One month in Iraq
In March 2003 reporter Richard Edwards and myself flew to Kuwait to join 42 Commando Royal Marines as their embedded correspondants. We spent one month documenting the role of the marines and their part in the invasion of Iraq. What follows below is the diary written by Richard
March 12 - A baptism of fire - or sand, as the case may be. Our tent filled with floating, choking grit. My hair and face turned grey with dust, my eyes stung, my lips and tongue were layered in dry dirt. I chewed sand and coughed for the next hour. It was our first night in Kuwait and we were treated to a raging sandstorm. Welcome to the Gulf. A Major gave us the first briefing and happily told us of scorpions, snakes, rabies, minefields and enemy snipers. The last slide of his PowerPoint show said: "The general risk to you is HIGH". "I hope you enjoy your stay," he said.
March 13 - Met the men of 42 Commando - a very warm welcome and a curious one. They had not seen any outsiders for six weeks, looked incredibly tanned and fit, raring to "get the job done" and go home.
March 15 - Given a briefing by Buster Howes, the Commanding Officer (CO) of the unit. It was like something in a movie, scouring over sets of maps, grids and codenames with a pointer and torch. For the most part he talked in military abbreviations we could not understand - of AOs, TAIs, FSGs, fast air, CH53s and spooks. By the end, we knew every detail of the Marines' plan and most of the background to the whole Allied forces attack. It was an incredible moment, seeing the degree of detail and complexity, knowing at that moment I held the most top secret information I would ever know in my life - and not being able to tell anybody. We had made notes but were told to burn them. I was also genuinely scared. The mission would use 40 helicopters in a night raid, there was talk of anti-aircraft fire and the land being littered with mines - up to 100 men expected to be lost in the worst-case scenario. I thought about friends back home. Most of all, I thought about Mum and my family. I had written a letter to them in case I did not come back. Now, for the first time, I thought about that letter and what I had said.
March 16 - The men were becoming bored with waiting. They had already been given a date to invade three times but the lift off had been postponed because of the political situation. All bags were packed and repacked, weapons cleaned, knives sharpened. For me and Jon, as the "race day" approached, fear was turning to excitement.
March 17 - Proud to say that, after two hours sleep, an 11-hour night exercise trudging through the desert and a great deal of sweat and back ache, I am now the proud owner of a fifth of a trench, somewhere in the vast expanses of sand in Northern Kuwait. We hit rock two foot down, the next hour-and-a-quarter was torture.
March 20 - Woken at 2am by the CO himself - immediate disorientation, panic and fear. He attempted to calm us by explaining the first missiles had been fired on Baghdad. Expect retaliation, he said. Sleep with gas masks in sleeping bags, he said. Don't worry, he said. By 8am, we had heard our first shouts of GAS, GAS, GAS and made a mad scramble for respirators. Over the next four hours, a further five Scud alerts went up. With each crunch getting louder and closer, so we pulled on the gas masks again and again, dripping with sweat in the confines of a stuffy tent. Just as tempers were fraying, the orders came through. We would invade tonight. In the early afternoon, the whole unit - all 1,000 men - gathered for a last church service. A Union Flag flapped in the wind in front of us and the air thickened with dust kicked up from waves of helicopters now flying overhead, the whir of their blades sounding the drums of war. Everyone looked around. By the end of that emotional night, we would not see some of these men again. The Commandos who knew us came and gave Jon and I the traditional send off - "Good luck - keep your head down" - and set about burning any letters they had kept from wives and girlfriends. No personal items were allowed once they had crossed the border.
