Angry Planet - Stranded in Iraq During a Pandemic

Episode Date: April 30, 2020

This week on War College, producer Kevin Knodell is back in the states after an extended stay in Iraq. He walks us through his journey and the impact of the pandemic on the Middle East.You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. Yeah, it was very weird. I didn't exist. I was not really an embed so much anymore. I was more of a stowaway.

But yeah, I just kind of existed. Soldiers drove me where I needed to get. Went to the PX to go get some blankets and some pillows so that I could sleep because I didn't have, yeah, they also wouldn't let me stay in the normal billet because usually they have transient betting and housing. KBR takes care of that, but they also wouldn't, wouldn't let me do that because I didn't exist. It was very, it was very strange that last week. You're listening to War College, a weekly podcast that brings you the stories from behind the front lines. Here are your hosts. Hello, welcome to War College.

I am your host, Matthew Galt. We have a special treat for you today. Producer Kevin Nodell is back in the United States. How are you doing, Kevin? I'm doing okay. How long have you been home now? Just a little over a week now. Currently in my second week of quarantine.

Welcome to the quarantine. It didn't, not a whole lot happened while you were gone, as I'm sure you're aware. Where were you and how long were you there? I mean, I was in Iraq. I was supposed to be there for just about a month. I was there a little bit longer as circumstances caused. I went to Kirk Cook, a little bit of time down in Anbar province. or Bill, which is usually my base of operations while I'm, whenever I'm in the country.

Right. So what, I'm kind of curious, like, what were the circumstances when you first got there? What I'm talking about, like, what were the COVID-19 circumstances when you first got there? When I first got there? Yeah. When I first got there, that was when people were just starting to talk about it. Well, I mean, we've been talking about it for a while, but screening was starting to set up at some of the airports. Yeah, going through the airports, you got the standard questions. Have you been to China?

Have you interacted with anybody from China? We were still at that stage. None of the airports had really shut down yet, but people were really starting to exercise a little bit more scrutiny. when I got to Irville, there were some guys in protective gear with the little eye thermometers who were going around, checking all of us. Didn't seem particularly thorough. I'm not entirely convinced that the guy actually got it in my eye. But, you know, I was cleared. I got to go through, which was good.

I was worried they were going to see me cough because I have allergies. It was that time of year. And I've been coughing a little bit on the way in. I was like, I'm going to get detained. But I didn't. Made it through. Had more allergies. Inside, things were not that bad yet.

There were a few people who were starting to stockpile. A few people who were getting a little bit nervous. It was a few days after I got there that a bunch of new regulations came down on restaurants. Everybody was wearing gloves, lots of people wearing masks. And then while I was embedded, that was when all the restaurants

and everything got shut down. So the first signs of like, it wasn't quite a lockdown at that point yet. And when I got back to, or Bill, there were still people moving around, but nothing was open. All right, and you were there at the behest of Black Rifle Coffee Company, right? Who are you embedded with?

What was the story that you were chasing? Yeah, well, specifically, a Coffee or Die Magazine, which is published by a Black Rifle Coffee Company, but I want to make a little bit of a distinction there because it's an actual journalistic outlet, which is editorially independent from its mothership. Okay. just something that I think people should

understand because I also because I'm not an employee of a black rifle coffee company but I mean while I was there it wasn't necessarily anything super specific a lot of it was follow up from when I was there the last time some things happened while I was gone Soleimani got killed

missiles hit Alasad the unit that I had been covering the the first striker brigade from the 25th Infantry Division had experienced a lot of new new things when I started covering their deployment the idea was to cover a typical deployment by a conventional unit they have not had a particularly

typical deployment at this point between the Turkish invasion of Syria, the missile attacks on Al-Assad, the protests raging across Iraq through much of their deployment, and now a global pandemic. They've had a very unstandard deployment at this point. Right. I keep thinking about how with the COVID news here in the States, and that's pretty much. I don't know kind of what your news consumption was when you were over there, but that's all we're talking about right now with a little spice of election on top of it. But it's like mostly COVID-19, right? And there's all this stuff happening that we're not paying attention to. What are we missing in Iraq?

