by Robin Moore
At 1935 hours, the force moved out from the assault position and headed due south on Highway 24. The task force sped down unlit roads under a moonless sky at speeds in excess of forty miles an hour. On his digital IVIS display, Hickey watched the icons representing each of the friendly elements down to the Special Operators as they moved along in near-real time. The “blue force” (i.e., “friendly force”) tracking system down-linked the exact locations to his vehicle from satellites in space. Hickey watched calmly as everybody on the screen maneuvered into position. For Bo Bocanegra, who was driving Hickey, the trip down was like a roller-coaster ride, his stomach all knotted up with a feeling of wild excitement. He knew Hickey “liked to be in the middle of stuff—a lead-from-the-front type of guy”— and so he also knew if it turned into a fight he’d be right in the middle of it with him.
As the raiding force moved into the ad Dawr area, it seemed unreal how easily the operation was coming together. Task Force RAIDER’s close relationship with the Special Operations forces and the fact that they’d done a dozen raids together targeting Saddam to this point resulted in the operation coming together rapidly and in a relaxed manner. Everybody knew what they were doing and everything went off exactly on the timeline with an emphasis on surprise built around stealth and speed. It was also strange to be moving back down the same roads and into the same areas U.S. troops had searched only a few weeks before without success. Whether it was the belief that this was the night, or, as American baseball great Yogi Berra called it, just, “Déjà vu all over again,” everyone’s emotions were intensified.
For G Troop the memories weren’t pleasant. On September 18, three of the unit’s vehicles were in the area on a routine patrol and were about to turn out of the palm groves when they were ambushed by nine Iraqis. The Iraqis executed a deadly barrage of five Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG) and a hail of small-arms fire into the vehicles. Fortunately, the patrol had arrived in the area before its scheduled time so the Iraqi ambush wasn’t completely set. Although that surprise kept the enemy from coordinating a full assault, three U.S. soldiers, among them Ribas’ best friend Rich Arriaga, lost their lives unnecessarily as a result of RPG rounds and small arms fired from extremely close range. The memory of the carnage and loss of their close comrades haunted G Troop as they maneuvered toward their objective that night, but it strengthened their resolve that it would never happen again.
Once they arrived near ad Dawr, Hickey set up with the Special Operations headquarters vehicle and tracked the battle from there. The task force’s second assault group was behind him with Terrell in Ribas’ gun truck, co-located with two Bradley Fighting Vehicles as immediate direct fire support if they needed it. Hickey methodically confirmed that all his forces were in position, including the 299th Engineers on the west side of the Tigris, and Alpha Company 1st battalion, 4th Aviation Regiment with their advanced AH-64 Apache attack helicopters reinforcing. Their task was to block any movement across the river. The 4th battalion 42nd Field Artillery Regiment, down in Agwar, secured the outer corridor around the objectives, having surreptitiously moved into position last night. As soon as the assault unit passed through, they sealed off all the roads leading into the objective area. Hickey also had 1st Squadron 10th Cavalry under his control at the time. Hickey had an extremely large force standing by to react to anything Saddam or his supporters might have to come after them with. The area was completely locked down. When asked if what happened next occurred by design or by coincidence, one military source would only say “sometimes things just happen…”
The electricity in the entire area suddenly went out. There was complete darkness, and at precisely 2000 hours, the raid began exactly as planned.
Both objectives were cleared within minutes. Special Operations troops picked up one detainee on WOLVERINE 1, but no Saddam. WOLVERINE 2 was empty. Within a five-kilometer radius of WOLVERINE 1 and WOLVERINE 2, Hickey’s forces tightened their cordon. The Special Operators moved in on a small mud hut in a palm grove just north of WOLVERINE 1.
