The decision to re-deploy the Bradleys had fateful consequences. As Nott led his team and the prisoners back to the command post on foot, night had fallen. Nott was walking down the middle of Balad Ruz's main street with the Iraqi prisoners on his left. To his right was medic Emily Devers. Alongside her were Anderson, Hensley and the interpreter.
All at once, car headlights lit them up from behind. Nott fired a warning shot and directed the car to turn around. Another car approached. Anderson fired a second warning shot. He and Hensley dropped back to tell the driver to find another route. "Once the car was stopped and turning around we ran back to link up with the rest of our people and the detainees," Hensley recalled.
The Post's opinion and commentary section runs every Sunday.
• Outlook Section
| | |
|
Back at the command post, Young says the mood was one of "stress and excitement." A group of soldiers heard small arms fire. Sgt. Brian Beem later recalled seeing silhouettes of at least six figures approaching from about 250 meters away. He thought they might be suicide bombers. Sgt. Michael Garvin, a scout, later said he saw the outline of three men in traditional Arab dress. Garvin thought they were hostile Iraqis. In fact, they were Nott's three handcuffed prisoners.
Garvin ordered Sgt. Chris Creech, commander of one of the Bradleys parked in front of the command post, to turn his vehicle 180 degrees. "Get those dismounts," Garvin said using the military term for combatants on foot. There was a burst of small arms fire somewhere. As the Bradley lurched forward, Creech fired his machine gun, spewing a fusillade of bullets toward his target.
Sgt. Tim Cramer, riding on the Bradley, saw "multiple dismounts moving east toward the [command post] at a fast pace in front of a civilian car with headlights shining." That was probably Anderson and Hensley running to catch up with Nott and the others. Cramer opened fire with his 9mm pistol. Sentries on the roof of the command post fired their M-16s. Inside the Bradley, Creech fired again.
Ty Hensley found himself in a hailstorm of bullets. "I dropped to the ground and rolled to my right into the ditch besides the translator," he later recounted. Anderson, with an AK-47 strapped around his body, thought a member of the wedding party was retaliating. He dove for cover, too.
In the middle of the street, medic Devers stood frozen. "I couldn't move," she recalled in an interview. "I could see it happening. I could hear people yelling 'stop, stop.' I saw a tracer come toward me. I watched it hit in front of me and a piece [of pavement] came up and hit me."
Over the rattle of gunfire, came shouts of "Cease fire! Cease fire!"
Anderson was moaning on the pavement, his left ankle shattered by a machine gun bullet. Musa the interpreter had a gunshot in his stomach and a hole in his hand. He told his American friends he was dying. (He would survive.) The three Iraqi prisoners lay scattered about, handcuffed and wounded. Emily Devers's left leg was gushing blood.
Nott lay dead, killed by massive chest wounds.
Who killed Leif Nott?
Not U.S. troops, said Defend America, the Pentagon's Web site for "news about the war on terrorism." On Aug. 3, 2003, the site reported that Nott had been killed by "hostile fire." It wasn't until Nott's funeral in Cheyenne a week later, that his family heard the true story from a friend of Leif's.
Not the Iraqi insurgents, said Maj. David Chase. He was assigned to investigate in early August. He concluded that the "friendly fire incident" was "primarily the result of inadequate situational awareness."
Not the soldiers who actually fired the fatal shots, say Les Nott and Mickey Anderson. They hold Capt. Young responsible because he did not notify the troops at the command post that a friendly patrol was returning. Young, now teaching at West Point, says he did not know Nott's whereabouts. He says he still grieves for his friend and wonders "what if."
