by Jim Proser
The final opportunity to avoid the bloodbath that Conway and Mattis now face is squandered by Washington’s attempt to justify its main reason for the war—WMD. Thousands of weapons experts, translators, and other specialists, along with all their support personnel, divert attention and resources from addressing the mushrooming insurgency to finding any scrap of evidence of nuclear or biological weapons.
One senior military intelligence officer argues for a simple, effective, and inexpensive project to identify the emerging opposition in Fallujah by simply translating the list already in the Army’s possession of Fallujans who have volunteered for suicide missions against Israel. From this document it would then be just basic police work to map each of these men’s houses and visit them. But, the officer will later recall, he couldn’t even get the list translated; all the Army’s assets were focused on WMD.
Saddam’s air force second in command, General Georges Sada, who knew of commercial airliners ferrying Saddam’s WMD to Damascus, Syria, just before the 2003 invasion, later gave an American television interview on Fox News, stating, “Well, I want to make it clear, very clear to everybody in the world that we had the weapon[s] of mass destruction in Iraq, and the regime used them against our Iraqi people. . . . I know it because I have got the captains of the Iraqi airway [air force] that were my friends, and they told me these weapons of mass destruction had been moved to Syria. Iraq had some projects for nuclear weapons but it was destroyed in 1981.”33
So while Washington’s inspectors scour the country looking for nonconventional weapons that don’t exist, they are increasingly attacked with conventional weapons that do. This fact is ignored, until Fallujah.
In spite of what some see as a mishandling of the northern provinces by the US Army, Mattis still seems to believe that the Marines will be able to restore order. He relies largely on the Small Wars Manual, a critical item in the reading he demands of every Marine before returning to Iraq. In its fifteen chapters is a blueprint for tactical operations based on four decades of Marines fighting insurgencies and small wars throughout South and Central America, the “Banana Wars.” He tells his men, as they prepare to fight again in Iraq, “This [Anbar] is the right place for Marines in this fight, where we can carry on the legacy of Chesty Puller in the Banana Wars in the same sort of complex environment.”34
In Iraq, as the time to execute Mattis’s plan approaches, he issues a fragmentary order, officially titled “Fallujah Opening Gambit,” though it is known throughout the division as the “First 15 Plays.”35 It outlines a carefully integrated approach of using combat operations with focused, informed civil improvements like repairing schools and farm irrigation systems, providing fresh municipal water, and removing trash. He reminds his men over and over again, “Remember, Iraqis aren’t your enemy, don’t let the insurgents make you think that. The people are the prize.”36 And, regarding the insurgents, “There is only one retirement plan for terrorists.”37
0930 Hours—31 March 2004—Fallujah
Morning traffic jostles along the divided four lanes of Route 10 in typical Iraqi fashion, with drivers laying on the horn as they weave in and out of traffic at speed. A five-vehicle convoy, three empty Mercedes-Benz flatbed trucks and two Mitsubishi Pajero sport utility vehicles, are on the way to service the KBR concessions at Camp Fallujah and then on to Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi. At a checkpoint at the Fallujah city line, the procession stops. A weary Iraqi police officer glances in at the driver of the lead SUV, Wes Batalona, ex-military, now private security for Blackwater USA, and waves him on. Blackwater USA is the security firm subcontracted by KBR to escort its vehicles as they pick up trash and deliver supplies to American bases. With Batalona is Scott Helvenston, former SEAL. In the following SUV is Jerry Zovko, retired from the Eighty-Second Airborne, and Michael Teague, a Bronze Star recipient for his bravery in Afghanistan.38
Beyond the checkpoint, the contractors creep along as four lanes become two lanes through the center of town. They pass the main police station and compound of the city council, formerly the impressive Ba’ath Party headquarters, now graffiti-strewn and in need of repair. The inhospitable reputation of Fallujah is immediately apparent in the flinty stares and curses directed at the convoy. There are no smiling children yelling for cookies, as the Americans might have found in Ramadi. If they had checked with Blue Diamond beforehand, they might have avoided taking Route 10 into the scarred heart of the Sunni insurgency. Messages fly from cell phone to cell phone down Route 10 in front of the men.
