The Bremer Detail (5 page)

One of the toughest parts of being the AIC was honestly evaluating team members. I had to make sure that round pegs were plugged into round holes, and square pegs into square holes. No one can be expected to do a job he is incapable of doing. A leader’s most important task is to make sure he never puts a person in a position to fail. Different backgrounds and personalities mean each person has specific strengths and weaknesses, and thus each is capable or incapable of performing certain duties. In a combat zone each job has responsibilities that must
always
be performed correctly. A mistake could be fatal. Placing the right people in these jobs was initially a huge headache as nobody knew exactly what we were going to need to do. Friendship, family, prior relationships, etc., could not influence the decision-making process. Either someone could do the job or he couldn’t. Needless to say I managed to hurt the feelings of more than a few guys when I made the decision that they were not good enough for certain positions. In the end the guys I thought were best suited for each position were placed in those positions.

For the ambassador’s Red Zone missions we ran a three-car motorcade consisting of a lead car, the limo, and a follow car. The lead car had the tactical commander (TC) in the right-front seat, a driver, and two shooters (detail members) sitting in the rear seats. In the rear of the vehicle we had an additional man referred to as the well-agent. Whenever possible I wanted the well-agent to be a medic.

While the motorcade was moving the TC was responsible for communicating with all our support assets (helicopters, MP CAT teams, etc.). He monitored oncoming and merging traffic, and relayed this info to the shift leader. All his senses were tuned to search for potential threats and ambushes. He called out threats, and if traffic was bad, he ordered the switch to one of the alternate, preplanned routes. The team adjusted its movements to his premonitions.

The protectee and any VIPs accompanying him rode in the limo with the driver and me (AIC). The follow car had the shift leader sitting in the right-front seat, a driver, two shooters in the rear seats, and usually another medic (well-agent) in the third seat. It was important to have this second medic in the follow car. If the limo was attacked, plans called for the lead car to engage the enemy while we transferred the ambassador to the follow car. If he was injured, we had to be able to treat his wounds as quickly as possible.

We also had another contingent of Army MPs assigned to act as our CAT team element during any movements that we made with the ambassador. Again, my hat is off to these folks.

Attached to our team were two guys (later trimmed down to one) who would handle all the operations support and logistics management taking place in the background for all team members. They coordinated the ID cards, found bed space, checked on trailer accommodations, issued and tracked guns and gear, wrangled with the all-too-regular updates to the ambassador’s schedule, and kept me in the loop on any and all changes. As it turns out, with the contract business’s reverse pyramid model of tooth-to-tail support, these guys ended up as seat-of-the-pants jacks-of-all-trades. They found themselves doing all the behind-the-scenes support functions a military organization typically has large groups of people around to handle: supply, administration, travel, payroll, logistics, weapons repair, communications watch. They were savvy and resourceful and could buy, beg, borrow, or trade for the necessities to support a thirty-six-man team in a war zone—any and all the things the team couldn’t do for themselves while they were on the road keeping the ambassador safe. They scrounged office space, computers, telephone and computer hookups, office furniture, computers, beds, bullets, batteries, maps, and even got the chow hall to make sure the team was fed after the kitchen closed during late nights. They had their hands full and literally made it up on their own as they went, as I was always with the ambassador or attending a meeting someplace else.

After the Secret Service named Ambassador Bremer the most-threatened man in the world I began to get daily intelligence briefs from the various intelligence agencies—CIA, DIA, OSS, and State Department—working in the country. The agencies all had the same intelligence information, but each, depending upon the analyst and his source, interpreted it slightly differently and relayed it to me with a personal twist. Still, they all had the same basic message—“Uh, not sure how to tell you this, but today, you are all going to die.”

It was enlightening and frightening at the same time. I was never sure how much info to share with guys on the team. I was worried that some guys I did not know well might overreact to something and create an incident. My intuition eventually proved prophetic as other Blackwater teams did things that came under intense scrutiny in the years after we left. Why some of these incidents occurred, I will never know. But I do know, on my team, especially in the beginning, there were some guys looking for an excuse to try to prove their manhood. Many times we were in a position that could have resulted in us shooting people, and being completely justified in doing so. Calm heads were mandatory.

All this hit the guys within twenty-four hours of the team getting “boots on the ground.” Throw in trying to figure out which radios we would use, who would work where, getting ID cards, fighting with the CID about which vehicles we would use, and an average person would be inclined to get a tad short-tempered. The stress was immense. It felt like I was being kicked every time I turned around. There was always an excuse as to why I could not get what I needed. Simple requests became like acts of Congress in their complexity. And all we were trying to do was keep the ambassador alive.

Four days after the Secret Service left—and after twenty-four hours of intense construction modifications—the villa they had selected for the ambassador was ready for his occupancy. I chose a team of guys to safeguard this house 24/7. It had been the home of the mother-in-law of Uday Hussein, one of Saddam’s sons. It was garish but had extremely thick walls we hoped could withstand an explosion. In the rear of the place were two other buildings we could use to store some of our gear. Ominously, one of them had hooks in the ceilings from which, we were told, the Hussein brothers used to hang their enemies. We even found several handguns that had been left in various locations around the property—in the outbuildings, on the roof, in the garden. It was pretty bizarre.

Guarding Bremer’s sleeping quarters was not part of the initial Blackwater contract, but we had to make it work. Six of my new thirty-four men were designated to go and secure the villa. It was not quite the glamorous “world-famous bodyguard” job for which they’d signed up. Everybody wanted to be on the team with the boss. Feelings were hurt, and in the beginning some guys thought being assigned to the villa meant they were on the B-team and somehow unworthy. No job on the detail was any less important than any other job. Everybody had to pull their weight and do the assigned task to the best of their ability. I put one of my men, Sax, at the villa initially to oversee the security enhancements and to make sure that the guys were doing the job as we had outlined. Sax was a former SEAL, and he took over the villa and ran it well. All this was accomplished in short order, and I moved him over to the advance team.

