War Stories (53 page)

      
Ramadi, Iraq

      
Tuesday, 11 May 2004

      
1400 Hours Local

A video was posted on a militant Islamic website today. The grisly tape shows the beheading of Nicholas Berg, a U.S. civilian whose body was found near Baghdad three days ago.

Just about a week or so ago, CBS News showed some other videotaped footage on its
60 Minutes
television show. It was part of a report on abuse of Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison by U.S. soldiers. It's pretty obvious that things were not what they should have been at Abu Ghraib. But those responsible will be held accountable, and rightfully so. However, those acts are an aberration compared to the thousands of acts of kindness that U.S. troops are showing to the Iraqi people daily. And as bad as the Abu Ghraib misdeeds were, they pale by comparison with the brutal atrocities being perpetrated by the terrorists here in Iraq.

Bush administration officials rightly condemned the repugnant behavior at Abu Ghraib. The president called it “abhorrent,” and Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld said it was “totally unacceptable and un-American.” The Pentagon announced that those responsible would be court-martialed. But that isn't enough for the press and the president's political opponents in an election year.

Sadly, the drumbeat over Abu Ghraib is having an adverse effect on morale. Tens of thousands of soldiers and Marines who have served honorably in Iraq now wonder if their service will be tainted in the minds of their countrymen by the shameful behavior of a dozen or so miscreants.

Over the past two years, I've spent months in the field with U.S. forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and throughout the Middle East. During the march to Baghdad in April 2003, I saw hundreds of Iraqis taken prisoner—many of whom turned themselves in to American forces, knowing they would fare much better in U.S. custody than in Saddam's army. They were all treated humanely.

In battle, I watched a Marine risk his life to rescue a wounded Iraqi woman. Troops in the units with which I was embedded treated the Iraqi people with dignity and respect. U.S. forces have played soccer with the kids and built schools with supplies sent by the American public. I've seen Marines give their last MREs to hungry Iraqi children.

I've also seen
why
these troops are in Iraq. I've looked into Saddam's mass graves—a site that makes you sick to your stomach. I saw the evidence of atrocities committed by Saddam, Uday, and Qusay—tapes showing innocent Iraqis having their tongues cut out, or being blindfolded, bound, and marched off the edge of two- and three-story buildings. I saw Iraqi schools turned into ammunition depots and mosques used as bunkers.

U.S. forces are hard at work in their daily efforts to free Iraq and pave the way for their coming democracy and free elections. And just
yesterday, American forces destroyed the Baghdad headquarters of rebel Shi'ite Muqtada al-Sadr and killed eighteen of his high-level cohorts during an overnight firefight.

There is no doubt that crimes were committed at Abu Ghraib. But if Abu Ghraib becomes the story that Americans most remember about this war, that would be a crime too.

   
OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #48

      
Baghdad, Iraq

      
Thursday, 19 June 2004

      
0950 Hours Local

Eleven days ago, the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved Resolution 1546. Sponsored by the U.S. and Britain, the resolution is intended to end the formal occupation of Iraq on 30 June and transfer “full sovereignty” to an interim Iraqi government. This temporary authority—composed of people selected by Iraqis, not Americans, Britons, or the United Nations—will in turn arrange for nationwide elections in January 2005. The resolution also authorizes a continuation of the U.S.-led multinational force for Iraq until a constitutionally elected government takes power, expected by early 2006, or if the Iraqi government requests it.

But Americans are an impatient lot. We're used to movies on demand, fast food from drive-thru windows, express oil changes, and high speed Internet service. Americans want it when we want it—and we want it now!

Our eagerness for instant results has served as a stimulus to the U.S. economy, inspired scientific progress, and promoted advances in technology. We now build homes and commercial structures in days and weeks that used to take months and even years.

But when it comes to constructing institutions of democracy, the desire for immediate outcomes is a vice rather than a virtue. When
interim Iraqi president Ghazi al-Yawer visited the United States, he thanked the American people for the sacrifices we've made in liberating his country and offered assurances that, despite the difficulties, things are on track for a real democratic government in Baghdad. There is, of course, one pre-condition—the transition to democracy will only work as long as the U.S.-led coalition continues to stay the course.