Well, I mean, the news consumption while we were there, sorry, while I was there rather, it. Once the COVID thing got big, that was. most of the news consumption, and that really has had an effect on everything, including what's happening over there. And I actually think that it plays a big role in the way that some of the hostilities are changing. I don't think that you can neatly decouple this pandemic from the developments over there, given that a lot of these developments involve Iran, which is one of the countries that's been

hardest hit. And I think when they are in moments of crisis domestically, just my personal analysis, that's when they look to find external crises to get their people on board with that sort of thing. And I'm not sure that it's working particularly well this time around, but it's something that, in my opinion, really seems to be part of their playbook. What are they doing and why don't you think it's working very well? I mean, while it was there at K1 and Kirkuk, two Marine Special Operations Raiders died in the mountains outside of Machmore. Mountains that I had actually been to.

I think we discussed that previously when I was with the Peshmerga and we were standing over ISIS and tunnels. Yes. Yeah. Well, the Marines and the Marines and. some local forces went into some of those tunnels while I was down in Kirkuk. Two Marines died during that operation. I believe what we know now, it was about a six-hour firefight engagement that they kind of got locked into. They had to call in reinforcements to extract casualties.

I believe the information that's kind of come out about it was they had to call in actually Delta Force to help with the extraction. And also during that there was a little bit of other drama. When I was down at K-1, the base down in Kirkuk, that I guess was where they actually did that became

part of the extraction. Some Peshmerga fighters came into the base the night of the attack, which is not usual down there. The Peshmerga and the Iraqi army fought a pretty bitter battle over some of the disputed territories in 2017. So the Peshmerga being in Kirkuk, which is controlled by the Iraqi army, was a fairly big deal. And the understanding that I have now from talking to some people about what happened to that night was that they were assisting with the extraction of those Marines.

So even as the, and this is at a time when we were definitely talking about COVID. Kirkuk is actually the first place where Iraqi citizens were diagnosed with the virus. It wasn't the first place where they had places of COVID. It was the first place where Iraqis had COVID. The first place in Iraq where there was COVID was, I believe, Najaf. I believe it was an Iranian college student who was there doing some sort of studying, ended up having it down there. There's obviously been considerably more cases since then.

Iraq, like everywhere else, is experiencing some pretty significant lockdowns. But some of that came later. It was interesting to see this thing gradually unfold. Mostly I was in military bases throughout most of it. which is a very insular environment. So it was very much a feeling of, man, what's going on out there? And even hearing the news back home, just a lot of hearing the soldiers gradually work through it. While I was working through it, you know, hearing, you know, like what's real, what's bullshit.

How nervous should we really be about this? Is it just the flu? Is this something worse? what's happening. What's it like to go through that when you're on a military base in Iraq and how we're, and I'm particularly interested in like kind of the range of reactions from the soldiers that you knew. Yeah.

Well, and I think, and for as it is, I think it's been for everyone else, the reactions have changed over time as more information has become available and as more things develop. Because, I mean, also for a lot of them, they're young, their fit. Most of them are probably not particularly high risk. Though we've also learned with the Roosevelt, I believe that the crew has its first fatality. Yeah, it just did, I think, today, right?

Yeah, I think so. It was that, it was this morning or yesterday. But, yeah, obviously people are not immune. you know, that's not how this works. But, and also I think in particular for the people I was talking to, they're, they're not what's supposed to do with their deployment. They've been gone. And a lot of them had, you know, plans for when they get home.

I remember after a patrol with some of the Marines that I was with, down in Anbar. It was just a perimeter patrol of the basin. and I think we'll get to that. That's about all they're doing. It's not like anybody was getting particularly far outside the wire. But their company commander told the Marines, you know, like if you had plans or tickets or hotel reservations,

you probably want to get in touch with those companies and see what you can get refunded. I hope you got the traveler's insurance because it's not looking like that's going to happen. So, I mean, it was, it's kind of like, again, just a broad kind of spectrum of reactions just like it is here, essentially. How seriously was leadership taking it there? How fast, because, you know, we hear these, we kind of hear these horror stories here about the Roosevelt being, you know, the biggest one, right? Yeah. Do they have enough masks?

Do they have PPE? Like, what's going on there? Well, I don't. I think the Roosevelt. it's a little bit of a different case because, I mean, there's not really a lot that you can do in this case. I think some of the concerns have been about local contractors because they're dependent on local contractors coming in and out of the base to do a lot of their basic functions. That was in part to save money and also to not bring in too much external things to keep the footprint

relatively low. That was a deliberate choice for Operation Inherent Resolve versus Operation Iraqi Freedom. I mean, the fact the matter is these soldiers and Marines live ass to ass in these barracks. They're just, they're stuck in tents and they're packed on top of each other. social distancing in that sort of way is pretty much impossible, which I actually, I witnessed some interactions that were, some decisions by leadership that were not well received by troops, frankly, about some social distancing policies. Such as. The chow facilities, the defects are now all grab and go.

