War Stories (39 page)

      
With RCT-5

      
Downtown, Baghdad, Iraq

      
Friday, 11 April 2003

      
2345 Hours Local

T
he Marines of RCT-5 didn't find Saddam or his sons at the palace, but the fights there and at the mosque were costly. Gunnery Sgt. Jeffrey Bohr was killed, more than fifty were wounded, and four tanks were damaged. The disappointment at not killing or capturing the chief henchmen of the regime was palpable among the Marines and only slightly tempered by the realization that they had killed nearly two hundred fedayeen and Special Republican Guard troops. The handful of prisoners captured, nearly all of them wounded, offered no insight as to why they had fought so hard for the shattered palaces and real estate on the banks of the Tigris. Most Iraqis had chosen to fight to the death, prompting one young sergeant to surmise, “This is what it must have been like fighting the Japs in World War II.”

Early this morning, Joe Dunford moved the RCT-5 command post once again. His command group has moved so often since March 20 that one of the officers in the headquarters, who heard me refer to him as “Fighting Joe Dunford,” came up to me afterward and said that they were debating changing his nickname to “Moving Joe Dunford” or “Fighting Joe Dun-moved.”

We're now in Baghdad's downtown sports complex—once home to the Iraqi National Football Club, their Olympic and World Cup soccer team. Saddam converted the site—a twenty-thousand-seat concrete stadium, modern exercise facility, gymnasium with basketball courts, locker rooms, showers, physical therapy equipment, team offices, and an adjoining school—into a Republican Guard arsenal and anti-aircraft battery. Fighting holes and trenches had been dug in the soccer field and adjoining practice fields, ruining the underground irrigation system. The school and gymnasium had been used to store weapons and ammunition and as quarters for the troops. It's filthy, with cooking utensils, clothing, and personal effects scattered everywhere. Whoever had been living here clearly left in a hurry.

As soon as the gymnasium is thoroughly searched, the Marines set about cleaning the basketball court. Someone puts out the word to find a basketball. Meanwhile, an athletic young trooper climbs up to the scoreboard and, using handmade cardboard signs, tapes the number “0” next to “
HOME
.” Beside “
VISITORS
” he puts “5,000.”

On the streets outside the sports complex, other RCT-5 Marines are patrolling intensively throughout the regiment's sector. While the infantry walks for a change, it seems as though the “wrench turners” are working every armored and wheeled vehicle in the RCT. M-88 tank retrievers are pulling and replacing “power packs” (engines) and transmissions in the M-1s and AAVs. Every truck and Humvee seems
to have its hood up. And Marines who were already filthy are now covered in grease and oil up to their armpits.

The regimental sergeant major, a man who walks one step to the right rear of God, seems pleased by all the work that is being done, but is concerned that his Marines are so covered with crud. When one of the engineers reports that the water main to the sports complex is still working, the sergeant major orders the Chemical Decontamination Unit to be brought to the athletic field, which is surrounded by a high brick wall. When the piping for the “Decon Unit”—with its two dozen or so showerheads—is all set up, he has the Marines file through with bars of soap. For the better part of three hours, hundreds of utterly filthy Marines strip off their desert “cammies” and cavort through the warm water.

Just as in the chow line, officers go last. And even though I'm now a civilian, I honor the tradition, regrettably. The water runs out before I have a chance to partake in this simple luxury. As we walk back to Chaplain Frank Holley's Humvee, where our satellite gear is set up, Griff reminds me that he's not an officer and would really have appreciated a shower. In sympathy, I promise not to remove my boots tonight so he won't have to smell my feet when he goes to sleep.

Just before 1400 hours local, FOX News Channel in New York City calls and tells me that we're going to be in the first segment of
FOX & Friends
, and they connect me with Steve Doocy.

Doocy informs me that they want to do a split screen with me in Baghdad and a wounded Marine in Ramstein, Germany, who knows me.

“That's fine, Steve,” I reply. “Don't take this the wrong way, but most of the Marines here know me.”

“Yeah,” says Doocy, “but this one has a picture with you. He's just come out of surgery at the military hospital in Ramstein, Germany,
and apparently you were on a helicopter that evacuated him or something. We've just gotten the film from his camera developed and you're in the picture with him.”

To me, this sounds about as unusual as the sun coming up in the east. I've posed for photographs with hundreds of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines over here. But a few minutes later we go live, and I see the image of a young Marine on the screen of our little transceiver. He's talking about getting wounded and being taken to an Army shock-trauma hospital, then back to Kuwait and placed on a U.S. Air Force Nightingale and flown to Germany. Then the camera in Ramstein zooms in on the photo. It's the shot Shawn Basco took onboard Don Presto's CH-46 at the palace yesterday!

Basco goes on to say some very flattering things about FOX and our coverage of the war, and some very true things about the courage of the helicopter pilots and aircrews who go into harm's way to rescue the wounded. While he's talking, I send Griff into the CP to retrieve the “send more ammo” note, so I can explain what a hero Basco is. Griff brings it back just in time. I hold it up for the TV audience and explain what it means. And that's when I notice that on the back of the cardboard someone has attached a note:
Capt. Basco deserves the Silver Star
.

