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From:Bing West
Subject: If a "Muj" Blinks, the Marines of VMU-1 See It Oh, Pioneer
Oh, Pioneer
"Those guys are wearing packs. They're friendlies," Lt. Col. John Neumann, the mission commander, said. "It's the 36th Iraqi commandos." "Concur," said Lt. J.P. Parchman, the watch officer. "The movement's too disciplined to be muj." A few miles away in Fallujah, Operation Phantom Fury had commenced at dark on Nov. 8. Inside the tent, the Marines of unit VMU-1, which flies the Pioneer Unmanned Aerial Vehicle or UAV, were looking at video taken from the UAV by a Forward-Looking Infra-Red (or FLIR) camera. The pictures were bright as day. "The raiding party wants us to scan across the river," Cpl. Robert Daniels said, reading a chat-room message that had popped up on his computer monitor. "Someone's firing." "Take us east," Neumann said over his shoulder. "Shift from white-hot to black-hot." Behind him, the pilot of the UAV adjusted the flight path as his partner tightened the zoom on the plane's camera. The images on the screen jumped slightly and focused on two black spots hopping from place to place behind an earthen berm. "I confirm weapons," said Sg. Jenifer Forman, an imagery analyst. "Watch their right arms when they run. They're shooting across the river." When the black spots bobbed together, the screen suddenly bloomed white, then settled back into focus, showing a thick gray cloud and a scattering of small black spots, like someone in the cloud had thrown out a handful of rocks. "Tank gun got them," Neumann said. "Picked them up on their thermals. They're scratched. Scan up the street." The camera tracked up a wide, empty boulevard bordered by ramshackle warehouses, tin-roof repair shops, and dingy apartment buildings. Four dark spots-presumably insurgents-were splayed against one corner of a large concrete building, with three similar spots on the other corner "One's lying down," Neumann said. "They're manning a crew-served weapon pointed at the bridge. Tell Fusion we have targets for Basher." Neumann's VMU unit flew the UAVs and analyzed the video for targets but rarely communicated directly with the shooters. Matching targets to shooters was the specialty of the Fusion Center located on the other side of Fallujah. There a staff pulled together information from Marines on the front lines, UAVs, electronic intercepts, agent reports, and other sources. The Fusion Center compiled target lists, tracked battle damage, prioritized targets, and assigned shooters. Cpl. Daniels typed in and sent the center a grid location accurate within a few meters. The center sent a one-line response: Basher on the way. Marines doing various chores around the op center stopped what they were doing and clustered behind the screens. A minute went by. The four dark spots moved slightly but stayed in the shadow of the building next to the street. On the screen a ball of black hit the edge of the building, sending black chunks flying out. Another black ball and another and another, enveloping the dark spots crouched along the side of the building. "Basher," an Air Force AC-130 aircraft, had illuminated the ambushers with its huge infrared spotlight and was pounding them with 105 mm artillery shells, each round packing 50 pounds of high explosives. Gray smoke rose from the scene. "Watch for squirters," Neumann said. "There's one now, heading north. Stay with him." A black spot broke out of the smoke. Against the background of the macadam on the street, the man's silhouette stood out plainly. He was running with the speed of a sprinter. "Ten to one he's headed for the mosque up the street,'" Neumann said. "Same as always," Lt. Parchman said as he watched the runner climb over a wall. "He's made it. Can't hit him there." The camera tracked back to the damaged building. Basher had moved on to another target. The Pioneer UAV circled the building to assess battle damage. A large door in the back of the building slid open and two men ran around the side and quickly returned, dragging something behind them. The Marines watched as this was repeated a few times. "Are they carrying a heavy weapon or a body part?" a Marine asked. "Don't know. We can confirm four down, though," Lt. Parchman said. "Mark this as a safe house. We'll come back later for a relook." The Pioneer flew on for a look along the river's edge. The "Watchdogs," as the Marine UAV crew called themselves, were the scouts out in front of the troops assaulting Fallujah. It was impossible for the insurgents to move out of doors without being seen and tracked. "Those muj are out there to kill our soldiers or Marines," Lt. Col. Neumann
said. "We're in here to find them so our shooters kill them first." From: Bing West Subject: How the Pioneer Robot Plane Helped Win an Artillery Duel Posted Thursday, Nov. 11, 2004, at 11:37 AM PT The daytime optical camera on the Pioneer Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, or UAV, yields rich colors, and so the quick red flashes from the mosque courtyard instantly caught the Marines' attention. The operation to seize back Fallujah was going well on the afternoon of Nov. 8. Seven battalions were advancing from the north, and the Pioneer was circling a four-square kilometer district to the south, called Queens. Long the lair of criminal gangs, terrorists, kidnappers, and jihadists, Queens was a jumble of a few thousand drab cement two-story houses and dirt roads, with scant vegetation. Spotting insurgents was not a problem for "The Watchdogs"-Marine Air Wing unit VMU-1 that operated the Pioneer. Based in a tent next to a runway a few miles outside Fallujah, the Watchdogs had flown several hundred surveillance missions over the city during the past five months. The insurgents had no place to hide. When they came out of doors, they were seen, tracked, and attacked-day after day. Several times