Therein lies the rub—staying the course. According to recent public opinion surveys, a majority of both the American people and the population of Iraq have lost patience with our efforts to bring democracy to Baghdad. Fifteen months after the fall of Saddam's statue in Firdus Square, and six months after he was dragged from a rat-hole, most Iraqis and most Americans want U.S. troops out—
now
.

Set aside the fact that both U.S. and Iraqi polls sampled public opinion in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib prison fiasco and its attendant tidal wave of negative publicity. As long as Abu Ghraib remains the focal point of a hostile media, it is unlikely that public perception of recognizing the progress in Iraq will improve.

In addition to Abu Ghraib, the media is focused on the perceived increasing violence of the jihadists. Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld answered a salvo of press-conference queries based on the premise “that because the violence is escalating,” shouldn't we “cut our losses?”

Such a course of action is unthinkable. In the months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, President George W. Bush warned that the War on Terror would be a long, tough fight. Marines and soldiers on the ground in Iraq acknowledge that the violence is likely to increase, right through the establishment of a new Iraqi government. They see the rash of terror attacks on Iraqi civilians and leadership targets as a sign of increasing desperation by foreign terrorists, tribal sheiks and imams who will lose power once a democratic regime is installed in Baghdad.

Progress in Iraq was never going to be immediate. The global War on Terror was never going to be won in Afghanistan alone. Don
Rumsfeld referred to it as a “long hard slog.” That's the kind of message Franklin Delano Roosevelt repeated time and again during our last war of national survival—World War II. It's the kind of message that Lyndon Johnson failed to deliver during Vietnam.

But the war on jihadist terror in Iraq isn't Vietnam. We survived fatigue and failure in Vietnam. We won't survive failure in this war. Unless we want our children to live in constant fear of Islamic radicals bringing down buildings on their heads, there has to be a democratic outcome in Iraq. That's why the president's words at MacDill Air Force Base on 16 June were so important. “With each step forward on the path to self-government and self-reliance,” Bush said, “the terrorists will grow more desperate and more violent. They see Iraqis taking their country back. They see freedom taking root. The killers know they have no future in a free Iraq. They want America to abandon the mission and to break our word. So they're attacking our soldiers and free Iraqis. They're doing everything in their power to prevent the full transition to democracy.”

President Bush added, “We can expect more attacks in the coming few weeks . . . more car bombs, more ‘suiciders,' more attempts on the lives of Iraqi officials. But our coalition is standing firm. New Iraq's leaders are not intimidated. I will not yield, and neither will the leaders of Iraq.”

The troops out here are hoping that the American people in the fast lane have the patience not to yield either.

   
OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #49

      
Ramadi, Iraq

      
Saturday, 23 July 2004

      
1500 Hours Local

“There was about a half-mile stretch of the main road in town that instantly became a battlefield as we moved through it,” explained Maj.
Mike Wylie, the executive officer of 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines. Wylie was describing the genesis of a truly violent clash on “Wicked Wednesday” here in Ramadi, the provincial capital that lies about seventy miles west of Baghdad.

Marines and soldiers were on patrol, making their way through town in 120-degree mid-afternoon heat, when insurgents set off an IED in an attempted ambush on the Marine convoy. The IED exploded beside the vehicle that was carrying our FOX News cameraman, Mal James, who jumped out of the Humvee to capture some of the most dramatic war footage since the major hostilities of sixteen months ago.

The ensuing battle, involving more than 600 soldiers and Marines, lasted well over four hours and raged over ten city blocks in the vicinity of the government center. During the battle, twenty-five insurgents were killed, seventeen more wounded, and another twenty-five taken off the streets and into custody. Fourteen Marines sustained only minor injuries during the clash.

The IED—and its deadly cousin, the VBIED (Vehicular-Borne Improvised Explosive Device) or car bomb—is now the preferred form of attack against coalition forces and the new Iraqi government. They are used in every way conceivable—in vehicles, hidden in trash cans beside the road, even placed in dead animals. The enemy no longer wants to face soldiers and Marines head-to-head, as evidenced by the lopsided outcome of Wednesday's firefight.