sort of ammunition and weapons we found, do you? I’m one of the remaining people left alive responsible for blowing up most of the Iraqi ordnance supplies. You’re worried that I’m going to tell the world what was actually out there. You don’t want me telling CNN that most of the IEDs killing their own soldiers are US-made 155 millimetre artillery rounds given to Iraq by the US Government. You don’t want me telling the BBC that France was selling Exocet missiles to Iraq and that the fucking Italians and Singaporeans were supplying them with landmines!’ Again Bob started screaming at me. ‘Can you understand what will happen if the world media got hold of that sort of information? Do you? The whole coalition would go straight to shit in a day. Fuck, noone would ever trust anyone ever again let alone back each other in a war action.’
‘Bob,’ I said in a low, calm voice, ‘Bob, the US actually launched planes and troops from Amman in Jordan directly over the border into Iraq at the same time the Jordanian Military was sending dozens or more trucks of small arms ammunition over to back up Saddam’s Republican Guard units at Tikrit.’
‘For fuck sake!’ he yelled, ‘Where the hell do you think Saddam’s wife and daughters are living now? We have no control over them — they do whatever they have to do so we don’t bomb their arses, but at the same time they stab us in the back every chance they get.’
Bob tried to calm himself down and said quietly but forcefully, ‘Mr Jackson, sir; you have to understand that the people who took you and killed your associates may well be the next ruling government of Iraq. God knows the puppets we put in there at the moment aren’t worth shit. There is definitely going to be a new government soon and it could be led by Sadr. If word ever got out how you were treated and how these animals operate it would be extremely difficult for countries like the United States, the United Kingdom and even Australia to support him.
‘But at the moment he has the support of the majority of the Iraqi citizens, certainly the full support of the Shia Muslim community, and that’s something like 75 per cent of the whole damned country. The fact that half of the known world was responsible for supplying a madman with ammunition and weapons at some point in time is just another reason why you have to keep your mouth shut. I fully understand that you got the shitty end of the stick here but there isn’t a thing we can do about it.’
‘I didn’t get the shitty end of the stick! My dead mates like Tripe, Boof and Boots got the shitty end of the stick, mate. It’s piss easy for you to gob off! You’re walking around in a free fucking designer suit and you can go home tonight, relax, and wait for your fat-arse wife to bring you another beer. They’re fucking dead, can you understand that? Dead!’
Bob just stared me in the face and said, ‘Son, if I was in your shoes, I’d be pissed as well. But I ain’t and you have just got to do what you’re told or you will be in a whole world of hurt. You don’t want to be labelled with a crime against the United States Military during a time of war. Believe me; it would be bad, very bad!’
He slowly stood up and passed me a stamped and certified true copy of the signed Official Secrets Act and his closing statement. He looked me in the face and said, ‘Sir, you have been warned. I seriously suggest you comply with my instructions,’ and walked towards the door. As he reached the opening he turned and said that as soon as the doctors and the other medical staff were happy for me to leave, his men would escort me to the airport where my consulate would arrange a return flight to Australia.
Just before he managed to get through the door I shouted out to him, ‘Bob! Can I have your business card?’ He just smiled, turning away as his goons closed the door behind him.
29
Back Home
106mm Recoilless Rifle High Explosive Armour Piercing
Made in Iran. This anti-tank weapon is like an oversized RPG. It’s US-designed, but used by many countries including Australia. Obviously Iran got their hands on a few after the US finished with them in Iraq and subsequently manufactured their own ammo. How the Iraqis got hold of the 160 recoilless rifle itself is a good question, but the fact that Saddam ended up with tens of thousands of Iranian manufactured armour piercing rounds is beyond belief. The cartridge case from these is easy to identify because it’s completely perforated to allow the gasses to escape.
I’d been away kicking bombs in the land of sand for almost two years, and spent another four weeks recovering in Germany. Now I was back in Australia; I’d come full circle. Been to hell and back.
On the way back on the plane it all sort of hit me a bit harder than it had in the past. I didn’t think it would affect me like that, but I felt guilty. Even though I knew I wasn’t responsible for what happened to the boys, it just didn’t seem right that I was coming home and they weren’t. Someone in Germany lashed out and paid for a first class seat for my return home so I had a bit of privacy in my small Qantas cabin.
And a shitload of free Bollinger and lobster to go with it.
My whole family, all of my friends and a heap of my old unit were there to meet me at Brisbane Airport. I was okay until I got to hold my new grandchildren and then I have to admit I did get a bit emotional for a minute until a good mate of mine whispered into my ear, ‘You’re on national TV, mate; harden the fuck up!’
