Chapter 3: Home Run
This is the latest chapter of The Ice Man, my book about the Navy SEAL platoon in Iraq that took the blame for a CIA homicide. The book is available only to paid subscribers.
Manadel al-Jamadi lived in Mahmudiyah, about 30 miles south of Baghdad. Mahmudiyah is sometimes described as the breadbasket of Iraq, with more arable land than the Kingdom of Jordan. It lies in what was once ancient Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It has been farmed and inhabited for centuries.
Under Saddam Hussein, the area had changed. Hussein had assigned whole neighborhoods to various branches of his military and intelligence services. Mahmudiyah was one of the neighborhoods where many former Iraqi intelligence officers were assigned to live.
After the US-led invasion of Iraq, Mahmudiyah became known for something else. It sat at the northernmost tip of the “Triangle of Death,” a hotbed of the insurgency opposing the US-led occupation of Iraq. Mahmudiyah was the site of frequent roadside bomb attacks and ambushes.
The patrol leader’s order took note of the threat: “The area has been raided by US forces and sustained enemy fire and suffered casualties.” The men of Foxtrot platoon knew the risks. They had been to Mahmudiyah before.
Two weeks earlier, the platoon had captured “Abu Jabril,” another suspected insurgent leader who lived in an apartment below a mosque. Inside Abu Jabril’s apartment, the SEALs found boxes and boxes of electronic circuitry, washing machine timers, and everything you would need to build a bomb. Abu Jabril said that he just liked to “tinker.”
Around two o’clock on November 4, 2003, three Humvees carrying the SEAL assault team stopped in front of Jamadi’s apartment building in Mahmudiyah. The big Humvee V8 diesels thrummed in the night. The drivers kept the engines running in case the team needed to leave quickly.
A red laser pointer shot out from one of the CIA Suburbans, pointing Dan Cerrillo and the SEAL assault team to the correct stairwell. The team climbed to the third floor and approached the door indicated by the CIA’s source at the far-right end.
Based on the intelligence, Cerrillo had prepared C-3 double-tamped charges. Each charge contained a few hundred grains of explosive encased in rubber. It was enough to blow the lock open without hurting anyone on the SEAL team or inside. Cerrillo and the team’s other breacher, Joseph Schmidt, took turns alternating as the one who set the explosive charge. It was Schmidt’s turn.
Schmidt ran down the hallway to the right, prepping his breaching charge. Seconds ticked by as he pressed the charge on the door and backed off.
“Turning steel,” Schmidt said into his headset. That was the signal that the charge was about to go off.
BOOM!
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