The source's information might have been bad, but at least he had given some actionable intelligence. Unfortunately, the SF team continued to get information that was likely bad and kept concluding that it was valid.
About two or three weeks after the false raid we had a mortar attack on (now FOB) Cobra. We hadn't had a mortar attack on the base since November and this attack still bothers me to this day since the insurgent mortar team should have been eliminated back when they were consistently hitting us.
Back story: between October and November, Cobra was hit 4 times by 60mm mortars from the same general location. The attacks occured 14-17 days apart and between certain hours in the late afternoon/early evening. However, due to some equipment "issues" we weren't entirely sure where the team was hitting us from and chased our tails for the first couple of attacks. By the third attack we had the location pinned down. Strangely, the last attack in November was the last attack until March 13. This was likely due to two events. 1: The previous SF team along with the Iraqi army captured two individuals and a cache of weapons in December...this likely spooked the cell. 2: 1-14 conducted a rehearsal "dry" fire of counter mortars in which we accidently fired mortars at the known location where the team was hitting us from (known as the point of origin...POO...heh, heh, poo). This also likely spooked the cell.
On the evening in question we were renovating our dining facility and so everyone was filing through an outdoor kitchen and generally eating outside. There was also a crane assisting in the renovation that was lit up like a Christmas tree. The entire base had gotten complacent. Five 60mm mortars came in and the first one struck the bottom part of a storage container sending the strapnel further and faster than usual. The strapnel struck PFC Erin McLyman who was assigned to us from 296 Brigade Support Battalion to assist in searching females on the combined checkpoints that had been established in the Combined Security Area. She died on the MEDEVAC flight.
C troop spent the next several days going through the villages in the Tibij tribal area talking with everyone they could and searching under every rock. The evidence and information they gathered pointed straight back to the known insurgent network operating in the area. Two individuals were also detained, one of whom was a teenager. During interrogation the teenager also blamed the AQI network.
Within the same time frame a couple of SF intel reports from their sources came out that we of course put in our daily squadron intelligence summary, standard practice. The intel from the SF team conflicted with our own and we put in our assessment that we believed the source was wrong or providing false information knowingly. Apparently this bruised the egos of the SF team who sent emails to two of my NCOs (but not my HUMINT NCO for some reason) asking WTF. As my night NCO told me, you can't get so focused on your own sources that you believe everything they say, you've got to have thick skin about it.
It didn't help that the SF team may have had a chat with the detainees taken by C troop without the proper paperwork and authorization. When asked by my brigade intel officer if anyone had interrogated the detainees I stated that my team had and the SF team may have. The brigade S2 went to the SF company commander and questioned why the team conducted an interrogation without the proper paperwork in which the commander called the team commander to find out what the fuck was going on...yeah, whoops on my part.
So not only was I calling out the team's sources, I was unintentially calling them out on a possible illegal interrogation. The SF intel guy stopped coming by to see me at that point.
Communication wasn't completely severed, though. Lucky me I had been assigned a female counter-intelligence NCO who eventually started having a close relationship with one of the SF members. There is a slight pun in there and if she reads this blog (unlikely) she may hunt me down and kill me.
The final straw between myself and the SF team came in June after the suicide car bomb that killed 2 of our soldiers and wounded several more. Within hours an SF source had named the person who conducted the attack. However, it soon became apparent that this information didn't make sense. The Iraqi army was soon able to determine who the suicide bomber was (not the guy the SF team said) and who was responsible (also not the guy the SF team said). The information my section gathered corroborated what the Iraqi army was finding out. Someone was blowing smoke up the SF team's ass.
A week after the attack I had most of the scenario mapped out and who did what. Late one evening the adjudant (personnel officer/aide to the squadron commander) called me and said I should come to his office. Sitting there waiting for our squadron commander to get out of another meeting was the SF team commander. He told me that they were certain that the guy their source was naming was the guy who conducted the attack...and that we should target him.
I will state this was not one of my more finer or professional moments. It was mid June, I had a month and half left in theater. I was exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally. I also didn't want to put up with some jackass telling me who I should be targeting when they very well could target the guy themselves.
I told the SF commander very sternly that their source was wrong. I informed him of what we had determined (which was much more in depth than what he was giving me...a single name). I then told him that if they were so certain about this guy then they should target him since they hadn't really done much during their deployment. Before getting a reaction I left the office.
Hmm...the ashes of that bridge look like a great spot to piss on.
That reaction isn't like me. That's not my personality at all but he really really really pushed me and my temperment. If he mentioned anything to the squadron commander about my attitude I never heard about it. The next and last interaction I had with the SF team was to introduce my replacement to them. Fortunately my NCOs still talked with them so not all was lost.
Maybe it's the reason I was banished to Huachuca, though.
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