Hunting Down Saddam

by Robin Moore

  A SCORE TO SETTLE

  Two years after George W. Bush was inaugurated president of the United States, the antagonistic relations that had been smoldering between the United States and Iraq finally burst into incandescence. On March 20, 2003, at 2045 hours EST, President George W. Bush’s Gulf War Two, or GW2 as it was informally dubbed, lit up the desert skies and the sprawling Iraqi capital of Baghdad, becoming full-fledged declared war.

  Earlier that day, at 0545 hours local Iraq time, President Bush covertly sent five Special Forces ODAs (Operational Detachment Alpha) from the 10th SFG (Special Forces Group)—stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado—into northern Iraq. At the same time, he sent the 5th SFG (A), accompanied by the Florida National Guard, from Kuwait into the western desert of Iraq, and revved up the Air Force to maximum capacity. At last, the president of the United States would put an end to the Iraqi threat.

  The U.S.-led coalition had forced Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait during the first Gulf War, but the coalition stopped short of going into Baghdad after a badly defeated Iraqi Army streamed home. The senior George Bush said that the United Nations, under whose mandate the American military was operating, had only called for removing Saddam from Kuwait, not for removing the dictator from his own country.

  Ten years later, his son, George W. Bush, realized that Saddam was indeed plotting mass destruction of his enemies in Middle Eastern and world affairs. And Saddam was acquiring the weapons of mass destruction to do just that—almost daily, the White House received ominous warnings.

  Through Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa, cargo planes were landing for refueling and maintenance. Spies from Somalia, with leanings toward the United States, warned that there was at least one transport aircraft landing in Djibouti each week, from Russia. These planes were landing with large refrigeration systems, which had to be attached to ground electrical systems to keep them working. One crew member was watching at all times, to make sure the refrigeration units were operative.

  This could only mean that radioactive and nuclear substances were being transported. These shipments were being paid for with large amounts of U.S. dollars originating from Saddam’s oil-smuggling operations based in Basra, Iraq’s Arabian Gulf port. The administration could no longer risk standing by until Saddam was able to launch a nuclear weapon toward any part of the world.

  Special Forces Groups left the United States over a week before, scheduled to fly into Iraq. They were planning to take off from the large airbase the United States had rebuilt in Kosovo, the former Yugoslavian military headquarters brought down by NATO. The 10th Special Forces Group ended up leaving for Iraq from Constanta, Romania, that very day.

  Special Forces Companies, or B-Teams (ODBs), are comprised of a group of A-Teams under them, much like the Army has platoons. One Company Commander—generally a major—has up to six A-Teams or ODAs in his command. SGM (Sergeant Major) Tim Strong was the noncommissioned officer in charge of the B-Team, comprising the five A-Teams of this first expeditionary force of Green Berets to openly invade northern Iraq. The five ODAs were not all from the same company. SGM Tim Strong and his B-Team were only the skeleton of the company that would soon be augmented by thousands of native Kurdish tribesmen. Known as Peshmerga, the Kurd warriors were indigenous to the mountainous area in the north of Iraq, and almost immune to the raids of ordinary Iraqi soldiers. They collectively hated the lowlanders whose leader, Saddam Hussein, and his cousin, “Chemical Ali,” had launched the gas attack that had killed thousands of Kurds in the late 1980s.

  Before the five A-Teams could go into action against the Iraqis, they had to reach their destination as quietly as possible, and meet up with the awaiting Peshmerga and their commander of the Irbil sector, General Mustafa.

  * * *

  In England, at Biggin Hill, an airbase about forty miles north of London, LTC (Lieutenant Colonel) Mark Alsid was one of the pilots who fly the particularly dangerous and most difficult missions the U.S. Air Force has to offer, as part of the 352nd Special Operations Group (SOG). This was to be no exception. Alsid took off from Constanta, Romania, with four other American pilots, each piloting a huge MC-130 transport filled with crew and supplies to be used by the A-Teams.

  At the same time, units from the Florida National Guard were waiting to cross from Kuwait into southern Iraq, and start the march to Baghdad. Also waiting in the wings for their cue into Iraq were the British Royal Marines, Parabats (Parachute Battalions) and Tank Regiment—their job being to control the southern port of Basra and secure the route past it for the Florida National Guard, who would head up to Baghdad. With everything prepared and ready, the forces poised to invade Iraq had nothing to do but wait—a common malaise at the beginning of wartime action.

