Honor and Betrayal : The Untold Story of the Navy Seals Who Captured the "Butcher of Fallujah"-and the Shameful Ordeal They Later Endured (9780306823091) (20 page)

The US Army's Criminal Investigation Command report had led to soldiers of the 320th military police battalion being charged under the Code of Military Justice with prisoner abuse. And the entire catastrophe burst into public awareness with a spate of national television programs and magazine articles.

It made the US military look pretty bad in front of its own people, but it raised hell among the public and was probably the United States' military public relations disaster of the century. The Defense Department removed seventeen soldiers and officers from duty, and they charged eleven soldiers with dereliction of duty, maltreatment of prisoners, and aggravated assault and battery.

Eleven soldiers were convicted by courts-martial, dishonorably discharged, and sentenced to military prison, one of them for ten years. The CO of all Iraqi detention facilities was reprimanded for dereliction of duty and demoted from the rank of brigadier general to colonel.

Never had the US armed forces suffered such humiliation. And the notorious Abu Ghraib Jail was situated a mere eighteen miles from Camp Schwedler, right on the old road to Jordan, which crosses the desert west of Baghdad and meanders across the sand, all the way to Amman.

The sprawling penal center had earned the name “House of Horrors” long before the US military gave it everlasting notoriety. But the incidents, which led to those multiple courts-martial, enraged the Arab and Muslim worlds and caused a huge upsurge in new recruitment to the al-Qaeda armies.

The new buzzword was “prisoner abuse,” and the media seized upon it, with the words “Abu Ghraib” immediately following. US military commanders can deal with almost anything, including attack, war, death, and mayhem. But nothing—repeat, nothing—sends them into quite a collective tailspin as the claim “prisoner abuse.”

Which was why, essentially, Lieutenant Jimmy of SEAL Team 10, famous for the efficiency of its command and its training and preparation, was right now on the very edge of his nerves as the rumors of prisoner abuse swept through their desert camp.

Meanwhile the men of Echo Platoon were allowed to go back to bed. But not for long. After another couple of hours they were awakened again in response to a report from the Iraqi police that they could not hold the prisoner in Al-Karmah because he needed to be moved to Baghdad.

A few of the more imaginative SEALs put this down to the probable fact that the desert cops were still scared to death of Al-Isawi and everything he stood for, that he might somehow get free and come after the Iraqis' families. They probably would not want him anywhere near them and had come up with some reason to hand him back to the Americans.

Anyway, they all had to drive over to Al-Karmah and collect the prisoner. And this resulted in endless delays while the Iraqis filled out the correct forms. And during those hours, naturally, all of the $6,000 Matt had confiscated went missing somewhere in the police department.

And so the SEALs took Al-Isawi to Baghdad, to the US holding facility, and handed him over. Lieutenant Jimmy signed a similar number of forms to those required for the unconditional surrender of the German army in May 1945.

Finally they were finished and drove back to Camp Schwedler, most of them hoping never again to hear the name Ahmad Hashim Abd Al-Isawi except when someone hanged him for murder. Didn't much matter who.

There is a distinct form of bush telegraph in all military camps. Without one single announcement or phone call, the most outlandish pieces of information somehow drift around among the personnel. People seem to find things out by osmosis. Sometimes things are not even stated, but everyone still knows what's afoot. It was no different in Camp Schwedler.

Jon was possessed of a particular sensitive set of antennae that would always serve him well in combat. And by Thursday morning, September 3, he and Matt both knew something was going on. Lieutenant
Jimmy had asked for “shooter statements,” which are individual accounts of Wednesday's events from everybody who had seen the Camp Schwedler detainee after his arrival at the base.

This included almost everyone, because they had all called into the holding cell to catch a glimpse of this most famous terrorist who was then under Team 10 supervision, thanks to their own efforts.

No one knew any details, and no one had read the latest reports from Baghdad. But there were rumors—as ever when dealing with al-Qaeda commanders—that wild accusations had been made, including very definite claims that the prisoner had been abused. That was all standard.

