DefenseWatch Ed Offley, Editor of DefenseWatch magazine, has been a military reporter and defense specialist for 22 years in a variety of journalism assignments throughout the United States. DefenseWatch is an online magazine that addresses military and security issues from the viewpoint of active-duty and reservist component personnel and veterans. Offley previously served as Editor-in-Chief of The Stars and Stripes after the civilian-owned newspaper was acquired by Stars and Stripes Omnimedia Inc. in March 2000. A 1969 graduate of the University of Virginia, Offley served in the U.S. Navy in Vietnam before joining The Virginia Gazette, Williamsburg, Va., as a reporter in 1972. He worked as an editorial writer at three newspapers in Virginia during 1977-85 before joining The Seattle Post Intelligencer as an editorial writer in 1986. Offley, 55, lives in Panama City Beach, Fla., with his wife, Karen, and daughter, Andrea. Contact: dweditor@yahoo.com. Related Links DefenseWatch Website Article Archive Hot Discussions Have an opinion on this commentary? Sound off. Get Breaking Military News Alerts

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By Ed Offley

When Capt. Larry S. Smith first met Iraqi Lt. Col. Mohammad Faik Ra'uf Mahmood in early March 2004, he was impressed with the older officer's leadership and his dedication to serving a free Iraq.

Capt. Larry Smith, left, confers with an Iraqi National Guard officer in 2004. Courtesy Capt. L. Smith

So was the senior leadership of the U.S.-led multi-national force in Iraq. Mohammad, a former air defense artillery officer who claimed to have once been imprisoned by Saddam Hussein, appeared to be a prime candidate for a senior leadership position in the newly-formed Iraqi National Guard.

A U.S. Army newspaper profile of Mohammad in early 2004 described him thusly:

“When Coalition Forces were faced with having to help Iraq rebuild its Army, they knew they needed someone who would walk down the most dangerous street in Baghdad without fear; someone who would ignore religious differences for the greater good; someone who once told Saddam Hussein where to go. They needed a leader and found an outspoken warrior.”

At that time, U.S. military commanders were desperate to train up an effective Iraqi fighting force that could take on the violent terrorist attacks that had been raging nonstop since erupting just weeks after major combat operations ended in the summer of 2003. This remains today a top objective of U.S. forces in Iraq, as President Bush declared in his speech at Fort Bragg on June 28. The president said:

What Smith did not know in the spring and summer of 2004 was that – in his own description – he would have to violate the U.S. Army's own regulations and ethics to carry out the Army's highest-priority mission. And that refusing to do so would jeopardize his military career.

Smith's initial encounter with Mohammad at a base west of Baghdad quickly turned into a bitter confrontation over allegations against the Iraqi officer of theft, weapons sales to the insurgents and detainee abuse, including the deaths of two Iraqi civilians. Moreover, the captain learned that his own U.S. Army superiors would side with their Iraqi protégé despite mounting evidence of wrongdoing, and would attempt to wreck Smith's career in order to cover up the Iraqi officer's misdeeds.

Mohammed promoted to colonel by Maj. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, right, in April 2004.

But that is what happened, an angry and frustrated Smith tells DefenseWatch .

Today, Smith – who received the Purple Heart medal and Combat Infantryman's Badge during his division's 2004 deployment – is quietly languishing in bureaucratic exile at Fort Hood, Tex., shunned by superior officers who have labeled him a troublemaker. Mohammad, now an Iraqi general, commands the Iraqi National Guard in Baghdad and remains on a first-name basis with top American military commanders there.

Army officials at Fort Hood, Tex., the home base of the 1st Cavalry Division, declined to respond directly to DefenseWatch over Capt. Smith's allegations, other than to forward a sanitized version of an AR 15-6 administrative report completed last January that concluded most of the captain's accusations lacked “credible evidence.” The report did, however, confirm that the Iraqi National Guard battalion that Smith had been assigned to had in fact been, as the captain charged, implicated in two acts of abuse of Iraqi civilian detainees.

The AR 15-6 report, dated Jan. 14, 2005, cites a proposed administrative General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand against Smith citing two separate incidents:

* That Smith disobeyed a superior officer's order “by conducting an unauthorized mission … on or about 21 June 2004.”

* That Smith “did disrespect senior members of the Iraqi National Guard during his tenure as C Co. 303rd ING Battalion advisor.”

