In his small study he brought out piles of Iraqi Arabian Horse Association documents and CDs that recorded the details of each of Saddam's horses to back up the authenticity of the herd's bloodlines. This certainly confirmed Abu Bakker 's credentials, and he confidently told us he would be able to provide proof of pedigree of any of Saddam's steeds we found.
Brendan then asked the key question: how we would recover the Arabians? As they were mixed with other horses, it would be virtually impossible to identify them on the spot. We would just be guessing, taking the finest-looking ones on the off chance.
Abu Bakker nodded. He had given this some thought. The stable hands, he said, knew which horses were which. They could probably be persuaded to assist if their security was guaranteed. In fact, he knew of one who would definitely help us.
The following Friday morning, Farah, Ali, Abu Bakker, and Brendan went to the Abu Ghraib stables to meet the stable hand who had agreed to turn informer. They left at sunrise, long before the racecourse down the road opened, and were surreptitiously ushered into a secluded stable block. Red-haired Brendan stuck out like a sore thumb and the meeting was conducted hastily; it was just too dangerous to have a white person in the area without hefty military muscle.
According to the fidgety informer, Saddam had indeed moved his horses to Abu Ghraib when the Americans started bombing the palaces. But now that the dictator had fled, black marketers had
taken the steeds from the stable hands at gunpoint. Once everything quieted down, no doubt the objective was to put these majestic animals up for sale where they could fetch more than one hundred thousand dollars from aficionados. That's being conservative, as the tag “Saddam's horses” would probably add an impressive collector's premium.
The informer claimed forty-one Arabians were still in the area and being rudimentarily cared for. He said they were poorly groomed and some even had been shoed, absolute sacrilege for prime Arabian breeding stock. In their unkempt, debilitated state, they could not easily be picked out among the scores of mixed-breeds stabled with them.
The stolen horses, their true origins disguised, were also surreptitiously being raced, a massively popular pastime in Baghdad, and with the racecourse in an area pretty much away from military scrutiny, there were meetings three times a week.
Then came the key question: would the informer help to identify the horses? The man who, judging by his diminutive stature, probably also was a jockey, swallowed hard. Yes, he said. Neither he nor the other grooms had any love for the grim bandits who had stolen the horses. But the Americans must assure his safety.
No problem, said Brendan. They would handcuff all the stable hands at the onset of the raid to deflect suspicion that any could be involved.
The groom nodded, satisfied.
The group then ghosted away from the stable block as stealthily as they had arrived.
Brendan reported back to me that the horses were “Porsches being treated like Passats” and suggested we get a rescue mission going as soon as possible.
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I WAS AGAIN SCHEDULED to meet potential donors in America and reluctantly left Baghdad International on a military C-130 to catch a connecting flight from Kuwait. This meant I would miss out on the
climax of the horse adventure, just as I had the bear rescues, and it galled in the extreme, as I had started this hunt as a personal quest. But it was critically important that I met with relevant organizations to garner international aid for the beleaguered zoo, and postponing the trip or the horse rescue was simply not an option.
Thus it was left to Sumner, Brendan, and Farah to reconnoiter the racecourse and stables the next Saturday morning and see firsthand what they would be up against.
It wasn't encouraging. In fact, it was downright terrifying. There were hordes of people swarming everywhere, and a large expedition would soon attract attention and lose the initiative. The mere whisper of a posse of military vehicles about to thunder into Abu Ghraib would see the horses being whisked away in an instant. All that would remain would be a line of empty stables.
The zoo team watched the busy area silently from the closed windows of their car. Eventually Sumner motioned to the driver to move on.
“It's gotta be a quick in-and-out,” he said. The others agreed. A lightning raid was their only chance of success. And even that would be hazardous in the extreme, as terrorists could mingle with the seething crowds at will.
They decided to request that the military authorities provide a smallish but heavily armed convoy to storm the stables, load the horses into the cattle trucks as quickly as possible, and speed off.
However, despite Pat Kennedy's assurances that the army would provide backup at the highest level, this did not happen, much to the disappointment of the rescue team. Kennedy was away at the time, which was extremely unfortunate, for I knew if he had been there things would have happened exactly as planned. Thus the initial two proposed raids were spectacular flops.
The rescue team's first escort, led by “some big Texan guys,” pulled out at the last minute, as they were “worried about security arrangements.” The effect that had on the team wasâto put it mildlyâprofound. If the soldiers were scared, what about us civilians?
To make matters worse, the escort withdrew at the last minute, which meant the rescue team could not cancel the hired cattle trucks in time. The zoo ended up having to pay the drivers for the aborted mission.
The next group to step forward was an engineering unit based at Al Zawra Park that volunteered to provide men and equipment. But once they heard the strike would be deep in Abu Ghraib, they also apparently got cold feet. However, at least they gave several hours' notice and the rescue team was able to postpone the trucks.
Brendan and Sumner realized that if the operation was to go ahead, they would have to plan it themselves. This meant the manpower would be a lot sparser than perhaps was healthy, but Sumner knew they had no option.
The date was set for the next Tuesday, a nonrace day to ensure minimum crowds, and the rescue team set off with a squad of marines under Capt. Gavino Rivas. The convoy consisted of a Bradley fighting vehicle, four Humvees ferrying the marines, and two cattle transportation trucks for the horses.
It wasn't exactly a big-league assault team, but that's all Sumner could muster. However, he reckoned that with some nifty planning and nerves of steel they could pull it off.
