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Our
flight plan was to travel first to Abu Ghraib
prison, where we would drop off my only fellow
passenger, an Army Lt Col. From there we would,
with a few fueling stops along the way, fly on to
Mosul. The hop to Abu Ghraib, just southwest of
Baghdad, took only 10 minutes or so. As always in
helicopters, I was caught by surprise when we took
off. On our jet, takeoffs are accompanied by such a
roar of engines and thrilling acceleration that you
feel you've really accomplished something just to
get off the ground. With helicopters though, engine
noise remains pretty much the same, and there's no
acceleration. I was seated facing the front of the
plane, just aft of the right door gunner. One
moment I was looking down at my lap, fussing with
my harness, and the next moment I looked up to find
we were 80 feet off the ground - which seems to be
about the highest we flew all day.
Flying
low is a good way to avoid getting shot. The closer
you are to the ground, the longer you are blocked
from sight by trees and buildings. At the speeds we
fly, we hope to be upon a shooter and past him
before he has time to draw a bead on us. Of course
there are drawbacks to flying low. One is
powerlines. We made some quite dramatic pop-ups to
avoid those. They're fine if you see them coming,
but they can be a shock if you're not prepared.
Another drawback is birds. Flying low over a palm
grove (most of the shooting comes from palm groves,
and we were all keeping a close watch down below,
where golden sunlight was slanting through the
dusty palm leaves) we drove a flock of birds out of
the trees. That flock startled another, and
another, causing a chain reaction of birds rising
like a wave ahead of us. The pilot had to make some
violent maneuvers to avoid them, as did our
wingman, who flew at a short distance beside
us.
When
we landed at Abu Ghraib we counted 5 bloody smudges
along the leading edges of the plane. The rotors
and the stabilator had made quick work of the
birds. Luckily, our engine intakes were
feather-free.
My
fellow passenger took his leave and we stood for a
while on the tarmac in front of the prison. I took
a couple pictures of the outside. Some of the
aircrew had their pictures taken standing inside
the gate, but I had no interest in that. I've been
surrounded by walls and fences since I deployed,
and I was enjoying being outside them for a while.
We stood there in the warming morning sunshine
counting bird strikes and peeing in the shadow of
the plane, waiting, so I heard, for more
passengers. As we waited there was a loud
explosion, not too far away. The distant ones may
shake the ground, but the lower registers are all
you hear of them. Closer ones combine a loud crack
with the rumbling. This had both. We looked in the
direction from which the sound had come and saw a
dust cloud rise from behind some buildings half a
block away. We all got back on the plane and the
pilots got the engines started.
That's
when they brought the other passengers out. They
were prisoners. The crew said they were being taken
north to be released. They certainly looked happy,
in addition to seeming well-fed. Their hands were
zip-tied in front of them but they didn't seem to
mind. They smiled as they climbed aboard. The crew
is glad they're not blindfolded. "Blindfolded
prisoners," they tell me, "Always throw up in the
plane."
We
lifted off again. Brief images of our flight: A
major bridge into Baghdad is blocked at each end by
massive Abrams tanks. That's not a roadblock I'd
try to run. Abu Ghraib is a run-down depressing
hole in the middle of a run-down industrial
neighborhood. Lots of metal warehouses missing
large parts of their roofs. Lots of empty spots
between houses filled with piles of trash.
Mud-colored
houses surrounded by mud-colored walls. Once in a
while, the shock of green inside a compound. This
is a nation of walls and fences. Walls for miles
and miles out in the desert. I've never seen so
much emptiness contained inside of walls. Lots of
revetments and defensive fighting positions carved
into the ground.
Towering
minarets and swelling domes of mosques
everywhere.
Now
we are scorching along over palm groves. The
gunners lean over the edge of their windows,
swiveling their machine guns and their eyes. We are
all looking (except the prisoners, who are looking
at each other, and their guards, who are watching
the prisoners), for tracers arching through the
fronds, for the muzzle flash or the glint of
reflected sunlight that could be someone below. For
all our searching, we are not rewarded. Nobody
minds a bit.
We
refuel in Balad, one of Saddam's airbases. A long
line of his MiGs, dilapidated now, stand nose to
tail along a disused runway. Once-proud jet
fighters now look ridiculous, like moulting birds
of prey.
Just
as city gave way to palm groves, the trees give way
to wide flat stretches, broken once or twice by the
great rivers and their tributaries, which slide in
muddy lethargy through deep-cut channels. Dusty
soil now is encroached upon by drifts of sand. Sand
rolls below us, dune after wind-serrated dune.
Gradually though, between the ochre dunes patches
of topsoil appear again, and soon after that, tufts
of grey-green. Dusty plants appear, and with them
goats and their herders. The scene repeats itself
over and over; goatherds rise from some desolate
promontory where they squat, accompanied only by
their donkey, their herd, and their footprints, and
they thrust their hands into the sky, waving not
just their hands, but their entire bodies. The
gunners lean over their spindly machine guns. They
have bullet-proof plates stacked under their seats
and flak vests piled against the inside of the
plane. They lean over their full ammo boxes, and
sketch a wave in reply.
We
land in Mosul after crossing a ridge of mountains
and finding ourselves in another world. It is green
and hilly here. Rooftops are not strewn with trash
and streets are not littered. Pretty as it is, my
goal here is to find the people with whom I'm
supposed to coordinate and give them the
information they need, find a chow hall and get
some food in me, and get back to the helicopter in
an hour and a half. Otherwise I'll be spending the
night here. Amazingly, everything goes like
clockwork.