There's no staying and eating, which in and of itself was, fine. They adapted to that reality okay. But one particular interaction I witnessed was one of the soldiers who was in charge of the dining facilities was talking

to one of her colleagues about how they can get people to obey distancing policies. Because they put out these little signs. and say six feet away from each other as you're waiting and line. Everybody was sitting in line.

But they were standing right next to each other as they were talking about how to keep everybody else apart. And I witnessed some of the soldiers look at it. I mean, I had the same thought. Everybody had the same thought. And as we left and gotten our van, which we were all packed together again. not observing social distancing in the van and going back to the tent where we were not going to observe social distancing. Just kind of them angrily saying, you know, what the fuck is that? You know, this is like, if you're going to, like, we either do this or we don't.

Like, if you're going to be, if you're going to be telling us to do a thing, you need to be doing the thing too. And it was around that time that a lot of them learned that they were not going to be allowed to go to the gym anymore. because the gem was deemed not a healthy place. But again, we were having this conversation in a tent where we were all packed together. And they were saying, you know, we need to stay active, like being fit as part of the job, especially because, you know, they're actively still, where we were at not so much patrolling, but doing guard duty. You know, they're, it's not scout camp. This is a deployment.

and they have jobs to do. And taking the gym away from them was something that made them particularly upset, which I understand. I mean, I can understand what leadership was thinking on a certain level. But I think part of that is also, and maybe it's because a lot of leadership have their own room. Their troops don't. What do you mean leadership, like, they have their own gym? In terms of the quarters where people are staying. like every once in a while

like some of the officers will have a chew to themselves like generals, base commanders they don't typically room with other people they don't live like the rest of the soldiers do always and yeah

it just seems like and to them it seemed like they were that these measures were doing that we're making a measure just to make a measure to act like you're doing something. But it's not, yeah. But there, it's not, yeah, there.

It's a dog and pony show, right? There's just, yeah, like, but like I said, I just don't know. There's not a lot that you can really do. Contractors from the outside are definitely wearing masks. So when you saw a rocky contractors, definitely wearing masks. People working in the dining facilities, definitely wearing masks, wearing gloves. But the reality is when you have that many people and they're also actively conducting operations. I mean, with the Roosevelt and the argument was, you know, they can, given the circumstances, they can probably slow down operations.

They can afford to do that for a little bit. But these guys are actively deployed. And a lot of that I saw in her bill with the dining facilities. That was where I first ran into that. When I was at Taji, when I was at K-1, I didn't see. anything along those lines. I did see that the contractors were wearing masks, but that was about it.

Out there, people were going about doing their things. It was actually kind of weird for me because when I was in Alta Cato, there was a little coffee shop there, and I was able to go there, work sometimes, have some tea. And I knew that back home,

nobody was going to coffee shops because all of them were closed. In a weird sort of way, I had more freedom of movement, on those bases than I knew things were like out here and certainly the policy's knock, but it was only freedom of movement within this very restricted confined space. So what's the job and how has it changed? Well, I don't know.

But it's definitely shaped events on the ground. There was a massive repositioning of forces largely conducted last month. A lot of bases were headed over to Iraqi forces. A lot of this was planned. It didn't get... There were some interesting reporting around it because a lot of this happened shortly after a series of rockets attack on Camp Taji by what is supposedly a new militant group,

and maybe we'll get into that in a little bit. I'm skeptical about how new this group. is as are a lot of people. It feels like just a continuation of what Ketib Hezbollah had been doing last year and for part of this year. But it was interesting to see headlines saying that these bases are being transferred and troops are leaving them in response to this attack, which wasn't really true. I was at some of these bases while they were packing things up well before this attack. So that was something that was already planned.

My own personal opinion on that is I think that that may have actually been why they launched the attack when they did to make it look more like a retreat than it actually was. I was at some of these bases as they were already packing things up and getting ready to transfer things out. So I can say that they were not necessarily a response to these attacks. I think the thing that's really thrown things more out of whack actually has been, again, though, the pandemic. Because one thing that I can say is more bases were transferred than were originally planned. Some of the soldiers that I was staff were soldiers that we met last year in Mosul. And they withdrew from Mosul. and they had about

warning they were going to withdraw so they had to pack up their entire camp and just about a week which has actually meant more troops are packed which is sort of the plan there was this plan to consolidate troops from smaller bases into larger ones

but a lot more people ended up showing up because a lot more American camps were shut down and headed over to the Iraqis then we're planned. So has it just been kind of, did you say the pandemic is just accelerating things that were already planned?