Smith, who openly concedes that he had lost respect for Lt. Col. Mohammed and several of his underlings, flatly denies the charge that he disobeyed an order by carrying out an “unauthorized mission” as the report concludes.

Smith said he decided to go public with his allegations against Mohammad and several senior officers in his brigade because of what he describes as the Army's failure to properly investigate serious misdeeds by the Iraqi officer that threatened the lives and safety of American soldiers, Iraqi National Guard members and Iraqi civilians alike. He is currently seeking formal whistleblower status under federal laws aimed at protecting government employees from retaliation by their superiors.

Smith, a 1998 graduate of Eastern Michigan University, had arrived in Iraq via a completely different path than that of his Iraqi counterpart: He enlisted in the Army upon high school graduation in 1994 and was later admitted into the Army's “Green to Gold” program. After receiving a commission as a second lieutenant, Smith became an infantry platoon leader in July 1999 with the 1st Cavalry Division. He was serving a subsequent tour in Korea when the U.S.-led coalition toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, but volunteered to rejoin the 1st Cavalry Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team for its 2004 deployment to Baghdad.

Assigned as a staff officer for the 2-12 Battalion, part of the division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team, Smith's duties beginning in early March 2004 involved training Charlie Company of the 303rd Iraqi National Guard Battalion (C/303) at Hawk Base in West Baghdad. Its commander was Mohammad, who was promoted to lieutenant colonel the following month in a ceremony presided over by Maj. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division.

Speaking of Mohammad and his troops at that ceremony on Apr. 25, 2004, Chiarelli said, “These patriots … not only represent a military force, they represent the future of Iraq.”

But as Smith was soon to discover, the situation was much more complicated and unsettling than his commanding general's rhetoric suggested.

His duties that spring, Smith said, included training and equipping one of the 303rd Battalion's three 250-man Iraqi National Guard companies, commanded by a Capt. Haidar. As part of his job, Smith was responsible for training and accompanying the unit on patrols, as well as overseeing U.S.-Iraq contracts that paid cash and provided weapons, ammunition and other resources directly to Lt. Col. Mohammad, with the provision that the Iraqi commander would use this money and weapons to pay and arm his soldiers.

On June 20, 2004, Smith said he learned that his Iraqi troops were to participate in what he terms a “fake kidnapping” of an Iraqi civilian in the Abu Ghraib area west of Baghdad that in actuality was a mission to extract an Iraqi informant who had been helping an American Special Forces unit. But upon arriving at the 2-12 CAV's tactical operations center, Smith said he was informed by Maj. Scott Kendrick, the battalion executive officer at the time, that “the mission would be delayed until the afternoon or possibly canceled.”

After failing to contact several other of the unit's officers to learn whether the mission would go on as planned, Smith said he decided to undertake a quiet reconnaissance of the area using a 23-man Iraqi platoon and four American advisers – a move he defends as proper given the daily patrols that he and the Iraqi troops were conducting in the area as part of ongoing operations. During the ensuing patrol Smith said they spotted the Iraqi “target” but sensed something amiss by the man's behavior, so he called off the reconnaissance mission and headed back to base.

At that point, however, a concealed IED exploded, killing two Iraqi soldiers and wounding 11 others.

The captain says he did not hear anything else about this incident until six months after he had begun reporting alleged wrongdoing by Iraqi officers. At that juncture, he was told the IED incident was part of the investigation of improper actions that he had been accused of taking.

In his rebuttal statement included in the AR 15-6 report, Smith said the tragic deaths of the two Iraqi soldiers stemmed not from any wrongdoing on his part or that of the other American advisers, but because the Iraqi soldiers – like many of their American counterparts – lacked sufficient armored vehicles. He staunchly defends his decision to undertake the reconnaissance mission as part of normal operating procedures in Iraq.

Beginning in July, Smith said he began hearing rumors that unexplained shortages of ammunition, money and other supplies from the base were taking place. He attempted to find out where the material had gone.

The first concrete sign of trouble came when several Iraqi soldiers complained to Smith about their missing bottled water.

“On or about 20 August, I was approached by a number of ING soldiers assigned to the 303d Battalion that they did not have any water available to them when they went on missions,” Smith said in a formal interview with the Government Accountability Project (GAP), a nonprofit organization that assists whistleblowers. “I got curious and questioned soldiers in several platoons of each company at Hawk Base (HHC, A, C). They reported that on most days they had up to one bottle of water provided at the lunch mealtime by the subsistence contractor, and on some days, they had none.”