Through their night vision goggles and thermal sights, soldiers of the 4th ID could see Special Operators moving soundlessly through the dark night to the target. Occasionally, the red beams of laser-aiming lights would reflect off trees and leaves, but it was deathly silent, save for the distant hum of OH-58 Little Birds and other Special Operations aircraft waiting for extraction, reinforcement, or attack. From his position, Saffeels could hear noises in the darkness. He and his fellow soldiers grew “a little jumpy,” waiting for Saddam’s forces. For Bocanegra the scene and all the activity became more intense. The assault force started clearing through the palm groves and came upon a little mud-hut structure with a courtyard. In that courtyard, they heard a noise.
At 2010, with Hickey’s troops sealing off the area, Special Operations forces burst into the hut, a simple construction behind a fence of dried palm leaves. It had been an orange picker’s hut with one room and an open kitchen. They immediately seized one man trying to escape and another man in the hut. As it turned out, one was Saddam’s cook; the other was the cook’s brother and owner of the property.
Inside, they found that the hut consisted of one room with two beds and a refrigerator containing a can of lemonade, a packet of hot dogs, a can of “Happy Brand” tuna, an opened box of Belgian chocolates, and a tube of ointment. A poster of Noah’s Ark hung on the mud-brick wall. There were also two AK-47 assault rifles, various packages of new clothes, and a green footlocker containing $750,000 in American hundred-dollar bills. More telling: An orange-and-white Toyota Corolla taxi was parked outside. Rumors that Saddam had hidden in taxis and even masqueraded as a taxi driver appeared to be true.
Saddam was nowhere to be seen. It looked like yet another dry hole when suddenly, one of the detainees broke away from the Special Operators and ran, telling them Saddam was hiding elsewhere and he would lead them to him. His sudden desire to cooperate, and zeal to get them out of there, further convinced the operators they were close.
At the command vehicle, CW2 Gray stood next to COL Hickey listening to the radio reports from the Special Operation forces. Those two individuals were exactly who the source stated would be at the farm. Things were going well.
Reports continued to come in that Special Operations forces were still searching the area but had not found the tunnels that the source had said Saddam would be hiding in. Hickey calmly told them to take their time. Task Force RAIDER owned that portion of Iraq. He’d hold the cordon all night if necessary.
Another ten minutes went by. Still nothing.
Jackpot
Outside the hut, the two dozen or so Special Operators were preparing to move off and expand their search. Something caught an operator’s attention in the darkness of the moonless night, through the unearthly glow of his night vision goggles, The ground just didn’t look quite right. The sensation of an odd landscape was nothing unusual under the glow of a night vision device, but it just didn’t feel right, either.
The closer the operator looked, the more it appeared to be out of place. The bricks and dirt were spread about too uniformly, as if someone were trying to conceal something. A thread of fabric protruded just slightly under the dirt.
Strange.
At 2030 hours, the operators brushed away the debris, revealing a Styrofoam plug. True to his training, one of the Special Operators pulled the pin on a hand grenade while his colleagues prepared to remove the plug so he could drop it in. The remaining twenty or so soldiers prepared to fire their weapons, if engaged. The plug revealed a hole, the hole revealed a ratty-looking bearded man. The man raised his hands and announced: “I am Saddam Hussein. I am the President of Iraq, and I am willing to negotiate.”
The Task Force 121 commando covering the hole calmly replied:
“President Bush sends his regards.”
Hickey’s radio broke the silence as the Special Operator reported simply, “Sir, we may have the Jackpot.”
Hickey waited breathlessly.
Back on the objective, several Special Operators yanked the disheveled, disoriented man to the surface, unavoidably scratching his head in the tight confines of the hole.
The operators quickly removed the 9mm pistol from his belt and checked him for the markings and other features that would preliminarily confirm they had their man. They began to prepare him for transportation with the standard, empty sandbag over his head and flex-cuffs on his hands. As they attempted to secure him, Saddam resisted—trying to shrug off the operators, acting belligerent, and even spitting in one soldier’s face. In return, he was treated “just like any other prisoner,” and forcefully subdued to the ground, where several operators held him down while others trussed him up.
At Hickey’s command vehicle, everyone waited in painful silence. The word finally came. Although it was only minutes behind the first call, it had seemed like weeks. “Sir, we’ve got him. Jackpot.” Hickey replied simply and unemotionally, “That’s great.”