Well, it's sort of yes, but also, but also no, because the plan was, was for this to not happen all quite so fast. And it's created some really interesting logistical challenges for them. And it's also, there's also a lot of confusion about what, what, would this means long term. Because part of what happened along with that is there was a 60-day, the coalition announced that there would be a 60-day pause on training operations as a, sorry, a 60-day pause on training operations with local forces as a result of the pandemic.

But we're also seeing some pretty massive reductions in the coalition. So there's the U.S. forces repositioning, but we're also seeing some of the other coalition partners essentially reposition out of the country at a rate much quick than anybody was planning. I mean, the anti-ISIS coalition was never intended to be permanent. I don't think these countries were necessarily committed for the long haul, nor was the United States. while I was there, there was a lot of talk with commanders and some of the troops on the ground, just talking about how long should this mission even exist, how long can it be? I talked to one Sergeant Major who said, you know, I've been to this country a lot of times. We left in 2011, or so we thought, and now we're back again.

He said, you know, my daughter is at West Point. There's a lot of things I want to leave to my daughter, but my wars is not one of them. I don't want her fighting the same wars that I did. There's a lot of mixed feelings. There's a lot of mixed opinions going around about what this means and whether this is good or bad. And even when you talk to the people who do talk about not wanting to come back, there's concerns. There's still concerns about how rapidly this is happening and whether that that jeopardizes things. It's so, it's interesting the way you kind of describe it.

It's kind of been the mood here, for me anyway, is that there's this sense that everything is both happening all at once and completely paused at the same time. Right. Which is just this very strange place to be in. we're going to take a break real quick you are listening to War College we're on with producer Kevin O'Dell who's finally returned from the Middle East how are you doing? You good?

Yeah, I'm doing okay I probably need to get some water or something go grab some water real quick while we're Yeah, my throat's a little dry which hopefully is nothing Yeah, that's a fun part of all this too

Yeah Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure what the whole timeline is. I mean, we're about a week into this. I was packed full of a plane full of people when I left. That was also... Oh, the plane was full? Yeah, so... Yeah, and we don't necessarily need to talk about that as part of the episode,

but I'll just tell you what that was like. It was terrible. Oh, yeah, because, yeah, some of my friends follow me on Instagram. So they got the whole Instagram. recap of what happened. It was not great. Because we all showed up to the airport. And initially, they said, actually, the flight is, is canceled until tomorrow.

Because, well, they didn't give an explanation. But what apparently had happened was the Iraqi civil administration was giving them shit. But the plane itself was, it was a repatriate. It wasn't just Americans leaving. It was everybody. Basically, all the embassies pooled to get two big aircraft from Qatar Airways to take us to Doha, and then the rest of us left on our respective other flights. So the flight back to the States was definitely not full.

There was a lot of room in that one from Doha to Miami, and then I had to get, had to hopscotch around from there, but no, the planes leaving Iraq were packed. And the airport was packed because we were all stuck. So when they let us in and said, the flight's actually not coming, and then we're like, all right, well, let's get out. But the exit was on the other side of a divider at the Airbill airport. And they're like, oh, no, you can't leave. So everybody who was going to get on those planes, we were all stuck there.

and they were continuing to let people in and then the people who were let in were told that there was no flight and they're like well why did you let me in can we leave? And they're like no. So you're just, oh yeah,

like there was there was, I mean they almost had a riot on their hands. Like we were not, yeah, there was one guy who was like, he was obviously, he was a Western citizen, but he was obviously from,

from Iraq because he started, he was, he was speaking to, the people. I don't know if it was Kurdish or in Arabic that he was speaking to them in. But, you know, and they tell him like, you know, flight's not leaving. You're not, nobody's going anywhere. And he just like slants his bags down and in English.

That's fuck Iraq. Fuck this country. I'm putting that in, by the way. Welcome back to War College. I am your host, Matthew Galt. We're on with producer Kevin Nodell, who's telling us about being in Iraq during a pandemic. So something I was wondering about is, you know, Iran is one of the countries that's been hit hardest by this. I think you said earlier, and correct me if I'm wrong, that they believe an Iranian college student was one of the first cases in Iraq.