Traffic comes to a complete stop among the small shops on either side of the street. Suddenly, young men run from the shadows inside the shops. Batalona and the others have no time to reach for their automatic weapons before the insurgents are upon them, spraying both unarmored SUVs with AK-47 automatic fire. Three of the four men are riddled with bullets and die instantly. One of the Americans staggers out and falls to the ground, to be beaten, stabbed, and then dismembered in the street.39 A crowd of about three hundred men, women, and children gathers around the gory celebration, chanting “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!” as a young boy runs up with a can of gasoline, douses the SUVs, and joins in the dancing while flames engulf the Americans’ bodies. The charred remains are then dragged through the streets and strung up from the trestle bridge over the Euphrates that the Americans call the Brooklyn Bridge.
At Blue Diamond Division headquarters, Mattis’s chief of staff, Joe Dunford, gets a call from General Conway’s I MEF headquarters, according to Bing West in his book No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah. The MEF officer tells Dunford, “Baghdad has reports of Americans killed in Fallujah. What are you getting?”40
Dunford walks from his office into the operations center, where video from a surveillance drone tracks a mob swarming around two smoking vehicles, red flames leaping from the burning tires. On another screen, live satellite TV, either Al Jazeera or Al Arabiya, shows Iraqi men and boys stomping on a charred and shriveled body.
Dunford reaches Mattis in the field by radio: “A mob in Fallujah has killed some American contractors. It looks like a scene from Somalia. Baghdad [US Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the Joint Task Force commander in charge of all coalition forces] wants us to go in.”
Mattis and Dunford discuss the situation. “What’s your take?” asks Mattis.
“The contractors are dead. If we go in to get their bodies, we’ll have to kill hundreds, including kids. Captain Sullivan says the police chief promises to return the bodies. I recommend we stay out.”
“Where does the MEF stand?”
“General Conway thinks we should let the mob exhaust itself.”
“That’s it, then. Rushing in makes no sense.”41
In Fallujah, the celebrations continue, and the crowds grow. The crowds shout in unison as women ululate in glee, “Viva mujahideen!”—Long live the resistance!42
A news crew from Al Jazeera, reporter Ahmed Mansur and cameraman Laith Mushtaq, film the uproar as Mansur comments on the great victory of the mujahideen over the invaders. Bing West reports on the scene:
Crowds in the souk and along the highway were swept up in the murderous atmosphere. No police tried to restore order; no fire truck put out the flames smoldering around the SUVs; no ambulance came for the bodies. When two Iraqi nurses tried to take the bodies to a hospital, they were told to leave or be shot. At dusk the remains of three bodies were dumped in a cart pulled by a gray donkey for a final triumphal haul down Highway 10. Men and boys followed the cart yelling. “Shwaretek!” (Americans, you’ve lost your nerve!).43
* * *
The horrific images are broadcast that evening in America on all major networks. Floods of calls and emails pour through communication lines in Washington.
In Ramadi, the Marines are saddened but not fazed by the senseless killings. They are, after all, at war, and they know full well that senseless killing is a part of it. Nothing has changed. They will execute their plan to win over the p
eople of Fallujah and Anbar with strength, service, and resolve. Dunford writes an email to the media, intended to calm and reassure all Americans that justice will be done in regard to the contractors and that Iraq is not coming apart, in spite of what they’ve just seen on the evening news. “We’re not going to overreact to today’s violence,” he writes. “We have a methodology of patient, persistent presence. We will identify who was responsible, and in cooperation with Iraqi security forces, we will kill them.”44
But in Baghdad, Joint Task Force commander Sanchez wants immediate, highly visible retaliation. And so does Washington. Democrats in Congress take advantage of the situation and attack Bush’s war policy; it’s only seven months to election time. Secretary Rumsfeld demands action in a video teleconference with Sanchez: “We’ve got to pound these guys. This is also a good opportunity for us to push the Sunnis on the Governing Council [the future government of Iraq] to step forward and condemn this attack, and we’ll remember those who do not. It’s time for them to choose. They are either with us or against us.” Sanchez goes at I MEF commander Conway, suggesting that they bomb the Brooklyn Bridge.45
Conway rejects that option—they need the bridge to run convoys. Sanchez comes back, “All right then, bomb the computer shop.”46
The Marines decline because of the presence of children at the email café.47 Plus, they don’t want to burn the records; they want to read them.
