VIKING HAMMER (AND THE UGLY BABY)

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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 303
01.Masters of Chaos Pages 8/17/04 12:00 PM Page 304 304 M asters of C haos positions where they could lob chemical weapons into Kurdish cities. Despite having been read the riot act, Barzani massed forces and prepared to attack Turkish troops that had come into the border region on the eve of the assault on the Green Line. The Special Forces lieutenant colonel told him that their alliance was in jeopardy. “I will put my men between you and the Turkish forces,” he said, forcing the Kurd to back down. In addition to navigating political shoals, the Special Forces had to solve numerous logistical problems, and transportation was one of the most serious. The operators were forced to borrow or buy whatever vehicles they could from the Kurds. The fleet of white quad-cab Defender pickup trucks they had bought were sitting in Turkey, locked in a warehouse. The few vehicles available were mostly smuggled from Baghdad. The sports utility vehicle that Tovo procured was in such bad shape that one of its wheels fell completely off one day. The entire mission was an exercise in improvisation, as Waltemeyer had predicted, and the soldiers had to solve the problems themselves as no one else was around to help. The SF devised a system to command and control the Kurdish fighters, so that the units would not mistakenly shoot at each other or wander off to pursue their irredentist designs. To guard against friendly fire accidents, they also needed to be able to identify themselves to whatever aircraft they would have. The ODAs broke down into split teams and paired up with 150 to 1,500 Kurdish militia. Each split team had a radio, and every operator knew how to talk to the pilots. The Special Forces could not predict how many of the estimated 65,000 Kurdish fighters would actually show up to fight. The militias’ informality was such that a call would go out and then young and old would arrive, each carrying an AK–47 and a couple magazines of ammunition. They would pile into whatever cars, trucks, or buses were available and head to the front. The Special Forces decided to plan on about half of the “pesh” coming to fight. The soldiers of 10th Group were as well equipped to grasp the complexities of this human battlefield as anyone in the U.S. military and per-
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VIKING HAMMER (AND THE UGLY BABY)

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