Читать книгу House of War - Scott Mariani, Scott Mariani - Страница 13

In Ben’s opinion, back then and still to this day, the US-led invasion of Iraq had been one of the most hideous strategic blunders in military history. The Americans and their allies had apparently learned nothing from the humiliating lessons of Vietnam, or the tribal revolts against the British occupation of Iraq in the 1920s that led to high casualties on both sides. One does not go blithely marching into these countries, gung-ho and flags-a-waving, without inviting a bloody disaster.

The Iraq war would ultimately drag on for nearly as long as the Soviets had doggedly clung onto Afghanistan, and prove every bit as badly counterproductive in the long run. Ben had predicted that outcome back in 2003, and he’d been around to watch it unfold all around him when his SAS unit was deployed into the heart of the conflict that spring. But whatever his personal misgivings about the wisdom of the whole endeavour, it was his job to do what he had to do.

On the night of March 17, Ben was among the men of SAS D Squadron who strapped themselves into the folding seats of several Chinook CH-47 troop transporters ready for takeoff from Al Jafr airbase in southern Jordan. Their destination: the township of Qu’aim over the border in Iraq, which according to intelligence reports was a strategic site from which Saddam’s army were planning to launch missiles laden with chemical weapons into Israel.

This was Operation Row, a highly classified Special Forces mission taking place an entire twenty-four hours before the British government had actually voted whether or not to join the invasion. The SAS force consisted of sixty men, who had just spent the last three months on secret bases in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, training and preparing for the big push everyone knew was inevitable.

Even though Parliament hadn’t officially sanctioned their mission, most of the men had already written their ‘death letters’, to be read by family and loved ones in the event that they did not return alive. Ben was one of the few with no family or loved ones to write to, but he hadn’t been immune to the mixed feelings of fear, anxiety and excitement as the Chinooks took off into the night. The deafening roar of the turbo-prop engines filled their ears and the powerful upward surge pressed them into their seats. They exchanged glances and nervous grins in the darkness. The journey into war had begun.

D Squadron’s LZ was 120 kilometres over the Iraqi border. The passage into enemy airspace had been smoothed in advance by American Little Bird helicopters, but the very real possibility of surface-to-air missile attack had never left the minds of everyone aboard. After an uneventful flight the Chinooks touched down in the barren wastes of the Iraqi Western Desert. Shivering with cold, the SAS troops disembarked and unloaded their weapons along with their transport, the open-top ‘Pink Panther’ Land Rovers bristling with machine guns and rocket launchers that would carry them overland to Al Qu’aim.

The Chinooks departed the LZ and thundered away into the night as the soldiers, dug into defensive positions, waited tensely for any sign of enemy attack. None came. They spent March 18 hunkered down behind their weapons, waiting for another sixty troopers of B Squadron to join them at the LZ before the combined SAS force boarded their Pinkies and set off across the rough, rocky desert terrain.

By the time the SAS were approaching Al Qu’aim, the British Parliament had finally voted in favour of joining the invasion. Operation Row was now a legitimate mission. That night, the troopers reached the outskirts of the township and began probing the perimeter of an industrial plant that intelligence reports had tagged as a likely site for chemical weapons storage.

What they found instead was an ambush. They had walked straight into a hornet’s nest of resistance as waiting soldiers of the Iraqi Republican Guards lit up the night with ferocious gunfire. Ben and a small team of his men found themselves pinned down between buildings as enemy rounds peppered walls and vehicles. The crew of one of the SAS Pinkies ran for cover as the Land Rover was riddled with bullets. Ben ordered it to be destroyed with a rocket, lest their radio fall into enemy hands. The heat from the blast seared them, but provided enough cover for them to break away from their precarious position and press forward. They fought until the barrels on their machine guns glowed red hot, and the ground was covered with spent shells.

The battle raged into the night and into the following day as the Republican Guards kept up their spirited defence. The SAS had come prepared for stiff resistance, though this exceeded their expectations. Ben was crouched just yards from an SAS sniper when a bullet struck the barrel of his .50-calibre rifle and shattered it into pieces. Despite being badly hurt by the shrapnel, the sniper grabbed another rifle and fought gamely on. Inch by inch, street by street, the troopers clawed their way towards the industrial plant as gunfire hammered their positions. It finally became clear that only a targeted air strike would break the defending forces’ grip on their stronghold. It was duly radioed in. Ben watched from behind cover as the stunning power of 2,500 pounds of high explosive payload from a Coalition Forces bomber tore the plant apart in a ground-shaking blast and effectively ended the battle.

It was an impressive fireworks display, but nothing in comparison to the awesome bombardment of Baghdad that Ben was to personally witness just weeks later, when his unit was deployed to the west of the city.

The fall of Baghdad, coming less than a month since Ben had arrived in Iraq, marked the end of the first phase of the war. It should all have been over then, but the real conflict was just about to begin – just as Ben had feared it would. With Saddam Hussein’s army in tatters it now became all about counterinsurgency as a diverse multitude of Islamic militant groups joined in to harass the invading troops to the best of their considerable ability, using all the guerrilla warfare and terror tactics the Mujahideen had honed to perfection fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, and then some. The SAS’s orders were simple: to continue seeking and neutralising threats to the Coalition Forces. Of which there were so many, it was virtually impossible to keep track of them all.

One such group, and one of the most formidable, was Jama’at al-Tawid wal-Jihad, or simply JTJ, who fast became a prime target for Special Forces. As the SAS soon discovered, JTJ were the perfect model for all terrorist organisations. The use of suicide bombings, often involving car bombs, the planting of roadside improvised explosive devices to catch unsuspecting army patrols, and the launching of guerrilla rocket and sniper attacks were some of their favourite tactics. But they delighted most in the taking of hostages, whom they would line up on their knees in the sand and coolly decapitate with long knives. Getting captured alive by these guys was not an option. Exactly as Ben had anticipated, this war had already begun to deteriorate into a hellish bloodbath.

But it was also exactly the kind of combat environment in which his regiment thrived, operating covertly, usually at night in SAS tradition, and often out of uniform. Bearded, swathed in local civilian garb and deeply tanned by the desert sun, they could pass more easily for ragged sand-hoboes than crack troops. Which was precisely the desired illusion. As the months went by, they operated in Ramadi and Fallujah, and remote parts of Al Anbar Province where, in one raid, Ben and his unit were directed to a farm thought to be a stronghold for radical insurgents. After another spirited firefight, fifteen dead bodies dragged from the wreck of the farmhouse were identified as known members of JTJ. However one of their most notorious fighters, a bloodthirsty terrorist by the name of Nazim al-Kassar, still eluded capture. The young warrior was already responsible for dozens, if not hundreds, of killings, he had recruited multiple suicide bombing volunteers and (or so it was thought) even personally strapped them into their explosive vests.

Ben didn’t know it yet, but he was destined to meet Nazim very soon. The day would be September 20, 2003.