Within minutes Saddam was strapped into a Special Operations Little Bird and spirited out of the immediate area. There was a quick stop at FOB Iron Horse for a transload onto a larger Black Hawk helicopter for the flight to the Baghdad Airport prison that once boasted his name. As he moved through FOB Iron Horse, Saddam passed through a cordon of Special Operations forces. It was the only time they would see their prize, and the only recognition of their accomplishment these shadow warriors would ever receive. Hickey was not so lucky. It happened so fast that by the time Hickey’s command vehicle arrived, Saddam was gone.
In the RAIDER TOC (Tactical Operations Center), Murphy had heard the objectives were clear with only two detainees and felt the letdown of failure. As he’d feared, they’d waited too long and came away empty-handed once again. He got up and was about to head over to the phone bank to call home when a single codeword broke the building silence: “Jackpot.”
It was as if the entire world suddenly went silent. Murphy looked at LTC Smith, the brigade Executive Officer, in a long moment of disbelief. LTC Smith said, “We got him. We got him.”
The TOC exploded in cheers and high fives. Hal Engstrom leaned back, put his hands behind his head, and let out a deep sigh of relief.
Everyone went back to the tasks at hand while Murphy and LTC Smith started shutting off access to the Internet and telephones to make sure news of the capture didn’t get out until President Bush wanted it announced. Captain Alan Roper, the brigade Public Affairs Officer (PAO) began planning for what was to come when the media learned of Task Force RAIDER’s success. As the brigade’s interface with the press, he was about to become very busy.
Hickey, Wilson, Joe, and CW2 Gray rolled up to the mud hut in Hickey’s humvee, parked and dismounted, and walked rapidly toward the hut entrance. On the way, CW2 Gray noticed the orange-and-white taxi parked next to the sheep pen. He turned to Hickey and asked if he’d noticed as well. Hickey gave one of his rare smiles.
CSM Wilson and Joe took control of the $750,000 in the green metal box, but not before the command sergeant major rubbed the stacks of bills on his face “just to see how it felt.” The Special Operators turned one of the two individuals seized on the objective over to Gray and Joe, then melted into the darkness whence they came, taking the other detainee with them. Saddam was in custody. Not a single shot had been fired, not a single soldier wounded. It was a capture everyone said couldn’t be done.
Joe was ordered to transport one of the two detainees to COL Hickey’s location. Joe and the prisoner struck up a conversation in Arabic as they walked towards the humvee.
“Do you know what you did? Did you know who you were holding? Do you know who your friend was?” Joe asked Saddam’s trusted lookout, now flex-cuffed and in U.S. custody, as they walked across the orange grove. The detainee began to cry. “I know, I’m stupid,” he stammered in Arabic.
“I’m sorry, I never should have taken the money … I’m sorry. I made a mistake.…” The man kept repeating that he should never have taken the money he was paid to protect High Value Target #1.
“Don’t you know who he [Saddam] is?” Joe again asked the man.
“Yes,” the detainee responded. “Yes, I know who he is.” The detainee began shouting a stream of expletives directed at Saddam Hussein.
“He’s a piece of shit,” the prisoner yelled in Arabic. “[Saddam’s] a motherfucker … I should have never taken the money.…”
“Well, it doesn’t make a difference now, does it?” Joe said, laughing aloud as he led the man by the arm.
Code of Silence
When he rejoined the command group, Joe handed the detainee with him over to CPT Barry from Gulf Troop. Hickey was debriefing Barry on the current situation. The detainee began pressuring Joe to translate what Hickey was saying. Joe, amazed at his audacity, flashed a look which made the detainee realize he’d best keep quiet. Joe could not believe how ignorant the two brothers had been. Saddam Hussein was at their mercy, worth twenty-five million U.S. dollars in bounty, yet they risked their lives to defend him, the payout a mere 750 thousand dollars in comparison. Had they been even the least bit creative they could have locked him in his hole, hid the money, and turned Saddam in for the additional twenty-five million.