Smith said he approached the civilian food contractor, a Mr. Shimarri, and asked why the Iraqi soldiers were not receiving the three bottles of water each day as the contract specified. The contractor replied that he was only supposed to supply each of the 600 soldiers involved with one bottle.

The captain quickly calculated that since the U.S. Army was paying $49,500 per month on the water contract and the soldiers were receiving only $13,500 worth of water, then someone was stealing about $35,000 per month out of the Army contract funds. Shimarri in turn complained to Smith that he was actually being forced to spend $9 per day for each of the 600 Iraqi soldiers' food and water for an operating loss of about $15,000 each month (he was providing these services for 26 days per monthly period).

After re-examining the books, Smith told GAP investigators, “ I determined from this that [the contractor] was lying about the expenses.”

Word quickly got back to Lt. Col. Mohammad, Smith told the investigators. “I left him to talk to [supply NCO] SFC Richardson. Later that day, Lt. Col. Mohammad approached me and told me that the contractor was providing to Hawk Base three bottles of water a day. Several [Iraqi] lieutenants approached me also, one from each company and volunteered this information. Based on that I had just talked to the food contractor himself and he had told me the circumstances, I determined that Lt. Col. Mohammad was lying, and that he prompted several of his officers to try and convince me of this.”

Mohammad quickly struck back, Smith said.

Several days later after talking with the Iraqi officer, Smith on Aug. 20 was summoned to the office of Lt. Col. Tim Ryan, commander of the 2-12 CAV. Smith recounted the incident to the GAP investigators:

“I reported at 0930 the next morning and he sat me down and stated that he had some important issues to discuss with me. He started out by saying that Lt. Col. Mohammad wanted me relieved from my position at Hawk Base. He went on to say further that the reasons why were: [Smith] makes unnecessary risks; disrespects Lt. Col. Mohammad; continually uses the same roadways to travel into and out of areas; ignored warnings that led a squad of ING to be wounded by an explosion when they were ambushed,” referring to an incident in the second week of August 2004, where Smith himself was wounded.

Smith said he was “speechless” at first, but angrily told Ryan that the Iraqi officer was totally misrepresenting the facts.

“About two weeks before,” Smith said he told the battalion commander, “I helped secure a Humvee that was destroyed on route Huskies by an IED. Two soldiers from 2-12 were killed in that attack. Artillery shells buried in the ground blew one whole side off of the armored M1114 Humvee. The following week when I was supposedly ignoring warnings from Iraqis about an ambush, what was really happening was this. We had moved into Abu Ghraib to set up a [traffic control point] to disrupt enemy traffic while 2-12 hit several targets in the area.”

Smith continued: “Upon occupying the site, we find an IED in the middle of our intended position (several artillery shells buried together). We secure the site, EOD arrives and upon trying to remove the device, start to receive heavy small arms fire. We return fire, call in support from a tank section, and allow EOD to complete its mission. An explosion at the tail end of the firefight wounded eight Iraqis and two Americans, including myself. All wounds were non-life threatening and I had all the casualties evacuated to Log Base Seitz (LBS). The hole from the IED that EOD detonated was nearly six feet across and over three feet deep. I like to think by placing ourselves in harm's way we saved the lives of several of 2-12's soldiers. Instead, this incident was warped and misconstrued purposefully to have cause to ask for my removal as a cadre member by Lt. Col. Mohammad.”

Following that encounter, Smith said he met again with Mohammad in an attempt to clear the air between them. Things seemed to go smoothly, he said: “ I talked with Lt. Col. Mohammad about the issues that Lt. Col. Ryan had brought to my attention, and told him that no disrespect was ever intended from me. He apologized to me and said that he was just passing information to [2nd Brigade commander] Col. [Michael D.] Formica that he had heard. I asked him to please talk to me about any issues regarding myself directly and that I would do my best to support him.”

However, Smith said he already feared that if the situation came down to a choice between Mohammad and himself, his superior officers had already chosen Mohammad. He told the investigators that Ryan had warned him that Formica himself wanted Smith relieved of duties training the 303rd after the Iraqi officer had complained, but Ryan refused because Army procedures required the formal process of counseling and the issuance of an approved letter of reprimand to take place first.

Ryan did not respond to a DefenseWatch request for comment passed through the division public affairs office.

But then a far more serious allegation appeared.

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Ed Offley is Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at dweditor@yahoo.com. ©2005 DefenseWatch. All opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of Military.com.