Sanchez tries again: “Well, bomb the compound on the Euphrates.”
Conway explains that families live there, and the ringleaders might not be home when the bombs fall. He suggests that Sanchez “go sit down and think about it.”
Sanchez is furious. He gets off the phone. Bing West reports on Sanchez’s reaction, “‘Write an order for the Marines to attack,’ General Sanchez told his staff, ‘and I don’t mean any fucking knock-before-search, touchy-feely stuff.’”48
Of course, this is the exact opposite of Mattis’s approach.49 Once again thinking outside the box—or, more exactly, thinking inside and outside the box of military doctrine simultaneously—Mattis prepared a civilian kid-glove response to Iraqi civilian attacks within an active war zone even before leaving Camp Pendleton. After his lightning-fast sweep across southern Iraq earlier in the year, a friend asked him how he was able to conceive of the First Marine Division’s multiple maneuvers against Baghdad. He replied, “I visualized the battlefield.”50 He made everyone else visualize the battlefield as well by creating a topographical map to scale and having commanders walk through the campaign with him as he narrated each maneuver.
Then, as he prepared his division to return to Iraq a second time, he was able to understand cities like Fallujah both as a battlefield and as home to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. He relied on decades-old doctrine in the Small Wars Manual, but also sought out nonmilitary resources, including academics and experts in counterinsurgency, retired Vietnam-era CAP platoons, Marines, and even Los Angeles Police Department detectives. Mattis wants his CAP units to know how to be effective police detectives in a war zone. LAPD detective instructor Ralph Morten, a twenty-seven-year police veteran, said, “When you get down and look at the daily incidents in Iraq, you see so many things that we see as police officers. Investigation, tying cars and bad guys together, forensics, collecting evidence from bombings, shooting, testing people for explosive residue, tracking the electronics . . . all the things we do every day.”51
So Mattis’s Marines learn how to match cars with bad guys, conduct forensics at a crime scene and isolate gang leaders for swift, bloodless captures. Given time, the Marines might have captured or killed all of the Fallujah attackers without further enflaming tensions in the region, saving hundreds of Iraqi and American lives. But time, along with sufficient troops, were things Mattis was not given.
In a video teleconference with Secretary Rumsfeld and CPA head Bremer, General Abizaid presents the plan for Fallujah and states frankly that Central Command agrees with the Marines. “The timing is not right,” he says, “and they haven’t had time to implement their engagement program. We should wait.”52
Rumsfeld shoots back, “No, we’ve got to attack. And we must do more than just get the perpetrators of this Blackwater incident. We need to make sure that Iraqis in other cities receive our message.”
Abizaid realizes the decision has already been made at the White House. He turns over the meeting to General Sanchez to present his non-touchy-feely plan, Operation Vigilant Resolve. The plan’s four objectives are to eliminate Fallujah as a safe haven for Sunni insurgents, eliminate all weapons caches from the city, establish law and order for long-term stability and security, and capture or kill the perpetrators of the Blackwater ambush. The I MEF will lead the effort, joined by elements of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, which is intended to become the new Iraqi Army. Sanchez estimates three to four weeks of intense fighting.53
Abizaid makes one more attempt to buy the Marines time by appealing directly to President Bush. Bush says he appreciates the caution, but then orders the attack. Abizaid and Sanchez acknowledge the order and reaffirm that there will be a lot of collateral damage—in both infrastructure and civilian casualties. They also mention that Al Jazeera is certain to broadcast live reports on the battle that will create major problems in the Arab world. “If we’re going to proceed,” Abizaid advises, “we must be prepared to counter Al Jazeera with a coordinated strategic communications plan.”
