War Stories (46 page)

The Army pilots drop us at the main terminal, where we off-load our gear and find our way—courtesy of a Civil Affairs unit from the Illinois National Guard, to the Army's V Corps Operations Center, a cluster of interconnected, air-conditioned, sandbagged tents set up on the apron. That's when we learn that it really pays to work for FOX News Channel.

From the reception we receive, one would have thought Griff and I had won the war single-handedly. The officers, senior NCOs, and enlisted troops manning this facility have, it turns out, been glued to FOX News Channel since the war began. They describe in intimate detail reports they have seen on the FOX satellite feed for the past two months, including Greg Kelly's and Rick Leventhal's dramatic reports from the vanguard of the 3rd ID and 3rd LAR as they closed in on Baghdad two weeks ago.

Here there's no need to huddle around a tiny satellite transceiver, as the troops did when we were broadcasting in the field. Hanging from the roof of this insulated tent, in front of rows of computers at the watch station, is a huge plasma-screen TV. And there are Brit
Hume and Tony Snow with news for Sunday morning in the United States.

Griff and I have instant culture shock. We're filthy. Our clothing is grimy from living in the field. Our flak jackets and gas masks have so much dirt ground into them that they are the color of Iraqi sand. The scores of officers and senior NCOs gathered around us are . . . well, clean. They are all clean-shaven, wearing clean uniforms. Their hands and fingernails are clean. There isn't a gas mask or flak jacket in sight. We smell. They don't—though some may have been wearing aftershave.

After nearly two months in the field, the welcome is, as Griff put it, “awesome.” But not so overwhelming that he loses his head. After hearing people ask us, “Is there anything we can do for you?” several dozen times, I am about to suggest a shower when Griff says, “We're trying to get back to Kuwait. Are there any aircraft headed that way?”

There are none going there directly, but an hour later we are aboard a C-130 assigned to Brig. Gen. Gary Harrell's Special Operations Command, headed to CENTCOM “Forward” at Doha, Qatar. Harrell's 5th and 10th Special Forces Groups have waged the war with almost no media visibility, and that's the way they want to keep it. We are admonished that if we wanted a ride to Kuwait, we cannot report who goes with us, what cargo the aircraft carries, or even what model C-130 it is. We put away our cameras and get aboard.

After a brief stop in Qatar to drop off the cargo and passengers we can't report about, we take off for the hour-and-a-half flight to Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait. There we return the gas masks, chemical protective suits, flak jackets, and NVGs I signed for with HMM-268. Then we make a quick round of goodbyes again at MAG-39 and throw our personal gear and broadcast equipment into the back of a Suburban that Gary Gastelu has dispatched from the FOX bureau in Kuwait City.

The Kuwait City we return to is completely transformed from the capital we left two months before. Gone are the air raid wardens at the hotels. The police roadblocks and highway checks at key intersections are absent, as are the sirens wailing their warnings about inbound Iraqi missiles. The people on the street seem genuinely pleased to see Americans.

When we arrive at the FOX News Channel bureau at the Marriott Hotel, we are issued room keys and extra towels and are informed that our flight home, via London, departs the following morning. Two hours later—showered, shaved, fed, but still longing for any kind of cold drink with lots of ice in it—we fall asleep. Twelve hours later we are on our way home to our affectionate families at Dulles Airport.

Our warm welcome obscures three important dynamics that, if we were less fatigued, would be obvious. First, the American people are still, despite the stunning victory in Iraq, deeply divided over the war. Second, though we are home with those who love us, the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines we have covered throughout the campaign are without their families, and will be for a long time to come. But most important, some of those families, instead of gathering in joy to meet their returning warrior, will come together to mourn an irreplaceable loss.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

AFTERMATH

T
hough much of the “good news” from Iraq dried up when the embedded news teams came home, there was still plenty of positive information to report from the war-torn country. Unfortunately, many of these stories never got printed or aired or were buried beneath a deluge of criticism, casualty statistics, and negative anecdotes.

The events of Tuesday, July 22 in Mosul, Iraq—a major victory in Operation Iraqi Freedom—is but one example of how quickly a “good news” story can disappear. Since we were already home, the following account was prepared from news reports and information supplied by soldiers, Marines, and OGA personnel who were in Iraq when these events occurred.

   
AFTER ACTION REPORT

      
Al Falah District, Mosul, Iraq

      
Tuesday, 22 July 2003

      
0955 Hours Local

It has been 122 days since the coalition forces launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. For the past month only occasional skirmishes have
interrupted the daily routine in Mosul. There has been an American presence in the al Falah district, an area of Mosul that's shared—not always peacefully—by Sunnis and Kurds.

The looting and revenge-taking by the Kurds eased up when the Kurdish troops retreated in late May, and the relieved locals felt that things were getting back to normal. There's been relative freedom of movement for the Iraqis since then.

