by Oliver North
His family was used to this routine. Sometimes Habib would come home and announce, “I believe that God wants me to go to Chanam” or some other place—perhaps a place that he may have just left. They would shrug and say, “I understand, Father.” What else could they say? They seldom argued with the old man. For, more often than not, he'd go and learn that someone was in great need, and he was the only person who could help. “A miracle,” they'd say. “No, God told me that I should come to you,” he'd say.
For the past half hour, Habib had had the distinct impression that God was telling him to turn back from the direction that he was headed and follow the pipeline road that led to Laqlaq, a small town on the Tigris River more than 170 kilometers away. He knew there was little trading to be done in that direction, and it was definitely out of the way. Given the state of the roads, few of which had been repaired since the 1991 war, it would take him the better part of two days to make the round trip. Who knew how much additional time would be required for whatever God wanted him to do?
For some reason, God never told Habib what He wanted him to do. Habib just felt led to go in one direction or another, and did so. Then, God always led him to the divine appointment.
This time he thought that he ought to wait before driving his Toyota two-ton truck toward Laqlaq, this being the Christian Sabbath. But the impression came to him more clearly than ever—Now! Go now!
Habib gave instructions to his oldest son, who had accompanied him on this leg of the journey, to stay at the Al Fuhaymi Oasis until his return “in a few days.” Then he packed his few belongings, some food, water, and his Arabic Bible. Within ten minutes, the Toyota truck—its four spare tires, drum of gasoline, and extra water in the bed—was kicking up clouds of sandy dust behind him as Habib drove toward the road that paralleled the underground pipeline to Lake Tharthar. He expected to reach the north end of the lake by 8:00 P.M., and perhaps Laqlaq shortly after midnight.
“Picnic Base” Alpha
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10 km W of Tikrit, 5 km S of Al Sahra Iraqi Air Force Base
Sunday, 5 March 1995
1933 Hours, Local
For three days, Weiskopf and the seven men of ISET Echo had been living on long range patrol rations, minimum water, and maximum adrenaline. It had started to pump as the MD-80 had approached the drop zone on Friday night, and it hadn't stopped in the seventy-three hours since.
“Picnic Six, this is Picnic Base … over.” Captain Joshua Weiskopf released the button on the side of the satellite radio handset and waited for a response. It came in less than two seconds, with a slight audible ping as the EL-3 on his radio decrypted the voice of Lieutenant Colonel Newman.
“Picnic Base, this is Picnic Six, go ahead, over.” Newman's signal was strong, though he was likely sitting at the communications console of the MD-80, more than 250 miles away on a taxiway at the Turkish Air Force base outside of Siirt.
“Roger, Picnic Six. This is Picnic Echo Actual,” replied Weiskopf. “I'm sending my twenty hundred SitRep early so I can get underway and get the Lima Tango Delta set up at the objective. I know it's only a few klicks, but I want to get underway ASAP so we can move in quietly. There has been heavy road movement in and around the objective. There is also a lot of traffic on the highway, so it may take us awhile to get ourselves across.”
“Roger, Picnic Echo Actual. If you have to split up, be sure to let us know where you all are so that we can keep track of where everyone is, over.”
“Roger. Everything set with the UAV at Incirlik? Over.”
“Yeah, Josh, I just talked to Sergeant Major Gabbard,” said Newman, reverting to plain English over the encrypted satellite link. “He says the techs will have that puppy ready to roll as soon as you say so. How are you fixed for water?”
“We're fine,” replied the Delta commando captain. “We still have four quarts apiece of what we brought with us, and there is some water here that we've been able to filter and put some purification tabs in.”
“Roger,” Newman said, and then added, “Be careful, Josh.”
“Wilco. Out.” Weiskopf put the handset down, turned to Lieutenant Kenneth “Key” Palmeri, and said, “Before we get underway, send out the twenty hundred SitRep by digital burst over the Sat Com, letting Picnic Six know the exact location and status of everyone here.”
As soon as the message was sent, the Army captain motioned to the seven others standing at the mouth of the cave with their packs on. They headed out on to the penultimate leg of their mission. If all went as planned, they would only need to evade enemy patrols to get back to this little base and either wait out the palace coup or inflate their STARS balloons and get snatched into the air by the passing C-130.
Picnic Base Bravo
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1.5 km W of the Presidential Palace
Tikrit, Iraq
Monday, 6 March 1995
0558 Hours, Local
Weiskopf had taken the last shift of watch so the others could get a few minutes of sleep. Now, with dawn just breaking in the sky, he quietly awakened the other team members.
The hike from “Picnic Base Alpha” to this new site, designated as “Picnic Base Bravo,” had been the most difficult movement of the three nights that they had experienced so far on the ground in Iraq. The closer they got to Saddam's hometown and the Tikrit palace, the more Iraqi patrols they spotted.
Though the ISET's night vision goggles gave them an extraordinary advantage, they still couldn't take needless risks. Traffic on the highway between the Al Sahra and Tikrit South air bases had been so heavy and frequent that it had taken them nearly two hours to cross the road. Then they had almost stumbled over a four-man Republican Guard outpost outside the palace. Had the Iraqi soldiers not all been asleep, the ISET would have been forced to kill them.