He does—and I say so on the air. But it's a definite breach of protocol. The Silver Star is our nation's third-highest award for valor, and in the Marine Corps the determination as to who gets one is made by a board of officers at headquarters back in Washington.

Half an hour later, an old friend on the I-MEF staff seeks me out and comes by to give me some friendly advice: “Be careful about awarding Silver Stars on television. Some people up the line may not like it.”

I know he's right, but I can't resist a reply. “So what are they going to do, shave my head and send me to Iraq?”

We keep our satellite link set up for most of the day. The news out of New York and Washington is all about the “looting” that's supposedly so rampant here in the city. To get a better sense for how bad it really is, I accompany one of the squad-sized foot patrols that is moving block to block and building to building in this part of the city.

The sergeant leading the patrol has his men well spread out; the Marines have their weapons at the ready as they move down the streets. Most of the shops are shuttered, and there are only a handful of civilians about. Even though we haven't heard a shot fired for some time, the civilian population is practically invisible—a sign that there are probably fedayeen or Baath enforcers still in the area.

As the point man approaches an intersection, one of his mates with a SAW moves up to cover him before he moves out in the open. While he checks out the open space—a natural killing zone—the sergeant orders the others to “take a knee.” They all genuflect, forefingers extended above the triggers on their M-16s, their thumbs on safeties, ready to fire in an instant. Crouching there with them, my video camera rolling, I can see one man in every fire team scanning the rooftops.

The patrol continues in this fashion for more than an hour, the squad leader constantly toggling his GPS to note his position, in case he has to call for help. Every ten minutes or so he calls a pos-rep (a “position report,” meaning his location) back to his company HQ on his PRC-119 radio.

Suddenly, as the patrol approaches an intersection, four young men dressed in black trousers and dirty civilian shirts come running around the corner and nearly collide with the point man. A near catastrophe is averted as the Marine yells, “Stop!”

The four youths do as ordered and drop what they are carrying—bags of rice and cans of cooking oil. In an instant they are spread-eagled on the street and searched. No weapons are found, and when they are allowed to get up, the four boys lead the patrol to the place they had stolen their booty—the garage of a tree-shaded house set back from the street. I notice that the two-story residence has an air-conditioning unit, the first one I've seen in Iraq.

Inside the four-car garage is a nearly new Mercedes—along with at least six or seven hundred forty-pound bags of rice, stacks of one-gallon cans of cooking oil, and boxes full of tinned meat. All of the bags and boxes have a large “UN” label stamped on them and a UN emblem. The sergeant is quickly on the radio summoning a HET team and a truck. While they wait, he orders one of the fire team leaders to check out the house.

A Marine uses his Kabar knife to force the door, and four leathernecks cautiously enter. They're back in minutes with the observation, “Nobody home, but nice digs, sar'ent.”

That's an understatement. Though not as opulent as one of Saddam's palaces, this is clearly the very comfortable domicile of someone very highly placed in the Iraqi military, the Baath Party, or both. Persian carpets cover the floors; artwork and tapestries adorn the walls. Blank spots and picture hooks reveal where someone has removed other items—probably photographs. There is still some clothing in the closets, but many drawers are empty or partially empty, indicating that the family who lived here packed quickly but carefully before departing. One room, apparently a home office, has connections for a computer that's been removed. The desk has been sanitized—not even a receipt remains. Behind the desk, a wall safe is open and empty.

Outside, one of the Marines finds a fifty-five-gallon drum full of ashes; it smells of kerosene. A charred shovel lies on the ground beside
the “burn barrel.” Whoever these people are, they had something to hide and wanted to get out of town before the Americans arrived.

When the three-man HET team arrives in their Humvee and an empty seven-ton truck, they are accompanied by two OGA personnel in an SUV. I go with them back through the garage, the house, and large shed behind the residence. The shed is also full of UN food and relief supplies. After poking around awhile, the OGA fellows decide that there is little left of intelligence value and I ride with them back to the sports complex and the RCT-5 CP.

On the way I ask the CIA team chief if he has seen more of this kind of thing since we arrived in Baghdad. “Hell, yes. That's nothing,” he replies. “There are whole warehouses full of UN food, medicine, and relief supplies that the Baath Party was hoarding. Those kids back there weren't ‘looting.' They aren't ripping off their neighbors—this isn't like Watts or Detroit when people pillaged just for the hell of it. Those four boys were just trying to get what was supposed to be theirs but that Saddam and his Baath buddies had stolen,” he continues, clearly agitated.

As we enter the sports complex perimeter and I get out of his SUV, he finishes his invective. “The UN Oil-for-Food Program was a bad idea right from the beginning. The UN trades food for oil, the Baath Party takes the food and sells it to the Iraqi people, and the people get screwed in the process. The guy who owned that house probably paid for it and everything in it with money he made from Oil-for-Food. Hell, he left a brand new Mercedes behind. Makes you wonder what his other car is,” he adds, cooling down.

“Any idea where he might be?” I ask.

“Probably in Damascus or Amman by now,” he replies. “But you can bet he's not one of those guys we killed yesterday at the mosque or palace defending Saddam.”

   
OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #33