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Due west of the chow hall was the Iraqi COC, the brain of the Iraqi battalion and home for the senior Iraqi officers. It was strategically located only a hundred meters away in case the
jundi
got hungry. It was also where our first meeting with the Iraqis was to take place.

We approached the Iraqi COC. The three-man security detachment guarding the entrance to the facility awoke from their slumber, jumped from their lawn chairs, and greeted us with “Salam” (Hello). Caught off guard we replied, “Salam” and quickly entered the large swahut.

Our team had entered the Iraqi conference room a few minutes late. The meeting, which was already underway, immediately ceased. Every Iraqi in the room hopped from their seat and formed a line, waiting to greet each member of our team. It was overwhelming to say the least.

The Iraqis attacked. They swarmed around me and the rest of the team, hugging, kissing, shaking hands, and speaking Arabic. Lieutenant Le Gette, who was being mobbed by Iraqis, glanced at me. “Dude,” he said, “what happened to the meeting?” Squished between a group of Iraqis, I gasped for air and replied, “I'm not sure, man, but these guys sure are friendly. Sheesh!”

Our spectacular meet-and-greet subsided quickly. Nobody on our team, aside from me, had more than a basic grasp of Arabic, the Iraqis couldn't speak English, and the two “terps” (short for interpreters) in the room could only do so much to keep communications flowing. Conversations that consist of Shlonek? (How are you?) and Anii zien, wa inta? (I am good, and you?) can only go so far. It was time to start the brief.

Captain Muhanned, the IA battalion S-3 (operations section) officer, led the mission with an outstanding orientation brief. Following his opening remarks, Muhanned called the various sections to the front of the group to describe how their section's planning efforts would affect the upcoming operation. The S-1 (administration section) talked about personnel and administration, the S-2 (intelligence section) gave the intelligence brief, the S-3 spoke to operations, the S-4 (logistics section) described logistics, and, finally, the S-6 (communications section) described the communications plan. After hearing the various S-shops give their respective briefs, it was time for a question-and-answer session and for another lesson in Iraqi culture.

Lt. Col. Owen Lovejoy, the outgoing MiTT leader, started the session. He pointed out various flaws in the operation plan and asked the
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how they would address the issues. Silence. In the Iraqis' mind without their commander Colonel Abass present at the table (he was at a meeting in Al Asad), there was no point even talking about possible changes to the plan. Lieutenant Colonel Ali, the Iraqi's second in command, kept swatting questions back at Lieutenant Colonel Lovejoy as if they were pesky mosquitoes. Each time his response and rhetoric were the same: “How can I change this plan if the commander is not here to make the decision? As a commander, how would you feel if I were making decisions behind your back? Would you still be the commander?”

The Iraqis' behavior struck me as odd. In the Marines battle decisions can be made at the lowest levels of command. Subordinate Marines are expected to make decisions when their leaders are not present. In the IA the exact opposite occurs: the commander makes all decisions, even the trivial ones. If the commander does not make all decisions, his authority is undermined. I realized that changing this environment was going to be a serious challenge.

Words of Wisdom from the Marine Colonel

The sandstorm was so thick I could not see more than three feet in front of me. I was driving the Iraqis' Chevy Luv, a two-door pickup with slabs of metal bolted to the sides acting as armor. We were cruising on the top level of the dam to make our meeting with Lt. Col. Norman Cooling, the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines (3/3) commander. The small pickup swayed and dipped at the whims of the storm's power. At one point, when the winds were particularly fierce, we stopped the vehicle, blocked off all air-conditioning vents, and experienced the insides of a tornado. Within twenty minutes the storm passed, the tornado miraculously transformed into a cloudless, sunny day. The sandstorm had melted into the desert floor.

We faced another sandstorm in our meeting with Lieutenant Colonel Cooling. 3/3 was the unit that would save our asses if the Iraqi army ever decided to mutiny and take the entire MiTT hostage. It made sense for our team to have a good relationship with Cooling. Our meeting took place in the commander's boardroom, located on the seventh floor of the dam. The room resembled a corporate boardroom setting, save for the fact that it was 100 degrees in the room and we sat in plastic chairs. All the same we were honored and wanted to hear what the lieutenant colonel had to say.

