by Neryl Joyce
I was told that the plan for that day was for some of the team to conduct security picquets at the clients’ workplace, the Convention Center. Meanwhile, a member of the team, Money Shot, would show me around the Green Zone and organise my identification passes.
Before we left, I ducked to the loo. The downstairs toilet was a lot grubbier than the one on my floor, I noted. The toilet seat was also missing, and from Ghost’s response when I asked him about it later, it was clear no replacement was due in the near future. Believe it or not, the guys in the team actually complained about the lack of a toilet seat more than I did. God knows how they would have handled things if they’d had to sit down every time they went.
Ghost had warned me that the local sewerage system was crap (yes, a pun), and that the plumbing just couldn’t cope with soggy clumps of toilet paper. Everyone had to discard the used paper in a nearby bucket, rather than in the actual toilet system. The cleaners were charged with the wonderful job of disposing of the bucket’s contents every day. I felt for them.
The waste didn’t, or perhaps couldn’t, travel through the underground pipes to get to the sewers. So, every third day, a ‘poo truck’ would turn up at the house to siphon out all the sewerage. You could always smell the truck coming before you saw it, I was told. Ghost had laughed as he said that the stench of faecal matter would soon become a part of daily life, along with the acrid tang of diesel fumes from the running generators.
After I flushed the toilet, I watched in horror as the water began to rise until it was almost level with the bowl. There it remained for about thirty seconds, before finally receding back down the pipes. I let out a sigh of relief. It appeared that the sewerage system was close to capacity. It must be poo truck day, I thought.
I washed my hands in the sink, only to discover that the pipes did not reach all the way to the ground. Water splashed over my boots and onto the floor, before slowly dribbling down the drain. What a mess! While I was looking around for a mop, Ghost came over and began to chuckle: “Oh, yeah, don’t use that sink. It needs fixing.”
*
Money Shot, a tall, lanky man in his late thirties, stalked out of the team office, ready to take me on my excursion. I asked him what type of equipment we needed, and my tour guide replied that we’d be fine with only our pistols. There were so many military and civilian security personnel in the Green Zone that high-powered rifles weren’t required. Pistols tucked in under our shirts, we jumped into one of the team cars and headed off.
Money Shot drove us to the infamous Victory Arch: two sets of huge bronze hands holding crossed swords. This was where Saddam had held ceremonial parades with his army. We idled near the entrance, and I could see helmets cemented into the plinths on which the bronze hands rested. The helmets – 2500-odd on each of the four plinths, so Money Shot said – had belonged to fallen Iranian soldiers killed in the First Persian Gulf War.
The parade ground was so wide and so long that the team regularly used it as somewhere to practise their formation driving, blocking drills, handbrake turns and reverse 180-degree turns. It was the best and probably the only place you could practise high-speed driving in the Green Zone, but I was new to the country and extremely suspicious: it would be the perfect place to sit and gather intelligence.
If I was hired to assassinate someone, the first thing I would do is study their security team. Training in an open and public area, such as the Victory Arch, would make the job easy. Having observed the team’s training and reaction to attack drills, I’d be able to come up with a counter plan. I didn’t know what the chances were of an insurgent actually breaching the Green Zone’s perimeter. Less than a month before I’d arrived, the marketplace had been blown up – killing one person and injuring five others – so it was not impossible.
We drove past the military hospital and the US Embassy – housed in one of Saddam’s old palaces – on our way to the gym and PX store. This was the hub of Green Zone life. We walked into the gymnasium and my jaw dropped. There were treadmills, cross trainers, weights and stretching rooms. Large gleaming mirrors lined the walls and there were refrigerators stocked with bottled water for patrons. There were clean, fresh sweat towels everywhere and a sound system pumped electronic music. The gym was as good as any back home. The only ID I’d need to get into the gym was a passport or a US Department of Defense (DOD) card. Here was somewhere I could run: it would be a great stress reliever.
The PX store was small, but had all the essential items: toiletries, magazines, washing powder, combat equipment and clothing. It also sold sweets and chocolates, but if you didn’t make it to the store on the day they were put on the shelf, you missed out. Talk about the quick and the hungry.
The next and most important part of the tour was the Baghdad Convention Center and the Al Rasheed Hotel, which were located on opposite sides of the same street. We had to pass through numerous security checkpoints before being allowed to enter the hotel car park. From there, we walked to the Convention Center.
The Convention Center was where our clients worked but in order for me to access it, I’d need an identification (ID) pass. I quickly learnt that life as a security contractor was all about ID passes: the more you had, the higher your status. The power of the ID pass was immense: it dictated your ability to do your job, provided greater access to the military services that made life easier, and could even determine your employability.
A DOD card was the golden ticket. It allowed you tasty American military meals, you could use their top-of-the-line gym and recreation facilities and, most importantly, it ensured priority access through security checkpoints. No DOD pass meant you had to line up at checkpoints with the plebs, which left you at greater risk of being blown up or shot at by insurgent forces.
