Honor and Betrayal : The Untold Story of the Navy Seals Who Captured the "Butcher of Fallujah"-and the Shameful Ordeal They Later Endured (9780306823091) (23 page)
Authors: Patrick Robinson
Sam was also asked to sign an acceptance form confirming the charges of dereliction of duty, false official statement, and impeding an investigation.
“How about that!” said Jon, “Sam! The senior petty officer on the base, who had just seen us safely through such a dangerous mission and then went at 0500 to check Westinson was okay, as he knew he was having one or two problems and might need help. Dereliction of duty! I thought then, as I think now, the Navy's system of justice has actually gone off its rocker.”
Jon flatly refused to sign anything until he had a lawyer, and this took the NCIS by surprise. He was out of there in under two minutes.
Matt also said he was signing nothing until he had a lawyer. And then he noticed that the papers in front of him confirmed that the US Navy was about to throw the book at him. He was being charged with
assaulting the detainee, dereliction of duty, making a false official statement, and failing to safeguard a detainee.
With the lawyer issue apparently hanging in the balance, all three of them stood by for a few days. And their requests for legal assistance were not yet acted on. But then on Friday, September 18, Jon received a truly encouraging piece of news.
One of his fellow SEALs found him, and informed the Echo breacher that Special Agent Stamp, who had taken the statements and conducted the biggest part of the investigation, had filed a report that stated there was insufficient evidence for any further proceedings. The SEAL was a member of Foxtrot Platoon and had seen the report himself.
For a while this was enough to sustain the three SEALs, and their hopes for exoneration were high. But they still had no attorney, not one between the three of them, and they were still prepared to cooperate in any way they could, despite the charges now leveled at them. In a way none of them believed there could possibly be this much unfairness in all the world, never mind in a SEAL base.
And perhaps in confirmation of the Navy's very weak case against them, their brother SEALs across the way in Foxtrot Platoon reported an incident that the high command had become totally exasperated with the dogged refusal of the Team 10 personnel to admit anything nor to condemn anyone else.
In what seemed to be a fit of pique, they arrested
everyone
who had been on Objective Amber, including the OIC, Lieutenant Jimmy, and sent them all to Ar-Ramadi, each man with a charge sheet accusing him of conspiracy. As a legal tactic to make one of these men crack, it was on the crude side. And it backfired badly when it was discovered that one of the SEALs had a high-ranking Washington lawyer for a father who took a poor view of the treatment his son and all of his son's friends were receiving.
According to Foxtrot Platoon, this lawyer placed the entire law firm on high alert to defend the boys at a moment's notice. The Navy was informed of this, and the charges were dropped en masse within twenty-four hours. Except for those against Matt, Jon, and Sam. Those charges stayed in place.
Furthermore, the naval authorities appeared to have decided to put more pressure on all three of them. That same Friday night, at 0130 in the morning, Matt, Jon, and Sam were called into the command office, where Commander Hamilton's deputy, an acting CO, sat in the big chair.
They stood rigidly to attention and were told, “Your actions have given the Naval Special Warfare Community a black eye and stained the reputation of the SEAL Teams which have gone before. You have ruined SEAL Team 10's deployment.” He also told them they would be flying on to Al-Asad to meet up with the commander and the master chief. From there they would proceed to Qatar to meet with the general and receive a letter of caution.
This at least settled one issue: they were definitely considered guiltyâno ifs, ands or buts. “We were not quite sure who had found us guilty,” says Jon. “But someone had, and there seemed no further doubt in their minds. Jeez, you could just tell how upset they wereâthis new guy and, presumably, his boss, Commander Hamilton, hated us.”
By this time there was a fusillade of paperwork flying around, and just about every one of several hundred sheets was headed “US Naval Criminal Investigation Service.” And the word “Criminal” leapt off that page every time these three decorated SEALs were shown anything.
That word was so upsetting to Jon that he was afraid even to tell his parents. But he did take time to read up on that basic bedrock of all US, British, and Roman Law that deals with the presumption of innocence.
Because this presumption of guilt was so worrying for the SEALs. “Whichever way you looked at it,” said Jon, “they were treating us as if we'd been found guilty already. We had not even walked up the steps of the courtroom, never mind been found guilty of anything. And they'd seen fit to strip us of damn near everything, including our regular SEAL Team gear and possessions not to mention our freedom and, worse yet, our pride and honor.
“It was pretty darned awful for Matt, who had never raised a finger against the prisoner. But for me it was almost worse. All I'd done was
say I never saw him or anyone else strike anyone. And now I was being told that was dereliction of duty or conspiracy or God knows what else.
“I mean what is it with those guys? What do they want from me? Am I supposed to make up some lie that I'd seen Matt or Sam wallop this Al-Isawi? I know it sounds crazy, but by now this was getting kind of sinister.”
The first leg of their journey to Qatar, up to Al-Asad, went particularly badly. Jon, Matt, and Sam were ordered to report to Commander Hamilton, who, they could immediately detect, was seriously angry with them.
He broke the stunning news that the master-at-arms, Brian Westinson, had gone missing. At first the implication was that the three men plainly knew where he was. Then, according to Jon, it became obvious that the commander and the ever-present Master Chief Lampard believed they had kidnapped him, like a couple of Mafia dons dealing with a key witness in a mass-murder trial.