The first words from his mouth stung our adviser team. He lectured, “Here is the bottom line gentlemen: these MiTTs are supposed to be the best of the best, the most capable Marines our Corps has to offer. If the
MiTT mission is to succeed in Iraq, that is exactly what we need to be doing.” He paused, sat up in his chair, and continued. “Here is the reality. MiTTs are usually staffed with leftovers . . . no offense.” We got the drift. His experience with MiTTs in the past apparently had not been that great and he intended to set things straight this time around.

The stressed-out warrior went on. “You want to know what I expect from the MiTT if we are going to get along out here? Solid leadership.” We all gulped, knowing our MiTT leader was nowhere near the hottest on the planet. “You know,” he continued, “here is my experience with Marines dying. For every ten Marines that die out here, two are because of dumb leadership decisions, six of them are because of individual Marine complacency, and maybe two of them are from actual enemy skill and craft. When you break that down, eight out of ten Marine casualties could be saved through solid leadership—first, by making good decisions and second, by ensuring Marines do not get complacent.”

Cooling followed up with an example that still haunted him: “Five months ago a seven-ton full of Marines was told to go check out a
wadi
(dried river bed) for IED wires. When they got to the
wadi
, it was heavily pouring rain and the
wadi
was full of water. The staff sergeant on the scene made the decision to try and cross it. Suffice to say, it was a bad decision; twelve men drowned and one survived—the staff sergeant who made the retarded decision.” He grimaced. “My guess is that poor staff sergeant isn't sleeping well nowadays.”

Cooling abruptly moved to the next thing on his mind. “Oh, and here is another thing, you now have a microscope up your ass, congratulations.” We were perplexed by his statement. “Well, gents,” he explained, “if you think back about seven months ago you will remember the infamous ‘Haditha Massacre' where Marines from 3/1 [3rd Battalion, 1st Marines] were accused of killing a bunch of civilians in Haditha. The press went wild with the story, which inflamed world and American opinions. Following the incident, the generals out here decided to jam a microscope up all regimental commanders' asses in Iraq, and they subsequently grabbed the microscopes from their asses and proceeded to jam them up the battalion commanders' asses—mine included. Now, following suit, I am now taking it out of my ass and jamming it up yours.”

It didn't take long to realize Cooling was completely serious. “The situation is so ridiculous,” he continued, “that anytime Marines engage the enemy in my area I have to do an investigation on the incident and verify it was legitimate. I fully understand this may lead to you and your Iraqis
hesitating in the heat of battle—I'm sorry. You can thank the media for that one; they have no understanding of the situation on the ground or a grasp of the Iraqi people.” We read between the lines; we were out here to be bullet sponges, and if we retaliated against the insurgents, we were going to be investigated under the assumption we had used force unnecessarily. The media blowback from the so-called Haditha Massacre was going to have a direct effect on our ability to operate.

Lieutenant Colonel Cooling moved away from addressing the negative realities of the war and focused on motivating our team. He lectured, stealing a page from President George W. Bush: “There are two truths to the situation out there. First, if we aren't fighting these terrorists here, we will be fighting them in America. And second, the only way out of this place is to train the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police so we can leave to fight who we really need to fight—Iran, Syria, and North Korea.”

After that sad attempt at motivation, he told us more about the area. “Here's a wake-up call. Your training in America is shitty and doesn't prepare you for what you face out here. And another thing. You are going to have the urge to act like your Special Forces neighbors, who run around like cowboys on convoys, going way too fast and rarely doing the proper precombat inspections and precombat checks. Don't do that shit. You are Marines, not U.S. Army Rambo wannabes.” The lieutenant colonel did not actually think our training was shitty or that we would try to emulate the Special Forces; he just wanted to stress to us his key point: complacency kills.