I didn’t have a DOD card, but the rest of the team did. They had stopped issuing those cards to our team once they realised that our contract did not fall under the auspices of the Department of Defense. The guys still retained their cards, but I would have to make do with my passport. The ID card I was after now was the Convention Center (CC) card, which would allow me free access to both the Convention Center and the Al Rasheed Hotel.
Although it was easy enough to get the CC card, it was more difficult to secure its ‘extra benefits’. These privileges included being able to escort visitors into the complex and being permitted to drive a vehicle right up to the entrance of the building. The ability to drive a client right up to the front of the building made for a far more secure drop-off and ensured the team looked very professional. Without this access, we’d have to park in the general car park, and schlep our clients the 300 metres to their workplace.
Money Shot led the way to the badging office. There, he spoke to an imposing six-foot-four American army officer who was not keen on giving away ‘special access’ too easily. Money Shot used all his charm and wit to persuade the officer to change his mind. Eventually, Captain America relented, and I was given my CC card with full privileges.
I placed my card into my ID cardholder. In the Green Zone, you had to have your identification on display at all time. Without it, you risked being arrested by the military police and detained until you could prove who you were – not a fun way to spend an afternoon. I hung my ID cardholder around my neck like a medal and followed Money Shot to the hotel.
It was way past lunchtime and I was starving. After passing through yet more security checkpoints and unloading our pistols, at last we made it into the Al Rasheed Hotel. It housed mostly UN personnel who were all working towards the same thing as our clients: a safe and fair election. I was told they were only occupying certain floors of that building. The higher the floor, the greater the chance it had of being severely damaged in a mortar attack.
We weren’t there to talk to the UN personnel. The Al Rasheed Hotel had a military food hall, and our CC cards gave us access to it. I could not believe what I saw when I entered the hall. There were tables laden with breakfast cereals, fruits and snack bars. The
fridges were filled with soft drinks, flavoured milk, juices and bottles of water. There was a sandwich bar, a salad bar and a fast-food bar. I didn’t know where to go first. Australian mess facilities just didn’t compare to this. I could see myself enjoying work if lunch was like this every day.
THE NEXT MORNING, my first working with the clients, gave me a sense of how day-to-day business ran. Our team was responsible for picking up the commissioners at their homes and transporting them to their office in the Convention Center. Sometimes our clients coordinated their start timings so that we were able to give them all a lift into work at once. But all too often, they didn’t match up and we’d end up making numerous trips to pick them up. Several clients were staying in temporary digs out in the Red Zone while they waited for their Green Zone accommodation to be refurbished. They were in no hurry to move, as they didn’t believe they were in any serious danger. I wish I could have felt the same certainty. Thankfully, the team was only contracted to pick up those clients living in the Green Zone, which at the time, was two out of the nine of them.
After accompanying the commissioners to their office, team members sat at a nearby security desk so that, if anything happened, they could respond quickly. If the clients had to go anywhere – for meetings, even just out for lunch – they had to have an escort. At any one time, there were four team members rostered on to look after the clients. Two team members would man the desk, while the other two had a ‘rest’. It was one hour on, one hour off. I was assured this made for long and boring days. There were a couple of computer ports near the desk so, if the guys brought their laptops, they could at least access the internet. At the end of each day, the team was responsible for driving the clients back home.
Our team’s procedures dictated that two vehicles must always be used when transporting a client. One vehicle carried a driver, a bodyguard and the client, and the other, used as the security vehicle, was occupied by a driver and a shooter. Those in the security vehicle would watch for any suspicious activity and provide extra manpower should any shit go down. The threat in the Green Zone was deemed to be low, so there were no advance vehicles or CAT vehicles involved in these pick-ups. As only four people were out on security picquet at any time, those who weren’t rostered for duty with the clients stayed at the team house and trained, watched movies, took care of personal admin or, if there were team members or clients to pick up or drop off at Baghdad airport, went on BIAP runs.
I couldn’t help but think about what I would do differently if I were commanding my own team. If I’d had more resources available on my team than the two vehicles and four client escorts, then I would have used them. We picked up the clients in full combat uniform. We wore armoured vests, brought large amounts of ammunition in our chest webbing and carried our rifles. If the threat was high enough that we came prepared for a major firefight, surely it was high enough to justify using a full team.
But I was still thinking as an officer, not as a contractor. I reasoned that I wasn’t privy to the sort of threat analysis or intelligence reports that others on the team were. The team leaders had been in Baghdad for a long time; surely they knew what they were doing.
*
For my first client pick-up I was designated the position of driver, luckily behind the wheel of the security vehicle, not the client vehicle. Baloo was stuck being the client’s driver. No one liked that job. As the client’s driver, you had to be so careful and responsible. There was no sharp braking or cool tactical driving, only changing gears as smoothly as possible and making gentle turns.
