Tuesday, October 21, 2003

Raid Saturday morning near Baji.  

Click on thumbnails for full-size images. These men were all arrested in a raid following an attack on Combat Engineer Battallion--Charlie Company. The three men captured immediately after the attack indicated they had accomplices in a nearby house. Three more men were arrested there and bound and blindfolded with their own headscarves. They were taken to Tikrit for questioning.
















In the image immediately above, freelance camerwoman Pelin Sidki shoots the house raid.




above: One of the men catpured after the attack on the U.S. soldiers is brought to the house to identify what he says are his accomplices.



above: The detainees are transported by truck to Tikrit for questioning



above: A long ride into uncertainty



above: U.S. soldiers now walk the halls and fill the many rooms of Saddam Hussein's main palace in Tikrit.



above: The 299 Combat Engineers live in an unfinished palace in Tikrit they've renamed Omaha. They've updated this sculpture of Saddam Hussein with an American motif.



above: The combat engineers are responsible for destroying these Russian-made SA2 surface to air missiles. They're as long as telephone poles and carry 300 pound warheads. This staff sargeant is busy packing them with bricks of C4--each equivalent to about a stick and a third of TNT.
Discuss

Kevin 9:50 AM

Long Day’s Journey  

Saturday morning just east of Baji; the combat engineers of Battalion 299 Charlie Company are doing what they like doing best: blowing things up.

Today’s cache is a bunch of Russian-made SA2 surface to air missiles strewn across the desert like pixie stix.

The 299’s laid-back commanding officer, Lt. Colonel Mark Huron says the mission, though typical, is an important one.

“They contain certain components,” he says, “and if they fall into the wrong hands could be fashioned into and I.E.D.”

That’s Army lingo for improvised explosive device—the deadly weapon of choice by insurgent forces that have been attacking U.S. troops every few days since President Bush declared the war was over on May 1st.

In a country awash in weapons and ammunition, these devices have been rigged with everything from grenades to artillery shells. But the SA2’s could up the ante.

The telephone pole length missiles each carry a 300-pound warhead. The engineers pack them with white bricks of C-4 plastic explosives, equivalent to about a stick and a third of dynamite.

“It takes a special kind of soldier to do this work,” says Sgt. Anthony Jackson of Akron, Ohio, “as he plugs in silver blasting caps and spools out green detonating cords.

On the first blast of the day there are two intact missiles and 23 separated warheads that will be destroyed. The squad runs “det” cord from the half dozen bricks of C-4 on each missile and the two bricks on each warhead to the primary lead lines. It is a giant cat’s cradle that will carry an electric pulse that sets off the plastic explosives and then the warheads.

“Don’t get me wrong,” says Sgt. Thomas Archer, “the bang is great, but the shockwave is where it’s at. You feel that shockwave and you know you’ve done your job. There’s not going to be anything left.”

In postwar Iraq these guys are the Hail Mary squad—ready to do what their asked, from treating drinking water, to building bridges, to destroying weapons caches which could be used against coalition forces. Their portfolio is as broad and diverse Leonardo Davinici’s—and like the renaissance genius, they use both sides of their brain—creative and logical to accomplish their mission.

Taking the lead from their commanding officer and their Sgt. Major, they seem to me the calmest, most even tempered men in the Army.

Sgt. Major Wells has been in the Army for 23 years and doesn’t plan to quit until they make him.

“Why should you leave a job when you’re having fun,” he asks.

He is soft spoken but commands respect with a quiet confidence built on vast knowledge and institutional memory. In his Humvee he has a Saint Christopher medal on his visor. He says he touches is it and says a little prayer before every mission.

“What do you pray for,” I ask him? He chews on the question for a moment, then answers.

“For the safety of me and my men. But also that we do the right thing out here. You have to do a lot of things that aren’t so nice. Ugly things.”

After all the SA2’s are rigged, Charlie Company needs to put in a blast request to Division Command. It’s much more than a Fourth of July fireworks show—so airspace has to be cleared along with people, houses, and flocks of sheep. The engineers once detonated dozens of warheads in one shot. The explosion was so large it was seen on NASA’s satellites.

But there’s a problem. They are in a desert valley and their radio communications won’t reach Division headquarters in Tikrit. They send a four-man squad up the hill in a Humvee to try and make radio contact.