Finally, at about 0415 they had found a small cave in a small outcropping of rock less than two kilometers from Saddam's summer palace. They had studied photos and videos of the palace, so it seemed quite familiar when they finally saw it. Their observation post was nearly perfect. They were slightly above and west of the palace with a clear view of the main structure where the terror summit was to take place later that same day.
Within a minute of Weiskopf's silent reveille, Lieutenant Palmeri was awake and eating something from his rations pack. He kicked the leg of Fernandez while Weiskopf woke Turner and Diberra. Lieutenant Watson, the British SAS officer, arose and began to assemble the satellite video equipment while Maloof, the only real Arab in the team, got to work sighting in the Laser Target Designator. Sears, the SAS sergeant, stood watch at the mouth of the little cave, scanning the terrain through the scope of his sniper rifle.
Since they had parachuted out of the MD-80 on Friday night, the men had only gotten a few minutes sleep in short snatches. They all hoped to have the chance to catnap a bit during the day while they waited for Saddam's guests to show up.
Apartment 2, Hussein Kamil Family Pavilion
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Presidential Palace
Tikrit, Iraq
Monday, 6 March 1995
0600 Hours, Local
Despite the luxurious apartment Kamil had provided for him, Leonid Dotensk hadn't gotten much sleep since Friday night. On an almost hourly basis, he'd been calling UN headquarters in New York to get the current position of Weiskopf's ISET from Komulakov. Now, sitting at a desk in the apartment with a map provided by Kamil, he had just plotted the ISET's latest location—as Weiskopf had reported it to Newman at 0500 hours—and as Newman had transmitted it to New York—and as Komulakov had relayed it to the Ukrainian arms merchant. Now, staring at the coordinates, Dotensk shuddered at the thought of how close they were. From where he sat, they were 1.5 kilometers distant—a little over a mile away.
Dotensk got up, went to the door, and opened it. There, across the hall, was one of the many young men who staffed the
building, dozing in a chair.
The boy snapped awake and stood up. “May I help you, sir?”
“Yes, please ask His Excellency, Minister Hussein Kamil, to join me.”
“Oh, I cannot disturb him, sir.”
“Look, I don't care what he's doing right now. If you don't go get him right away, I'm going to shout at the top of my lungs until he shows up. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well … go!” A few minutes later, a bleary-eyed Kamil was at the door.
“You look awful,” Dotensk said. “You had better get a grip on yourself. The UN assassination team is in position.” Dotensk put his finger on the map to show Kamil the team's location.
“That close? By Allah, we should be able to see them from here.” He opened the draperies covering the western windows and peered out into the growing light of dawn. “I must go get my binoculars,” he said and turned to leave.
“Stop, you fool!” shouted Dotensk, grabbing the sleeve of Kamil's wrinkled, white thobe. “If they see you peering at them, they may call for their pilotless bomb now and kill us.”
Kamil looked down at the hand on his sleeve. Then he looked at Dotensk.
Dotensk moved as if struck by a snake . “That was very rude of me. I apologize. Please forgive me.”
“Certainly,” replied Kamil, calmer now that he had reestablished the hierarchy.
“May I suggest that you and I go to your command post at the Tikrit South Air Base?” said Dotensk.
“Yes, I was thinking the same thing myself,” said Kamil, still looking out the window to the low hills west of where they stood. “We have good communications there, and you can continue to talk with whomever it is that provides this information. Please be prepared to drive over there in ten minutes.” Kamil turned and walked out the door.
Ten minutes later, Dotensk was seated in Kamil's Mercedes as they pulled out of the palace driveway toward the main highway. The president's son-in-law was once again dressed in clothing familiar to the Ukrainian—the uniform of an Iraqi general.
The guards at each checkpoint saluted them—none of which Kamil bothered to return—and they drove into the air base. As they approached hangar 3, the evidence of the American raid on Friday was still visible. Dotensk could see the remnants of old Soviet equipment—some of which he had most likely sold to them.
Beside one of the “impervious” French-built concrete hangars that had been destroyed by a single laser-guided U.S. two-thousand-pounder in 1990 was a wrecked 36N85 “Flap Lid” Fire Control Radar, destroyed by an American missile just three nights ago. And behind another destroyed hangar was a burned-out hulk that had once been an SA-6 “Gainful” elevator/launcher. Obviously, the Americans had perfected their anti-SAM capabilities. Dotensk made a mental note to report these results to his friends in Moscow.
Kamil pulled the car into hangar 3 next to one of the MI-27 HINDs, jumped out, and started giving orders in Arabic. He grabbed the map out of Dotensk's hand and spread it on a chart table.
Kamil ordered a team of snipers to position themselves. One sniper was dressed in workman's coveralls and given a hard hat. He climbed a nearby communications tower that was only seven hundred yards away from where Dotensk said the ISET team was hiding. The sniper carried his weapon dismantled in a tool case so that if the intruders were watching they would not have their suspicions aroused.
