JABELLA, Iraq – The Cobra attack helicopters thumping overhead disrupt the predawn stillness of this rural town, agitating the roosters and the dogs. Through the cacophony and a cold rain, troops wearing the signature uniforms of the U.S. Marine Corps’ Force Reconnaissance platoon race down pot-holed streets, balaclavas hiding their faces.
The tan-colored masks not only make the raiders appear frightening. They disguise the fact that the men behind them were not Americans at all, but Iraqis.
This is the embryonic Iraqi SWAT team in action, rousing families out of their sleep and rounding men up for questioning about the deadly insurgency tormenting U.S. and Iraqi government forces in towns such as Jabella, south of Baghdad.
The hooded policemen leave their calling card behind: a postcard-size photo of the SWAT team in full gear carrying the message “Are You a Criminal or Terrorist? You Will Face Punishment.”
The flashy raid is aimed at creating a daring image for the 125-man SWAT team, an attempt by their American military patrons to turn them into a sort of Iraqi version of the Untouchables. Marine commanders also have thrown the SWAT team into frontline action in the current campaign of raids across northern Babil province, a push to flush insurgents and criminals out of their strongholds.
Most of the Iraqis in the SWAT team come from the town of Hillah in Babil, but have lived and trained with Marines at a base near home since August. The close partnership with the Marines is an experiment in trying to inoculate Iraqi security forces against the violence and intimidation that makes joining them so perilous.
For their part, the SWAT team members argue their readiness to lead aggressive raids is a rebuttal to those who say Iraqis are not prepared to fight for control of their country.
“We are like a family, and we don’t care if one of us dies; his brother will rise to avenge him,” said Col. Salaam Turrad Abdul Khadim, a former Iraqi special forces officer who recruited his team from the ranks of other unemployed soldiers living in Hillah, a largely Shiite Muslim town 50 miles south of Baghdad.
“Every time we go on a mission against the terrorists, we are the ones who start the fight,” he said. “We prove our courage.”
Braving bomb-rigged roads in unarmored pickup trucks, the Iraqis have conducted 30 joint missions with the Marines since August. They frequently go in first and, since hooking up with the Americans, have not had a man killed in action.
“Before that, we had lots of dead,” Salaam said. “Maybe 10.”
U.S. commanders say they are pleased with the Iraqis’ performance.
“They fought with us, they bled with us, and they’ll stick to my side just as my men do,” said Col. Ron Johnson, who commands the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit which hosts the SWAT team.
The Iraqis were training at home in Hillah with private sector security firms when the Marines arrived and Johnson invited them to move in with the Force Reconnaissance platoon, the Marine version of special forces. His idea was to avoid the plague of desertions and defections to the insurgency that has crippled the development of a homegrown Iraqi security force.
The Iraqis and Americans would eat together and shower in the same facilities, Johnson ordered. He gave the Iraqis American uniforms. He told the Marines to grow mustaches.
With their exit from Iraq dependent on having qualified Iraqi security forces to replace them, American commanders are pressing the SWAT team into the fight against insurgents. They want it to earn some cachet with the local population.
“We need to create some Iraqi heroes,” Douglas said. “We need guys who have an elan to them.”
But the joint operations also benefit the Marines. The Iraqis give the Americans a footbridge across a linguistic and cultural divide that has proved to be a major obstacle to acquiring intelligence. The Americans also can allow Iraqis to carry out sensitive raids on places, such as mosques, they are reluctant to breach.
“We give the Marines cultural information they would not have,” Salaam said. “We know the people. The land. How to avoid traps in the road.”
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