The Stories They Could Tell... (Part Deux)
Posted By The Wolf

As I started in THIS POST BELOW, here is a continuation of 'Tops' stories from his proposed book on some of the 'hidden' experiences of troops in and around the command in the Green Zone.

'Top' continues today with a story on operations and events surrounding 'Op-Fajr', the ''Fallujah II'' offensive in November of 2004. Again, remember that Top has changed some names to protect the stupid, and his writing style remains 'honest' so if you don't like the barracks-talk, read no further.

A couple of notes on this particular chapter- Top and I were on opposite ends of the spectrum during this period- he was in one location with one fantastic viewpoint, and I was on the other with the command's, or strategic, view. Suffice it to say that given what he saw, and what I know from 'inside' it paints quite a picture. When he talks of the Marine LT's comment at the outset of the offensive, and states 'it caused quite a ****storm', brother, he wasn't kidding. And his comments on the lack of presence of US or Coalition leadership press conferences is spot-on. Running arguments among the PA staff were strong- we pressed hard for some kind of presence in the military- the upper-echelons just didn't seem to get it at all. They wanted an 'Iraqi face' on the news; no matter that the Iraqi's weren't stepping up at the time to show it.

Oh, and there's a little surprise at the end....

On to the show!

ACT 30: Calling Fallujah Fran

The insurgents were growing major league cojones day by day, and this culminated with a pair of suicide bombings inside the Green Zone which killed 10 people, including four Americans, as they blew up the famous Green Zone Restaurant and the Green Zone Market in October.

I was one of the first Soldiers on site at the restaurant as we heard the bomb go off from the CPIC. LTC Bryant, Tony, and I hopped in one vehicle and headed for the restaurant while Kylie and SFC Kardini hopped into another SUV and headed for the market.

The whole restaurant was gone as the bomb tore apart everything inside of the establishment. I talked to one of the survivors, and he told me what happened. He went on to tell me that a Jordanian came into the restaurant carrying a back pack and looking around nervously before taking a seat in the middle of the place. Shortly after sitting down he placed the back pack on the ground and tried to get up and leave but the bomb went off too early and exploded, killing the bomber and a US civilian security contractor.

I asked how the survivor knew the man was Jordanian, and he told me there are different dialects of Arabic, and he knew the bomber’s dialect was Jordanian. It’s similar to being back home and listening to two people talk and knowing that one is from the south and the other is from the northeast.

The other bomb went off in the middle of the Green Zone market and killed several and wounded even more. This market was usually jam-packed with Americans shopping for cheap gifts to send back home from Iraqi vendors.

Averitt’s old security team member, SPC Williams, was at the market at the time of the explosion and was knocked on his back as he was only about 20 feet away from the bomber. Luckily for Williams, he only suffered minor hearing problems and was due to go home in a couple weeks anyhow.

The more serious problem was these bastards found a breach in security and snuck in the supposedly secure Green Zone in the first place.

Several reporters were already on site at the restaurant bombing site; they sweet-talked their way into the Green Zone without being escorted, and this ticked off LTC Bryant, Tony, and me to the point that we threatened to throw them out of the country if they didn’t tell us how they got into the area. They played along and told us their secret, and we in turn gave them access to the story but only as a pool report because we didn’t want to appear to play favorites to the rest of the media, and, more importantly, we didn’t want to have other reporters trying to sneak into the Green Zone once they found out that it could be done.

We discussed the security situation with the 1st Cav and corrections were made to prevent insurgents and media alike from entering our fortress from here on out.

Another story that was getting major air play was of the Army Reserve’s 343rd Quartermaster Company refusing to follow direct orders and escort a convoy at LSA Anaconda. The unit members said they were driving soft vehicles that would not protect them from the insurgents, but truth be told, I had met the former commander of this unit during our mobilization at Ft. Stewart, and he told me back then the unit was broken and that he actually had to fire his first sergeant and bring one of his officers up on charges for physically attacking an enlisted Soldier. My friend, a veteran of the 101st Airborne, ended up being replaced as commander of the unit because of ongoing medical issues, but he told me to watch out for the element because they were sure to screw up in theater.

