The Country's Deadliest Place

Sun, Aug, 19, 2007

Getting to Baquba, the headquarters of al Qaeda in Iraq that soldiers call the country's "deadliest place" took four long dark nights travelling in armoured trucks and relentless heat. Many of Baquba's mainly Sunni citizens had surprisingly turned on al Qaeda and the U.S. Military had come in to support them. In a place rife with car bombs and booby-trapped houses the Americans soon found themselves ensnared in tough combat against a highly adaptive enemy.

After a 10-day pitched battle the city was said to be crawling back to its feet and offering a glimmer of hope that a positive future for Iraq may be possible.

I went along to see.

THE HOOAH

After a mandatory stop over at an obscure transient base in Kuwait, where the sun burns your eyeballs, the wind blows like the exhaust of an 18-wheel truck and the choking sandstorms make even the soldiers happy to return to war, I was crammed onto a C-130 plane at midnight with a hundred soldiers in full body armour and given instructions: "In BIAP get a ride to the Stryker Stables and manifest yourself for the Rhino" which turned out to be Military for get a lift at the airport to Camp Stryker and get on a list for the armoured convoy to the Green Zone.

At the airport, soldiers streamed in single-file on and off planes like queues for the meat grinder in the "The Wall." I found a Philippino baggage truck driver who gave me a lift to Camp Stryker to meet the Rhino up-armoured bus. We joined the nightly lumbering truck convoy that stretches for miles into the darkness as goods are brought to Baghdad under the protection of a curfew, a fleet of humvees and helicopters.

Arriving at three am at the press centre gateway, I finally dumped my ballistic vest and ate food rations with a couple of Irish-American soldiers who were watching 'Michael Collins' and wanted to know if DeValera really set him up at Westminster. They were the first of an endless number of soldiers of Irish heritage I'd meet. What, I wondered, would the American military have done had the Irish stayed at home?

The next night, flying out of Baghdad in a Blackhawk helicopter showed a beautiful city twinkling in the night haze after a blistering hot day. A jazz band played softly while people swam by starlight in the warm water of Saddam's palace pool. Except for a mortar attack that afternoon - the war was in evidence nowhere. But the further away from the Green zone we flew, the less the city twinkled and the more black spots appeared in neighbourhoods without the luxury of power for air conditioning in the 100 degree heat that forced Iraqi's to sleep on the roof desperate for a sliver of breeze.

Arriving at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Warhorse outside Baquba, I checked into a tent, was given a cot (a two by six foot piece of canvas on a frame) and kept awake all night by artillery shelling, a screeching Air Force jet and helicopter traffic.

That night in Baquba American soldiers were engaged in firefights and diffusing bombs. Across town, al Qaeda members executed a family for complying with the Iraqi army then blew up their house. The artillery unit at Warhorse fired illumination rounds into the sky but the killers weren't found.

By daylight, Warhorse is like something out of a movie: piles of sandbags surround truck containers (CHUs) that pass for housing, blast walls encircle every building, and the dusty roads are lined with tanks, humvees, and Strykers - the formidable vehicles that have that armour of a tank with the speed and mobility of a truck, machines guns and three armed soldiers standing in hatches in the roof waiting and watching for the enemy.

Sand gets into everything and within hours, skin, clothes and hair is a uniform shade of beige. Showers trailers, port-a-potties and sleeping tents are strictly segregated with signs like "Absolutely no males allowed in this tent" posted on the women's doors (oddly no equivalent is posted on the men's) to maintain soldiers' morality in a war devoid fraternisation or alcohol.

I expected a few thousand Rambos, crass and sexist, gone stir crazy in the desert after 14 months of fighting an invisible enemy, armed to the teeth, and ready to shoot anything that moved with their Bradley tanks and M-4s. They were in fact polite, respectful, often thoughtful and hilariously funny.

Did heat, abstinence, sobriety or rules of engagement kill the 'hooah?'

BATTLE FOR BAQUBA

After sleeping an hour I went to the first ever meeting of local community leaders with the man assigned to help rebuild the city -- Lieutenant Colonel Fred Johnson, an intense and focused man, with boundless energy and genuinely concerned about getting locals back on their feet.

Along route, buildings were reduced to rubble and rubbish was strewn alongside open sewers. Craters from IED explosions are gouged into the roads and filled with green stagnant water and sewage. Baquba clearly had taken a hammering both from al Qaeda and the U.S. offensive that routed them out.