So, doing the math, out of thirty-four men I had two Ops/support guys, six guys at the villa, and two dog handlers, leaving just twenty-six people (this included Bird and me) for the advance team and the detail. The advance team always went out with the two dog guys and twelve men. That left eleven for the detail; with room for one man being sick, hurt, or otherwise incapacitated.

The food was well below American standards, the heat was unbearable, jet lag exacerbated problems, and still the team hit the ground running roughly one day after landing. Coordinating everything each day became a logistical nightmare. Guys were sick, tired, cranky, and some just plain should not have been there. In the haste to put the team together, the selection process was not as stringent as it would eventually become. We found out very quickly who the “real men” were and who the pretenders were. Guys complained about the hours and said they were being overworked and forced to miss meals. Some complained I was working them too hard and they were not getting enough sleep. Some complained about the living conditions, some about the food. My response was pretty much always the same, “If the ambassador can do it, so can we. If you want to go home, just ask.”

The typical day began at 0530 with the detail meeting in front of the palace before heading over to the ambassador’s villa. We would get to the villa, talk to the guys there, and see how the night had gone; then we’d form up security around the building to ensure that if an attack happened we could get the ambassador back into the house or into the armored vehicle as quickly as possible. He left the villa around 0630 each morning to begin his day. This happened every single day we were there. The route to the palace was a short motorcade trip, but nevertheless strict mental discipline needed to be maintained. We could never let our guard down. We would arrive at the office, form the security formation around the motorcade, and escort the ambassador into the palace. Once inside his office we posted one man to stay at the door and another outside the office to man the metal detectors and work with our MP escort team to keep unauthorized people from entering. The MPs were invaluable in this position as they had the power to arrest anyone who defied their orders to stop. Many people (military and nonmilitary) were in the habit of carrying weapons with them everywhere they went. We did NOT and would not allow any weapons, except for the ones that the Blackwater guys were carrying, inside the ambassador’s office. It became an issue more than a few times. Without the MPs’ presence, I’m sure it would have gotten very ugly.

There was a one-hour rotation of the posts around the office, thirty minutes on his door and thirty minutes at the metal detectors. We tried to make sure no one ever had more than one office shift each day so everyone was as fresh as possible. When the ambassador went to the chow hall, we would send a few guys down ahead of time to get him a table and try to give him some space. Ambassador Bremer, however, would shake hands with everyone and pose for pictures with whoever asked (including the non-Americans). With daily intel reports indicating the kitchen staff, the barbers, the groundskeepers, and many others were potential assassins, my guys were in a constant state of high alert. And this was INSIDE the Green Zone.

The ambassador also kept an extremely heavy schedule of meetings outside the Green Zone. Each mission required the advance team to head out an hour or so before the detail team to run the routes and establish security around the venue. Then the detail team would take the ambassador to the event. Then we would head back to the palace and resume security at the office while we waited for the next mission. This happened anywhere from once to five or six times a day, each and every day for the entire time we provided his protection.

Around 1900 each day, I would ask Bremer what time he wanted to go back to the villa. The answer varied from 2100 to 2300 And this was only if a member of the governance team had not barged in on him at the last second to talk about the latest­ crisis­ du jour. The governance team was composed of the Americans­ and Iraqis who were trying to design and implement a new Iraqi government. They had a very difficult job. Every day there was a new problem; every evening the ambassador was updated on wrinkles in yesterday’s plan. Oftentimes he would ask for a 2100 departure only to be trapped in his office until midnight­. The detail team staged thirty minutes before his requested departure time. Sometimes it was three hours or more before he actually loaded up in the car and we took him home. The boss was a machine. Upon arrival at the villa he would usually tell me to be there at 0630 again the next day. The detail would then head back to their trailers after securing their gear and weapons. Five and a half hours later we were back to work.

About a week after landing, the team was able to move into their trailers from the makeshift barracks created from the small ballroom Saddam had in the palace. Of course this was only accomplished because Colonel Dennis Sabol (USMC—assigned to Ambassador Bremer’s staff) put priority on the Blackwater guys getting housing before a few “less essential” people who were working there. Colonel Sabol was a good man who more than once helped me navigate through some potentially murky situations. You have to love the Marine Corps brotherhood.

The guys moved into a trailer park, and essentially had an entire block to themselves. This quickly became known as Blackwater Boulevard. Our mission had morphed from what we had anticipated. We had been promised armored vehicles and had none; we had not been told about the villa detail; we did not know Ambassador Bremer never rested and never took more than four hours off. The big boy rules I had inherited from Bird became the norm. I was not going to tell the guys they could not enjoy a cold beer at the end of an eighteen-hour day. My only rule was if you showed up drunk or could not function at 100 percent the next day, you would be sent home.

Being true type A personalities, the end of the day get-togethers began to draw quite a crowd. When a group of alpha males congregate there is no limit on where the conversation may head. And we were quite a diverse collection of former Rangers, SEALs, Recon Marines, Special Forces, French Foreign Legion, SWAT cops, regular navy, regular army, and cops. The ball busting could reach the hysterical stage in seconds. Nothing was off-limits—interservice rivalries, country boy vs. city boy, North vs. South, football vs. baseball, Army vs. Navy vs. Marines vs. Air Force. And being, by and large, a group of intelligent, self-confident, quick-witted, experienced, and extremely sarcastic guys, there was neither room nor time for guys who did not have truly thick skin. It was a comedy show that people outside our group often found irresistible. Of course, the outsiders also became targets of opportunity, and many gave as well as they took.