The
people I'm looking for work in an enormous palace.
Just the size of the place leads me to believe I'm
going to have a difficult job of finding them, but
as I'm asking directions someone walking by hears
me and says, "I know who that is. Come on; I'll
take you there." I'm getting to see a pretty decent
chunk of this theater of operations, and everywhere
I go I see this kind of friendliness. I find it a
remarkable byproduct of war that Americans seem to
get friendlier with each other as we're waging
it.
Anyway,
I made my contact, had a good meeting, ate some
very good manicotti (not just good by military chow
standards - I mean very good.) and was back to the
plane on time. We launch, travel a short distance
to another field and stop for fuel, and then taxi
to the far end of the runway from where we got gas.
There awaiting us is a new batch of prisoners.
These are not being released any time soon, it
seems. I infer from things I overhear that they
have been recently captured in some of the local
fighting.
Their
hands are zip-tied and they are blindfolded. They
stand in line waiting for us, each with his hands
on the shoulders of the man in front of him. They
are holding their heads at crazy angles, trying to
see their feet through the gap at the bottom of the
blindfolds. (I pause to tell you there was a large
but distant explosion just now. Not close enough to
rattle the windows. No one here takes much notice.)
One or two might be in their 20s. The rest are
maybe in their 40s. They are mangy, dirty, dressed
in jeans, galibeas, sweat pants. They stoop low as
they approach the helicopter. A tall man at the end
of the line is dressed in white. He is shivering in
the rotor wash. Like most of them, he has a lot of
gray in his hair. His though, is only near the
roots. I wonder idly about why he would dye his
hair.
I
am uncomfortable sitting with my back to them. If
these are the kinds of men who've been blowing up
police stations in Mosul, what would stop them from
going berserk in the plane? I see the gunner on my
side is thinking the same thing. He checks his
pistol to make sure the magazine is in place. Every
time we land we have to clear our weapons so half
the time you're nor sure if you have a magazine in
or not. It's too noisy in the plane to hear each
other, so he just reaches for my gun belt to see if
my pistol is loaded. It is. He gives me the thumbs
up.
The
plane smells like dirty scared men. And then it
smells like urine. One of the prisoners has soiled
himself. The gunner hands me a package of paper
towels and I pass them back to the guard. The
guards are the only ones back there whose hands
aren't tired, so they have to clean up. A
vindictive guard would punish a prisoner for that,
but I don't see anything like that. The mess is
cleaned up as well as can be expected.
Later,
having left the green north behind, and having
recrossed the dunes, we are back in the land of
scrubby plants and goat herds. Little walled
compounds are everywhere here, each with its own
modern version of a well - a 15 or 20 foot deep
bulldozed scrape into the earth. Some houses have
several nearby, with green water glinting in the
bottom of just one or two. I am wondering whether
anyone ever falls into these pits when the gunner
and I see a blur coming from a little walled
compound ahead of us and off to the side. A dog is
chasing us. He is lean and rangy like a wolf or a
saluki. His strides are long and with each one his
front paws almost meet his pointed nose, he is so
stretched out. It is an impressive show of speed
and I am glad to see that the gunner has noticed it
too. We both watch until we pass over the flying
dog. The gunner grins at me and hands me a stick of
gum.
The
return to Abu Ghraib is uneventful. We deposit our
prisoners and then race back to Camp Victory. On
the way, we overfly another palace. This one is
holed neatly through the roof, and some floors have
collapsed. None of the buildings nearby shows any
damage.
Other
things I've wanted to write down before I forget -
all the coalition troops here. Yesterday I saw
Italians, Poles, Ukranians, Koreans, some
unidentified Arabs, Brits, Danes, and Aussies - all
members of the invisible coalition. It's
interesting to see all the different countries'
takes on desert camouflage. The Ukrainians wear
mottled brown that actually looks like it would
blend well with the terrain - but they wear
blue-striped undershirts that kind of ruin the
effect.
Two
days ago I was in the Al Faw Palace - the one in
the middle of a lake that I wrote about the other
day - with a small group of officers. I wanted to
buy Multi National Corp stickers for my son. On my
way to the place where they sell them I passed
Saddam's Big Chair. This is a great big throne that
was built for him to commemorate his victory in the
Iran/Iraq war. (If something about that doesn't
sound right, you just have to remember that the
Iraqi minister of information was still in business
at that time.)
Saddam's
Big Chair is a huge attraction. Everyone has their
picture taken sitting in it, and just recently they
used it for Santa to sit in while they took
pictures to send home. I was walking past it with
my little group when a Polish officer, who was
apparently heading home after a tour here, waved us
over enthusiastically. He told his interpreter to
ask us if we would have our pictures taken with
him. He wanted to show everyone at home what
friends he had found in the Americans.
Everybody
here seems to feel that way. Our allies are very
pleasant and friendly and seem to appreciate being
able to make common cause with us against this
dangerous enemy. I'll bet that's something you
don't see in the news back home.
A
Lt Col I met has stopped in to check on me. He's
taking a bucket of golf balls and a couple of
drivers down to the edge of Saddam's palace lake
and he's inviting me to help knock some of them
into the water. I'm absolutely terrible at golf,
but I like the idea of standing in front of that
colossal monument to Saddam's ego, and driving golf
balls into the water.
Steven
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Al
Faw Palace, home of Saddam's Big Chair, is
surrounded by a lake
(click for a larger image)
Palm
Groves are a bit bigger than you might have
imagined!
(click for larger image)
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