In 2006 Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, the al Qaeda leader in Iraq proclaimed Baquba their centre of operation and set about recruiting males plagued by 70 percent unemployment. In this culture, manhood is questioned when there's an inability to provide for the family, so they were happy to plant bombs for money.

But the more deep-rooted al Qaeda got, the harsher their measures to control the city became. They rounded up non-compliant males who were later found bound and shot. They introduced a strict interpretation of Sharia law on a culture that had been largely secular. Women had to cover up, tomatoes and cucumbers couldn't be mixed together since one was male and the other female, those caught smoking had their fingers broken. Government collapsed and the food aid and fuel on which the city depended since Saddam Hussein's era stopped coming.

By March this year a group called the 1920 Revolutionary Brigade that had fought with al Qaeda against the "American invaders" broke away when they realised they didn't share a common view of Iraq's future. They fought the terrorists for eight days until they ran out of ammunition then turned to the U.S. forces for help. Over the next few months the Americans responded with overwhelming force, culminating in a 10-day offensive that killed, captured or dispersed hundreds of al Qaeda.

"Children were cutting the command wires in IEDs that were buried around their school," said Captain Ben Richards, the U.S. commander in the southern part of the city. He found ordinary Iraqi's showing remarkable courage, even pulling explosives out of the ground themselves to help take back their city.

"Baquba was by far the most deadliest place in Iraq," said Captain Stew Brown, who described how they were throwing smoke for concealment and running full speed for cover through constant fire.

"We encountered more direct fire in two weeks in Baquba than in 10 months in Mosul," he said. The enemy was organised, well trained and engaged them almost from a 360-degree angle.

"We were fighting for our lives for fifteen days straight," said Lieutenant Colin Layne about the endlessly long days and nights they spend in the field, fighting what LTC Johnson called "an incredibly adaptive enemy." They were dealing with suicide bombers, mortar attacks and small arms fire round the clock.

"Two soldiers cracked and were sent home," he added. "It was a ghost town but if something was moving, it was probably going to shoot you."

MUQTARS

Today, less than a month since the major offensive, al Qaeda has been disrupted, people are bustling, markets are open and an historic agreement is being signed. Twenty-five Tribal Leaders will swear on the Koran that they'll use their influence to keep their youth from joining al Qaeda's ranks.

LTC Johnson's Strykers sped combat ready to the government building, past children playing in the streets and farmers herding scrawny goats, to pick up the newly elected Mayor, Abdullah Ahmed, one of a rare breed of politician more interested in the people and not lining his own pocket. The Shia Chief of Police hasn't armed the Mayor's bodyguard. Two community leaders, known as Muqtars, were killed this week. With no protection Ahmed's days may be numbered too.

Mayor Ahmed and LTC Johnson were going to the first ever meeting of Muqtars, Iraqi Police and Iraqi Army to find a way to resume the basic services that stopped last year leaving many locals in abject poverty and starvation. The Baquba Guardians, the AK-47 armed Iraqi version of a neighbourhood watch group, also attended.

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By nine am it was hot as hell. Forty people squeezed into a small, unventilated room that became more and more suffocating as the hours passed. Soldiers in full body armour lined the corridors, soaked through but unflinching in their duty to protect their commanders.

The Iraqi translator works overtime as the Muqtars complain, accuse and bemoan the state of the city's fuel, food aid, and security and won't believe LTC Johnson when he says the food warehouse is full. He sends some soldiers to bring the warehouse manager to the meeting, but they return to say the Governor put him in jail for not doing his job.

Municipal workers haven't shown up for work in five months. Bad communication and organizational chaos is rife. A few days later, a truck full of kerosene failed to arrive but a convoy of 85 trucks of food showed up unexpectedly.

That's good news, especially since a few weeks ago, LTC Johnson had to load up six Strykers with armed soldiers and escorted 16 flatbed trucks with aerial support to a Sadr City warehouse after they refused to release Baquba's food aid to the Mayor. After much haggling, arguments and extortion and what General Mick Bednarek, Deputy Commanding Officer for U.S. forces in Northern Iraq called "sheer force of will" they successfully liberated 16 truck loads of food. The warehouse manager stocked another 55 and sent them back with the convoy.

This was one of LTC Johnson's proudest moments as he watched Iraqi civilians and the Army come together to protect the convoy.

