My Share of the Task (75 page)

truck that roved through town:
Hamza Hendawi, “Fast Resembling an Islamic Mini-State, Fallujah May Be Glimpse of Iraq Future,” Associated Press,
May 25, 2004.

CHAPTER 10: ENTREPRENEURS OF BATTLE

At the outstation:
Interviews with task force members.

dropped him to the deck:
Adam Nicolson,
Seize the Fire: Heroism, Duty, and the Battle of Trafalgar
(Harper Collins, 2005), 255.

minutes later he was dead:
Ibid.,
254, 274.

“No Captain can do very wrong”:
This memorandum was written on October 9, 1805, “a fortnight before the battle” (ibid., 45).

strategy with the French captains:
Ibid.

“It takes a network”:
This phrasing first appeared in 2001 in a monograph by John Arquilla, and the idea was one he and others had espoused before then.

“absolutely intoxicating in its intensity”:
Richard Williams, quoted in Robert D. Kaplan, “Man Versus Afghanistan,”
Atlantic
,
April 2010, 61.

between bin Laden and Zarqawi:
The full reporting of Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi's trip to Iraq that summer comes from Sami Yousafzai & Ron Moreau, “Terror Broker,”
Newsweek
, April 11, 2005.

unrestrained targeting of Shia Muslims:
Lawrence Wright, “The Master Plan,”
New Yorker
, September 11, 2006.

challenge Al Qaeda's leadership:
Leah
Farrall, “How Al Qaeda Works,”
Foreign Affairs
(March/April 2011).

voluntarily sharing it with others:
This point is made in Lamb and Munsing's article about TF 16 in Iraq: “SOF Task Force personnel were directed to set the example by being first to give more information. They were told to ‘share until it hurts.' As one commander explained it, ‘If you are sharing information to the degree where you think, “Holy cow, I am going to go to jail,” then you are in the right area of sharing.' The point was to build
trust,
and information-sharing was the icebreaker.” Christopher J. Lamb and Evan Munsing, “Secret Weapon: High-Value Target Teams as an Organizational Innovation,”
Strategic Perspectives
(March 2011), 46.

“He would create the market”:
Nicolson,
Seize the Fire
, 45.

a brigade-size force:
Interview with task force member.

broadband Internet and cell towers:
This point is explored by Peter Bergen in his book
The Longest War
(Free Press, 2011), 162–63.

technically
illegal under Saddam:
“Iraq Awards Mobile Phone Licenses,” BBC, October 6, 2003.

spread
after the American invasion:
The Department of Defense indicated (through graphics) that as of June 1, 2004, there were about 500,000 subscribers; 1.5 million by January 1, 2005; and more than 3.5 million by August 31, 2005 (U.S. Department of Defense, “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” October 13, 2005, 16). Further data on cell phone and Internet usage in Iraq can be found on the World Bank's “Data” website, which can generate a variety of metrics on the country. In 2004, it lists 574,000 cellular phone subscriptions and, interestingly, only 300,000 Internet users (1 percent of the population).

had not been convinced:
Interviews with three task force members.

140 Iraqis were wounded:
The details of this event and the casualty toll come from
Edmund Sanders, “35 Children Die in Baghdad Bombings,”
Los Angeles Times
, October 1, 2004.

barracks for our operators:
Interview with Lieutenant General (retired) John Sattler.

enlisted Prime Minister Allawi:
Ibid.

first week of November:
The operation was originally planned for November 5 but was then changed to November 7. Kenneth Estes, “U.S. Marine Corps Operations in Iraq, 2003–2006” (occasional paper), United States Marine Corps History Division, 55.

real attack from the north:
Interview with Lt. Gen. Sattler.

fortified the terrain:
“Three hundred and six well-constructed defensive positions were identified, many of which were interlaced with improvised explosive devices (IEDs)” (John F. Sattler and Daniel H. Wilson, “The Battle of Fallujah—Part II,”
Marine Corps Gazette
,
July 2005.)

daisy-chain IEDs
:
Interview with Lt. Gen. Sattler.

cut the power
:
Estes, “U.S. Marine Corps Operations,” 58.

