FEBRUARY
BACKGROUND
By February 2004 the realization that fighting in Iraq would not end soon had crystallized into the determination to sustain over 120,000 U.S. soldiers and marines in Iraq for the foreseeable future. Army Chief of Staff General Peter J. Schoomaker, following up on initiatives of former Secretary of the Army Thomas E. White and former Army Chief of Staff General Eric K. Shinseki, had directed a unit-manning system wherein fully manned units would train, operate, deploy, and redeploy as a whole. This revived concepts associated with regimental systems of the nineteenth century and set aside the individual replacement system that had sustained the Army in its overseas campaigns since 1907. It also set in train the largest single rotation of integral U.S. ground combat units ever and the largest discrete movement of such units since World War II.
The wisdom of sustaining high force levels in Iraq was underscored by the continuing violence. On 1 February suicide bombers killed 106 and wounded 247 at the headquarters of two major Kurdish parties in Irbil. A few days later Ayatollah Sistani narrowly evaded an assassination attempt near his office in Najaf. Further suicide attacks marred the rest of the month, with some evidence that the targeting was intended to foment sectarian strife among the major ethnic groups. On 19 February UN Secretary-General Kofe Annan announced that elections could not be held in Iraq before the 30 June target date for a transfer of authority but asserted that a transfer of sovereignty to a transitional government should nevertheless occur on that date. Clearly, it would be some time before an Iraqi government legitimated by elections was on hand to facilitate coalition objectives.
Despite these frustrations, the pace and nature of operations seem to have mellowed a bit. Captain Brown's men were seasoned veterans familiar with the territory, and that territory was becoming more manageable and less risky than before. They were familiar with enough of the locals to get things done, and they were getting useful albeit intermittent help from the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. During their second tour in Samarra, they found themselves being shot at once a week rather than several times a day.
For the 1st Battalion of the 8th Infantry, its time in Iraq-this tour-was coming to a close. The continuing violence dictated sustained operations, even as the unit as a whole prepared to rotate back to the United States. These twin imperatives
were daunting, when juxtaposed almost surreal. In Captain Brown's words the unit was "to police up as many bad guys as possible in the final weeks while maintaining all the OPs, cleaning all the gear, trying to make Re-up mission, and writing all the AARs." Also in his words, "They have made leaving here so hard that you almost want to stay."
11 February: Working for two battalions is a double-edged sword. You get pummeled by both and minimal support from either. However, the nice thing is you get written off from a lot of extra duties and details. We finally got out of Samarra on 8 February, after running countless patrols with 1-66 AR. I had mixed feelings about leaving the place. I had a huge base built within the city and pretty much ran the show.
We did have a couple guys decide to celebrate with some whiskey, and it turned into a really bad scene. I hate punishing guys who have been over here suffering for so long, but I guess it's the price of good order and discipline. Some of the guys have serious emotional scars and demons to exorcise from the killing and death that we have been involved with over here. It's really quite sad, and they will not get real help for awhile. Too much to do. It was nice moving back down to the bunker, but the mission down here sucks.
15 February: Now I have 24-hour mandated OPs around the LSA. Very unimaginative and totally defensive; we are on our heels. Fortunately, we built up seventy-two targets during our time away, and we will work off them. We got the worst area on these crazy canal roads that just weren't designed for Bradleys. It's absolutely terrifying driving those things at 0100, all tilting to the side over the freezing, fast-moving canal water. The dust also makes for poor visibility, and I recall why I never went down that way at night. We did find a homemade rocket launcher complete with cigarette lighter and wooden handle. It looked quite crazy, but the ingenuity is very frightening.
17 February: The Newsweek photographer and Stern magazine guy found the FOB again. I am still trying to recover from the last piece. The brigade commander was furious about it; I haven't seen him in a month so hopefully he has forgotten. I guess Lieutenant Colonel Sassaman took the brunt of the ass chewing and pissed him off even more. They are constantly fighting, which puts the company commanders in some awkward predicaments.
20 February: We had two nights of raids that proved quite fruitful, capturing grenades and machine guns. The open farm fields make target identification so much easier than the crazy streets of Samarra. We are actually batting over 50 percent on our intelligence, which I haven't seen yet in this war. I think the intent is to police up as many bad guys as possible in the final weeks while maintaining all the OPs, cleaning all the gear, trying to make our reenlistment mission, and writing all the AARs that no one will read. We just have an incredible amount of stuff to do and no respite. When we got back to Lion FOB I felt like I could stand on my head for two weeks doing stupid stuff, but now I feel like all the blood is in my head and I'm going to pass out. We did get the Abu Hishma road started. Now the gated community will have a new road and a police helicopter on 1 April ... yeah, right.
Sgt. Enea Cutuca. In the background is a controlled explosion of about 10,000 pounds of
ordnance we had collected over time.