Meanwhile, it became clear to Hickey that no attack was coming. He secured the area with elements from G Troop and moved the rest of the Special Operations troops out of the area. While the 4th Battalion 42nd Field Artillery Regiment maintained their cordon around the city and continued to block the roads, Hickey moved back through Alpha Troop 1-10 Cavalry at about 2130. On the way he called MG Odierno to tell him, “I have about a million dollars for you, sir. I’ll be at your headquarters in twenty minutes.”
In Baghdad, Saddam was stripped naked and examined like any other prisoner. Next came a viewing with some of his former aides now in detention, including longtime confidant Tariq Aziz, so they could confirm their former boss’s identity. The new Iraqi Governing Council was not only allowed to view Saddam, but to question him. Saddam was not remorseful in the least, justifying and even boasting of his acts of oppression.
The former ruler was disheveled but defiant. When one of the Governing Council members demanded to know why he had killed so many people, Saddam shouted back (punctuated by profanity) that his victims were all “thieves and Iranian spies.” Asked directly if he played a role in assassinating Shi’ite Ayatollahs Muhammad Sadeq al-Sadr, and Mohamad Baqir al Hakim, Saddam made a pun about getting Sadr off his chest (“Sadr” means “chest” in Arabic). The discourse became so intense that Council Member Adnan Pachachi had to be pulled away from his arguments with Saddam to take a congratulatory call from President Bush.
Ahmad Chalabi, one of the council members, was outraged that Saddam refused to apologize to the Iraqi people and that he did not deny any of the crimes he was accused of. Saddam defended his 1990 invasion of Kuwait by arguing that Kuwait was a part of Iraq. As Council Member Mowaffak al-Rubaie departed, he left Saddam with a curse: “May God curse you. Tell me, when are you going to be accountable to God and the day of judgment? What are you going to tell him about Halabja and the mass graves, the Iran–Iraq war, thousands and thousands executed? What are you going to tell God?”
Back at Task Force RAIDER base, Hickey finally got to smoke his good-luck cigar. He gathered his troops and congratulated them. He told them the hardest part of the mission was now ahead of them. They had to keep Saddam’s capture a closely guarded secret until it would be officially announced late the next day. News this big was near impossible to keep quiet. Rumors were flying and embedded reporters were probing, but no one broke the code of silence.
Among Task Force RAIDER and the Special Operations Forces everyone congratulated everyone, conventional and Special Operations soldiers alike. No one tried to take full credit; everyone told others what a great job they did. What impressed the conventional soldiers in Task Force RAIDER was the quiet professionalism displayed by the Special Operators. They were amazed that thes
e elite soldiers so selflessly gave credit to the conventional forces, choosing instead to remain in the shadows, and never getting the true credit they deserved.
For CSM Wilson, the operation was historic for another reason besides capturing Saddam. It proved Special Operations forces could work together with conventional forces and be extremely successful. Just before going to sleep that night Murphy fought back the sensation that the events of the night weren’t real. He kept wondering if they really did catch Saddam, and wondered what it would be like once they got home. Bocanegra felt a sense of relief and closure, but “it [would] never make up for the buddies [they] lost.” Angela Santana mused about the varying and sometimes strange course that brought all of them to this night and the capture of Saddam. She wondered if it would have made a difference if she hadn’t come to Iraq, if Engstrom hadn’t been touched by the terrorist attacks of September 11, if Murphy hadn’t required them to work no less than twelve hours a day, or if Hickey hadn’t had the visions he did. She concluded that, in the end, all things happen for a reason and she believed that we’re meant to go through hard times to endure more. “God will only give us what we can handle in preparation for more.” She lost a baby but helped save many other lives.
For Tom Ribas, news of Saddam’s capture was bittersweet. He’d stayed behind on the raid to prepare for leave; the opportunity to go home and see his family was more important. As he stood in the darkness in the Task Force RAIDER base, Ribas patted his uniform pocket containing the photograph of him and his fallen comrade Arriaga. “Rest easy, brother.”
We Got Him