A complete investigation was conducted by a one-star general, and it was determined the vehicles the unit were driving were indeed uparmored and as safe as every other vehicle that was doing missions into the Red Zone. The commander of the unit was fired, and the whole story died down within a couple of weeks, especially with Fallujah heating up.

Operation Al-Fajr kicked off on Monday, November 8, 2004 in Fallujah. The Marines along with several armored elements that belonged to the Army were preparing for this offensive for weeks and everyone, including the insurgents, knew it was just a matter of time before some serious killing was going to take place.

LTC Steve Bryant, the CPIC Director since August 2004, briefed a few of us in leadership positions about two weeks before the operation began. We knew what was going to happen, what was going to get hit, and the elements taking part in the offensive.

It was a masterful plan that laid out the whole operation. I found it interesting the first target to be taken was the Fallujah main hospital that lay on the outskirts of the city.

The goal of taking the hospital first was to negate the false casualty reports that came from the facility every time the coalition made a bombing run or performed a raid. There was a doctor at the hospital that sided with the insurgency and always announced to the media that so many innocent women and children were killed by this and so many elderly were killed by that. We knew these reports were false because during one air attack the doctor actually announced a series of civilian casualties before we had even commenced the bombing run. This guy had to be eliminated before he could start spreading more lies to the world.

In another dramatic development, the Marines may have intentionally crossed the line from performing public affairs into the world of information operations or possibly even psychological operations.

Here is what happened . . .

The 1st Marine Expeditionary Unit contacted CNN offering up one of their public affairs officers for a live interview from their headquarters in the Anbar Province in late October 2004. CNN immediately accepted and 1LT Lyle Dillon was interviewed live during the middle of the night. What he said caused tremendous distress in the public affairs community all the way from Baghdad to Washington, DC.

His memorable line was “We have crossed the line of departure.” When in fact, the Marines may have crossed a line in the sand, but that is all they crossed. While the world was waiting for the Fallujah attack to begin, the Marines came up with the idea of announcing the start of offensive operations by means of CNN so they could gauge what the insurgents’ reaction would be. We all knew they watched CNN and the other major cable news channels, and the Marines aimed to see what defensive posture the terrorists would implement when the **** really hit the fan. CNN caught on rather quickly as to the Marine’s intent as they refuted Lt. Dillon’s statement and announced the Fallujah offensive had not yet begun.

What Dillon did was create a **** storm that I don’t think anyone from the 1st MEF anticipated. CNN’s Pentagon reporters (Barbara Starr and Jamie McIntyre) were hot and heavy on the story of the meshing of public affairs, information operations, and psychological operations being under the Strategic Communications tent, while the event also spurred stories in the Washington Post and the New York Times. Rumor was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Richard Myers, was also livid about the whole incident, but nothing happened in the short-term that would directly affect us, although once public affairs was lumped together with IO and Psyops, we lost all credibility. That’s begging the question that we had any credibility before the Marines went live.

Militarily, Operation Al-Fajr was a huge success. The Marines and Army had accomplished all their goals and killed literally hundreds if not thousands of insurgents. Unfortunately, there were significant coalition casualties that occurred during the offensive that got me into a ****ing match with a British reporter working for Reuters.

Since we were not giving the media anything substantial over the past several months, the group as a whole kept a running total of the number of American forces that were KIA. All the media were interested in was a number and that rubbed me the wrong way. The following is a brief exchange with the Reuters reporter and a final message from Maj. Fran Sattchi, the PAO for the 1st MEF. His brief statement made my existence in Iraq worthwhile.

-----Original Message-----

From: Reuters Baghdad [mailto:reuters@fastmail.fm]

Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004

12:15 PM

To: CPIC Pressdesk

Subject: U.S. KIA November

Dear CPIC,

Wondered if you could help us pin down the exact

U.S. KIA for November.