the Watchdogs had seen pickups suddenly swerve into empty lots, the occupants jumping out, setting up long tubes, firing a few rockets and scurrying off before a response attack could be launched. "We followed one pickup after it fired some rockets," Staff Sgt. Francisco Tataje, the intelligence chief, said. "It swung up onto the main highway and we had it intercepted. The driver had a perfect ID. No incriminating stuff. We gave the interrogation team a copy of our video. They called back to say the guy confessed." Today's mortar attack from the mosque, though, broke the usual shoot-and-scoot pattern. This time the mortar crew was staying and fighting back. The half-completed mosque looked like a small soccer stadium, with an oval-shaped courtyard wall several stories high and an empty interior court. In the center of the court was a single mortar tube pointed north toward Camp Fallujah, the logistics hub of the coalition operation. Every 10 minutes or so, three insurgents sprinted from a large house a few hundred meters north of the mosque and disappeared under the eaves of the wall. A few minutes later, they dashed out, each dropping one round down the tube and madly sprinting back to the house. After six mortar rounds randomly exploded around the huge Camp Fallujah, Lt. Col. John Neumann, the Watchdogs' mission commander, took a phone call from the Fusion Center, which integrated all intelligence sources and assigned targets to firing units. "Air's not available. Arty has the target," Neumann said to his 10-man crew clustered around two video displays and four computer monitors. Artillery was an area-fire weapon, most useful against troops in the open but not intended for point targets. It was not the first choice for this sort of mission. But artillery was all that was immediately available. Lance Cpl. Jonathan Salisibrarra, the payload operator, placed the crosshairs of the Pioneer's optical camera on the mortar tube and read off the 10-digit grid that appeared on the screen. The coordinates were typed and sent to the Fusion Center and the firing battery. The crew waited for several minutes, saying little, as the Pioneer circled several thousand feet above, camera locked on the shiny mortar tube. When Neumann said, "Shot out," they craned forward to watch the explosion. When a large gray puff popped up a football field away from the tube, the crew measured the miss distance and typed in, Add one hundred, right fifty. Several minutes later, a large cloud of dirt erupted inside the courtyard. Among several cries of All right! the next command was Fire for effect. A few minutes later, two bright orange flashes lighted up the courtyard, with a third about 100 meters to the south. When the smoke cleared, the tube was still standing. The crew called for another volley. Same result-close but not effective. No secondary explosions. No visible damage to the tube. During the ensuing lull, the three insurgents again ran from the safe house to the mosque wall, picked up shells, dropped them down the tube, and ran back to the house. The Watchdogs exchanged exclamations. "They're hanging in there." "You wouldn't catch me playing dodge with 155s." "Suckers are dead meat if they guess wrong when the next volley is." "We're getting Predator," Neumann said after calling the Fusion Center. Launched from a site near Baghdad, the Predator UAV carried a Hellfire missile. Its crew and its video feeds were back in California. A few weeks earlier, the Watchdogs had employed Predator to hit a moving pickup with a mounted machine gun-one robot leading another robot to the target. NFL games on television allow the viewer to see the same play from different angles. But the digital pipes for battlefield imagery weren't large enough to permit the Watchdogs and the Predator crew in California to see each other's video. Instead, the Predator and Pioneer crews used e-mail chat and GPS coordinates to align their platforms. "Break, break," Neumann said, "Predator's been diverted. Profane is on station and has the mission. Stand by for talk on." Profane was the call sign for a flight of two Marine AV-8B jets hovering at 19,000 feet above the city. The Watchdogs would use voice and data to talk to the Forward Air Controller Airborne (or FACA) who would line up the jets for the attack. In the meantime, the insurgents had made another round-trip sprint. Twelve rounds had been launched at Camp Fallujah. The Fusion Center wanted this duel over with. "What do you think, guys?" asked Neumann, whose leadership style was inclusive. "The tube or the house?" "House!" came back the chorus. The two-story cement house where the insurgents were hiding between rounds had a dome roof, a large courtyard with an outside wall, and an overhang at the front door, where a sentry was posted. The Watchdogs had counted five men outside, assuming it was the same sprinters making the round trip to the mortar each time. Once Profane had locked on the mosque, Neumann talked the FACA on. "The house is the first one north of the vacant lot on the northeast corner. Has a dome roof. Wait-it's where that truck is. Got it?" A truck had pulled up and five men had walked inside, carrying something in their arms. Three dogs had trotted up. "Supper time. They're changing shifts," Sgt. Roneil Sampson, an imagery analyst, said. "Domino's delivery." "Cleared hot," Neumann said. Impact was less than a minute away. Word had spread to the off-duty crew and over two dozen Marines had squeezed into the small op center, murmuring back and forth. "I like dogs. Get out of there dogs." "Stay in there, muj. You're almost in paradise. Don't leave now. Don't leave." The courtyard door opened, and a man walked to the truck and slowly drove away. "Boot muj sent out to get the Coke. Luckiest bastard on the planet." Both video screens suddenly flashed bright white, as if a fuse had blown. There was a