March 21 - It was twenty minutes before we were due to take off that the news came through: "Helo's gone down, weather conditions are not suitable - mission aborted." I had been lying in silence in the dark desert for the past five hours, waves of excitement and fear rushing through my buzzing head. This was a shattering blow. Within minutes, it was confirmed all 12 men on board the helicopter were dead - eight Marines and four American crew. Names were being whispered - friends thinking about whom they had lost. 42 Commando were being flown into Iraq in ageing American helicopters by US Marine pilots. "Anti-Yank" feeling was now palpable. Several Marines said US pilots were not trained to fly in the dark. The fact they pulled out of the mission and the RAF had to take over made things worse. The men trudged back to the outskirts of camp, made mugs of tea and played cards to take their mind off what had happened. Everyone was tired, tempers and nerves were frayed. We were told to get some sleep - we would take off at first light. The blades whirred, the engine screeched and, for 48 of the longest minutes of my life, the helicopter tore through the sky towards Iraq. There was an occasional blast of hot, clammy air. The body armour wrapped around my ribs was getting tighter, sweat dripping off the rim of my helmet. Everything reached a screaming crescendo - the helicopter landed and we took a first slippery step into bog-like land of southern Iraq. Suddenly silence ... and after the sand of Kuwait, the shock of traipsing through sticky, thick mud. Some arguing started - we had been dropped in the wrong spot and were a kilometre further behind enemy lines than we should be. At that time, we were probably the most advanced troops in Iraq ... accidently. The men marched back down a road and were soon engaged in a firefight. Ten Iraqi soldiers were occupying three artillery positions. All hell broke loose. The Marines sent in four Milan wire-guided missiles, along with heavy machine guns fire. Shells started booming from the Iraqis positions, landing with soft crumps miles in the distance. Back the other way, came the guns from Bubiyan Island - a battery of weapons set offshore. Then the helicopters were called in - two American gunships - to rain down more fire. They hit an ammunition dump and the sky was filled with explosions, yellow and orange flames flashing across the smoke-filled horizon. That night, our first in Iraq, was one of the hardest. As Jon and I put together our stuff to file back to the Western Daily, we were split from the main body of troops and could not get a signal on the satellite phone to send the copy. We had to move on. We put on our rucksacks and stumbled through the dark for another 25 minutes, then came to an abrupt halt. Enemy to the north, get your head down and keep quiet. Two hours later, in that same spot, I squinted at my watch. We had to give filing one more go - I woke Jon up and we set off. There must be some justice here, I thought. Surely to go through what we had that day and, with such a story to tell, we deserved some luck. But it was not to be, the phone still failed and I returned to my Bivey bag devastated. I climbed in, still wearing my boots caked with three inches of mud, and fell to sleep under the stars.
March 25 - Five days passed, and I still hadn't changed my clothes or taken off my boots, let alone considered a wash. I managed to shave twice, which was a painful experience with a blunt blade and a splash of cold water. I was layered in grubby dirt, I smelt, I felt drained and completely lacking in energy. The night before, we were woken at midnight and, within half-an-hour, had been lifted in helicopters away from our rotten trenches on the Al Faw peninsula. We arrived in the town of Umm Qasr in time for a frantic briefing before being thrown into the first foot patrol through the area since the Americans had hit it with seven hours of heavy bombing. This was urban warfare and we were in the thick of it - I tried to remain calm but my nerves were fragile. In fact, the welcome we received was incredible, one of the most memorable moments of the war. Thousands of children, men and women ran through the stenching streets to welcome us. They cheered, and wanted to shake our hands, ask our names and steal cigarettes. At the sight of my notebook, I was swamped by hoards of people. They peered at it in fascination as I wrote - backwards to them - in English. Jon's camera was a people magnet and he was mobbed everywhere he moved. The soldiers were treated as liberators - and, dressed in our military fatigues, we were caught up in the middle of it all as well. It was a privilege to be there.
March 28 - Action at Umm Qasr started to run thin and, every day, we spent some lazy hours sunbathing with the troops. Our home became nicknamed Camp Comfort and the CO was worried everyone was sitting around getting a bit FDH - fat, dumb and happy. Grabbed an improvised shower by piercing holes in the top of a bottle of drinking water and squeezing it over my head. Today, the ultimate in cookhouse hardware also arrived ... two vats of boiling water. It meant we could make a cup of tea in an instant and had our Chicken and Mushroom Pasta in a foil bag rations (my favourite) heated to the perfect mushy consistency within minutes. Simple pleasures.