But as they’re driving, three men firing from a nearby ravine ambush the squad. Luckily the attackers are bad shots. AK-47 rounds go wide and a rocket propelled grenade sails overhead. The engineers return fire with the guttural thumping of the 50-caliber machine gun mounted on the vehicle. The suspected attackers flee, but are quickly captured. No weapons are found in the ravine, but there are dozens of spent shell casings.

Within minutes the Iraqi men, all in their early to mid-twenties, begin to turn on each other. They not only admit their guilt—but also point out a nearby house where they say they have accomplices.

Lt.Colonel Huron tells Captain Larry Lyle to come up with a plain for a raid.

“Larry,” Huron says of the plan, “just make it quick and violent.” Violent I’ve come to understand, is a tactical term, rather than adjective. For soldiers it means a show of overwhelming force that immediately convinces an adversary to surrender rather than fight.

While Captain Lyle prepared the raid—the blast request comes through. We stand about a kilometer away to watch. Over the radio we hear,

“Fire in the hole, Fire in the hole, Fire in the hole.”

Seconds later a stretch of desert the length of two or three football fields erupts in orange flame and black smoke. Shards of the missile casings flythrough the air. A black mushroom cloud forms.

As soon as the detonation is over—the raid begins. Captain Lyle and his team roll on the house. Soldiers cover the rear exits while others pile in through the front door and into the backyard. Six men who just moments earlier were sitting on Persian carpets, smoking sweet tobacco from a large water pipe called a hubbly bubbly—are now face down in the grass with M-16’s trained on them.

The engineers are forceful, but not brutish in their approach. The house is searched and a few weapons are found. Captain Lyle shows me the catch.

“Looks like we got a little pistol looks like 38 special,”

“Loaded,” I ask?

“Roger.” He opens up the cylinder and empties the rounds.

“And an AK-47 with a ton of empty magazines.” There are eight lying on the ground.

“This,” he says, pointing at the rifle, “ could’ve been weapon used to shoot at my guys.”

“But it’s not unusually to have this amount of weapons in an Iraqi household,” I say.

“No,” he agrees, “but that’s why we’re going to bring in the other guys and have them make an I.D.”

While Captain Lyle sets up an improvised lineup – Lt. Col. Huron stands outside at the back gate. He is silhouetted and casually eating a pomegranate. He has total confidence in his men and simply watches while they do their jobs.

The three that were captured after the attack are brought into the backyard, bound and blindfolded. The Engineers have no translator with them and try to pantomime what is to be done. They take the blindfolds off and point, one at a time to each of the men who had been sitting in the backyard. They tell the three to either nod “yes” or shake their head “no,” to indicate which of the other men were also involved. They implicate an older man in a gray Arab dish dash robe, another younger man in a red kaffiyeh headscarf and a nicely dressed middle-aged man who speaks a little English.

He is the most distraught.

“Please,” he says, “as he is pulled to his feet and moved back from the others. “I am teacher.”

Captain Lyle touches his arm. “Sir, we’re just going to question you. If you’re innocent you’ll be released.”

The engineers snatch the younger man’s red kaffiyeh from his head and use a knife to cut it in strips. They bind their hands with it. The engineers check the men’s shoulders for the tattoos of Saddam’s Fedayeen militia. None are found. Then they cut up an orange bath towel found in the house and blindfold them with it. Loose threads hang down in their faces as they are walked outside to a waiting truck.

Second Lt. Adam Rasmussen tells his squad to move them out, but not to treat them roughly. The engineers help their bound and blindfolded captives up a ladder and into the flatbed. The older man in the grey dish dash misses a step. His right foot pedals the air trying to find a rung. They turn him around and haul him up backwards. All six now sit on one side of the truck, guarded by Sgt. Jackson with a nine-millimeter pistol and two others with m249 drum-fed squad assault weapon.

The six will be questioned back at the 299’s operating base—a half-finished palace in Tikrit Saddam Hussein was having built for one of his daughters. The men have renamed it Forward Operating Base Omaha and have painted an American flag in the shape of Iraq over a relief sculpture of the ex-dictator’s face.

For both the Iraqis and the engineers of the 299th it has been another long day’s journey into uncertainty. It is, their faces betray, a strange and unfamiliar place within this conflict that shifts from moment to moment like shadows in the desert.

Discuss

Kevin 9:31 AM