To my relief, her answer was affirmative. “Yes. I have made that commitment as a colleague. I will help.”
“Then I think it will go well. Do you know the person I am to call from Saddam’s family?”
“Yes. They will talk to you with respect. They know you are a doctor.”
Before I called the uncle, I phoned Colonel Gagliano to let him know I had the contact and would be calling. He had made initial plans for the security of the transfer and the logistics. We would move the bodies from Baghdad International Airport to an undisclosed location in Tikrit in the early hours of the following morning. From there, we would fly them to the final destination and I would accompany the bodies. The colonel would fly in a separate helicopter to officiate the handoff. If all went as planned, we would be back in Baghdad that afternoon and have a nice dinner.
I told him I wasn’t trained in all the cloak-and-dagger stuff but that I was on target and doing okay for an ER doctor. He laughed and agreed. “Keep doing what you’re doing and update me as needed. Call me back after your Saddam call.”
I had felt a bit out of my element at first, yet was growing confident with all the intrigue and the dark-of-night doings of the mission. I never imagined my professional duties as a soldier or a doctor would play a significant role in the final disposition of Uday and Qusay Hussein, who, before my deployment from Iowa to Iraq, were not even names I would have recognized.
On the hour, 9:00 p.m., I phoned the uncle. He answered promptly, but the connection was poor and the line dropped in the middle of our introductions. Was that a sign of how things would go? I called him back and said I was sorry for the poor connection. He understood. We exchanged names. He sounded hard. Not rude, yet with just enough stiffness to let me know he was trying to gain the upper hand. I wondered if I was speaking to a murderer like Saddam and his sons.
“I have the responsibility of transferring the remains of Uday and Qusay Hussein,” I said, my own words rather stiff like his.
“I understand. You are a doctor. This is unusual,” he replied.
“Well, perhaps not. I have worked with your Red Crescent Society and have excellent relations with several doctors there.”
“Yes, I have heard. We need to arrange the exact time and place for transfer. It should be done quickly to minimize our exposure.”
“I agree. We will plan on fifteen minutes or less. You or your representatives may have a copy of the death certificates and may view the bodies in a secure manner. We will provide all the logistics and security. I have already spoken to my colleagues in the Red Crescent Society and they have agreed to monitor the transfer as a neutral third party. Is that acceptable?”
“We demand to see the bodies before we make the transfer,” he said firmly. “Our family prefers to take possession at the Tikrit airport.”
“We cannot use the Tikrit airport,” I cautioned him. “The security risks are too high and we will all be exposed.” I pressed on. “After you view the bodies, you must sign a transfer document; then you may take possession. You will receive copies of the Army death certificates and the Iraqi death certificates. The identities have been verified by a team of forensic experts.”
He answered abruptly. “We will not accept your military death certificate.” I worried for a moment our call would deteriorate into a pissing match of international proportions.
“That’s fine. It is there only as an official document. You have the Medico-Legal Institute’s death certificates to use if you want them.”
“We will verify for ourselves the identities.”
“I understand. Let us plan for the transfer tomorrow morning if you are in agreement.”
“I agree. Again, we prefer to transfer at the Tikrit airport.”
“Again, Tikrit is not an option. I will call you as soon as I have a time and location.”
When we finished our conversation, I was relieved that we had come to a reasoned agreement despite our mutual needs to be blunt and firm. I was also struck that he knew I was a doctor, but then, he had already been talking with my contact at the IRCS, so I should have expected that he had gathered intelligence about me. I was still his enemy. Still, the information that Saddam’s relatives knew about me made me think of those SPY vs SPY cartoons in Mad magazine, albeit our contact was far more serious and dangerous.
By 9:30 p.m. I was back on the phone with an update for Colonel Gagliano. “The uncle wants to do it at the Tikrit airport but I said ‘no deal.’ I told him I would phone him later with the details.”
“Perfect. We need to brief General Hahn by midnight.”