collective Damn! from the watching Marines. The center of the roof was now a huge black hole. "That's a shack," Neumann said. "Now that's what I call a shack!" "I feel sorry for the dogs," someone shouted. "Great job, Watchdogs," Neumann said. "Great job." _____ From: Bing West This week I have been writing <http://slate.msn.com/id/2109447/entry/2109448/> about Marines in the Fallujah battle. In response, I received several e-mails taking me to task for writing about men who are killing Iraqi men and, some correspondents implied, perhaps women and children. In response, I'd like to address briefly both operational and strategic aspects of the war in Iraq. At the operational level, battle is about killing until the enemy forces are destroyed or surrender. The columnist Patrick Graham, who has reported from the insurgent side, recently wrote in the Guardian that "the U.S. Marines are the world's most lethal killing machine." In my view, that should be a source of pride to Americans. For 229 years (Nov. 10 was the Marine Corps' birthday), Marines have been at the forefront in our nation's battles, implacable in the attack. Training and tradition mold that attitude, which is essential in battle. About one in 300 young Americans chooses to join the Marines. Most say they join for the discipline or to belong to a tough unit. These riflemen are a cross section of America. If they are at all different, it is because they have acquired the experience to be forbearing and to do their job of killing while retaining a keen appreciation for the sanctity of life and the tragedy of war. Lest that sound like gobbledygook, let me relate a story. Based on his visits to Fallujah, Patrick Graham wrote that "it is the sniper the people of Fallujah fear more than anything else." Yet the sniper is the most discriminating of weapons, suggesting that the "people" Graham referred to were the jihadist fighters. I was on a roof during the April siege in Fallujah with a Marine sergeant who was a sniper. One afternoon, he told me, he saw an old man hobble out of his house, supported by his teenage son. They shuffled next door and returned with a few groceries. The son paused to look toward the Marine position before going indoors. On a hunch, the sniper kept watch, and a half-hour later, the young Iraqi sneaked out with a rifle, hid behind a wrecked car, and aimed in. The sniper shot him in the street. From the house came a sharp cry. A few minutes later, the old man hobbled slowly out and, step by faltering step, dragged the body back into the courtyard. The sniper watched through his scope as the old man began to dig a grave. Marines are keenly aware of war's human toll. The sergeant had no idea what that young Iraqi was thinking. He didn't like killing someone's son. But Marines don't wear their emotions on their sleeves, and they have zero sympathy for the jihadists trying to kill them. If America needs a hard job done, the Marines will do it, and they won't lose their humanity in the process or any sleep over pulling the trigger. Yes, they are "the world's most lethal killing machine." That's what America needs in battle. Why America entered into the battle in the first place is a strategic question. In Afghanistan, the Taliban sheltered Bin Laden. In Fallujah, a jihadist council sheltered Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Fallujah had to be taken. How we came to be in Iraq will be debated for many years. But we go forward from where we are, not where we would like to be. To walk away from Iraq is out of the question. A failed Iraqi state would become a breeding ground for radicals and terrorists, with tectonic consequences in the region and in Europe, as well as an increase in attacks against Americans. In Fallujah, Samarra, and Ramadi, American troops will win the battles. The United States, however, cannot win a war of attrition against the insurgents in the Sunni cities, where American soldiers are seen as the infidel invaders. Only Iraqis, led by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and other believers in a pluralistic democracy, can defuse the Sunni insurgency. Under Saddam (and for centuries before him), 5 million Sunnis oppressed 13 million Shiites. Democracy is a threat to many who benefited from the old ways. The insurgents are an amalgam of jihadists who must be destroyed, former regime elements who must be neutralized or destroyed, and unemployed, uneducated, emotional youths who are being manipulated and who must be won over. Too many Sunni imams, fearful of losing temporal power, are preaching hate and despair to the desperately ignorant. American troops can stand against those who bear weapons against them. But U.S. soldiers cannot persuade Iraqis to support a new form of government that brings a dramatic shift in the Iraqi centers of power. In polls, most Iraqis support democracy. Whether they are willing to fight as fiercely as the jihadists has yet to be proved. We will see, in Fallujah and other cities over the next three months, whether the fledgling Iraqi security forces can maintain order in the face of strong resentment and whether Sunni leaders gradually recognize that the new order is as implacable as the U.S. Marines-meaning, get on board or lose out on the future. Bing West is a former Marine who is writing a book about Fallujah. This is his fifth trip to Iraq. His writings can be found at <http://www.westwrite.com/> www.westwrite.com. Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2109447/ This is the third in the series, check out the other two days for UAV operations. |
In a small
ops center inside a tent, a dozen Marines peered at two 26-inch
flat-panel displays. On the screens, the black edges of the hospital roof
stood out in sharp contrast to the white thistle clumps of palm trees in the
courtyard below. A line of white ghosts snaked around the trees and flowed onto the roof.