I'm wondering how, I mean, obviously, you know, there's a lot of tension between the two countries at the moment. how is the fact that Iran is one of the big vectors change like how are people how is everyone taking that like how is that changing the way people view Iran or exacerbating the way people view Iran? Well I that obviously I think depends on on your various political biases and political allegiances um

that there was already a pretty rising tide of anti-Iranian sentiment in Iraq, or at least, well, one one thing. It's clumsy the way that we talk about this sometimes. Definitely anti-Iranian state sentiment. I don't think that this has led people to necessarily hate Iranians. I'm not, I haven't seen a lot of, I mean, there's some, there's definitely some xenophobia and we've seen a rise of that I think globally as a result of this but the fact

the matter is a lot of Iraq really is dependent on trade with its neighbor you know trucks come in with food and goods they don't want that to stop because they are also when cross-border traffic

got shut down for a little bit. People noticed that. So it's not as though that's going to sever that relationship completely. One way or the other, these countries are, they share a massive border with each other, and there's no way that that completely stops. I think what's been more interesting is the way that it's affected the way that Iran has been fighting its wars and the way that its proxies have been behaving throughout this crisis. Well, tell me about that then. Well, one thing is that it'll be very hard, I think, to know this. And this was one thing that somebody who, like a State Department official, told me.

And keep that in mind. And also this is something that their intelligence indicated, but this is very hard to know for sure. But they said, they told me in early March, and this is something that they've been tracking, I think, since February, that they believe. that they had intelligence that indicated that members of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, had several cases, including fatal ones, well before a lot of us were talking about it. So there was a strong possibility that they and some of their proxy militias have been carriers for a while in both Iraq and in Syria. one one particularly alarming thing this was this was around the time that the battle of idlib was kind of drawing to a close i mean as as covid has really taken over discussion we forget just how insane everything actually was last month right because lots of things happened turkey and syria almost went to war with each other in idlib and yep and wow i just realized that i haven't even thought about that in a while but um yeah it's it's it's it's it's this just pushes everything else out of your brain right right but but but but it but it but it can't because the these things remain interrelated which gets to the point that i was about to make one of one of the fears is that the i g r gc or irgc and their militias played a key role in in the fight in idlib and one of their concerns was did these

paramilitaries and militias and these Iranian agents could they have introduced the virus to these very packed very very vulnerable population centers in Syria

during the bombing and yeah that feels a little Alex Jonesy well not I don't mean intentionally We're not talking about it. Yeah, not like that. The issue is, I mean, these viruses go around.

And now the fear is, I mean, not in Alex Jonesy way in a very, we don't know what's happening sort of way. And even if the virus did enter this population, how could we know there's no way to test? The regime and the Russian military has been bombing their hospitals. so there's no real medical infrastructure here. And as is happening, these people are trying to flee, understandably and justifiably trying to flee anywhere to Turkey, to other parts of Syria. One of the things that they noted was that in northeast Syria, the area is controlled by the Syrian Democratic forces, which had an earlier, an episode just not too long ago talking about how the outbreak has. has been affected there and how Turkey has shut off the water at a very inopportune time for the people there. One of the concerns is that they made a very conscious choice actually to open their doors to refugees from Idlib.

Now that the refugees from Idlib have entered that part of Syria and entered lots of other places, if Iranian-backed militias had spread the disease to the areas where they lived, are they bringing it around? It leads to lots of fear, lots of uncertainty. And also there's the concern that there's a concern also for U.S. troops on some of these bases. When I was at Al-Aatim, they actually shared. that base, or rather did. I learned that I guess this week,

they also did the transfer of authority, so they're leaving that base as well, but they were sharing that base actually with Ketib Hezbollah. Ketib Hezboa was near the airfield and had their own little clusters of forces

on the base. I saw one or two of those guys while we were on patrol. Sometimes it's hard to know who you're looking at, but they were all sharing that space and one of the issues was i mean i was in a meeting with um with an iraqi general um you know we we did the whole shaking hands and everything sort of thing because you know that's what you do um but their concern is you know if these iranian agents are interacting with iraqi security forces and then we're interacting with the iraqi

security forces. Who, yeah, what is the chain here of transmission? Do we have any sense of what's happening in any of the refugee camps or the prison camps? Well, there was pretty recently a riot in one of the ISIS prison camps in Syria. we do know that that ISIS is trying to take advantage of of the uncertainty here and some of the pauses to use this as I mean they've already been taking advantage of the tension between various groups to regroup tension between Iraqi security forces and the Peshmerga tensions between the Kurds in Syria and Turkey. They've been taking advantage of... Earlier you mentioned that you kind of teased this saying that like Islamic State isn't done, right? ISIS isn't gone.