Brendan, Farah, and Abu Bakker were waiting in Farah's car for the convoy at a gas station about five hundred meters from the stables with three jockeys from the Arabian Chival Club who had worked with Saddam's horses before. They kept in touch with handheld radios, and when the convoy arrived on schedule they followed as it rumbled into the stable courtyard, taking the grooms completely by surprise.
However, to their dismay they found the hand-drawn maps of the area provided by Abu Bakker and the jockeys were grossly inaccurate. For instead of the stables leading onto a single courtyard, there were two yards, the second one leading off into a suburb rather than open space. This made it extremely difficult to seal off,
and the horse thieves could simply vanish into the residential area with the animals.
Improvisation was now all they had, and everyone just “hung around” while Sumner and Rivas urgently discussed what to do.
Watching all this commotion were two ancient white-bearded Iraqi men sitting at a fold-up table about fifty yards away drinking chai. Nothing was going to stop their morning ritual, not even a tank brimming with soldiers. So they carried on sipping chai, studiously pretending the Humvees, shouting Americans, and frantic stable hands were not there. After some minutes the men finished their tea, slowly picked up their plastic furniture, walked back inside a building, and shut the doors. It was like an old Western movie, with civilians clearing the sidewalk as the gunslingers hit townâbut at their own pace, thank you.
The two commanders quickly summed up their options. With only the tank, four Humvees, and six cattle trucks, there were not nearly enough vehicles to circle the courtyard area as they had planned. And to compound problems, one of the Humvees had broken down en route to the stables and was now being towed. This could pose serious security problems; the golden rule all American soldiers religiously observed in the Red Zones was never to spread themselves too thin.
Sensing they were losing momentum, Sumner and Rivas started barking orders. They instructed the Bradley driver to park at the gate where its brooding hulk radiated menacing gravitas while a group of marines closed off the area as best they could. The rest of the soldiers rapidly rounded up the grooms and jockeys, demanding to know where the stolen horses were kept. The cooperation of the grooms was vital as there were so many horses it would have taken far too long for the team to identify each individual animal. The success of the mission depended on quick action.
In the confusion the soldiers also forgot to handcuff the informer to show he was there “under duress,” which understandably alarmed him considerably. Fortunately, the other frightened
grooms soon acquiesced as well, agreeing to point out which horses were from Saddam's prized herd and also to help load them. But to Sumner's and Brendan's acute disappointment, the grooms claimed there were only sixteen horses, not the forty-one the informer had promised.
Sumner ordered the animals to be rounded up. This was easier said than done, as it involved raiding each stable individually, a potentially hazardous exercise, as the black marketers were reputed to be armed with AK-47s and could be lurking anywhere in the sprawling labyrinth of cubicles. There was only one way to find outâby kicking open every door and storming in.
By now Sumner was a worried man. All around him was bedlam; stable doors being smashed, agitated horses bolting and kicking, and no one was quite sure who in the rapidly gathering crowd of Iraqis was friend of foe. The confusion was aggravated by billowing clouds of dust that hung in the air like surreal sepia mist. In the blazing heat, everything appeared as though it were happening in dreamlike slow motion, as if even chaos were lethargic.
Sumner and Rivas had to think on their feet. There was no standard procedure handling this incident. And problems were exacerbated by the fact that the grooms didn't understand a word the Americans were saying.
This is where Farah really came into her own. Amid all the mad stampeding and shouting, she was the only one able to communicate with both sides. And she did so with an icy control that only those under fire could really appreciate. Such was her authority that the grooms never questioned taking orders from a womanânot something taken lightly in Arab society. Her coolness and grace in such chaos were truly heroic.
According to the plan (if one could call it that), once all the Arabians had been accounted for and tethered to the Humvees, the grooms would then load them into the cattle trucks.
But in the wild melee several horses snapped their rotten halters and went galloping down the track with the grooms in frantic
pursuit. Fortunately, the grooms managed to keep the animals under control and the horses finally calmed enough so that they could be loaded into the transport trucks.
As the horses were being loaded, one animal's hoof shot straight through the rusted metal floor of the dilapidated cattle truck, gashing its leg to the bone. The animal panicked and started kicking wildly. Sumner shouted at the groom to cut the rope around its neck before it could strangle itself.
Showing tremendous initiative and courage, another groom darted under the truck and grabbed the flailing hoof. A shard of rusty metal had snapped off, embedding itself in the animal's leg. The Iraqi yanked the shard out and then shoved the wild-kicking leg back through the hole in the floor.
Both Iraqis and Americans crowded around the injured horse, everyone now quiet. Would the horse go lame? To have to shoot an animal now, after such a valiant rescue attempt, was unthinkable. All they could do was swab the open wound with disinfectant and hope for the best.
The roundup had now lasted for almost five hours, and the soldiers decided they would be tempting fate by sticking around much longer in such a high-risk area. So much for the quick in-and-out raid they had planned! There was no doubt that word was already spreading through Abu Ghraib like a brush fire; Americans are hereâand they're only a small group.
The zoo team loaded the sixteen Arabian horses as well as one other whose pedigree they weren't sure of, and Sumner said that was enough for the day. It was anyone's guess where the remainder of the informer's tally of forty-one wereâand when quizzed, the grooms told Sumner and Brendan that two of the better Arabians had been snuck out while all the drama was going on and were tethered down the road at a gas station. The two men debated whether to grab these as well, but with their position becoming more and more tenuous as minutes ticked by, they decided to head back to base instead.
Glancing at his watch, Sumner shouted to the truck drivers to step on the gas. With one injured horse, two crowded cattle trucks, exhausted men, darkness setting in, and a busted Humvee, they would be tempting fate if they lingered.