Back in the present, in the stifling government office, one Muqtars finally takes a positive stance, identifies power, medical care and school problems and posits a plan to put the youth to work on rebuilding infrastructure to keep them from being recruitment fodder for al Qaeda. Others begin to follow suit.

Three hours later the meeting was called to a close and everyone high-tailed it out into the 105-degree heat to cool down.

Back at the base, Operation Wickersham was underway to clear an al Qaeda mortar cell in the southern part of the city that was punishing the locals. The U.S. military inserted soldiers by helicopter and shelled the area with laser guided artillery to destroy their position and crater the roads to stop them escaping. Unfortunately as six Iraqi Army soldiers tried to diffuse an IED it exploded, killing them all.

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) showed the street strewn with body parts that their comrades had to collect and take to the morgue.

It was a tragic end to what had been Baquba's most hopeful day.

THE BAT CAVE

In the small hours of the morning, helicopters shot dead five individuals digging a hole in the road to plant a lethal IED. Not too far away members of the 1-23 Infantry detonated a booby-trapped house where four pipe bombs were daisy chained together with a pressure plate trigger.

Bravo Company were heading off to the remote Joint Combat Operation Post (JCOP) that they share with the Iraqi Army to give them closer access to the surrounding neighbourhoods than the FOB allows.

Sergeants Terry Dokey and Timothy Going briefed me for the trip: have cold water for heat stroke, bug spray for the mosquitoes and a hat for the bats.

Bats?

"They're not vampire bats," Going said. "They won't bite you."

"They won't flock either," said Dokey. "But tie your hair up."

They were chuckling together as I left.

The bat cave turned out to be an abandoned warehouse in the commercial centre of the city, which means near the market. Rubbish and goats own the streets on which Strykers roar and soldiers patrol. Across from the JCOP is a factory reduced to huge pile of concrete rubble by a JDAM.

U.S. and Iraqi soldiers share the concrete monstrosity with no power, no water and holes in the ground that the Iraqi's use for bathrooms - the less said about that the better. A little generator powers the radio that incessantly chatters with reports of gunfire, weapons caches and booby-trapped houses, as well as six fans upstairs that make it almost possible to sleep in over 100 degree nights. The men sleep on cots, shave by puddle reflection and live on vacuum packed rations and bottled water. Having failed to clean my face with six baby-wipes I gave up and joined the great, uniformed unwashed.

Captain Brown, a tall, blonde all-American with impeccable manners and a sharp sense of humour was issuing instructions via radio in Military like, "JCC Sigact IED CP409 5th IA EOD ETA 15 Miles. UAV NMC due to WX."

I was asked my blood type and sent out with a night patrol with Lieutenant Layne around the pitch-dark streets of rubble and rubbish that are still rigged with deep buried IEDs. Elsewhere there were booby-trapped houses and snipers. The soldiers have night vision. I couldn't see a thing except the guy in front of me so I thought it best to step exactly where he did.

They wanted permission to clear some trees from the owner of a large Palm Grove that al Qaeda were using to ambush the locals and attack an Iraqi checkpoint. They recently found a donkey cart of explosives here and detonated it. The donkey was found alive and well a few trees away.

The locals greeted the soldiers with waves and smiles. The children shouted "Mista" and held up their hands for high-fives and posed for photographs in front of every camera. Some offered cold water, grapes and cigarettes.

"Welcome to our country," said a robust woman with a jolly face in an upscale house. She now ventured to the market occasionally. Before the offensive, she was afraid to go out, afraid to look at the dead bodies al Qaeda had strewn in the street. Another woman cried for help, al Qaeda had killed her two sons and her husband was sick in hospital. She needed help they couldn't give.

"I'm very happy you came to Old Baquba and killed bad guys," said a lawyer. "If you go back to the U.S., Iraq will be very bad."

There were also some who were afraid to be seen talking to the Americans. Two women were found dead that night for giving tips to the Iraqi Army. The interpreter came across one person who couldn't understand why the soldiers needed the locals to tell them where the terrorists were hiding at all.

"They watch the movies," he said, "and think we have satellites that can see through houses to find the bad guys."

Back near the groves, Layne found local Muqtar who turned out to be drunk or crazy and learned the grove owner had long since fled to Syria. The fate of the forest was kicked up to a higher pay scale and the platoon headed off to check on the nearest Iraqi Army outpost.

Their jittery Captain told Layne - via an interpreter - that 200 al Qaeda were on their way through the groves to attack them. With three Strykers, 40 infantrymen and aerial support at the ready, Layne hoped he was right.

