Kalsu, Iraq.
Given that it was 0600, I had trouble understanding how the cup of coffee had managed to get so bitter that early in the morning. The SWAT had interrogated their prisoners in a regrettably unsupervised and more traditional manner which although brutal, had produced a list of names and locations of the insurgents responsible for attacking SWAT. Based on my limited knowledge of Iraqi interrogation methods, I doubted the believability of the information. I would probably dime out the Pope and many of the Saints if they were doing to me what I thought they had done.
The American leadership had similar misgivings about the mission, but our responsibility is to support and advise the Iraqis. SWAT politely declined our advise, leaving us only with the support option. Anglico and most of the Green Beret vehicles returned to Camp Charlie, leaving only two American humvees among over twenty Iraqi SWAT pickup trucks. I was along to provide air. Just in case.
The coffee was only marginally effective. I was exhausted from being up all night, and dehydration gave me a headache that, coupled with the filthy condition I was in, lead me to suspect that I was hungover, which would have been an improved state over facing going out with a horde of really angry Iraqis bent on a reckoning. I gave up on the coffee to return to the assembly area.
As I walked into the area, one of the other team’s Green Berets was holding up two different grenades. They looked menacing in the early morning light. He shook the left grenade, and through the interpreter, told SWAT, “Remember: the cylinders are incendiary grenades.” He shook his other hand: “The round ones are high explosive.” I noted that the Iraqis had been surfeited with grenades as their pockets bulged, and grenades hung from their war gear. I am of the opinion that it is probably better to provide instruction on grenade use before providing the actual grenades.
I was to ride with the Captain, whose vehicle was parked in the middle of the convoy near the guard house. A small crowd had gathered around the guard house. I could see the prisoners trussed on the ground, a spectacle for the Iraqis. This was stuff more familiar. I really did not want to go on this mission. It promised to be very long, very vengeful. Given the mood of the Iraqis, there was going to be plenty of violence. I was not wrong.
We rolled back up to the east-west running road from last night’s mission. As soon as we turned onto the road, the Iraqis began shooting.They shot everything: cars, buildings, trees, the canal. I ruefully noted that the Green Beret humvee didn’t have armor on the doors. The convoy turned onto a side street and charged north. The SWAT vehicles in front of us fired into the tree line on either side of the fields bordering the sides of the road. The lead elements of the convoy reached the two houses at the end of the road, and I could see Iraqis swarm over the houses, removing people to the roadway for questioning. Our driver turned our vehicle sideways so we could see what was going on out both windows. While the lead elements began burning the cars at the houses, the rear elements’ soldiers charged into the house at the tree line, returning with lines of Iraqis for questioning.
The Green Beret Captain sighed, and started getting out of the humvee to go offer more advice to the SWAT colonel. This was rapidly getting out of hand. A mortar fired next to us. I turned to see that the SWAT guys had managed to bring a mortar tube with them, which they had set up to fire without much regard in the way of aiming. Given the lack of explosions where ever the rounds impacted, they had also not bothered to remove the safety pins from the mortar rounds.
The Captain ran to the colonel, and expressly told him that the mortar was not to be fired. The colonel tried to argue a bit, and hands ended up on pistol grips, but the colonel agreed without weapons being drawn. The mortar was put away with many dejected looks. The morning wore on the same way. The convoy moved down the road, and Iraqis swarmed into houses looking for insurgents. Sometimes an incendiary grenade was thrown. The process was repeated for many kilometers along the road.
I drank water, and occasionally got out of the humvee to stretch and get rid of the water. The heat was oppressive, and smoke lingered from all the burning houses and cars. I swatted at flies, and wiped sweat. I took the pencil from my war gear and wrote “Beat Army” in big block letters of the underside of the turret of the Green Beret humvee. SWAT’s enthusiasm waned towards noon, and as they didn’t want our advice, we finally withdrew our support. I counted nearly two dozen pillars of smoke as we drove away, and sighed as I thought about how much had just been undone.