Zarqawi pledged:
The message was posted on October 17, 2004, the third day of Ramadan. Jeffrey Pool, “Zarqawi's Pledge of Allegiance to Al-Qaeda,”
Terrorism Monitor
, December 16, 2004.

“our most generous brothers”:
Translated by Pool in “Zarqawi's Pledge of Allegiance to Al-Qaeda.”

websites a few days later:
Ibid.

next door, in Iraq:
Al Qaeda's leadership had sounded the alarm over the looming Iraq war in 2002, and bin Laden had spoken of Iraq as the “new crusade” since 2003. See, for example, Osama bin Laden, “Quagmires of the Tigris and Euphrates (October 19, 2003),” in
Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden
, ed. Bruce Lawrence (Verso, 2005), 207–211.

Muslims to wage jihad there:
In January 2004, bin Laden said, “Before concluding, I urge the Muslim youths to carry out
jihad
, particularly in Palestine and Iraq.” Osama bin Laden, “Resist the New Rome (January 4, 2004)” in
Messages to the World,
231.

“regret it afterwards”:
Osama bin Laden, “Depose the Tyrants (December 16, 2004)” in
Messages to the World,
272.

maintain their good work:
“Osama bin Laden to the Iraqi People” (Special Dispatch no. 837), Middle East Media Research Institute, December 30, 2004.

bin Laden had tied his own fate:
To determine when this shift in focus occurred, Thomas Hegghammer examined Islamist Web forums and estimated the jump in interest occurred between April and September 2004. From that point on, Iraq dominated the concerns of the global jihadist movement. (Thomas Hegghammer, “Global Jihadism After the Iraq War,”
Middle East Journal
(Winter 2006), 20–21.

CHAPTER 11: OUT WEST

by the sandwich bar
:
Elliott D. Woods, “A Few Unforeseen Things,”
Virginia Quarterly Review
, Fall 2008, 6–31.

bowing forward in silence:
“Lion in the Village” (transcript),
Anderson Cooper 360
, CNN, March 1, 2007.

past noon, he ignited
:
Ibid.

Saudi medical student:
Friends of the twenty-year-old Saudi medical student reported that insurgents in Iraq had contacted the man's father, informing him that his son, who had withdrawn his tuition money and left his studies in Sudan for the jihad, had martyred himself in Iraq. Associated Press, “Report: Mess-Hall Bomber Was Saudi Student,” MSNBC
website, January 3, 2005. The
New Republic,
examining the 430 martyr biographies in the jihadist text
The Martyrs of the Land of the Two Rivers
, found a description of al-Ghamidi: “And Ahmad Said Ahmad Al Ghamidi, also of Saudi Arabia, was studying medicine at Khartoum University when he broke off his studies and used his tuition money to go to Iraq.” Husain Haqqani and Daniel Kimmage, “Suicidology,”
New Republic
, October 3, 2005, 14.

“Caravan of Martyrs”:
Thomas Hegghammer, “Saudi Militants in Iraq: Backgrounds and Recruitment Patterns,” Norwegian Defense Research Establishment,
February 5, 2007, 8.

restoring the caliphate there:
“[T]he recruitment message relies not primarily on complex theological arguments, but on simple, visceral appeals to people's sense of solidarity and altruism.” Thomas Hegghammer, “The Rise of Muslim Foreign Fighters: Islam and the Globalization of Jihad,”
International Security
(Winter 2010–11), 90.

three dozen agencies:
Interviews with JIATF members.

between 12,000 and 20,000 men:
John F. Burns, “Iraq's Ho Chi Minh Trail,”
New York Times
, June 5, 2005.