There is probably going to be a spurt of requests about this because the number is approaching 135 -- the death toll from April this year, which was the deadliest month -- and, of course, today is the last day of the month.

From our records, we believe the KIA for Nov is currently 133, including the Soldier who died of his wounds following the roadside bomb near Tikrit overnight, but would appreciate an official count from you guys if possible. And, of course, the sooner the better, if that's possible too.

Many thanks,

Luke Baker, Reuters

Reuters

Baghdad


-----Original Message-----

From: CPIC Pressdesk

Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004

1:13 PM

To: Reuters Baghdad

Cc: CPIC Director;

Subject: RE: U.S. KIA November

Luke:

Due to a change in operational policy we are no longer releasing monthly numbers for attacks, WIA's and KIA's.

On a personal note, I find it improper to treat the American military heroes that gave the ultimate sacrifice in pursuit of freedom and democracy as just a number. I realize you have a job to do, but to denigrate their sacrifice and classify these warriors as a simple number is not the proper recognition they deserve.

Regards.


-----Original Message-----

From: Reuters Baghdad [mailto:reuters@fastmail.fm]

Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004

2:55 PM

To: CPIC Pressdesk

Cc: CPIC Director;

Subject: RE: U.S. KIA November

1SG,

Thanks for your response. I can understand your anger but I would like to point out these figures, as I'm sure you are well aware, are an integral part of newsgathering. One way or another, they cannot be avoided and they will be reported, either by us or the other multiple news outlets in the country. I would also like to say that we are not

classifying those who die as a number, we are merely reporting a number. Thankfully the Pentagon is more helpful. The figure is 134.

Regards,

Luke Baker

Reuters

-----Original Message-----

From: Sattchi Maj Francis P

Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2004

3:04 PM

To: CPIC Pressdesk

Subject: FW: RE: U.S. KIA November

First Sgt,

Somewhere there is a family honoring their loved one's memory. They may not be aware of what you said below, but I am, and eventually one day my path will cross with these parents and spouses and children ... and they will come to know what 1st Sgt. conveyed to Reuters on Nov. 30, 2004.

Semper Fidelis,


Maj Sattchi

The other major problem with our operations was that since General Averitt left in July, his replacement, General Winthrop, had not held one press conference. Even though we still had nearly 150,000 American military members still in theater, he and the Pentagon leadership didn’t feel like they had to put on press conferences to give regular updates on how our country’s sons and daughters, mothers and fathers were actually doing in Iraq. This was disgraceful, and it got especially bad during Operation Al-Fajr. I can’t believe I had even approached the thought that I would have missed Averitt, but at least he talked to the media; although, he usually gave the wrong message.

Multi-National Forces-Iraq Commanding General Jerry W. Cramer was scheduled to give a couple of live press conferences when the Fallujah offensive began but backed out at the last minute by way of conducting conference telephone calls to the Pentagon media corps back in DC. The running logic was that ever since we had turned sovereignty over to the Iraqis back in June 2004, it was better to put an Iraqi face on the whole conflict.

This was unbelievable; we have American military members away from home for years at a time and getting killed in combat on a daily basis and the ****ing administration wants to put an Iraqi face on the operation. When the hell did I start working for Prime Minister Ayad Allawi?

I don’t know what genius thought of this strategy, but I circumvented it by sending my Baghdad Bulletins by means of e-mail to my family and friends stateside and developed quite the following. My newsletters were virtually the only way to tell the American public what was really happening since our STRATCOM leaderships’ mouths were closed as tight as a grunt’s ass cheeks during a fire fight.

The Marine public affairs personnel hated General Winthrop even more than we did. Tony Anguilo and I couldn’t even mention his name during our daily conference calls with them. Major Fran Sattchi took the name Fallujah Fran because of our constant communications concerning Operation Al-Fajr, and we used to **** and moan to each other about Winthrop and the other idiots in charge of STRATCOM.

