Sunday, September 5, 2010

Stoopid legal rules getting in the way of a good capture

Prior to this last deployment the squadron had been educated and trained on one of the many elements of Iraq war that had changed since the last time we had all been there. Arrest warrants were now absolutely necessary if we or the Iraqi security forces were to detain anyone legally. Gone were the days of 2006-2007 where individuals could just be rounded up for suspicion by elements on the ground and sent off to some detention facility. Evidence had to be obtained and witnesses found and everything brought before a judge. The judge would then sign off on a warrant and the individual could then be detained. All detainees would be held by either the police or the army, no longer were Americans holding people, unless it was signed off by a competant Iraqi authority.

Our first taste of dealing with warrants came at the National Training Center during our rotation. Some of our targets already had warrants, others we needed to obtain them. A couple of the troop commanders did not quite understand the process and and became confused since if a guy is on the top ten list then clearly we needed to kill/capture him even if he doesn't have a warrant. Soldiers were frustrated. Commanders were frustrated. I was frustrated. Compounding my frustration was that somehow I ended up expected to be the resident expert on warrants and the process of acquiring them, despite no legal or law enforcement training or experience. In the end we learned how to play the game and had quite a bit of success at the NTC.

Iraq, of course, would be a lot more complicated and if I had any hair I likely would have torn it out by the end of the deployment from dealing with the whole warrant issue. Before we deployed I did attempt some research into the process and find out the best way to get warrants issued. I learned that units often conducted "judge shopping", much like police and prosecutors due in the States, if Law and Order has taught anything. Judge shopping in Iraq is essentially finding a judge in your Area of Operations that would be more likely to issue a warrant, usually with limited evidence, than other judges in the area. Sometimes this was as simple as finding a Shia judge when your target was Sunni but also worked if the judge's tribe was in active competition with your target's tribe. Nievely I told myself that I would not judge shop nor would I allow my unit to judge shop. Warrants would be issued and targets acquired based on the evidence and some hard work.

Fast forward a couple of months to the first week of 1-14 CAV controlling our battlespace. 5-1 CAV had handed off a decent top ten list with what appeared to be pretty good evidence packets. Most of the high value targets had warrants already but there were a few that were lacking. One such target happened to be the brother of a sheikh. Not just any sheikh, but the 2nd most influential sheikh in the AO. The target was reported to be a leader of, or the very least funding, one of the local cells belonging to Jaysh Rijal al-Tariq Naqshabandi (JRTN). Since it was our first week in charge we wanted to show that we were going to be aggressive and take the fight to the enemy, so a mission was drawn up with the input of one of the special forces teams in the area and the Iraqi Army. It was decided that we conduct an operation to capture this brother of a sheikh (who, by the way, also happened to be a sheikh) as well as a couple of other smaller fish. It was decided that even though this target did not have a warrant, there would likely be enough evidence found on the scene that a detention warrant could then be issued and the capture kept legal.

The mission was conducted and the target captured as well as what appeared to be dozens of fake gensia (ID) cards plus some good intelligence gathered at some of the other objectives. Our target was being held by the Iraqi Army and I figured sucess was had; 1 week down, 1 target down.

About a day after the operation the special forces intel sergeant informed me that he had talked to the Iraqi Army brigade intelligence officer and was told that our target would be released the next day due to lack of evidence. I rushed over to the intelligence officer's office to find out what was going on and found several "sheikhy" looking individuals in the room. MAJ Mustafa led me into another room where he informed me that our target was being released and there was no evidence. Our target apparently helped locals with legal matters and government paperwork and that was why he had all the gensia cards. I was angry and assumed that the folks in MAJ Mustafa's office were bribing him in order to secure his release, but there was honestly nothing more I could do as no witnesses had come forward to testify against our target.

This was a frustrating experience but an experience that my section learned from. From then on operations were only conducted against targets that had warrants and troop commanders learned to work with their Iraqi counterparts to obtain those warrants before an operation. The information gathered from the other objectives eventually led to the detainment of another high value target months later. However, I believe our relationship with the influential sheikh was damaged by our detaining his brother. It was reported that they did not get along and may even have hated eachother, but some shame must have been brought to the family and tribe by our actions. It would take several months, a change of troop commanders, and involvement in non-lethal projects that would eventually open this sheikh back to us.

We never quite figured out the warrant process and there were many statements of "I wish this were 2007", but we had our successes, and a few more failures. A troop, in the southern and eastern sections of the AO, would quickly learn that their Iraqi Army counterparts were not going to be of much use in obtaining warrants and so worked closely with the Iraq police and the special forces. B troop relied heavily on the Iraqi Army and warrants already issued, but rarely pursued witnesses or other means to work warrants. C troop worked closely with all their partners to determine who the security forces in the central portion of the AO were targeting and assisted in the gathering of evidence that would be used by their partners to obtain warrants and detain targets.

I may have come close to dissussing some things I should not disscuss but I believe my little blog is once again under the radar and so I should be safe from brigade retribution...for now.

On a final note, are there any topics or incidents that you the reader would like to know about from 1-14's little adventure? If so, hit me up in the comments section or on Facebook.

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