April 2 - Enjoyed most surreal moment so far: Scud missile landed with a shudder a kilometre away as we listened to Trevor Brooking commentating on how Wayne Rooney was running Turkey ragged in a Euro 2004 qualifier. The World Service is a wonderful thing.
April 6 - One of the most emotional 48 hours I had ever experienced. It started with me waking to find I had 104 mosquito bites on my face - and ended with us sleeping on the marble floors of Saddam's palace in Basra. We had been flown to a site just outside Iraq's second city and spent the night in a part-demolished college. Dirty concrete floors, broken glass under foot and insects everywhere. Four mosquitos found their way into my bag and, by the morning, I looked like the Elephant Man. The day dragged on as a strong, hot and suffocating wind blew through the camp. The CO discussed where the media would be placed on the mission, and showed us one of the no-go areas. "You can't report from there I'm afraid," he said, pointing to the map. "You'll just get killed." This was the swansong for the Marines and there was an element of dread. They had not lost one man in battle so far - here, in the worst case scenario, they expected to lose up to 80. We set off down the road, the ninth vehicle in a mile-long convoy of tanks and armoured vehicles. I felt quite calm, until I asked about our vehicles. "Are these things armour plated?" I said. "No mate," came the reply. "They're made of fibreglass. Any kind of grenade thrown at these and they're blown sky high." Marvellous. So we moved and we stopped and we moved and we stopped, edging ever closer to the town. The back door of the BV was propped open, ready for everyone to jump out should an RPG be sent our way. We were just waiting for the first one to hit the convoy - and hoped it was nowhere near us. Still we crept along but something strange was happening. The looks of shock on the faces of the pedestrians were turning to shouts and screams of joy. As we passed the donkey carts, there were smiles. The streets became lined with crowds cheering. Basra, a city the size of Birmingham, was just opening up in front of us. Knees around my chin, cramped in the back of the BV, fear in the stomach had turned to awe, tension was replaced by waves of relief and joy. Saddam's Basra had fallen - and we had been witness to a breathtaking, historic moment.
April 8 - Jon and I separated from the Marines and went independent on the streets of Basra. It brought with it our biggest scoop - and the most frightening moment of the trip. We were caught in the middle of a mob chasing down two Fedayeen suspects. Rocks were flying and, as Jon ran alongside the action, one of the hunted men pulled a pistol out on him and waved it in his face. My heart stopped. I thought he was going to get shot and started screaming at Jon to stop and come back. He stayed and got his photos - then said afterwards he knew he would not pull the trigger. Eventually, the mob caught one suspect and tore him to the ground, thrashing him with sticks and metal pipes. I thought I was about to watch a man beaten to death in front of me. Amazingly, a convoy of tanks appeared around the corner and Jon waved one down. They took the suspect away - in doing so, they saved his life.
April 10 - Things had moved to the realms of fantasy now - we were sleeping on the marble floors of Saddam's palace in Basra. The jokes about my "troughed" face were running thin, but 42 Commando were due to move down south to the oilfields, and it was time for us to return home. I made a speech at an officers briefing and said my final farewells. I was desperately sad to be leaving - I enjoyed the camaraderie and lack of everyday bickering, the sense of common purpose and the conviction and compassion abundant in each and every man. I had prepared myself as far as I could to go out to the Gulf - but you forget you have to prepare yourself to leave as well.
Apr 11 - Sheraton Hotel, Kuwait. Forty minute hot shower. A bed. A change of clothes. A laundry service. But still no booze. I went to a restaurant and ate crab salad and ostrich steak with a knife and fork and a napkin. After five minutes I felt sick - my stomach had shrunk to the size of a tennis ball. I also felt empty. It was hard to leave behind people I could now call my friends. It had been a momentous five weeks - an extraordinary, life-changing experience. ■
Richard Edwards now works at the Daily Telegraph
Jon Mills photography.
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photographer Jon Mills