What no one knew, however, was that Ahmad Hashim Abd Al-Isawi, a member of the most flagrantly dishonest “military” organization on earth, had effectively cried
“ABUSE!”
He told US authorities he'd been badly beaten at the Camp Schwedler SEAL base. He said he'd been punched, kicked, hurled to the ground, and had his head stomped on—pounded in the face, chest, body and ribs.

Slightly contradictory to this was the fact that he did not have a mark on him. But it still put Lieutenant Jimmy in one hell of a spot. The bloodied prisoner he'd handed over had made a formal complaint accusing the SEALs of violence against him. No one—least of all Jimmy—had the slightest idea what was going on. But the words “prisoner abuse” were bouncing out of that report like a couple of whizbangs.

Officers in Baghdad, Fallujah, Ar-Ramadi, and Qatar were caucusing, and the old familiar, dreaded words and phrases were being stage whispered all over the desert:
Abu Ghraib, maltreatment, beatings, lies, lack of protection, court-martial, human rights, dereliction of duty, proper care, dishonorable discharge, demotion, loss of rank, military prison
.

There's nothing quite like those two words: “prisoner abuse.” And the military, though to a far, far lesser degree than other huge organizations, is not averse to locating of a couple of decoys in order to divert blame from principal executives.

For decoys, read scapegoats—two or three guys to take the rap, that is—because the military hardly dares to claim that no one was responsible
or that the prisoner was a liar. That would invite a media onslaught, alleging a major cover-up or whitewash. And when the media goes into one of those paroxysms of self-righteous innuendo, it makes everyone look utterly dishonest.

In the case of the Battered Butcher, the high command in Iraq would not be unhappy with two or three convictions they could write off as the actions of a couple of “bad eggs”—
not at all like the honorable professionals they really are
. Which is all well and good, unless you happen to be one of the sacrificial eggs.

Still, there was no proof of any crimes being committed at Camp Schwedler. At least that's how it had seemed when the SEALs left to transport Al-Isawi. But the atmosphere was different the next day. There was something accusatory in the air, as if someone had suddenly admitted seeing something or even committed something.

Nonetheless, the SEALs, to a man, said no one had raised a finger against this Al-Isawi, and no one had seen anyone else touch him. He'd passed the medical examination without the slightest trouble, and according to the report in Baghdad, he remained unmarked. This was basically still rumor, but apparently true.

Later that Thursday afternoon, however, things took a sudden and unexpected swerve in the wrong direction. Matt, Jon, Sam, and Paddy were ordered to Camp Ramadi, home of Special Operations Task Force-West. They were ordered to leave almost immediately, and they swiftly discovered there were three vehicles going.

It was no surprise when Lieutenant Jimmy joined them, but the SEALs were all startled to see MA3 Brian Westinson also making the journey. The fact that Brian had all his bags packed and was plainly pulling out of Schwedler for good unsettled them even more.

This was all fairly obvious. What was very much under wraps was that Brian, the MA3 who at least twice had been missing from his post guarding Al-Isawi, had gone to the senior command at Schwedler and claimed that he saw Matthew McCabe punch the prisoner and knock him to the ground while he was in the holding cell.

The presence of Westinson in the same little convoy suggested that something was happening—something that concerned the “prisoner
abuse” case. Because Matt, Jon, and Sam had gone into the holding cell together, Paddy had been the examining medic, and Lieutenant Jimmy had been the OIC. Westinson fitted nowhere, unless it was to do with Al-Isawi.

Matt asked Lieutenant Jimmy if he could tell them anything. But the SEAL officer would only say, “I cannot talk. But it's not good.”

“At that moment I knew this was all bad,” said Matt later. “But I still had no idea what we were supposed to have done. I guess I should have been worried, but I wasn't. I knew only that I had not done one wrong thing. And neither, so far as I knew, had Sam or Jon.