Now, as the sun crawled above the horizon, Kamil ordered an entire company of his Amn Al-Khass commandos, along with one of his hunter units, to begin a systematic approach to the ISET team. If they followed his instructions, they would take hours to crawl inch by inch through the sand and not be seen until they were on top of the ISET.
“You are sure that there are only eight of them,” Kamil asked as the eager commando unit set out.
Dotensk looked at his watch. It was nearly 0700 in Iraq. In New York, it was nearly 2300 the day before. He dialed the UN number anyway and switched on the EncryptionLok-3. Komulakov was on the line in seconds. “My host, who is standing here next to me, wants confirmation that there are only eight intruders at the location you gave me an hour ago.” Dotensk listened for a moment, said “thank you,” and terminated the call. “Yes, it is only eight,” he said to Kamil. “But he is concerned that you may have sent your commandos in too soon. They will have to wait out there in the hot sun until the ISET team gets its equipment set up—that may take hours. Will they be all right out there for so long?”
“Of course. They are the best.”
Dotensk shrugged. “I hope so.”
DISASTER!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Laqlaq, Iraq
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34 km N of Tikrit
Monday, 6 March 1995
1230 Hours, Local
Eli Yusef Habib sat cross-legged on the carpet of a shabby inn—it was the only one in town. He had arrived late the previous night and was having his midday meal and tea. He had arisen at dawn, and he had spent most of the time since then in prayer. Still convinced that God was leading him here, yet finding no obvious connection to that impression, Habib took his time with his meal and tea.
Ordinarily this place would be a sleepy little town. Yet that morning Habib noticed that a military convoy had gone past just before he left his room. He wondered why such a strong military presence was necessary. It made him nervous to be around either the Iraqi or Iranian soldiers. Neither liked outsiders, and Habib, who felt at home in many countries, was to them an outsider.
For some reason he did not feel as if this were the place he was supposed to be.
Lord, do You want me to stay or go back? Habib had prayed earlier. He had no immediate sense of what to do.
Now it was just after 1:00 P.M. and as he finished his midday meal, Habib prayed again. This time he was impressed with the idea of leaving Laqlaq right away. He paid for his meal and room and carried his things to his Toyota truck.
“What was the commotion about this morning? I saw several Army trucks,” he said to the Iraqi owner of the inn, sitting nearby in the shade, out of the mid-afternoon sun.
“You should wait until it is cooler to go,” the man said.
Habib tried again. “The Army trucks—what were they doing?”
The man shrugged. “Who knows? But my brother just returned from Tikrit, and he told me they have roadblocks around the town. No one is allowed in. Are you going that way?”
Habib shook his head. “I am driving to Jisr Al Tharthar—about fifty kilometers due west of Tikrit.”
“Ah, yes, the way you came last night. I remember you told me.”
“Saddam must be at his summer palace,” Habib guessed. “The roadblocks must be for his security.”
“Yes, no doubt that is it.”
Habib drove about a kilometer to the town's only petrol station and filled his tank. He also filled two spare gas cans and two five-gallon water cans. His route was mostly deserted; it was the road alongside the petroleum pipeline, and there was seldom much traffic.
He also purchased some dates and cheese in case he did not arrive at his destination before nightfall. But what was his destination? He had no idea. He was simply following the leading of God.
It was almost two o' clock in the afternoon by the time Habib was ready to leave. But before he did, he spread out his prayer rug in the shadow of the truck and prostrated himself in prayer. It was 2:15 P.M. when he got up again and climbed into his truck. It was finally time to go.
MD-80 Command Center
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Siirt Air Base, Turkey
Monday, 6 March 1995
1313 Hours, Local
“Colonel Newman, sir. Captain Weiskopf has just sent the signal to launch the UAV. Shall I call Incirlik and tell Sgt. Major Gabbard?”
Captain Ben Phillips, one of the British officers assigned to ISET Charlie had been manning the Comm Station aboard the MD-80.
“
What's the latest, Ben?” Newman asked.
“Picnic Base reported in via satellite link. They have everything set up and have been checking in every half hour as instructed. They just sent the launch order three minutes ago, while you were off the plane at the head. They said they're about a klick from the target; they have the laser-targeting device tested and in. Everything is go. Captain Weiskopf said they were going off-air so the Iraqis wouldn't intercept their transmissions. Even though we've got the element of surprise, he says that we can't presume that Saddam won't be on alert—if for no other reason than the company he has for the weekend.”
“Is Josh sure that he has a good angle on the target so that the UAV will be able to pick up the reflection from his LTD and not the designator itself? We don't want that thing to fly up his nose.”
“Affirmative, sir. They're just sitting and waiting for the guests to show up at the palace.”
“All right, let's do it!” Newman said. “Alert the QRF to start moving toward the Iraqi border in case they're needed. Call Sergeant Major Gabbard and tell him to launch the Global Hawk. Get Major Robinette out of the powder room or wherever she is and tell her to get this crate into the air. I want to be airborne in case something goes wrong. Ben, have your ISET suit up for a jump just in case we have to drop Charlie in to help Echo out of trouble. Call General Harris down at the 331st Expeditionary Air Group and tell him the fireworks are about to start in Tikrit and remind him that the contingency plan calls for his F-15s and -16s to fly cover for the exfiltration.”