An Armed Camp
From a historical point of view, there were two battles for Fallujah. The first took place in the spring, as I’ve mentioned before. Political considerations, mostly driven by wildly distorted media reports and a lot of Arab propaganda, caused the Marines to back off their offensive soon after it was begun, and well before it achieved its aim of kicking the insurgents out of the city. In place of the Marines, Iraqis loyal to the interim government were supposed to take control and run the city.
That didn’t work. Pretty much the moment the Marines pulled back, the insurgents completely took over Fallujah. Civilians who were not connected with the insurgency were killed, or fled the city. Anyone who wanted peace—anyone with any sense—left as soon as they could, or ended up dead.
Al-Anabar Province, the area that contained the city, was studded with insurgents of various forms. A lot were Iraqi mujahedeen, but there were also plenty of foreign nationals who were members of “al-Qaeda in Iraq” or other radical groups. The head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Sheikh Abdullah al-Janabi—had his headquarters in the city. A Jordanian who had fought with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, he was committed to killing Americans. (Despite numerous reports to the contrary, as far as is known, Sheikh Abdullah al-Janabi escaped from Fallujah and is still at large.)
The insurgents were one-part terrorists, another-part criminal gangs. They would plant IEDs, kidnap officials and their families, attack American convoys, kill Iraqis who didn’t share their faith or politics—anything and everything they could think of. Fallujah had become their safe haven, an anti-capital of Iraq dedicated to overthrowing the interim government and preventing free elections.
Al-Anabar Province and, more specifically, the general area around Fallujah became known through the media as the Sunni Triangle. That’s a very, very rough approximation both of the area—contained between Baghdad, Ramadi, and Baqubah—and the ethnic composition.
(Some background on Islam in Iraq: There were two main groups of Muslims in Iraq, Sunnis and Shiites. Before the war, Shiites lived mostly in the south and east, say from Baghdad to the borders, and Sunnis dominated around Baghdad and to the northwest. The two groups coexisted but generally hated each other. While Shiites were the majority, during Saddam’s time they were discriminated against and not allowed to hold important offices. Farther north, the areas are dominated by Kurds, who, though mostly Sunni, have separate traditions and often don’t think of themselves as being part of Iraq. Saddam considered them to be an inferior people; during one political suppression, he ordered chemical weapons used and waged a despicable ethnic-cleansing campaign.)
While using Fallujah as a base to attack the surrounding area and Baghdad, the insurgents spent considerable time fortifying the city so they could withstand another attack. They stockpiled ammo and weapons, prepared IEDs, and fortified houses. Mines were planted, and roads closed off so they could be used for ambushes. “Rat holes” were created in compound walls, allowing insurgents to move from one house to another, avoiding streets. Many if not all of the two hundred mosques in the city became fortified bunkers, since the insurgents knew that Americans respected houses of worship as sacred and therefore were reluctant to attack there. A hospital was turned into an insurgent headquarters and used as a base of operations for the insurgents’ propaganda machine. In sum, the city was a terrorist fortress by the summer of 2004.
In fact, the insurgents were confident enough to regularly launch rocket attacks against U.S. bases in the area and ambush convoys moving on the main roads. Finally, the American command decided that enough was enough—Fallujah had to be retaken.
The plan they drew up was called Phantom Fury. The city would be cut off so that enemy supplies and reinforcements could no longer get in. The insurgents in Fallujah would be rooted out and destroyed.
While Marines from the First Marine Division made up the backbone of the attack force, all of the other services added key pieces. SEAL snipers were integrated with small Marine assault groups, providing overwatch and performing traditional sniper missions.
The Marines spent several weeks getting ready for the assault, launching a variety of operations to throw the insurgents off-balance. The bad guys knew something was coming; they just didn’t know where and when. The eastern side of the city was heavily fortified, and the enemy probably thought that’s where the attack would be launched.
Instead, the attack would come from the northwest and roll down into the heart of the city. That’s where I was headed.
Getting There
Dismissed by the lieutenant commander, I immediately gathered my gear, then headed outside to a pickup truck that was waiting to take me out to the helo. A 60—a Blackhawk H-60—was waiting for me and another guy who’d been working with the GROM, a coms specialist named Adam. We looked at each other and smiled. We were thrilled to be getting into a real battle.
SEALs from all over Iraq were making a similar trip, heading toward the large Marine base south of the city at Camp Fallujah. They’d already established their own small base inside the camp by the time I arrived. I treaded my way through the narrow halls of the building, which had been dubbed the Alamo, trying not to knock into anything. The walls were lined with equipment and gear, gun boxes and metal suitcases, cartons and the odd box of soda. We could have been a traveling rock band, staging a stadium road show.
Except that our road show had very serious pyrotechnics.
Besides snipers from Team 3, men had been pulled from Team 5 and Team 8 to join the assault. I already knew most of the West Coast guys; the others I’d come to respect over the next few weeks.
The energy level was intense. Everyone was eager to get into the fight and help the Marines.
The Home Front
As the battle drew near, my thoughts wandered to my wife and son. My little baby boy was growing. Taya had started sending me photos and even videos showing his progress. She’d also sent images through e-mail for me to look at.
I can see some of those videos now in my mind—he’d be lying on his back, and shake his hands and feet, going as if he was running, a big ol’ smile on his face.
He was a super-active kid. Just like his daddy.
Thanksgiving, Christmas—in Iraq, those dates didn’t mean all that much to me. But missing my son’s experience of them was a little different. The more I was gone, and the more I saw him grow, the more I wanted to help him grow—do the things a father does with and for a son.
I called Taya while I was waiting for the assault to begin.
It was a brief conversation.
“Look, babe, I can’t tell you where I’m going, but I’m going to be gone for a while,” I said. “Watch the news and you’ll figure it out. I don’t know when I’m going to be able to talk to you again.”
That was going to have to do for a while.
It Begins
On the evening of November 7, I squeezed into a Marine amtrac with a dozen Marines
