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A Weapon of Mass Destruction

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A Weapon of Mass Destruction A Weapon Of Mass Destruction on a circuitous path that ended in the filthy little warren “Ladies and gentlemen, we got him.” outside Tikrit in December of that fateful year. The Iraqi strongman’s lack of military acumen was best summarized by the blunt-speaking American commander who oversaw hen Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III said those the demolition of the Iraqi forces in the 1990–91 Gulf War, words to the press in a packed conference GEN H. Norman Schwarz kopf Jr.: “As far as Saddam Hus - room in Baghdad on De - sein being a great military strategist: cember 14, 2003, all as - He is neither a strategist, nor is he sembled knew exactly schooled in the operational arts, nor is Wwho was meant by “him.” Bremer was he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor referring to Saddam Hussein, erstwhile is he a soldier. Other than that, he’s a president of Iraq, dictator of Mesopo- great military man.” tamia, chieftain of the Baathist Party, Although his foreign enemies rou - scourge of the Kurds, invader of tinely had their way with Saddam and Kuwait, raper of women, impaler of his cowed, ramshackle Iraqi armed men, Josef Stalin to his terrified coun - forces, things were much different in - trymen, and Benito Mussolini to his side the country. Saddam and his foreign foes—especially the Ameri - henchmen may not have fared well cans. He was a vile one, this Saddam against the U.S. Army’s 1st Armored Hussein, America’s enemy in two wars. Division, but the Republican Guard Just who was this unkempt, bedrag - The Outpost battalions proved quite able in wiping gled figure fished out of a “spider out villages. On Saddam’s orders, ap - hole” in the dirt? He reflected a pretty proximately 250,000 men, women and common type in every Iraqi town: a By LTG Daniel P. Bolger children were tortured, disembow - heavyset, bearded, middle-aged man. U.S. Army retired eled, garroted, gassed, buried alive or This one, though, was different—and simply shot with pistols, rifles, ma - not in a good way. chine guns and field artillery. When it came to killing his Eight months before, he had ruled Iraq with a hand of own, Saddam ranked right up there with the most vicious iron. The image of Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti mass murderers of the past century—Adolf Hitler, Stalin glowered from every street corner in the country. His jowly, and Mao Zedong. The “Butcher of Baghdad” was not the mustachioed visage reminded more than 25 million Iraqis weapon of mass destruction we sought in the early 2000s, that their lives were in his grasping hands. He was not but Saddam killed far more Iraqis than all the nerve gas, averse to squeezing hard. anthrax and yellowcake uranium of our darkest fantasies. While Saddam often appeared in uniform, he turned out He was all too real and all too present. to be laughably inept as a conqueror. The Israelis manhan - Along with massacring his countrymen, Saddam enjoyed dled his expeditionary brigades in the October War of 1973. cooperative, cordial and cozy relations with many terror When he masterminded an attack on neighboring Iran in networks. It was all of a piece with his customary methods: September 1980, even the incompetent Iranians initially brutally cruel to the defenseless innocent, abjectly craven in proved too tough and too numerous. True, Saddam’s blus - front of the armed and dangerous. Iraq bankrolled and tering Republican Guard overran tiny Kuwait in 1990, but sheltered the Abu Nidal group, the Palestine Liberation then they backpedaled as fast as they went in, courtesy of a Front, and a man named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (who later massive, violent riposte led by American airpower and ar - became a vital al Qaeda leader), among many others. When mored divisions. Saddam’s legions melted away during the al Qaeda terrorist teams seized four airliners and attacked 2003 American incursion, propelling him and his inner circle the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, December 2013 I ARMY 49 gency that gradually built up in the summer of 2003. After all, the dictator organized his Fedayeen Saddam guer - rilla cells as the U.S. offensive loomed. While the conventional Iraqi battal - ions evaporated after some desultory exchanges of fire, the Fedayeen hung in there with AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades, roadside bombs and the im - provised explosive devices that be - came the signature weapons of our foes. It only made sense that Saddam might well be pulling the strings on t t this shadowy conspiracy from his spi - e n n e der hole. Getting Saddam became an B d i essential goal. He was the white