  While the Special Forces were waiting for the “green light,” or go-ahead, the intelligence contingents were scratching their heads, wondering if they could perhaps knock out Saddam Hussein and prove he’d been killed—thus ending the war before it started.

  As the 10th Group ODAs waited with their pilots, ready to fly, a top-secret group made up of Special Forces and Delta Force was on patrol inside of Baghdad, hoping to determine Saddam Hussein’s exact location. As they interrogated their assets regarding the dictator’s present whereabouts, they finally got a break—a clue as to where Saddam was at that very moment. They learned he was most likely deep down in the subbasement structure of the house of a Ba’ath Party general, a veritable underground fortress and bomb shelter, with fifty-foot-deep roots. Relaying the information to call in Close Air Support (CAS) attachments, the Special Forces intelligence group moved as far away from the target area as possible. No one wanted to be taken out by friendly fire or stray bombs dropped by their own planes before the war even began.

  Task Force 20 (the super-secret Special Operations Task Force with one purpose: hunting down Saddam and his henchmen) gave the go-ahead, and a two-thousand-pound smart bomb was dropped from an F-117/A Nighthawk, directly onto the house where Saddam was suspected to be hiding. The entire city shook as the JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munitions) bomb hit and exploded after penetrating close to one hundred feet into the ground.

  If the dictator was in or near the building that was destroyed, he would never be seen again.

  And this was the problem. It appeared that Saddam might well have been killed and his body destroyed beyond all recognition—in fact, it seemed probable that this was the case. But where, then, was the all-important proof? Within a day, possible Saddam look-alikes began to appear. There was simply no telling whether he was alive or not, and thus Saddam’s army was itself doubtful whether to resist the anticipated invasion, or to give up and surrender, saving their lives.

  For days following the bombing, Iraqi officials were effectively doing their job, broadcasting that Hussein was alive and well. This type of propaganda continued throughout the war. Later, Baghdad Bob, a self-appointed spokesman and ultimately a spot of comic relief, joined the fray, reporting to Iraqi citizens and the rest of the world that not only was Saddam Hussein alive and well, but that there were absolutely no Americans or any foreign troops in Baghdad. Directly behind him and all around him, American and British tanks and troops proved otherwise.

  TASK FORCE VIKING

  Concede Nothing

  On March 20, 2003, at 1930 hours local Iraq time, five MC-130 “Combat Talon” transport planes from the U.S. Air Force’s 352nd Special Operations Group lifted off from a runway in Constanta, Romania. The first three specially modified transport planes held members of the 10th SFG (A), the last two were loaded with members of the 3rd Battalion, SFG (A).

  All were now part of the same task force, the “Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force–North,” or CJSOTF-N. For security, the planes split into two groups, and flew different routes. The first three Talons flew a tedious, low-level, three-and-a-half-hour route, nicknamed “The Ugly Baby,” north along the Syrian–Iraq border before banking east and into the northern tip of Iraq.

  The three p
lanes were cross-loaded with half of the members of five ODAs (Operational Detachment Alpha, or A-Teams) on each plane, and half of a B-Team, or ODB, on each plane, along with the B-Team’s communication augmentation and equipment. Altogether, there were about sixty A-Team operators and fourteen to sixteen B-Team members. If one of the birds went down, only a part of each A-Team and a part of the B-Team would be lost.

  Correspondingly, the commander of the newly formed CJSOTF-N, COL (Colonel) Charles Cleveland, flew in the first MC-130, and the Company SGM Tim Strong followed behind in the second. Keeping the commander and the sergeant major on separate planes was part of the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for Special Forces.

  Task Force VIKING

  CJSOTF-N, or Task Force VIKING, was comprised of members of the 3rd and 10th Special Forces Groups (Airborne). They infiltrated into northern Iraq through two routes: The “Ugly Baby,” through Turkey into the As-Sulaymaniyah region, and through “SAM Alley,” along the Syria-Iraq border, into the Duhok Airfield, northeast of Mosul. Courtesy: CIA World Factbook 2003

  CJSOTF-N was code-named Task Force VIKING. Their motto was “Concede Nothing.” They would live up to that name in the weeks to come. True to their fearless credo, one of TF VIKING’s fire bases—a temporary front-lines camp where Special Forces soldiers live while in their AO (Area of Operations)—Fire Base Zeb, had a cardboard sign fashioned by a Green Beret from ODA 065 that read:

  “WE’RE 065 AND THIS IS AS FAR AS THOSE BASTARDS ARE GOING!”