And when you say they're taking advantage, like specifically what's happening? Well, there's been. And actually, it's hard to say whether this is COVID related or just the general trends. There has been a spike in attacks and some of what in Iraq are called the disputed area. areas that are between the Peshmerga and between the Iraqi security forces and the popular mobilization forces. Kind of little no-man's lands where neither of them go because they don't want to invite a firefight with the other side, but create really good sanctuaries for ISIS to regroup and operate. not too long after U.S. forces handed the K-1 base over to the Iraqis.

There was a pretty major firefight. Eleven Iraqi troops were wounded, two killed. This was yesterday. I know that they had to call in air support and call in a lot of ground forces. I know the official line was, you know, it wasn't that big of a deal. There weren't that many ISIS guys. But some of the guys who talked to local media out there said, you know, the troops who went into the village were attacked from multiple sides. It seemed like there was a lot of militants.

They seemed pretty organized. It seems like there might be more here going on. There were a few local people who I talked to who said, I wonder if this is because the Americans left K-1. Could be. Could not be. It's not like, I mean, when I was at K-1, everybody was kind of staying on their base. It's not like the presence of American forces in the region really was doing that much, at least when it comes to ground forces. So it's kind of hard to say one way or the other.

The entire situation in both Iraq and Syria is immensely confusing right now. And hence the very roundabout nature of this conversation right now. because it's like you said, it seems like everything is stopped while everything is also happening simultaneously, which is kind of the feeling that everybody out there has. You know, everybody's stopped, everybody's going, nobody knows what's happening.

When I was there, Patriot missiles arrived at several of the places across Iraq, including one of the places I was at. You know, they'd been asking for Patriot missiles for a long time. So those are there now. The State Department just put out a reward for the current head of Ketib Hezbollah. So that's not done yet. The New York Times got a hold of a memo from the Pentagon that was to the coalition out there asking them to come up with a plan to destroy Ketib Hezbollah. They also found the memo from General White, the chief officer saying that he had raised concerns about such a plan, given, you know, including the fact that there's a pandemic going on, that troops are trying to reorgate, like to reposition, and such a campaign would probably require a lot more troops. We could risk a war with Iran. And also, Ketib Hezbollah operates as the 45th Brigade of the Popular Mobilization Forces.

It's part of the Iraqi government. So a military campaign against Ketip Hezbollah would be a military campaign against part of their host country. Um, that was, that was a very long list of just confusing things that I just spat out, but I think that gets to, to where we're at right now. Yeah. I mean, that's, yes. So to add fuel to that fire, again, you'd kind of teased up at the top, a new militant group. Yes. Kind of.

We don't know. I've already forgotten what they call themselves. I think it was like the League of Revolutionaries. We'll fact check this in post. The people I talked about, so it is a Shia group. And interestingly, as much as it's being touted as a new group, one thing about them is that they are not part of. of the popular mobilization forces,

so they don't have a legal status like Ketep Hezboa would. But they also cite the death of Abu Mali al-Mu-Hundas and Soleimani as being the reasons why they're doing what they're doing. And they have a flag that looks very axis of resiliency. So this whole, this group is obviously around, Iranian affiliated is obviously connected to these. One of the things an officer who I talked to about that shortly after the attacks, he was a guy who was, I mean, I had this conversation in Taji.

I had a stop over there for about a day and a half. The way that he described that group is he said, you know, Iran is creating splinter groups. for us to target to get us into like his assessment his personal assessment was that this was iran trying to further bait the united states into actually getting into one of these fights um it's it's hard to say to what degree this is directed from the top um the the consensus among a lot of people is that this new group is just katyp hasbalah trying to trying to use a deniable asset. But at the same time, there has been

splintering among the PMF and inside Ketipa, you have seen some of the PMF factions fighting each other amongst themselves a little bit more. And no small part because of the deaths of Soleimani and Al-Mu-Handis.