The final mission details were put on General Hahn’s desk at 2315 hours. We would fly two covert missions in the morning: one was a cover mission with a load of supplies; the other would carry the bodies. I was to accompany the transfer cases. Colonel Gagliano would fly in a separate helicopter to the location with a small Army delegation and the official death certificates. He would sign the transfer papers for the Army, and Saddam’s representative would sign on behalf of their family. The phone call to my contact at the Red Crescent and to Saddam’s family member would be made only within the final thirty minutes before our landing at the transfer point. That would allow enough time for their delegates to arrive without broadcasting our intentions too far in advance. Security would be tight; infantry and aviation attack assets would be alerted. Air cover would be provided at the site of the transfer. Mission start time was 0500.
I spent the night trying to sleep but couldn’t. I kept rehearsing the mission details. What if Saddam’s relative didn’t show? What if he said the bodies weren’t those of Uday and Qusay? How about the bodies? What if we left them behind in a last-minute frazzle to hurry the mission? Worst of all, what if we were attacked during the transfer? I lay in my bed staring at the walls and ceiling. I revisited clips of my childhood, the hikes in the mountains of Utah, my gathering leaves for a science project. Mom. I remembered her chubby face and her hand-sewn aprons, the pumpkin pies she made for Thanksgiving. My boyhood had been so uncomplicated when compared to my missions as a military physician in Iraq. My whole life had been one dream—to become a doctor. That dream never included the sons of Saddam Hussein. It never saw me as part doctor, part logistics officer, and part mediator between the strongest army in the world and the family of the most violent killers in the world. I had counted myself fortunate to have become a doctor. I wasn’t sure how to count myself in the larger picture of Iraq. I supposed that if I performed my tasks well enough, then I would have served some greater good, but the task at hand seemed to have no place in the greater cause of medicine. My only solace was that if we pulled the mission off without further bloodshed, well at least it would be something positive.
My alarm blared at 0400. I had fallen asleep in my uniform. It stunk of the accumulated sweat and grime of three days of nonstop activity. At 0445, after a quick shower and change of uniform, I met Colonel Gagliano in the parking lot behind my office. I had packed an extra clip of ammo for my pistol just in case, but as I strapped it to my vest, I figured if things got as far as me needing to draw my weapon, I probably wasn’t coming back alive.
Our convoy to the Baghdad airport was small: four vehicles, eight soldiers, two critical documents, and two medical officers. We met with the commander of the mortuary affairs unit. His soldiers had received the bodies during the night and prepared their transfer cases under protection of a security detail and guards. Uday and Qusay lay inside the cases. Colonel Gagliano verified the manifest and the contents. It was time for breakfast. We sat and talked about some aspects of the mission but then drifted off to talking about our families. That morphed into talking aloud about how Saddam’s family would have reacted to the news of the gun battle in Mosul and how they would accept that the brothers were finally dead. The talk of them spoiled whatever positive things we had been saying about our families. And that was how it went with war. In one moment you recalled the good things of home, and in the next mome
nt the things of war and its inhumanity would creep in and destroy a perfectly beautiful and peaceful memory.
War drew soldiers into its ugliness. My mission involving Uday and Qusay Hussein did exactly that; it drew me in and marked me as an inside participant. I would never be able to forget the proximity. And at least for me, that closeness was abhorrent. I wished I had never been assigned the task, wished that I had had the guts to refuse it. But I hadn’t. I had taken it. I had puffed out my chest and prided myself in being asked to do the mission. Who else in the theater could have done it? Two officers. Colonel Don Gagliano and Major Jon Kerstetter. And what did that pride or sense of duty accomplish? Well, it did get the job done. But it also exposed me to things I could never escape—the ugly and evil things done in war. All those experiences and images would find a permanent residence in my life and memories. I didn’t get to choose which missions I would remember and which I would forget. They would all claim an equal purchase.
As the mission start time approached, I wondered how I would react to the Hussein mission ten or twenty years down the road. Would I be haunted by it? Would I ever tell anybody about it? If I met the Saddam family at some café in London or Paris someday, would they hate me or thank me? Would they say, “We remember you. You were the doctor who gave us back our sons for burial.” Would I tell them how I hated doing so?