Iraqi businessman Nawaf al-Zaidan was especially relieved that the Kurds were gone. As someone close to the Hussein clan, he'd have been one of their targets and probably would have been shot and hung from a lamppost like others in Saddam's regime or the Baath Party. Al-Zaidan's neighbors said that he had obtained lucrative contracts from the regime as part of the Oil-for-Food Program. Al-Zaidan made money from his connections with Saddam's family, and probably didn't even resent having to pay a kickback to them for getting his contracts.

After the Kurds left in May, all was quiet for a while. Then there was some unusual activity at al-Zaidan's house in Mosul. The homeowner told his friends and clan members that he had visitors—female relatives. In his culture, males were not allowed to visit while the women were there. For nearly a month none of his friends or neighbors were invited to his house because his “female relatives” were still visiting.

The truth, however, was that the visitors were not female. Nor were they relatives. After several days of preparations during the last week of June, Nawaf al-Zaidan received important visitors who were going to entrust him with their safety. The visitors were Uday and Qusay Hussein. They arrived June 30, with their bodyguard and Qusay's teenage son Mustafa. The fugitives would stay under the roof of the Mosul businessman until their presence was compromised.

At about 2200 local on July 21, an unidentified Iraqi citizen tipped a young U.S. Army sergeant, an intelligence specialist, that Saddam's
evil sons were hiding in Nawaf al-Zaidan's house. The young sergeant's report—at the time only a suspicion—was immediately relayed to Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division. He in turn directed his deputy, Brig. Gen. Frank Helmick, to develop a plan for capturing or killing the high-value targets said to be hiding in the Mosul residence.

Most think it was al-Zaidan who contacted the Americans about the HVTs living in his villa—no doubt for the $30 million bounty. Everyone knew about the $15 million reward for the death or capture of each of the infamous brothers. No one from the American military confirmed that al-Zaidan tipped them off, but no one seems to doubt that he was the one who betrayed Uday and Qusay.

There is, however, another possibility. The Kurdish families who live in the al Falah district near al-Zaidan's villa are loyal to Jalal Talabani, head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). These neighbors may have seen Saddam's sons at the villa. According to intelligence sources, someone from the PUK group went to Talabani with the news and he took the information directly to U.S officials in Baghdad. If that's the case, the $30 million bounty went to the PUK.

The Americans used a Predator drone to do surveillance on the villa to determine how many people were inside the compound with the Hussein brothers. The 101st Airborne Division's Second Combat Brigade Team—the “Strike Brigade”—sealed off the neighborhood. Also taking part was the same covert Task Force 20 that handled the rescue of PFC Jessica Lynch. Since that famous rescue, Task Force 20 had been chasing leads on the whereabouts of Saddam and his sons. Planning, reconnaissance, and coordination continued through the night of July 21–22.

By early Tuesday morning, the 101st Airborne Division had armored Bradleys and Humvees at five strategic points around the neighborhood, blocking any traffic coming in or out of the target
building on the corner of a neighborhood street and a major boulevard. Troops from the division manning TOW missile-equipped Humvees went through the neighborhood to clear out civilians.

Meanwhile, twenty operators from Task Force 20 moved out on foot for the target building. They were quickly in position. They climbed over a wall and headed for the front entry, going through an unlocked gate. Nawaf al-Zaidan opened the door for them.

Things began to happen immediately after the Special Forces team came to the door. They hurriedly escorted al-Zaidan and his wife and son away into the protective custody of the American military. At the same time, a bodyguard for the two brothers saw what was happening and, from an upstairs balcony, began to fire at the Special Operations troops and 101st Airborne soldiers down on the street. In the initial fray, one U.S. soldier was hit by AK-47 fire from the balcony. Inside, three of the TF-20 special ops team, wounded by gunfire and grenade fragments, were forced to withdraw.

A few minutes later, Uday and Qusay were urged to surrender by a translator on a Psy Ops loudspeaker. Qusay must have regretted their choice in selecting al-Zaidan's house, since it had no interior fortifications or exit tunnels. The brothers and the surviving bodyguard hastily tried to “fortify” the second floor by using mattresses and bed frames as a makeshift buttress. But both brothers had to know that while mattresses might stop a few bullets, the ultimate outcome of their situation didn't look good.

Uday and Qusay had well-deserved reputations for cruelty: Uday, the elder sibling, who was partially disabled in a 1996 assassination attempt, apparently enjoyed raping Iraqi women, torturing and terrorizing members of the Iraqi national soccer team for poor performances, and executing those he perceived to be his adversaries or rivals. Qusay was said to take pleasure in killing political prisoners, stuffing them into oversized wood chippers, and supervising group
executions. The mass graves being exhumed across the Iraqi countryside today provide evidence of their lust for wholesale murder as sport. If anyone can be labeled as truly evil, it would surely be these two.