ODA 551 was given their deep penetration mission in late 2002 and spent the remainder of the year training and planning. Since the Karbala area was heavily defended by surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and anti-aircraft artillery (AAA), ODA 551 would be delivered to a landing zone some distance from their planned hide site. This meant that they would use Ground Mobility Vehicles (GMVs – modified M1025 HMMWVs) to carry ODA 551’s heavy load of personnel, weapons, equipment, and supplies. Learning to maneuver and navigate the GMVs, along with weapons training, took up much of their time.
What took almost as much time and effort was the question of “where?” Despite the barren appearance of the ground between the lake and Karbala, ODA 551’s intelligence sergeant thought he saw some possibilities in the maps and satellite imagery supplied for mission planning. The most promising was an abandoned artillery range near Lake Bahr al Milh, not the kind of place Iraqi soldiers would like to search. Also, being near the lake, there might be an eroded channel or wadi where the team could hide their vehicles and equipment. The problem was that they would have to go to the area without a firm hide site picked out and would need to abort the mission if they could not find one. ODA 551 would take the gamble and hope that natural erosion and the common sense of Iraqi soldiers would keep them safe.
Into Battle: Infiltration
By early 2003, ODA 551 and several dozen other 5th SFG SF teams had moved to their forward operating base in Kuwait and were making final preparations for their assigned missions. However, as the planned date for OIF approached, the schedule fell into a shambles. Late on March 19, just as the first of the deep-penetration missions were launching into Iraq, intelligence came in indicating that Saddam Hussein and his sons would be vulnerable to an airstrike for a few hours. Taking the chance, President Bush ordered an airstrike (which missed), and OIF began almost a week ahead of time. For ODA 551, things had just become more complicated.
The transit to the Karbala area took several hours, and when the team arrived, they found their hunches had been dead-on. Just yards from the edge of Lake Bahr al Milh, ODA 551 found an eroded wadi, about 15 to 20 feet deep and wide enough to actually drive into with their GMVs. There they used camouflage nets to hide their vehicles and equipment, finishing the job just as dawn broke. Immediately, they realized that they had found a perfect spot, with clear lines of sight to both Karbala to the east and the main highways to the south. Using specialized sensors and optics, including a large 1,000 mm Meade telescope, they could survey the entire area for miles.
Moving quickly, the team flew their vehicles and equipment to another location in the region, where they could link up with the MH-47 Chinooks (the only helicopter that could accommodate the team’s GMVs) of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR – “the Nightstalkers”). With everything loaded, the 11 men of the team (10 SF soldiers and an Air Force ETAC-P combat controller) boarded the helicopters and launched into the night darkness of March 21-22.
ODA 551′s view of traffic on the MSR. U.S. Army photo.
Coincidently, at precisely the same time as ODA 551 was flying to their insertion point south of Lake Bahr al Milh, the CENTCOM Air Forces (CENTAF) launched the long-awaited “shock and awe” portion of the OIF plan. Along with the helicopters from the 160th SOAR, the skies over Iraq were filled with hundreds of aircraft and cruise missiles on the way to their targets, making the airspace south of Baghdad very crowded, so much so that several members of ODA 551 noticed what looked like “lit cigars” flying above them. What they had seen was a stream of Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles coming in from offshore, just a few hundred feet over their heads.