I didn’t go into much detail with anyone at that point about what had happened and they could tell that I was a shattered unit and didn’t want to talk about it. As well as my family and my mates there were half a dozen photographers and journos from various Aussie television stations and newspapers keen for a story. I just told the journos the standard ‘no comment’ and kept on walking. I’d been well and truly gagged by Bob and Uncle Sam. God knows I didn’t want to make any statements that could land me in a cell with a bloke called Bubba for the rest of my life. I didn’t want to ever have to play mummy and daddy in a cold Guantanamo Bay jail cell.
My dad had organised for me to go into hiding on his stepdaughter’s farm in the middle of nowhere outside of Charleville for a while. I had to try to get back to normal; live an ordinary life. But one of the first things I had to do was speak to Tripod’s mother and explain what had happened to him. I wasn’t looking forward to that.
Momentarily I thought about what the hell I was going to do for the rest of my life. Living your life to its maximum becomes really important when not that long ago there was a very real chance that it was going to end. I thought about getting back into my demining flail invention, but pretty quickly decided that leaving Australia ever again wasn’t going to happen. And I’d gone off carpet since being rolled up in one and carted on top of a car through the streets of an Iraqi city. So I figured that I would just sit back on my comfy pension, what I had saved and what was due to me.
I knew Bob and his men in suits were watching and listening to everything I was doing so I was definitely going to lie low and keep out of the shit. Fuck it, I was going to go fishing and relax for a while. In the meantime, maybe I’d write a book …
THE END
Weapons List
From the USSR
¤ 100kg CHAB-100 bomb (Chemical)
¤ Fragmentation Bomb AO-2.5-2
¤ Fragmentation Bomb AO-10-6.5
¤ Chemical Bomb KRAB-25 YAD
¤ Chemical Bomb KHAB-25
¤ 100kg High Explosive Fragmentation Bomb OFAB 100-120
¤ Practice Bomb, P100
¤ 250kg High Explosive Fragmentation OFAB 250T
¤ 250kg High Explosive Fragmentation OFAB 250 Squash Head
¤ 250kg High Explosive FAB 250 M54
¤ 250kg High Explosive
¤ 250kg High Explosive Fragmentation, OFAB-250SHL
¤ 250kg Incendiary Bomb ZAB 250-200
¤ 478kg Penetration Bomb BETAB-500
¤ 500kg General Purpose FAB 500 M62
¤ 500kg High Explosive Fragmentation Bomb OFAB500U
¤ 500kg General Purpose FAB-500 SHN
¤ 1100lb General Purpose Welded FAB-500
¤ 500kg Chemical Bomb, KHAB
-500
¤ PTAB-2.5kg Submunition High Explosive Anti Tank and Fragmentation Bomb
¤ 20 Shot B-8M Rocket Launcher
¤ 20 Shot B-8V20-A Rocket Launcher
¤ 23mm Armour Piercing Incendiary Tracer Model BZT
¤ 23mm Armour Piercing Incendiary Model BZA-23
¤ 23mm Fragmentation High Explosive Incendiary Trace Model OFZT
¤ 23mm Fragmentation High Explosive Incendiary Fragmentation Model OFZ
¤ 23mm Fragmentation High Explosive Incendiary OFZ
¤ 23mm Fragmentation High Explosive Incendiary Tracer OFZT
¤ 30mm High Explosive Incendiary OFZ
¤ 30mm Armour Piercing Tracer BT-30
¤ 30mm Fragmentation Projectile VOG-2623mm Fragmentation
¤ 30mm High Explosive Incendiary Tracer Model OFZT
¤ 23mm Fragmentation High Explosive Incendiary Fragmentation OFZ
¤ 37mm Armour Perching Tracer BZT
¤ 37mm Armour Piercing Tracer BR-167
¤ 37mm Armour Piercing Tracer BR-167
¤ 37mm Armour Piercing Tracer BR-167N
¤ 100mm SABO APFSDS-T BM-2 Penetrator
¤ 30mm High Explosive tracer OT
¤ 37mm Armour Piercing Tracer UBR-167
¤ 37mm Fragmentation Tracer Model OR-167N
¤ 73mm High Explosive Fragmentation OG-9 &OG-9M
¤ 76mm High Explosive OF-350V
¤ 76mm High Explosive Anti Tank BK-354M
¤ 76mm Smoke D-350
¤ 82mm Illumination Mortar S-832S
¤ High Explosive Anti Tank PG-2
¤ 82mm Recoilless BK-881
¤ 82mm Recoilless High Explosive Anti Tank Bk-881M
¤ 82mm Recoilless Practice PBk-881M
¤ 82mm Recoilless Rifle Fragmentation PBk-881
¤ 82mm Recoilless Rifle Fragmentation O-881A
¤ 82mm Fragmentation Mortar 0-832-DU