Those were two very powerful personalities, two very powerful figures. And we actually have seen that their successors have not been as effective in enforcing loyalty and also don't necessarily have the influence with the Iraqi government that their predecessors did. Soleimani's successor, whose name escapes me because nobody cares who he is. I mean, obviously it's important, but I mean, I think there's some truth.

that because like he's the truth of it how big solomani was right like this was yeah like you're not him he he he he he was recent i mean he i i mean look i don't claim to be a regional expert um because i'm not but he was recently in iraq uh and his reception was pretty chilly with some of the people who he was expecting to be able to get on board with things um you know things have changed but tough act to follow you are seeing these things it's a tough act to follow it is Well, it is. Well, I mean, he, I mean, Solomani was the guy. And, you know, and I think, though I think this also was one of the problems of the leadership style was a lot of it really was based on personal patronage.

It was based on personal ties. Without him and without a guy like Mujandas, it is hard to get everybody on board the way that they were before. It's different now. It's not entirely clear what the line of succession is, who's in charge now. It's created a lot of opportunities for other groups and other individuals to try to assert themselves. So we are seeing the PMF fighting amongst itself a little bit more, and we are seeing Iranian-backed groups trying to curry favor. So it's hard to say what is happening, and to what degree this is part of, anybody's plan and to what degree

these things maybe are just happening on their own. Though, like I said, with the timing of the Taji attacks, it does make me, and again, not a regional expert. Not going to claim that I have any

particular knowledge, but it does seem like that one was more directed. It does seem like that one was possibly more planned to strike the United States at a moment when they no doubt knew that the Americans were getting ready to leave some of those installations because the Americans would have been telling Iraqi forces by then that they were leaving. And as we know at this point, anything Iraqi forces know, for better or worse, the Iranians know, given how deep level.

Iranian agents have penetrated the Iraqi government and the Iraqi security apparatus. So, I mean, just the general sense that I'm getting, picture I'm getting from you is that everything's a giant mess and the pandemic has just made things worse and more complicated. I mean, I would say that that is an accurate assessment of what's happening best that I can describe it. How long were you, can we move on to slightly more personal? Yeah, absolutely. How long were you there beyond when you were supposed to be?

It's kind of a blur and I'm not looking at a calendar right now, but a little over a week, I'd say. I felt like it was, I felt like I recorded in the outros that you were stuck in Iraq like three or four times. Is it just that, is it time that twisted right now that I've completely lost a sense of what's going on? Possibly. Yeah, I don't know.

I also, I mean, there was a time when I was stuck on, there was the times when I was stuck in the bases, though not necessarily, at that point I was not yet stuck in Iraq necessarily because the airport hadn't been closed yet. but then the airport did close and I was stuck there. A few things happened. First was when I learned that my flight was canceled, which, and it was interesting because I got a message from my airline and I looked at my itinerary, but my itinerary hadn't changed. A message said that new restrictions had led to changes in my schedule, but my itinerary was unchanged. I was like, well, well, why would I get that message if nothing had changed? I remember telling one of the Marines I was with, like, so either the message I get was wrong or the itinerary was wrong. He's like, I would get in touch with the airline because I have a feeling your itinerary is wrong.

He was right. my itinerary was wrong because the airline that I was supposed to leave the country on had decided to cancel all service to the country. So my flight wasn't canceled. My airline was canceled. Oh, that's okay. Yeah. That was around the time that also, not long after that, the airport was closed for,

initially they said that they were going to close the airport for 48 hours. Then they closed it for 48 more hours. Then they announced it was going to be closed until April 11th. It was at that point that I realized that it was not going to, it was going to be closed for much longer until April 11th. This was also around the time, the city of her bill had also announced a 48-hour curfew, which turned into a 73-hour curfew,

which turned into a month-long curfew, which I believe now is supposed to end sometime in, in May, maybe. Yeah, I was realizing that end dates didn't exist. So we had to make different sorts of plans at that point. But my plan at that point was to get back to my friend's apartment and her bill, where the rest of my stuff was. and to figure things out there where there was a reliable internet connection and comfortable place to sleep.

