Who betrayed the Americans, helped with deadly Karbala raid?

Part one of two parts

It was late afternoon in the government compound in Karbala, Iraq. In a moment of respite from the war, Pfc. Johnathon Millican was instant-messaging with his wife in Anchorage, where a snowy day was just beginning.

A U.S. soldier at the next desk was on his laptop, too, watching his son on a video camera. Three other soldiers were in the room, relaxing or sleeping. A captain and a lieutenant were next door.

It was Jan. 20. The U.S. soldiers had been in the garrison for a week, working with local police and provincial officials to ensure security for the 10-day Ashura religious commemoration, which was about to begin. Even in the middle of sectarian warfare, hundreds of thousands might show.

But something else was brewing.

As Millican, 20, tapped on his keyboard, a fleet of SUVs was racing toward the compound: two or three Suburbans, a black Chevy Tahoe or two, and at least three white Toyotas. The Suburbans had big cylindrical antennas on their front bumpers, the kind that jam signals used to trigger roadside bombs. And, like contractor and Army vehicles, placards were in the rear windows, warning motorists in English and Arabic to stay back 100 meters.

The men inside were dressed in Army camouflage and carried American weapons. They knew enough English to bark simple commands and offer polite greetings. They knew exactly how the U.S. soldiers would defend the compound. They knew the compound's most important room was the command and control center — with its radio-base stations — and they knew soldiers in the room would be off-guard and relaxing at 6 p.m. They even knew that the two senior-most American officers in Karbala would be in the room next door.

Suspicious visitors

Who paid for and trained the force that was about to attack and who betrayed the Americans have become among the most troubling questions in the Iraq war. Senior U.S. officers said the lightning assault was one of the most sophisticated, complex attacks on coalition forces since Baghdad fell.

A military spokesman two weeks ago disclosed new suspicions of high-level Iranian involvement, including the alleged use of Lebanese proxies to train the force.

But while U.S. officials talk about an Iranian role in planning the attack, they have said little about how Iranians would have obtained the detailed intelligence needed for the raid or who carried it off.

An official Army investigation, completed in February and recently released under the Freedom of Information Act, put the onus for intelligence-gathering and ground support on Iraqi police, America's supposed ally.

Not only were police negligent in surrendering their guard positions to the intruders without firing a shot or warning the Americans, the report says, but investigators found strong circumstantial evidence that police officials gave the attackers key intelligence and may have been complicit in allowing an advance force of attackers into the compound.

Karbala, about 55 miles southwest of Baghdad, was the site of a decisive seventh-century battle for control of Islam, a bloodbath that cemented the divide between the victorious Sunnis and defeated Shiites. Each year, the Ashura pilgrimage brings mourning Shiite faithful to shrines to the Imam Hussein and his brother, Abbas, who were slaughtered with their men in that battle.

After the American-led invasion of Iraq, U.S. authorities surrounded the provincial headquarters in the center of Karbala with walls and gates. The usual operations of local government take place inside those walls: the governor's office, a land-records bureau, an elections office and the provincial police.

According to the Feb. 27 investigative report, platoons from the 377th Parachute Field Artillery Regiment, from Fort Richardson, Alaska, and the 127th U.S. Military Police Transition Team, based in Germany, routinely spent a week at a time in the compound, providing security and training for Iraqi police and soldiers and other governmental assistance. A more senior civil-affairs officer, Capt. Brian Freeman, sometimes would make the trip.

In Karbala, many of the U.S. soldiers were assigned to a barracks inside the compound, but Millican, Freeman, platoon leader Lt. Jacob Fritz and a few others worked and slept in two adjacent offices in the nearby joint coordination center. The first-floor rooms were just off the building entrance.

The U.S. soldiers had arrived by convoy in their armored Humvees a week earlier and had been planning Ashura security with Iraqi officials.

Around 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 20, the day before the first pilgrims would start arriving, Millican and another soldier were on guard shift when an odd-looking outfit of 15 to 20 Iraqi police officers arrived from Baghdad.

They were dressed in purple-on-black camo, and some took photos of the secured area. Most were young and fit and appeared to be a personal security detail to three older, heavy men who were wearing the insignia of general in the Iraqi national police.

One of the soldiers described a fourth man who stood out: "A tall man, probably late 30s, with Arabic lettering tattooed on his left hand. He also had a tooth missing on the left side of his mouth; you could see it when he smiled. He didn't fit in with the rest."

None of the Americans knew of any scheduled meetings that day that would involve the Baghdad visitors. A U.S. soldier who was on his way to a quick meeting with Gen. Mohammed, the senior Iraqi police commander in Karbala, encountered the purple-on-black force in the hallway.

"My interpreter talked with a commando, a fat guy, and he said they were there to meet with the general to talk about Ashura," the soldier told investigators.

A witness named one of the visitors as Brig. Gen. Nabeel from Baghdad. Some of the men in purple camo left that afternoon in a convoy, but others, the February report concluded, composed an advance unit for the attack that evening and remained behind. Its connection with Gen. Mohammed would arouse suspicions — as yet unresolved — that he and other senior police officials in Karbala were involved in planning and executing the attack.

"All hell broke loose"

Other odd things were happening, but no one pieced them together until later. All pointed to complicity or collusion on the part of Iraqis who had spent many days alongside the Americans.

The local barber who had a shop in the compound and who never left before 10 p.m. closed early and vanished. So did the guy who ran a small grocery.

The back courtyard usually was filled with lingering Iraqi police officers. However, as evening grew close, the courtyard was deserted. Only two Iraqi police officers remained on guard, and they're thought to be responsible for unlocking a back gate about 10 minutes before the attack. They, too, then melted away. U.S. soldiers noticed that two police guard towers over adjacent streets had been deserted.

At 5:15 p.m., one of the soldiers from the Fort Richardson regiment walked into Freeman and Fritz's room and borrowed a DVD of "Miami Vice."

"Both Captain Freeman and Lieutenant Fritz were in the office working on their computers," he said. That was the last sighting of either man in Karbala.

Around 5:45 p.m., the police commander of Checkpoint 52, on a highway leading to Karbala, reported by radio that eight black Chevrolets had just sped through his post without stopping. As the SUVs raced through, the occupants pointed their weapons out the windows.

Within 15 minutes, seven to nine SUVs reached the outer checkpoint to the compound, Gate B1. The Iraqi police guards later said they'd assumed the occupants were U.S. soldiers, except for Iraqi "translators" who demanded that they turn over their weapons. The police surrendered without firing a shot or calling in a warning.

One of the vehicles stayed behind to guard the gate, and a second secured another entryway. The remaining vehicles moved on to the parking lot.

Five men stepped from the first vehicle, a tan Suburban, as if they belonged there. Spc. Johnathan Chism and Pfc. Shawn Falter, two Fort Richardson soldiers, were standing watch in a Humvee at the entrance to the joint coordination center. The five Iraqis greeted them and headed toward the door.

Falter, apparently suspicious, got out of the Humvee as three more men left the second Suburban. The three men nodded to Falter and Chism, according to an Iraqi policeman who watched from afar. As Falter turned, the last man in the group pulled a pistol and fired.

Falter was shot in the back and fell to the ground, the policeman said. A second attacker jumped on the bumper and shot Chism.

The gunshots appeared to have been the trigger for the assault. "All hell broke loose," the policeman said.