02 January 2007

Black Hawks Up

I read the story early yesterday, in the electronic version of the Times that has replaced the newsprint in my life. I miss the texture of the real thing, of course, but it is so much more efficient and less wasteful of increasingly scarce resources.



Of course I miss things, since the approach to the digital world means I have to actually click on something to see the content, rather than have it seduce my eye, and effortlessly invite me in.

The article was attractive enough on its own that it got my attention, grabbed it, really. It was about the movement of Saddam's corpse from the place of execution to his clan's home in Awja, near Tikirit.

Correspondents Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi and Khalid Hassan contributed to the story from Baghdad, and an unnamed Iraqi from Tikrit whose identity had to be protected, since he would be murdered if his association with the New York Times became known.

That is one of the things, plain and stark. It is hard to do journalism in Iraq, since the cost can be your head, or vaporization by improvised explosive device.

Local folks are therefore providing much of the coverage, and I salute their courage. If it comes with agendas, so does the reporting of outsiders, and is just one of the costs of the carnage.

One of the other curious things about this war is the ability to communicate from within it. Sometimes the kids who are injured are in immediate contact with their families, via cell phone from the battlefield, or over the Internet.

Information is difficult to control and contain. Any insights I might have, therefore, are not mine but borrowed from others who are in a position to know, and who are risking their asses to be there.

The irony of the circus surrounding the execution was not lost on anyone. The Americans needed to get the body in its pine coffin out of Baghdad, since there was no reliable and secure way for the Iraqis to do it themselves. Saddam could have, naturally, but his rigid control of the society is what we are there to undo.

The rush to kill him was something that appalled the Americans who are there for an extended visit, and there were a series of interventions to moderate the rush to the hanging. The haste and acrimony that accompanied the execution were indelicate, and made the Americans and some of the Iraqis squirm.

I watched the Arab coverage of the event from the perspective of the official video crew. I caught the curses between the executioners and their subject. There was more, though, in the near-chaos that was caught on a cellphone camera. The most chilling was the chanting of the name of that murderous thug and Shia cleric, Muqtada al Sadr.

Someone I respect greatly put it this way: “The Iraqis defaulted to their typical behavior - eager to kill, and only mildly interested in legalities, let alone the details that matter - like what to do with the body.”

Muslims customarily bury their dead with respect, when they have the chance. Failure to do so would be a bone of contention with the Sunnis, who claim Saddam as one of their own. The Shia, who suffered so much at his hands, would just as soon dishonor him.

As a general thing, the corpse must be respected and not defiled. I believe that an appropriate chapter from the Qu'ran was read, after the body had hung for nine minutes. I do not know if the body was bathed, anointed with scents and draped in a seamless white shroud. That might have happened when the body went missing after they cut it down from the scaffold.

Muslim custom is that the body should be buried within twenty-four hours, and that was completely problematic with Saddam among the missing. The clock was ticking on the most important part of ritual.

The Helicopter has revolutionized the concept of warfare. It first came into its own in Vietnam, enabling the Americans to drop out of the sky at the place and time of their choice. It was a huge force multiplier.

The UH-60 Black Hawk is the new chariot of the battlefield, able to skim above the improvised explosives and chaos of the street. It replaced the venerable UH-1 "Huey" of the Vietnam era, and with a crew of three, can lift an entire 11-man fully-equipped infantry squad in most weather conditions. In other configurations, it can carry four litters, which is one of the reasons that American combat losses are not twelve thousand instead of three.

Both the pilot and co-pilot are provided with armor-protective seats in this most flexible of chariots, which can absorb hits from 23mm shells. Peering out over the coffin are door-mounted M60D 7.62mm machine guns, and it is routine to disperse chaff and infrared jamming flares through the integrated M130 general-purpose dispenser.

I have traveled in several models of the Blackhawk, including an executive model that belonged to the Secretary of Defense. It had no armored seats, just nice upholstery. It is a nice way to travel.

It was a Black Hawk helo that rose up to carry Saddam from Camp Cropper to Khadimiya, where he was turned over to the chaotic custody of the Iraqis and executed. It is only ten miles, so by air it was almost nothing at all.

The Americans were happy to take custody of the body back, even if they were unhappy with the timing. They were even happy to provide Black Hawk travel services, though that was a matte of some hand-wringing. The body disappeared for nearly eighteen hours, whisked away to secret government custody.

In order to get the corpse back, and into the ground in accordance with tradition, the patriarch of Saddam's Albu-Nasir tribe, Sheik Ali al-Nida, was hastily located and flown by Black Hawk to Baghdad.

The coffin was collected from the courtyard of Prime Minister Maliki's office, and then strapped to the Black Hawk's external stores rack.

"Wheels up at time 0107, Black Hawk en route Tikrit with Saddam!"

It just added to the elements of the surreal that the nearest secure US facility to that city is Camp Speicher.

Scott Speicher was a Navy F/A-18 pilot who disappeared in the first hours of DESERT STORM, and whose fate has been an article of controversy ever since. I think we spent as much time answering questions on his whereabouts when I worked at the Pentagon as on any other single issue. Dick Cheney had declared him “dead” in an off-the-cuff press conference, as if he had been vaporized. The truth appeared to be much more sinister, since if he was not, and Saddam's goons had him, he was a free play-toy for whatever they might want to do.

He did not come back with the other POWs when Kuwait was livberated, and Saddam was briefly pliant.

Years later, I had a special operations soldier in my office at the Pentagon who had commanded a mission to the crash site of the aircraft. This was in the inter-war years when Saddam was still in power, mind you, and is an example of the gravity with which we treated the matter.

He said that it was pretty clear that the ejection seat was missing, and that Scott probably got out safely. Saddam's men provided a laundered flight suit near the scene later, and all we could conclude was that he probably suffered the same fate that so many Iraqis did, and we don't know where his body is.

That is not the case with Saddam. We know exactly where he is. They put him under the labvish marble floor of Visitor's Center that he had built to honor his homeland, under the lavish marble floor.

This is a temporary measure, since he will eventually be moved to a permanent grave outside Awja where his two sons, Uday and Qusay, better known by their American codenames “Beevis and Butthead” are spending eternity.

Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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