  SAM Alley

  The 352nd Special Operations Group’s adept pilots flew the “Ugly Baby” route from Constanta, Romania, totally blacked out, with no lights at all, first along Jordan’s border, then along the Syria–Iraq border, before banking straight east into northern Iraq into what SF operators deemed “SAM Alley.” SAMs, or surface-to-air missiles, were one of the main concerns during the white-knuckled infiltration into Iraq.

  AAA (anti-aircraft artillery) soon became the bigger concern, as battery after battery of enemy AAA guns fired salvos of shells at the MC-130s as they flew along SAM Alley. The Air Force pilots’ quick-thinking solution was to dive the plane low to the ground, bringing the Talons’ flight paths under the Iraqi AAA guns’ arc of fire. Once raised into position, one SF operator explained, the enemy artillery pieces could not be quickly lowered, so their arcs of fire went right over the top of the MC-130s.

  “How we survived that triple-A fire, we’ll never know, to this day,” SGM Tim Strong later recalled.

  The first MC-130 to cross the Iraqi radar screens along “SAM Alley” set off the warning systems on Iraqi radar. The AAA began to fire, and the second plane flew under the arc of the guns. The third plane was not so lucky, as the anti-aircraft gunners finally zeroed in.

  The third Combat Talon was hit by flak from one of seven batteries of Iraqi AAA flak as it flew through Iraqi airspace north of Mosul. The pilot rerouted to Turkey for an emergency landing, with more than forty holes in the aircraft’s skin, the largest over a foot and a half in diameter. Luckily, all forty-eight of the crippled MC-130’s passengers safely landed in Turkey.

  The first and second MC-130s made it all the way past Mosul and into Bashir airfield unscathed. The 10th Special Forces Group’s commander, now the commander of CJSOTF-N, recalled that at the time, he had no way of knowing the status of the other two MC-130s of the group, which were assigned to 3rd Battalion, 10th SFG (A) and infiltrated into Iraq along a new flight path to different coordinates. The rumor had been that they also made it into Iraq in one piece; thankfully this proved to be true. Their planes were destined for As-Sulaymaniyah to the east, where they landed without incident.

  Three ODAs, including ODA 043 and ODA 045, were already inside Iraq and had linked up with Kurdish Irbil sector commander General Mustafa, when the last two birds touched down, bringing the strength of 10th SFG (A) in northwestern Iraq up to 108 men, a total of nine A-Teams, of a dozen Green Berets each. ODA 043 and ODA 045 later became a QRF (Quick Reaction Force) that could be called in to back up another A-Team if they were overwhelmed. They also had the secondary function as a Combat Reconnaissance Force (CRF). As a CRF, they would be called upon for their firepower more than a few times in the following days of battle. As a CRF, ODA 043 and ODA 045 would do reconnaissance missions of enemy positions in their armed Land Rovers and call in CAS.

  The ODAs were also supplemented by Air Force Combat Controllers. An Air Force Combat Controller is a single Air Force man attached to an A-Team for the purpose of bringing the bombs in precisely on target. This brought the total strength of Task Force VIKING to twenty ODAs in northern Iraq.

  General Mustafa

  After touching down on their Landing Zone (LZ) at Bashir airfield at approximately 0130 hours on March 23, the five newly arrived A-Teams and their Operational Detachment B-Team (ODB) loaded into the waiting vehicles and began a long, grueling drive along winding mountain roads to General Mustafa’s compound, northeast of Irbil.

  There, in the dawn’s early light, they discussed their first moves with Mustafa and his commanders. Most of the men had yet to see the country they had just invaded. Within hours of this first meeting, the A-Teams moved out to the battlefield to join the Peshmerga guerrilla warriors in their defensive positions, known as TAIs, or Targeted Areas of Interdiction.