24 February: Today we found and destroyed two IEDs and got the B-Bag connex (metal container that carries all our nonessential gear) through Customs. It should represent a huge accomplishment, but the IEDs were a kilometer from the ten-digit grid for the OP, so we got smacked down for not sitting at the overt OP and patrolling instead. You have to patrol. If the IED went off, you would be the jackass who let it go off in your area. This place is just a no-win situation. Just give me a task and purpose. I am way too close to the flagpole, and both sides benefit when I am farther away from the
flagpole. We did get some really good pictures and I got a sweet rug from the PX, but I think I got ripped off. Oh well. It's Iraq. They have made leaving here so hard that you almost want to stay.
25 February: The OPs continue to suck the life out of the platoons. It is a really boring mission as a commander, but that is really good. The platoons just sit out there on the OPs, and I drive around talking to them until I get bored. I went from a 250,000 city in which no one monitored what I did or checked on me, to a village of 250 outside the LSA where my every move is monitored and someone is always telling me how to do it better. The village is dirt poor, but they are getting more money working on the LSA as ICDC. I try to talk to them a couple times a week. They know me as Abu Baqara, the father of the cow. I appointed Sergeant First Class Harkness the supreme allied commander of Latif Shakur and renamed him Abu Dejaja, the father of chickens. They really liked that and gave us some bread and chai. They are pretty friendly and enjoy talking. Very poor, though
26 February: My town is getting a little crazy. They started throwing grenades at one another. It's just my luck that I get a town that I could throw a baseball across that hasn't had any trouble this entire war, and the second I get control of it they start a mini civil war. The grenade blew a big hole in the mud hut but caused no injuries-it's the fourth attack this week. The owner of the house started his ICDC training that day. He is a private, day one. Welcome to ICDC, get a job working with the Americans and have grenades thrown at your house. They were pretty happy to see Abu Baqara but really wanted to see Abu Dejaja, who was off shift. They asked me if he was flying the helicopters overhead. Yeah, roger, he's flying the helicopter. You've really got to wonder what these people think about us. I got the ICDC leadership of the town together, and we worked out the battle drill for them receiving contact. Whenever there is an explosion each man grabs his AK-47, puts on his ICDC ball cap, and runs to his assigned street to capture Ali Babba. The lieutenant cracks the chem light and moves to the road to link up with the Americans coming to investigate. Bottom line is we are steering clear of that place if these guys start shooting at each other. Converging Iraqi forces is one of those actions you don't want to partake in-way too scary.
27 February: The big talk right now is about the Shiite celebration of Ashura, in which they whip themselves silly in order to gain spiritual energy. It basically commemorates the death of Husayn in 680, I think. I tried to figure it out with the locals. Muhammed is the prophet. Ali is his cousin that
he wanted to succeed him; but they swindled him, and three caliphs gained power before Ali finally got it. Husayn, the sixth caliph, was Ali's grandson and was killed in Karbala when he maneuvered to seize total control of both the caliph and imam titles. They had a ten-day standoff and then he got killed by a superior force. It basically established the whole Shiite acceptance of suffering and martyrdom as their lot in life. Then we got to discussing the twelfth caliph, whom no one really saw-he just sent messengers. I drank way too much overly sweet "diabetes" tea and really couldn't concentrate, so I ended up confused about the whole ordeal. I just know some dudes are going to start whipping and cutting themselves sometime this week. We'll have to get a picture.
29 February: Well, the whole ICDC react-to-contact drill proved a great failure. As I took off my boots to lounge around, I got the call that we had contact in the north. Great. My crew was up at Lion talking on the phone, so I grabbed Cooper and moved up there as we tried to get better information on the squad in contact. Cooper nearly snapped my spine turning the Bradley around, but we found Cunningham and Sergeant Cummins and got out the gate quickly and to the squad in contact. By the time I got there, the platoon had assembled on the northern OP and detained ten guys. I had them start marking the houses they came from on their hands and did some limited questioning. I walked the area of contact with the squad while we waited for the interpreter coming up with White Platoon. Once the interpreter arrived, we started working the guys for intelligence.
We started talking to one of the guys, and he gave us this big line about how he was ICDC and had chased off Ali Babba that very night. I asked him how the whole thing went down. He walked us over to his house and showed me where he shot from. The front of the house got all shot up during the contact. He told me that he fired at ol' Ali Babba from the roof. The squad leader confirmed what I was thinking. They had chased two guys violating the curfew down the alleyway. The ICDC heard those two messing around in his yard and started firing on them-understandable since the multiple grenade attacks on the ICDC this past week in this village. The squad, thinking ol' boy shot at them, mowed the guy's house. Thankfully, the Bradleys couldn't get into the fray and everyone's night marksmanship could use some work ... although the house was definitely suppressed. The guy recognized me as Abu Baqara, and he had a note from me telling him he was allowed to shoot at anyone throwing a grenade at him-I love reading some of the notes I write these guys. I have been trying desperately to get these guys to take
action and defend themselves against the "bombers." I guess the irony is their first really good action is against us. Well, it looks like ICDC has this village under control, so we definitely won't make dismounted nighttime forays down here anymore. No need to get shot at by our allies. It proved a really good action on both sides, although they should have both shot at the two guys prowling around after curfew rather than at each other. This place is just way too confusing, with far too many variables. We messed around with trying to gain intelligence on the grenade throwers for a little while and then headed back to the FOB about 0100. Happy Leap Year Day!