“None of us touched the prisoner. And none of us saw anyone else touch him. Sonofabitch had attacked himself with his wonky front teeth. Any damn fool could see that.”

Anyway, they all climbed aboard the vehicles, Brian with his possessions all packed up and the three SEALs with nothing. There was little discussion on the forty-mile journey to the city of Ar-Ramadi, where there was a sizeable US military base and a special SEAL Base, Camp Shark. It was home to the square-jawed SEAL Commander Hamilton, a senior SEAL officer.

This particular naval commander was known to be an absolute stickler for the rule book, and Matt now understood that Hamilton wanted to see all three of the key operators from Objective Amber: Big Jon, who had fearlessly led them in; Matt, the assault Team leader, and Senior Petty Officer Sam, the comms expert who had handled the radio right across the ops area.

Apparently the medic, Paddy, was also required to attend. But his examination of the prisoner had revealed nothing. And all four of them were completely in the dark about what precisely they were doing in Ar-Ramadi in the middle of the night.

When they disembarked inside the camp it became clear that the young master-at-arms, Brian Westinson, was entirely separate. He gathered up his bags, assisted by a guy they did not know, and, according to Matt and Jon, disappeared into the night.

“Wherever the hell he was going,” said Matt, “it was nothing to do with us.”

At which point Lieutenant Jimmy advised them to hang tight and then left to speak to the commander. This took just a few minutes, and then all three SEALs plus the medic who had walked with them into the desert lair of Al-Isawi were taken two hundred yards away to the commander's office. This was a big room, adjacent to a very large, two-level TOC, about ten times the size of the one in Camp Schwedler, and bristling with flat screens, radar, and computer screens.

And in there they had their first encounter with another SEAL, Master Chief Lampard, the commander's right-hand man. The word “encounter” is used here under advisement from Matthew McCabe and Jonathan Keefe. According to both SEALs, Lampard had already made up his mind about something.

“This was no exploratory chat,” says Matt. “This was us four, facing an accuser. This character had made some kind of decision, and he immediately ordered us to be stripped of our weapons, body armor, pistols, and combat knives.”

Right here it should be recorded that to strip a US Navy SEAL of his armaments is almost to strip him of his birthright. These men have darn near killed themselves to earn the right to serve their country. To line them up and remove their ever-present combat gear was also to strip them of their dignity, pride, and honor.

The enormously popular hospital corpsman, Paddy, later confided, “I honestly thought all three of them might explode when that happened to them. I had never known anything like it. And none of us had yet been told what we'd done wrong. It was as if that master chief had just pronounced a death sentence on us.”

And so they handed over the tools of their trade. As Matt said later: “So far as I could see, we were being accused by some kind of a nutcase and a mass murderer. But no one had yet mentioned precisely what we were alleged to have done.

“The surrender of our combat gear was tantamount to finding us guilty—guilty of something. And for us, there could have been no harsher punishment. We just stood there—me, Jon, and Sam. We were actually in shock.”

Having reduced them to a lower form of life, Commander Hamilton ordered the SEALs and the medic to be escorted to a conference room, and there, in company with the master chief, he seated himself at the head of a long table. They were ordered to line up and take their places down one side while on the other sat Brian Westinson, who had suddenly reappeared.

Jon remembers Brian sitting bolt upright opposite him and wearing dark sunglasses in this gloomy room. His folded hands were clad in carbon-fiber knuckle gloves, and on his face there was a strange expression of deadly seriousness, perhaps even defiance. None of them had ever noticed that before. But then MA3 Westinson had never faced three angry Navy SEALs across a table before.

The master chief spoke first. He looked down the SEALs' side of the table and announced: “There have been allegations against the four of you concerning prisoner abuse.” He did not mention who had done the alleging, but the motionless Brian was providing an unmistakable clue, sitting on the wrong side of the table, as it were, facing the senior petty officer on the base, Sam Gonzales, who, in the early hours of Wednesday morning, had demanded to know why he was not at his post.