  In Kurdish culture, the name Peshmerga means “ready to die,” or “those who face death.” The Peshmerga are a faction of Kurdish people indigenous to northern Iraq and Kurdistan. Historical records make note of the Kurds as far back as 3000 B.C. Even in those early times, they had a reputation as fierce warriors, though largely in the context of defending their own territory. The Peshmerga (or “Pesh,” as the Green Berets took to calling them) belong to one of two key political groups in northern Iraq: the KDP, or Kurdistan Democratic Party (largely in the western Kurdish Autonomous Zone, where the 2nd BN 10th SFG were located), and the PUK, or Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (largely in the eastern Kurdish Autonomous Zone, where the 3rd BN 10th SFG were located). The KDP and the PUK, on and off again at war with each other, are now united in opposition to Saddam’s regime.

  The Peshmerga under General Mustafa’s command were only too glad to join the Special Forces in the efforts to oust the dictator who had wreaked such harm upon them. As one 10th Group operator recalled: “General Mustafa ran the whole sector, so we co-located with [him]. That way we could basically do a combined campaign with the Kurds. [Mustafa] set us up, and had no problem giving us whatever support we needed.”

  General Mustafa was a quiet, soft-spoken man, and when the Green Berets first linked up with him, some were unsure if he was the right guy. But they soon learned that behind Mustafa’s soft-spoken demeanor stood thousands of battle-hardened fighters who would fight and die for him and for the Green Berets of TF VIKING.

  General Mustafa had been an Iraqi POW for six years and had no fond feelings toward Saddam and his regime. According to the SF operators who dealt with him, Mustafa was a very scrupulous and honorable man. And the Special Operators on the ground made it clear that the Kurds were a great and invaluable asset. When the Green Berets asked for their support, the Kurds would show up, almost always without hesitation and with little in the way of negotiations—ready and willing.

  By dinnertime (1800) on March 23, the ODAs were already in place with their new Pesh allies on the hilltops of northern Iraq. One such A-Team, ODA 056, linked up with the Peshmerga on a hilltop OP (Observation Post) named “Hill 725.” ODA 056’s team leader (a captain), its assistant detachment commander (a warrant officer), and team sergeant (a master sergeant) conducted a leader’s recon to determine their plan of attack. Because of the extremely muddy terrain on the hill, the rest of the ODA turned their SUVs around and headed back to Duhok.

  During the night, a nearby Peshmerga checkpoint was hit with two incoming Iraqi artillery rounds, but it was already clear that the Coalition was attacking in full force: Mosul, the northern Iraqi stronghold, was lit up by America
n bombing runs that were clearly visible in the distance to the west, to the A-Teams in Duhok.

  At 0500, the next morning, March 24, the Special Operators of Task Force VIKING began calling in CAS (close air support) on Iraqi positions near the Peshmerga’s defensive lines, from the top of Hill 725. It took a great deal of convincing to get General Mustafa to understand the magnitude of the technology and firepower that the Special Forces could wield in the form of CAS and man-portable Javelin Weapons Systems.

  At first, General Mustafa and his staff thought that with just a few handfuls of Green Berets the Iraqi armor units would just roll right over them if they tried to mount an offensive. But soon, General Mustafa had his first taste of U.S. firepower in action. In the Irbil sector, the 2nd BN 10th SFG called in two American F/A-18 Hornets. Their mission was to clear the ridgeline overlooking the Northwest Irbil Airfield to allow the unimpeded flow of military and humanitarian aid. The F/A-18s dropped two five-hundred-pound bombs on the enemy positions, killing eight Iraqis and wounding sixteen.

  Later in the day, in the eastern sector, ODA 056 spotted enemy troop movements and positions to the north of the town of Ayn Sifni from their hilltop OP. But by that time, winds were gusting fiercely between 15 and 30 knots, and the weather grew cold and overcast. The next three days were even cloudier, and CAS was ruled out completely until March 29.

  April Fool’s Day

  Good weather for the Green Berets and their CAS missions was vital. Clouds, rain, and fog lead to poor visibility; heavy winds could affect accuracy. As demonstrated in the following excerpt from an ODA’s daily BDA (Bomb Damage Assessment) journal, the correlation between weather and success is a strong one. It is particularly evident on April 1, when the Special Forces had the chance to target hundreds of Iraqi soldiers at once, had only the weather permitted.