It got so bad during the Fallujah operation that Tony and I decided to play a little joke on our Marine peers in Fallujah. We had been working 16-hour days during the whole offensive, we stayed busy giving interviews, coordinating reporter embeds, and doing what had to be done to keep the public affairs segment of the operation running smoothly. One night after dinner we had a little time on our hands, so Tony came up with the idea of writing up a fake news release and forwarding it to Fallujah Fran for his approval before we were supposedly distributing to the world by means of the CPIC media e-mail list. This was, of course, the end result of Winthrop and everyone in Baghdad not holding a briefing or talking to the media as 38 American military warriors were killed in action during the offensive.

It was shameful that we did not implement a proactive strategy except for Tony and my giving interviews, but hell, if it wasn’t for LTG John Sutcliffe of the 1st MEF giving two press conferences by means of the Army’s portable DVIDS technology, it would have been a complete failure. LTG Sutcliffe saved the day for the Marines, but it should not have gotten to this point.

Hence, the fake press release sent to Fallujah Fran Sattchi as Operation Al-Fajr was entering its final phases.

MNF-I PUBLIC AFFAIRS


COALITION PRESS INFORMATION CENTER



BAGHDAD, Iraq


703 270 0319/0320/0321/0299/

DNVT 302-550-2522


November 15, 2004


Release A041115k

Iraqi Security Forces Seize Fallujah, Declare Victory



Fallujah, Iraq

- The commanding general of the Iraqi Security Forces operating in Fallujah declared Victory over the insurgents at a hastily called press conference held in front of Fallujah city hall late this afternoon.

General Achmed Abdul-Jabbar said, "This is a great Victory for the democratic country of Iraq.

I would like to personally thank the U.S. Soldiers for limited assistance in operation Al-Fajr."

The general went on to state that over 1200 insurgents were killed by Iraqi Security Forces and the MNF provided great medical care to the injured Iraqi warriors.

--30--

For a complete transcript of General Achmed Abdul-Jabbar's press conference please contact the I-MEF PAO, Maj Fran Sattchi at SattchiFP@IMEFDM..mc.mil.

It only took a couple minutes for Fran to call back on our DSN line screaming like a lunatic. The first thing he screamed was, “What the **** are you guys smoking up there?” Fallujah Fran fell for the dummy press release hook, line, and sinker, and we really enjoyed listening to him rant and rave and then he end up laughing with us about our little prank. I would have given anything to see him screaming into the phone as only Italians can do.

In addition to the press release, I also wrote up a fake media advisory for a press conference in which SPC Country McDaniel would take center stage. McDaniel almost **** himself when Tony and I told him that he would be giving a press conference in a couple hours. He immediately called his parents and friends back in Florida to tell them about what was happening and all the while Tony and I were falling off our chairs because we were laughing so hard.

We had told Kylie about the fake press conference, and she let it play out for a while, but I finally had to tell Country that it was all a hoax. You could see how deflated he was, but it just proved my point that everyone knew that we needed a voice in Iraq, and it had apparently gotten so bad that we had to have an Army E-4 schedule a press conference.

Here is the actual dummy advisory:

Combined Press Information Center

***MEDIA ADVISORY***

WHAT: Press conference with Multi-National Forces-Iraq Soldier Specialist (E-4) McDaniel. McDaniel will present an operational overview of Operation Al-Fajr on behalf of BG Erv Winthrop.

DATE: Monday, November 15, 2004


TIME: Media wishing to attend the press conference should be in their seats no later than 9:30 p.m. The conference will start at 10:00 p.m. Once doors close, there will be no more admittance.

WHERE: Baghdad Convention Center Conference Room Three


CONTACT: Multi-National Forces-Iraq Combined Press Information Center Press Desk at 703-270-0299 or through e-mail at cpicpressdesk@baghdadforum.com

NOTE: Satellite trucks must be at checkpoint 18 by 8:00 p.m. for escort to the Convention Center and security sweep.


There is MUCH more to come from 'Top'. Be sure to visit him- HERE IS HIS WEBSITE.

http://www.insidethefortress.net/

Ellie