Bush replies, “Yes, we understand. We know it’s going to be ugly, but we are committed.”54
“Very well, Mr. President,” says Abizaid. “Then Operation Vigilant Resolve is a go.”55
After the teleconference, Abizaid calls General Conway. “Jim, the decision has been made to execute Vigilant Resolve. We communicated your concerns to the President, but we are launching the offensive anyway.”56
Conway replies, “Okay, General. I don’t like it, but we’re prepared to execute.”57
When Conway tells Mattis, Mattis says, “This is what the enemy wants.”58 Then, likely realizing that once this kind of primitive, brutish gunfight starts, the worst thing you can do in this part of the world is to show weakness by quitting in the middle of it, he adds, “Don’t stop us.”
Mattis makes his final preparations without the normal time needed to insert human intelligence assets or sensors, conduct formal reconnaissance, position sufficient reinforcements, or shape the battle space. This is going to be a down-and-dirty, blood-and-guts shootout between two well-armed, well-led, and highly motivated armies—with the civilians of Fallujah in the middle.
0500 Hours—3 April 2004—Fallujah
Colonel Toolan, commanding Regimental Combat Team 1, begins to surround the city in a cordon of concertina wire and concrete barriers. The cordon will prevent any reinforcements or additional weapons from reaching the insurgents. RCT-1 captures a local radio station and calls in a psyops team to broadcast instructions to residents to remain inside their homes and call American forces at command headquarters to identify foreign fighters and any Fallujans who were involved in the Blackwater deaths. They drop leaflets over the city from helicopters, again reminding residents to stay indoors and call Blue Diamond with information.
General Conway explains that it is part of the overall plan to “drive a wedge between the insurgents and the good people of Iraq.”59
After dark, on Mattis’s signal, Toolan will attack from the northwest and the southeast to quickly cut the heart out of the insurgency by taking the mayor’s complex and military compound in the center of Fallujah. Toolan will then launch a series of raids to capture twenty key individuals that CIA intelligence has linked to the contractor’s ambush. This will bloody the nose of the insurgents and bait the trap.
Toolan will withdraw to the compound in the center of the city, holding as many insurgent leaders as he can catch. These leaders will be the irresistible bait. When the insurgents move out of their fortified positions to take back their city center and free their com
rades, Mattis will spring the trap. He will launch a full-scale assault by 2,500 Marines, supported by AC-130 gunships and attack helicopters overhead, and artillery at close range.
The plan is a complex assault with multiple coordinated maneuvers that relies on understanding the pride and fervor that will drive the enemy out of their fighting holes and into a trap. And it is only the first few of the fifteen moves Mattis has planned. Major General Robert H. Scales, former commander of the Army War College, comments on Mattis and his methods, “He is the product of three decades of schooling and practice in the art of war. No one on active duty knows more about the subject. He is an infantryman, a close-combat Marine. He is one of those few who willingly practices the art of what social scientists term ‘intimate killing.’”60
There is quite a bit of intimate killing expected in Mattis’s plan. And most of ancient, central Fallujah, known as the City of Mosques, is also not expected to survive.
0630 Hours—3 April 2004—Fallujah
As Toolan’s tanks and armored bulldozers clank and groan, building traffic checkpoints and fighting positions around Fallujah, Mattis and the twenty-nine men of the jump platoon that protects him seem to be everywhere, checking every route, alleyway, and fighting position in the city. His rolling LAV command post has been crackling with communications twenty-four hours a day for the past few days as the general personally reviews every detail of the coming offensive. Unfortunately, the command post’s high-powered multichannel communications gear requires a cluster of antennae that sprout from the roof, clearly marking it as a command vehicle to any observer.
The only countermeasure available to obscure the antennae is speed. Mattis’s driver, Lance Corporal Andrew Wike, among other evasive maneuvers, often executes ninety-degree turns at full speed, more than once throwing Mattis against the side of the vehicle. Like all Marines, Mattis’s jump Marines thrive on being in the action. They get plenty of it as they race between the most forward fighting positions and down dangerous streets. As the pace of operations picks up, they frequently roll into active firefights and on several occasions are hit by IEDs. It quickly becomes obvious that riding with the general is exceptionally hazardous duty.