In conclusion Cooling said, “Gentlemen, we are ahead of these guys with the Chameleons coming into theater. This is going to stop the radio-controlled IEDs for the time being. I figure we have a one-to two-month edge on these guys. But standby, I will bet my paycheck they will figure out a work-around soon enough. Good luck, and get those Iraqis to work.” We all left the meeting motivated but feeling as though we indeed had a microscope jammed up our asses.

Finalizing the Mission Plans

The mythical Colonel Abass, whom we had heard so much about from the outgoing advisers, soon returned to Camp Ali. The guy was a sight to see. He tipped the scale at 270 pounds and packed his weight in a frame that stood about five feet seven inches tall. Abass's trademark was his handlebar mustache. When he opened his mouth, it looked as if he had a small squirrel sleeping on his upper lip.

What was most amazing about Colonel Abass was his intellect and wit. He redefined what it means to be “street smart.” At the time I met him, Abass had twenty-four years of service in the old IA, a fundamental understanding of the political situation in Iraq, and a deceptive ability to influence Americans. The only reason he was not at the Ministry of Defense (MOD) or in a higher position of power is that he was a Sunni, a former regime supporter, and could not speak a lick of English.

With Abass back at camp we redid the mission-planning brief. This time around a different feel was in the air. When Abass entered the COC conference room, everyone snapped out of their seats and jumped to attention. He spoke to the crowd, welcomed our new MiTT, thanked God for our safe arrival, and told Captain Muhanned to begin the brief. The brief was similar to Lieutenant Colonel Lovejoy's brief, except with more formalities and more questions from Abass to his staff. Abass brought up many of the same points Lovejoy had, which was a testament to his ability to notice the same issues and concerns as our top military leaders.

Once the brief was over I had a vague idea of what we were getting ourselves into and a decent level of confidence in the
jundi
to accomplish the mission. I wouldn't say the
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are Marines, or that they could execute half of what they had planned, but I was pleasantly surprised at their ability to give a thorough brief.

But I knew the operation would be intense. Our MiTT was going to be thrown into the steaming cauldron on our first mission. The Iraqi battalion's mission was to conduct a seventy-two-hour operation to search and clear every home in Bani Dahir and Kaffijiya.

At the time of this writing Bani Dahir is the most violent area in the Haditha Triad and is the buffer zone between Haditha and Haqliniya, the two largest towns in the area. The insurgents attack every patrol that goes through the area. Staff Sergeant Wear, the outbound MiTT's intelligence adviser, claimed he would give us his next paycheck if we were not attacked during our mission. On the upside, though, the town has about two hundred homes, so we knew the search would take less than a day.

Kaffijiya is almost the opposite of Bani Dahir. Currently it is one of the least violent areas in the Triad, and many of the residents provide timely intelligence to the Marines and IA. In addition Kaffijiya has about a hundred homes, so we knew that searching this area would take only half a day to complete.

The day ended with an Iraqi confirmation brief at 2100, an odd hour for a meeting. It soon became apparent why Iraqis have meetings either early in the morning or late at night, and why they sleep during the day. Originally I thought it was because they were lazy, but I now realize it is because they are smart: it is far too hot to do anything during the day.

The evening meeting was exhilarating. Lieutenant Adams and I learned we would be the first guys on our team to get a piece of the action. Adams was assigned to 1st Iraqi Company with 1st Lt. Jesse Cope (the outgoing adviser), and I would be embedded with 4th Iraqi Company and Capt. Rodd Chin (also an outgoing adviser). The rest of our MiTT would be stationed with the mobile Iraqi COC on the outskirts of Bani Dahir. From there they would listen in on the action and direct support and logistics to the fight, if needed.

During the mission 4th Iraqi Company would be the cordon element during the Bani Dahir search and 1st Iraqi Company would be the search element. During the Kaffijiyah cordon and search, the roles would be reversed. We would be living, fighting, and bleeding with the Iraqi army. Excitement was on the horizon.