We waited. They never came. Eventually Layne asked the Iraqi captain if his guys wanted to come on patrol with us.

"They're in bed," he said.

An hour later we were searching for some Baquba Guardians. A report came in that there may be a booby-trapped house nearby with a torn up yard. A unit was ready to rig and detonate the building. Layne found 10 Baquba Guardians in a house like some vigilante hookah party with rifles lining the walls and asked if they knew anything. They admitted digging up the yard themselves looking for an al Qaeda weapon's cache and finding nothing decided to leave the mess and take off.

POP-LOCKING

It's too hot to patrol in the afternoons. The American soldiers sleep, play battery powered video games, chew tobacco, read everything they can find, eat vacuum-packed rubber omelettes and try to find something new to talk about with the same soldiers they've been looking at for 474 days.

Today, Sergeants Rob Woodring and Matt Reece decided to interview the soldiers to recap the highs and lows of the tour. Their boss Sergeant Joe LeBrosse was forced to describe how under heavy fire last winter, he'd slipped off a little bridge and fallen into a 10-foot deep open sewer. He held his weapon aloft and just as someone grabbed it, sank over his head into the cesspool.

"How long were you covered in human faeces before you could shower?" Reece asked as peels of laughter erupted from the guys in the background.

"About 18 hours," answered Lebrosse belligerently. He suffered mild hypothermia from being wet so long.

Private Saunders who was new to the company made the mistake of bragging about his dancing ability so the sergeants insisted he demonstrate.

"I'd really rather not Sarge," he protested seriously sorry he'd opened his mouth. But the sergeants insisted and poor Saunders found himself doing old-school hip-hop moves called Pop-locking without music in the middle of the bat cave floor while the rest of the soldiers fell about laughing.

The kid was right though; he could dance.

Back at Warhorse everyone was subdued. Reports had just come in that four soldiers from the 1-23 Infantry, the group that had successfully disposed of the four pipe bombs a few days earlier were killed when they stood on a pressure plate in a booby-trapped house. Their interpreter was also killed.

They were scheduled to return home in 40 days.

BAGHDAD TAKES NOTICE

A few days later, while one company took my video camera out on the FOB to make a hip pop video and charge around the Strykers like they were remaking 'Saving Private Ryan,' a huge contingent of mostly Shia political brass from Baghdad planned a rare visit to Baquba. They were expected to open a dialogue with the Diyala Provincial Government to identify problems and discuss solutions.

To secure the area Lieutenant Colonel Vann Smiley took three companies of the Stryker Brigade to a relatively unpoliced farm area south of Baquba. He wanted to clear and hold an area that contained a university, a huge oil depot and a flourmill that could feed the whole of Diyala province and bolster the economy if only Baghdad would send the wheat.

"We'll see an IED or two and a pot shot or two," said LTC Smiley the day before the visit. He wasn't expecting too much trouble as six Strykers, two Bradley tanks and more than 40 armed soldiers rolled off the FOB. "We're taking enough robust fire power down there."

On the ground the locals were either cagey or scared. We were being watched and they knew it too. Some were welcoming; others tried to get rid of the Americans as fast as possible. The area was too rural and the army spread too thin to really clear and hold it, so the locals unfortunately were easy targets for terrorist intimidation tactics.

With the exception of a shot that rang out as we crossed a field, and another from a soldier shooting a wild dog, the clearing mission was quiet. They detained three terrorist suspects, one LTC Smiley said turned out to be "hot for everything." They found an IED, a car bomb and a large cache of explosives.

"That would blow a Stryker upside down," LTC Smiley said.

The next day the ministers toured the city with the Iraqi Army and the U.S. Colonels. One minister finally admitted the problems wouldn't solved as fast as the people of Baquba wanted because there's still a perception that Baquba isn't safe despite evidence to the contrary.

"Trucks are driving every day," said LTC Johnson exhausted from the long, hot tour and discouraged by the Minister's response after months of hard and often fatal work. But being an eternal optimist, he described the situation using an Iraqi phrase "shwai, shwai" or little by little.

"They don't see yet that Baquba is coming back to life," he said.

The next morning I left Baquba and I climbed aboard another Blackhawk for FOB Loyalty in Baghdad where we'd be bombed by the Madhi Army 14 times before breakfast.

© Sunday Tribune 2007