There were plenty of speed humps in the Green Zone – and when I say speed humps, I should really say ‘speed mountains’. They were huge, designed to slow down big army vehicles, such as Humvees. The only way to negotiate them in an elderly BMW was to come at them diagonally, driving very slowly. Failure to do so resulted in a disparaging comment about your driving ability from the client, one hell of a jolt on the descent and the undercarriage of your car having the shit scraped out of it. As the driver of the security vehicle, you could drive any way you wanted. As long as you kept up with the client vehicle and protected it, you were golden.
We arrived at one of the clients’ houses around 6.30 a.m. The street looked shabby; everything was covered with dirt and sand. Neighbouring houses had been partially knocked down by shells and there were some building works going on down the road. I stopped my car behind the client vehicle, and Spitfire, my teammate, got out and took up a fire position (a position that provided a good vantage point yet still offered protection from enemy fire).
I stayed in the vehicle, with the engine running and the car in gear. I scanned the road for anything untoward. Meanwhile, Ronin went to get the client and brought him back to his car. Ronin was a friendly Canadian with a great sense of humour. He was an ex–Canadian and British forces soldier who had only recently finished up a contract in Afghanistan, where he’d been working with Spitfire. I liked him as soon as I’d met him.
I followed Ronin’s vehicle to the Convention Center and pulled up outside the entrance. Spitfire jumped out of my vehicle and Ronin exited his, escorting the client up to his office while Baloo and I parked our vehicles. After Baloo and I had joined the guys upstairs, Spitfire took me around the Convention Center, showing me the areas I hadn’t seen the previous day, leaving the other two to man the security desk.
First, I was shown where all the commissioners worked. The only client in the office was the fellow we’d just picked up. I said hello and introduced myself. He was the head of all the commissioners, so we referred to him as ‘Number One’. The other eight commissioners had not yet arrived for work, as they were starting at different times and didn’t need us to pick them up. In Iraq, punctuality doesn’t hold much cultural value. It didn’t take long to realise that whenever someone said they would be at a certain place at a certain time, I had to clarify whether it was ‘Iraqi time’ or ‘our time’.
Next, Spitfire showed me the evacuation route should we ever have to get the clients out of the Convention Center in a hurry. There were numerous twists, turns, stairwells and corridors before we found ourselves outside. I doubted I would remember the route after one walk-through. After retracing our steps, I checked the time: nearly an hour had passed. We went back to the security desk to relieve Baloo and Ronin.
Talking with Spitfire made the time at the desk by go quickly. He was an ex–British Special Forces soldier who had been in the security contractor business for a while. Over the next hour, Spitfire offered a couple of insider tips on how to get by. He said you had to start looking for your next job as soon as you’d signed your current contract. It all came down to networking: that was how you’d find out which contracts were up for grabs, where they’d be happening and which companies were involved. The more people you made friends with, the better your chance of being offered another job when your contract ended. And contracts ended all the time.
Sometimes your contract would just expire, sometimes you were fired for one reason or another, and sometimes you’d just get to the point where you had to move on. If the person running your team didn’t like you, it was likely that you’d get sacked at some stage. It didn’t matter how good you were at the work: it all ran on personalities. Spitfire said it was all too easy to clash with someone, only to find yourself having to look for a new job. There were so many thundering egos and differing cultures that conflict was inevitable. I thanked Spitfire for the heads-up, not knowing how handy it would prove to be later on.
Still, all this seemed foreign to me. It did my head in thinking about an industry in which conflict was so ingrained. In the army, a good leader would identify those differences, deal with any issues before they became intractable, and then bind all the members together to make a formidable team. A good leader would identify people’s flaws and work on turning them around. They would recognise team members’ strengths and make the most of them in achieving the mission.
We finished up at about
5 p.m. After dropping Number One back at his house, we drove home, arriving just in time for an orders group. An orders group is a meeting where the leaders pass on information pertaining to the following day’s activities. It is also the forum whereby the team is able to raise important issues as well. We quietly joined the rest of team in the lounge room and listened in. Our project manager, Sim, was running through our tasks for the next couple of days; it all sounded fairly routine. He also mentioned that a major task was coming up, but there was something in his tone that struck me as odd, as though he was uncomfortable at the idea. Sim was an ex–Aussie special forces officer, and I trusted him implicitly. Then Sim announced that there’d be a barbecue that night, which we were all to attend. The company was supplying free food and booze for everyone.
It was a Thursday night, and I thought organising a piss-up on a weeknight was strange. Ghost explained that the Iraqi week ran from Sunday to Thursday; Friday and Saturday were the weekend. It felt peculiar to be drinking in a war zone, though. I was still green from my time in the army, where drinking on operations is a big no-no. I reminded myself that I was a civilian now. So I followed suit.
THE BARBECUE WAS on the rooftop of the company’s headquarters in an adjacent street. We all walked over together. On the rooftop a huge spit roast was cooking in the corner. There was an Esky full of beer, and Ghost handed me a can as soon as I arrived. All around me were men drinking like it was their last day on Earth.