with that stated intention:
This is based on what became known as the “Sinjar records,” which indicated that 56 percent of foreign fighters were recruited to be, or joined with the intention of becoming, suicide bombers, while 42 percent came or were tasked to be fighters. Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman,
Al-Qai'da's Foreign Fighters in Iraq: A First Look at the Sinjar Records
(Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, January 2, 2007), 18. Interviews with a number of task force members indicated that some of the foreign fighters picked up had been recruited to fight but upon arrival to Iraq were assigned martyrdom missions (at times against their desire). But interviews also indicated that there was likely similar cross-assignment, where the more talented recruits who came with a desire to be suicide bombers were diverted to positions that would keep them alive.

see a
template emerge:
The path of recruitment and of the “ratline” is based upon my memory, as well as interviews with task force members involved in both intelligence and operations.

if not thousands, of dollars:
Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman, “Becoming a Foreign Fighter: A Second Look at the Sinjar Records,” in
Bombers, Bank Accounts, and Bleedout: Al Qa'ida's Road in and out of Iraq,
ed. Brian Fishman (Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, July 2008), 53.

they had been treated:
Felter and Fishman,
Al-Qai'da's Foreign Fighters
, 25.

how strong their
relationships were:
Translated versions of the filled-out questionnaires were released as part of the Sinjar records, and an English version is available on the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point website.

USS
Cole
overslept:
He “slept through the page on his phone that would have notified him to set up the camera.” Wright,
Looming Tower
,
361.

Christmas Eve that year:
This man survived the attack, and his account can be found in the first chapter of Ken Ballen's
Terrorists in Love: The Real Lives of Islamic Radicals
(Free Press, 2011), 3–44.

openly doubted our assessment:
My recollection of these meetings is aided by interviews with other participants.

more than fifty named insurgent groups:
Mohammed M. Hafez,
Suicide Bombers in Iraq: The Strategy and Ideology of Martyrdom
(United States Institute for Peace Press, 2007), appendix 1, 243–49. Other reports indicate around forty insurgent groups during the summer of 2005.

old Saddam apparatchiks:
“Its [MNF-I JIATF's] mission was abruptly changed in November 2004 to the identification of former Ba'athists who posed a threat to the occupation, at which point its name changed to JIATF–Former Regime Elements.” Lamb and Munsing,
Secret Weapon
, 15.

calling democracy
heresy:
“Zarqawi and Other Islamists to the Iraqi People: Elections and Democracy Are Heresy” (Special Dispatch no. 856), Middle East Research Institute, February 1, 2005.

mentored a younger Zarqawi:
Jean-Charles Brisard with Damien Martinez,
Zarqawi: The New Face of al-Qaeda
(Other Press, 2005), 43–44.

other
hard-line insurgent groups:
The three groups—Ansar al-Sunnah, Islamic Army of Iraq, and the Jihad Warriors Army—said, we “call upon all Muslims zealous for their religion not to participate in this act of heresy” (Middle East Media Research Institute
,
“Zarqawi and Other Islamists”).

“The martyr's wedding”:
Ibid.

overran no election sites:
Kenneth Katzman, “Iraq: Elections, Constitution, and Government,” Congressional Research Service, February 27, 2007, 2.

freeze them into a minority role:
A number of Sunni parties had boycotted the election since December 15, 2004. Max Sicherman, “Iraqi Elections: What, How, and Who,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy,
January 24, 2005.

2 percent of the population:
Michael Knights and Eamon McCarthy, “Provincial Politics in Iraq: Fragmentation or New Awakening?” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, April 2008, 6.

secured a mere 17:
Katzman, “Iraq: Elections, Constitution, and Government.”

independently of the Coalition's control:
Matt Sherman, interviewed in “Gangs of Iraq,”
Frontline,
PBS,
October 4, 2006.

uniforms on Badr militiamen:
Ken Silverstein, “The Minister of Civil War: Bayan Jabr, Paul Bremer, and the Rise of the Iraqi Death Squads,”
Harper's
, August 2006, 67–73.