The time wound down and the helicopters arrived. I met with the pilot in command of the Chinook that would transport the bodies. He didn’t know the mission details until I told him he was about to fly Uday and Qusay to a classified landing zone near Tikrit. I saluted Colonel Gagliano as I boarded my flight. He saluted me in return. During takeoff, I prayed for the safety of our flight and for the peaceful transition on the ground in Tikrit. The word “peaceful” stuck in my mouth like a dry piece of bread.
Exactly twenty minutes before our ETA near Tikrit, I told the pilot to radio a message to my contact in the Red Crescent. A communications unit had rigged up some way to transfer a radio call over cell phone channels so I could talk directly with my contacts. When the line was secure, I gave the location of our arrival and the time of our touchdown plus or minus two minutes. I asked my contact to repeat the information back to me.
“Yes,” I said. “Affirmative. I will see you in twenty minutes.”
I did the same with Saddam’s uncle. He took the information and said he would meet me at the site with the Red Crescent members.
“Be aware that our security forces are in place,” I cautioned him. “They will escort your vehicles for the final kilometers of your drive. Do not be alarmed. They are there for your protection.”
“I understand. We will cooperate.”
We landed ahead of everybody else by design. We wanted no surprises and needed to secure the landing site before the various delegates to the transfer arrived. Overhead, two Cobra gunships circled in a pattern that would spot and engage any potential attacks. A nearby perimeter was set up with infantry soldiers at the ready. The crew chief of the Chinook lowered the tailgate. Two mortuary transfer cases rested on the cargo floor, out of the sun, away from harm. The ground forces and the helicopters overhead gave the sense that we might be in for a battle and the extra tension of our mission added to that sense. If somebody got too edgy with a weapon, the mission could deteriorate into a fight.
Colonel Gagliano’s helicopter touched down about five minutes after I arrived. We stood together near the back of the helicopter. We could see the transfer cases from where we stood. Off in the distance, we could see the dust trail of a convoy as it made its way to our isolated landing zone.
“They’re coming,” I said to Colonel Gagliano with a bit of nervousness. “Do you have the death certificates and the transfer forms?” I wanted to portray myself as calm and controlled. My voice may have betrayed me.
Smiling, he patted his map case. “Just waiting for a signature,” he said. “Everything is going to be fine,” he added. Watching him react to everything so calmly made me wonder what I would be like as a colonel.
Saddam’s relatives finally arrived; two black Mercedes cars and two Red Crescent vans parked in the area that soldiers had marked out well away from the helicopters. Colonel Gagliano stayed with the bodies. I walked over to greet my contacts from both parties.
After a quick greeting with Dr. Hakim, he walked me over to the car of Saddam’s uncle. As we approached, his bodyguards opened the door and a rather tall, dark-haired man in business attire got out. I expected him to look like the pictures of Saddam, maybe shorter with a pock-marked face and a limp. Dr. Hakim introduced us. The man greeted me but did not extend his hand. I took his cue and I reiterated the procedures that we would follow.
“Yes, yes,” he said impatiently. “I understand. Let me see the bodies. I have also two other witnesses who need to see.”
“You may view the bodies in the presence of the Red Crescent delegates, as we discussed,” I responded. I was firm without being obstinate.
The uncle stared at me for a moment. I could see the tension in his face. Then he said, “Yes, as we agreed.”
As we walked to the Chinook helicopter, it was like walking on the hottest sand or dirt in Iraq. Every step seemed hard and awkward and prolonged. Everything to that point had gone as planned. No glitches. Nothing forgotten. I wanted so much to get through the next minutes unscathed. I suspected the other parties wished the same. There was nothing to gain from misdeeds or last-minute demands.
