Hunting Down Saddam (39 page)
Read Hunting Down Saddam Online
Authors: Robin Moore
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 IranâIraq 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 these 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
It was Sunday in Iraq, and before Saddam's capture was announced, a suicide bomber drove into a police station in Khaldiya, fifty miles west of Baghdad, killing ten Iraqi policemen and wounding twenty other Iraqis.
On Saturday afternoon in Washington, at about 1515, Rumsfeld called President Bush at Camp David to give him the good news. The President decided the troops in Iraq deserved the credit and deferred the honor of making the announcement to Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.
At about 1515 Sunday afternoon Baghdad time, L. Paul Bremer III, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq strode to the podium and declared: “Ladies and gentlemen, we got him.”
In Baghdad and elsewhere, celebratory gunfire broke out as Iraqis took to the streets, many in tears and holding tattered photos of husbands, sons, wives, daughters, and other loved ones lost during The Butcher of Baghdad's reign of terror.
Eight months after a giant statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled to the ground in Baghdad in a gesture of celebration, Saddam was finally in custody, dragged from a hole in the ground not far from where it all began in his youth. The operation was well commanded, by a man who'd been promoted to colonel in one of Saddam's old palaces just across the river from where Saddam was found.
In his final days of freedom, The Glorious Leader, Direct Descendant of the Prophet, the Lion of Babylon, was reduced to a poor, disheveled farmer living in a mud hut. The lasting image he left on the Iraqi people is that of a broken, haggard man found living in a hole.
Soon after Saddam's capture, his daughters, calling from exile, announced the family would appoint an attorney to contact him and defend him at trial.
One Baghdad shopkeeper summarized Saddam's shame and expressed disdain for his cowardice at being taken alive: “⦠now he is like a dog. Iraqis hate weakness. He talked only of fighting to the end and of death for Iraq. His wife told us that he slept with a bomb strapped to his chest, so that he would not be taken alive. But he did not fire a single shotâmany people might have loved him in death. He needed to die.”
APPENDIX: OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM MEMORIAL FUNDS
An American flag at half-mast will fly,
For the American soldier who has died.
Another lay adorned on the coffin made of wood,
Where will lay a soldier who once proudly stood.
Tears of pride and sadness will be shed,
For the American soldier who now is dead.
Fellow soldiers will stand to honor his death,
And comfort the family that he has left
Somewhere softly taps will play,
For an American Soldier died today.
â“A
N
A
MERICAN
S
OLDIER
D
IED
T
ODAY
”
BY
K
ATIE
M
ORRIS
M
EMORIAL
F
UNDS,
S
CHOLARSHIPS, AND
C
HARITIES
Operation Family Fund:
The Operation ENDURING FREEDOM and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM Family Fund is organized to provide funds, both short term and long term, to families whose loved ones were killed or permanently injured as a result of military action as part of Operations ENDURING FREEDOM and IRAQI FREEDOM.
Operation Family Fund
United States PO Box 837
Ridgecrest, CA 93556
Phone: 760-793-0541
E-mail: [email protected]
Fallen Patriot Fund:
Established to help families of U.S. military personnel who were killed or seriously injured during Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.
Fallen Patriot Fund
c/o Bank of America Private Bank
TX1-492-19-09
P.O. Box 832409
Dallas, TX 75283-2409
Phone: 214-748-3900
E-mail: [email protected]
Fallen Heroes Last Wish Foundation:
Provides funds to help support and educate the children of American servicemen and -women lost during Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.
Fallen Heroes Last Wish Foundation
30 West Sola Street
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
Phone: 805-962-7843
Fax: 805-965-6343
Email: [email protected]
Special Operations Warrior Foundation:
The Special Operations Warrior Foundation (SOWF) provides college scholarship grants based on need, along with financial aid and educational counseling to the children of Special Operations personnel who were killed in an operational mission or training accident.
Special Operations Warrior Foundation
P.O. Box 14385
Tampa, FL 33690
Phone: 877-337-7693
Fax: 813-805-0567
E-mail: [email protected]
Mercy Corps:
Mercy Corps is working throughout Iraq to assist families affected by years of deteriorating conditions and conflict.
ALSO OF INTEREST
Partners International Foundation:
A nonprofit humanitarian organization working in the United States and throughout the world to provide disaster relief and other support. Focuses on women and children.
Partners International Foundation
41 Cedar Hill Road
Newtown, CT 06470
www.partners-international.org
Special Operations Association Colonel George C. Morton Memorial Scholarship:
The Special Operations Association grants scholarships to perpetuate the memory of those personnel who served in a Special Operations Unit during the Vietnam War, and who were Prisoners of War or Missing in Action and who are still unaccounted for in Southeast Asia. The scholarships also honor the late Colonel George C. Morton, an original commander and innovator of Special Operations in Southeast Asia.
Special Operations Association
c/o Alan N. Keller
Chairman, Scholarship Committee
4401 Park Road
Alexandria, VA 22312-1430
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Please note that some of the links referenced in this work are no longer active.
S
ADDAM
Garamone, Jim. “Just Who Is Saddam Hussein?” Armed Forces Press Service, January 22, 2003.
Information from Web site entitled: World History: Saddam Hussein, from:
www.worldhistory.com/hussein.htm
.
Information from The Iraq Foundation's Web site: Biography of Saddam Hussein:
www.iraqfoundation.org/research/bio.html
T
ASK
F
ORCE
V
IKING
Author's 10th SFG interview 1: SGM Strong/MAJ Howard (8SEP03AM).
Author's 10th SFG interview 2: SGM Strong (30JUNâ2 JUL03).
Consolidated Journal of ODA 056 (as given to Author).