whale, v a D the Moby Dick whose demise would G S S surely deflate the opposition and end / y m r the insurgency. None of it was true, but A . S . nobody knew that, not yet. So we tried. U Above, a soldier with the 1st Brigade Com - ovies and television shows bat Team, 4th Infantry Division (Mecha - routinely show our mili - nized), lifts the Styrofoam lid covering Sad - tary and police tracking dam Hussein’s dirt “spider hole” near his notorious miscreants all hometown of Tikrit, Iraq, in December over the world. In real 2003. The captured former Iraqi ruler, right, Mlife—as opposed to the “reel” world— was unkempt, bedraggled and disoriented. it is much harder to find individuals, especially those on the run among hos - 2001, some senior U.S. officials imme - tile populations, playing out that old diately suspected Saddam. While cer - Monty Python sketch “How Not to tainly sympathetic to al Qaeda’s cause, Be Seen.” In their day, Confederate Saddam and his organizations were President Jefferson Davis, presidential not directly involved. The Iraqi track assassin John Wilkes Booth, Apache record promised future mayhem, Chief Geronimo, Philippine insurrecto though—especially if Saddam could Emilio Aguinaldo, Mexican raider arm his clandestine hit squads with Pancho Villa, Panamanian Gen. y powerful nuclear, biological or chemi - m Manuel Noriega, Somali warlord Mo - r A . cal weapons. After 9/11, America was S hamed Farrah Aidid, Serbian com - . not in the mood to absorb the first U mander Mlado Radic, and al Qaeda blow. On March 16, 2003, following ample Iraqi provoca - front man Osama bin Laden all eluded capture. Some were tions and equally ample misunderstandings of intelligence found, but many were not. threads emanating from the region, America and its part - In 2003, man-tracking was not as fully developed as it ners acted. Baghdad fell on April 9. The maximum leader would be a few years later. American special operations and his immediate circle went on the lam. forces had honed their tactics in Somalia, the Balkans and Beguiled by murky, incomplete information, some as - other theaters. Even so, finding one Iraqi man, even one as sumed that Saddam was running the anti-American insur - seemingly well-known as Saddam Hussein, was no easy matter. Not every Iraqi really recognized him, as his public LTG Daniel P. Bolger , USA Ret., was the commander of Com - portraits always showed him as younger and more good- bined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan and NATO looking. Moreover, few Iraqis really wanted to help the Training Mission-Afghanistan. Previously, he served as the Americans. Anti-American insurgents were especially ac - deputy chief of staff, G-3/5/7, and as the commanding general, tive in the Saddam family holdings around Tikrit. While 1st Cavalry Division/commanding general, Multinational Divi - few of these disparate groups had any love for the deposed sion-Baghdad, Operation Iraqi Freedom. He holds a doctorate in president, most hated the Americans more. For Iraqis, it Russian history from the University of Chicago and has pub - was far smarter to hang back, stay uninvolved and let lished a number of books on military subjects. things play out. 50 ARMY I December 2013 The toppling of Saddam Hussein’s oversize statue in Baghdad’s Firdos Square in April 2003 symbolized Iraq’s liberation from a brutal dicta - tor who had ruled for more than three decades. y a l e D e m o r e J / s s e r P d e t a i c o s s A o the special operators, backed by conventional B. Hickey’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division forces, got to work. It took months of searching, (Mechanized), the special operators had the right partners. fighting and chasing false trails into dry holes. COL Hickey’s soldiers kept up the daily pressure of foot Some of the pieces came through technical means. patrols and raids, while the special ops elements continued Documents and garbage furnished clues. Other to strike at the highest value targets. Sessential facts were grunted out by dejected detainees after On December 13, a detainee taken in Baghdad coughed long rounds of questioning. It’s an old mantra that good up Saddam’s hiding site. The U.S. soldiers had heard that units fight for information. In 2003, the U.S. Army had a lot one before—the white whale, Elvis, Bigfoot, you name it— of good units, and they did just that. but this one smelled different. It seemed right. As in Mo - The first break came on July 22, 2003, when a patrol from sul, the line units set the cordon. The special mission peo - the 101st Airborne Division cornered Saddam’s sons, Uday ple took the objective. After some poking around, they and Qusay, in Mosul. The air assault riflemen secured the pulled up a block of styrofoam in the center of a dust floor.
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