Commander Hamilton flatly accused Jon, Matt, and Sam of knowing where the vanished Brian was. And Lampard talked to them as though they might have murdered him, making it clear he believed nothing any of them said. And of course the SEALs denied it, stating that none of them had the slightest idea what had happened to Westinson.
Unhappily for the master chief, Brian eventually turned up, having been a mile away in protective custody at his own request under the auspices of NCIS, who apparently forgot to inform the CO of this preventive action.
Outside Commander Hamilton's office, Lampard, for whom this had not been his finest hour, covered his rage with insults. He pulled all three of them aside and told them they were unacceptably scruffyâhis phrase was, precisely: “all fucked up.” He told them to get ironed, pressed, and sharpened up, even though he knew they had been unable to get new clothes.
He yelled at them relentlessly for several minutes, knowing, of course, that they could not answer him back. Then he confirmed his
real feelings, informing them formally that “You guys are a disgrace!” And, he said, he was writing to the senior master chief on SEAL Team 10, to tell him: “Thanks for disappointing me one more time.”
Said Jon later, rather sardonically: “All things considered, he was possibly the most unpleasant man I ever met.”
Certainly, Master Chief Lampard, working directly for Commander Hamilton, was one of the driving forces in this potential legal battle as it steadily forged its way forward, moving to higher and higher authority. And now Matt, Jon, and Sam were informed they were on a three-day standby, right here on this remote but enormous desert airbase, waiting for Major General Charles T. Cleveland's private C-17 Boeing, which would take them to Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
The principal Middle East office of Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT) was located there. This effectively put two kingdoms side by side on one Arab Peninsulaâthat of the absolute monarchy of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Emir of Qatar, the richest nation on earth, and that of General Cleveland, commanding officer of SOCCENT, a man unaccustomed to being interrupted, never mind argued with. He would stand in ultimate authority over Matt, Jon, and Sam.
In Ar-Ramadi there had been a strong suggestion that this would end in a letter of caution for the SEALs, who would then be sent on their way with only a mild slap on the wrist. In the Navy, however, there is a major difference between a “caution” and letter of reprimand, the latter of which can be a career killer.
The “caution letter” traditionally has no impact whatsoever on a man's career, and despite their certainty that they were 100 percent innocent of any and all charges, the SEALs would have been inclined to accept that should it have been offered. At least then Commander Hamilton and Lampard might possibly stop treating them like escaped convicts.
During their days at Al-Asad there had been indications that the Navy was as anxious as they were to dispense with the entire matter and to agree that there was, at the very least, an element of “reasonable doubt.”
So far as the SEALs were concerned, in these utterly tenuous cases against them “reasonable doubt” was approximately the size of the Grand Canyon.
“I hate to say it,” says Matt, “but we'd have been better off in the Lubyanka, Article 49 Russian Constitution, right? Innocent until proven guilty. Everyone except for us.”
The barbarities of war ... are committed in situations where the ebb and flow of everyday life have departed, and have been replaced by a constant round of fear and anger, blood and death ... soldiers at war are not to be judged by civilian rules.
T
he one hundred-mile-long peninsula of Qatar juts upward like a giant thumb from Saudi Arabia into the Persian Gulf. There were, however, no thumbs-up for Matt, Jon, and Sam when they finally left Iraq and arrived in yet another ancient Arab land.
After three almost unbearably frustrating weeks, their questions came raining in to anyone who'd listen:
And how about the letter of caution? Where do we stand with complete exoneration? Is this Westinson guy still making these accusations? Do we have a lawyer yet? Right now we'd take an out-of-work Bedouin
.
But no one was listening. In the kingdom of Major General Cleveland military politics and the dreaded “politically correct” was elbowing its way to the front.
The case, which had begun before sunrise on September 2, when the blindfolded Ahmad Hashim Abd Al-Isawi had complained that a mysterious punch to the stomach had made his lower lip bleed, was now moving inexorably toward a courtroom.
On their first morning in Qatar the three SEALs were led into an office of the legal department, where a senior officer awaited themâa naval commander, legal assistant to General Cleveland. In turn a paralegal Army sergeant assisted him. According to Jon, this now made fifteen people who were all lined up alongside General Cleveland to help.
“We, on the other hand, had no one,” said Jon.
They were then taken to another room, where the sergeant placed one piece of paper in front of each man. It stated that Matt was charged officially with assault, the other two with dereliction of duty and making a false official statement.
“This was the first time,” said Matt, “any of us had seen the charges all written down, complete with references to Article 128, and 92 [dereliction of duty].”
Now it should be noted that there could not have been one living person who had breathed the desert air anywhere around the SEAL bases who was not acutely aware that all three of them were denying the charges vehemently.
And here were these three pieces of paper being thrust in front of them, with a total stranger demanding they each sign them, here and now, admitting their guilt.
“I'm signing nothing,” said Jon.
“Sign there,” repeated the paralegal, pointing to the signature space on Jon's document.
“None of us are signing anything,” said Matt.
“You guys are being charged with these violations,” he replied. “That's where you sign.”
Matt's mind was in overdrive. He recalled the many conversations they had sat through in Ramadi, especially the one in which the authorities had seemed to accept that there was an element of doubt here that would almost certainly end with a letter of cautionânot even a reprimand.