The soldiers guarding the loading ramp of the Chinook stood at attention as we approached. Colonel Gagliano stepped from the helicopter to greet the small delegation. He had prepared some official Army statement that conveyed a simple fact—we had delivered the bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein, and in collaboration with the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, the U.S. Army was transferring the identified remains to the representatives of the Hussein family. Members of the family were invited to review the identities as members of the Red Crescent Society observed.
With the assistance of several soldiers, the cases were opened and the family members viewed the bodies. They said nothing as they did so. I could hear my heart pumping. I felt a surge of nervous adrenaline. A drop of sweat fell into my eyes and stung, but I didn’t move to wipe it. Colonel Gagliano stood nearby, not at attention but at parade rest, observing the observers. Finally, the man whom I knew as Saddam’s uncle nodded his head.
“Yes,” he said without flinching. “It is them.”
As soon he said it, he turned and walked toward Colonel Gagliano, who escorted the entire delegation away from the helicopter to a field desk that had been set up to sign documents. Colonel Gagliano signed his part of the transfer form and then Saddam’s uncle signed his part. The colonel asked if I wanted to also sign as a witness, but I told him I didn’t think it necessary. I really meant I didn’t want my name associated with the final documents.
When they were done with their formalities, I talked with the Red Crescent members about loading the transfer cases into their vans. They would maneuver to within fifty yards of the Chinook loading ramp. They preferred their own delegates to do the offloading from the helicopter. That was not acceptable. Our soldiers had to offload the cases, but then they could set them on a wheeled mortuary gurney so the bodies could be moved easily without anybody getting hurt. And that was what we did together, a medical officer of the U.S. Army, representatives of the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, and members of Saddam Hussein’s family. The transfer cases were loaded into the vans and Saddam’s uncle and the bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein were driven off, leaving a wake of dust.
—
Over the following days, I heard less about Uday and Qusay Hussein and more about other missions needing attention. Toward the end of the week, I participated in the care of an Iraqi child with leukemia. Her father had been caring for her, and when she became too sick to eat, he appealed to one of the Army medical aid stations in western Baghdad for help. They passed his request up the chain, and when it
hit Colonel Gagliano’s desk, he said it would be a good way to reach out to the citizens of Iraq. He tasked me to pick her up and make arrangements for her treatment. We had no pediatricians or oncologists in our combat hospitals, so I made arrangements with an Italian unit that had a pediatrician to serve humanitarian needs. They evaluated the child and decided to fly her and her mother to Italy for treatment. The father was so grateful that, in tears, he put his hands over his heart and mumbled something I could not understand. I asked our hospital translator to help me. As I watched the translator communicate, I saw that the father had no thumbs.
“He thanks God for you,” the translator said. “You cannot understand him because he has only half a tongue. He was tortured in jail for stealing food to provide for his family. He says the man who ordered his tongue cut out and his thumbs cut off was Qusay Hussein, son of Saddam Hussein.”
“Tell him we will do everything we can for his daughter and that I will pray for his daughter the way I pray for my own daughters. And tell him I am the Army doctor who sealed Uday and Qusay in a coffin.”
As she translated, the father smiled and took my hand and praised God for the death of Qusay. And I understood then that my role as a combat physician was more than the role of a doctor. Performing a mission that I deemed repugnant seemed wasteful to me. Yet, to this Iraqi father, the final disposition of two vile murderers held a meaning far deeper than I could have ever imagined. To him, the proof of their death brought closure and perhaps the element of justice that he needed. I had never calculated that value in my prior assessments of the mission. The grateful father gave me a different perspective. It was not my duty or right to determine the value and impact of a mission, no matter its parameters; it was my duty to perform my tasks with the professionalism and certitude of an officer and a physician.
From late summer, the tempo of the war changed. The number of IED attacks escalated, especially in and around Baghdad. In response, soldiers welded scrap-metal plates scavenged from whatever sources they could find onto the most vulnerable parts of their vehicles. The enemy responded with shaped charges and multiple IEDs wired to explode as a chain reaction. The resulting casualties arrived at Combat Support Hospitals (CSH) by ground and air ambulance.
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