VIKING HAMMER (AND THE UGLY BABY)

01.Masters of Chaos Pages 8/17/04 12:00 PM Page 303
Viking Hammer (and the Ugly Baby)
pesh merga fighters. The soldiers grew mustaches, which afforded them
both respect and cover, as facial hair is a sign of manhood in this part of
the world: the pesh merga, much as the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, or the
jundies of the Arab world, are less inclined to respect the advice or follow
the orders of clean-shaven men. Because the Special Forces’ early presence
was clandestine, they needed to blend in and look as much like
Kurds as possible; looking like locals made it less likely that they would
be singled out and targeted by their antagonists.
Waltemeyer opted for a different approach in his northern sector. It
would not help him deal with the Turkish problem if his men looked
like Kurds, so he kept them in army uniforms and regulation hair cuts.
He also wanted to make them seem as big, American, and intimidating
as possible to the Iraqi divisions. And he wanted to inspire the pesh merga
to a higher standard of discipline by showing them what the expectations
for U.S. soldiers were. “We’re the army of the greatest power in
the world. This is how we do things,” was his way of thinking.
Waltemeyer’s first stop was the headquarters of the Kurdish Democratic
Party in Salahuddin, and Tovo’s was the smaller Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan in Sulaimaniya, near the Iranian border. Waltemeyer thought
of his “Haji Bush” story as he wound his way up the mountains in a
howling snowstorm to the palatial quarters of Masoud Barzani, the
KDP leader he would be working with. By way of greeting, Waltemeyer
told Barzani he knew of his famous battle at a certain mountain pass and
named the camps where he had worked in Provide Comfort.
The next morning Waltemeyer noticed that the Kurds had changed
into their brown battle dress, sash, and belt with pistol and knife. They
had taken their cue from his combat uniform. The Kurds had been left
high and dry in the mid-1990s after the CIA encouraged an uprising and
then the United States failed to back them up, but this time, they had
decided, the Americans had come to fight.
Waltemeyer told Barzani the ground rules that he had been given.
Turkey must not be provoked into coming into the war. To forestall
that, the Kurdish forces could not enter Iraq’s main cities without his
authorization. The first priority was to push Iraqi forces back from the
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