And you were allowed to go and get actual food at the supermarket, if nothing else. But when I got back to her bill, I mean, I was also trying to get flights back to the northern part of the country. At some point, the coalition kind of lost track of me and forgot about me. So I was kind of just drifting around bases and trying to get on whatever flight that I could. I had to rely on the Canadian Air Force because they weren't as strict about paperwork on who they let on their planes on the bases. The Americans wanted a lot more. I had a – we'll talk about some of the specifics off the air because it's stupid. but I don't necessarily want to

want to cause too much drama because I am very appreciative of the degree to which I was helped by a lot of officers and personnel but it was a very, very weird situation and when I finally got back to her bill, what usually would have happened

when you got back to her bill is the army would have given you a ride back to either to the airport taxis or back to your hotel or apartment or wherever you were staying at. But when I got there, I learned that just a few days prior, the U.S. troops had been given orders that they weren't going into the city anymore. So they couldn't get me a ride back into the city. And the cab port was closed because most of the cabs weren't running anymore. So I was stuck at the base despite the fact that my friend's apartment was seven minutes away.

And I was there for several weeks. I did allude to some of the weirdness with the dining hall, the soldiers who were frustrated about that. I had some trouble at first getting food because essentially my embed was over. and when I tried to get, but I was taken head by by one two four. One of the units I'd covered, and I was staying with some members of their scout platoon. I went to go get food one of the times and, you know, you have to show your cat card or your military ID.

I had my press card, which helped me out in some places, but, you know, they said, we don't accept this here. like you don't like that that doesn't work i said well all right well can i can i can i leave the base like well no um you know i i kind of i kind of told me you know like you know you can either let me leave the base or you can feed me but you know i so you're stuck in the novel catch 22 um sort of that were like that and i was also kind of tom hanks in the terminal um Yeah, like that kind of thing. I was able to get a letter from an officer that said that I was allowed to eat or that he would take responsibility for me and say that he was, I think it was a, I don't remember what all the letter said.

I'm keeping that letter, though. But it, yeah, it was very weird. I didn't exist. I was not really an in-bed so-more anymore. I was more of a stowaway. But yeah, I just kind of existed. Soldiers drove me where I needed to get, went to the PX to go, get some blankets and some pillows so that I could sleep.

Because I didn't have, yeah, they also wouldn't let me stay in the normal billet, because usually they have transient betting and housing. KBR takes care of that, but they also wouldn't let me do that. because I didn't exist. It was very strange that last week. That's very surreal. But you're home now? Yep.

And I assume you are now, you're in that position where you've traveled from another country, and so you have to stay inside for two weeks. That is what I am doing right now. It's not particularly exciting. I'm trying to get as much work done as I can, doing the work from home thing like everybody else. I hate working from home. Really?

Yeah. Well, I mean, I like to have the option to work from home, but I don't like to have to. There's a reason why I work at a co-work space back in Tacoma and work out of coffee shops. I hate having my home space and my workspace be the same thing. I'm glad that other people are starting to know what I meant by that now. As I've seen other people talk about it, yes, work from home is not as cool as you thought it was.

See, I'm such a, I'm a huge introvert, so I'm living my best life right now. And like it's the extroverse in my life that are that are making me a little bit crazy. But other than that, you know, things are okay. Other than the horrifying pandemic raging outside my door, you know. Yeah, well, I mean, things are fairly up. You know, we don't have it as bad here as you do in Washington State. Yeah. Well, I'm in Oregon right now.

But yeah, well, so the thing for me, I like, I'm kind of an introvert to. But I mean, for me, It's a question of space. I hate having my works. Also, it's also been because I don't have, like, if I had my own house and I had like a designated office room, I feel like I would actually be perfectly okay with work from home. But I've always had roommates pretty much. Working from home when you have roommates is not cool.

And having your bedroom also be your office. is horrible. When your life is just contained to such a small... Because, like, too much of your life is taking place in one room. That's something I don't really, really care for, if that makes sense. No, that makes total sense. It's been not too bad, but yeah, it's affected my workflow since I've been back, because I'm living in my parents' guest room.

and work like which is also my office which is also kind of my quarantine i mean it's not like i'm under super strict quarantine out here um it's because i don't i don't live in an herb or my parents don't live in an urban area so it's not i did go for a walk um sunday um i wore a mask and everything but i don't know that it really matters out where we are um Yeah. Well, Kevin Nodell, thank you for coming on to War College, the show that you produce and telling us about your journey and what's going on in Iraq. Glad to be here. That's it for this week.

War College listeners, War College is me, Matthew Galt, and Kevin KJK Nodell. We are glad that he is back home safe. If you like the show, you can follow us on Twitter at MJG, AULT, and at KJK Nodell. We will be back next week with more stories from behind the front lines. Stay safe until then.