Johan Raath - Blood Money: Stories of an Ex-Recce’s Missions in Iraq

BLOOD MONEY

STORIES OF AN EX-RECCES MISSIONS IN IRAQ

JOHAN RAATH

First published in South Africa in 2018 by DELTA BOOKS, an imprint of Jonathan Ball Publishers

Published in Great Britain and the United States of America in 2018 by

CASEMATE PUBLISHERS

The Old Music Hall, 106108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JE, UK

and

1950 Lawrence Road, Havertown, PA 19083, USA

Copyright 2018

Text: Johan Raath

Photos: Johan Raath; p 96, Brian1975 (Wikimedia Commons)

Hardcover edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-661-1

Digital edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-662-8 (epub)

Kindle edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-662-8 (mobi)

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I thank my Creator for keeping me safe during stormy times, when I could easily have succumbed. I am also thankful to my wife for her love, support and understanding, and to my mother for her prayers, patience and support. Our work in international conflict zones took me and other private military contractors away from our loved ones for many years, and many men never made it back. I honour these men and their families.

I am indebted to my Special Forces brothers, in particular Chris Delport, Johan (Jakes) Jacobs and Johan (Grobbies) Grobbelaar, and others who worked in Iraq, for providing information to verify facts and details to flesh out the story. I am part of a brotherhood that is second to none, and for this I am grateful. There exists a bond between men that spilled blood and suffered hardship together that outsiders cannot understand (Anon).

I dedicate this book to my father, who passed away on 29 October 2016 when I was halfway through the manuscript. I am saddened that you never got to read my story, but I also find peace in the knowledge that you understood what your son did for a living and what I stand for. Rest in peace, Dad.

Give me 20 divisions of American soldiers and I will breach Europe. Give me 15 consisting of Englishmen, and I will advance to the borders of Berlin. Give me two divisions of those marvellous fighting Boers [in reference to the Anglo-Boer War] and I will remove Germany from the face of the earth.

Field Marshal Bernard L Montgomery

The Americans fight for a free world, the English mostly for honor and glory and medals, the French and Canadians decide too late that they have to participate. The Italians are too scared to fight; the Russians have no choice. The Germans for the Fatherland. The Boers? Those sons of bitches fight for the hell of it!

General George (Old Blood and Guts) Patton

Iraq has a history that goes back thousands of years. In 3100 BC the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers was called Mesopotamia, later Babylonia. Major developments in human history, including the invention of the wheel, the planting of the first cereal crops, the development of cursive script and mathematics have their root here.

However, from the start of record keeping, this ancient civilisation has been engulfed in war. For thousands of years, the area of modern-day Iraq has been a battleground for different civilisations, kingdoms and tribes who have fought for the title of ruler and later caliph, including the Byzantines, Abassids, Persians and Arabs.

In modern times, warfare has consumed the country since World War I, when British and French diplomats laid down the boundaries of Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Kurdistan and southern Turkey. During World War II the British led a campaign in Iraq to restore their imperial ally, the Regent of Iraq. Saddam Hussein came to power in 1979. In the preceding years he had been instrumental in the creation of the Iraqi military forces and the nationalisation of the oil industry as a member of the government and leader of the ruling Baath Party. By the 1980s the Baath Party was dominated by Sunni Muslims.

A year after Saddam came to power, Iraq invaded Iran, a Shia Muslim country. The war lasted nine years and led to the death of over a million people on both sides. In 1990 Saddam invaded Kuwait, which led to the first Gulf War. He also brutally suppressed the Shia-majority Arabs and Kurds in the country throughout his rule.

In my career as a private military contractor (PMC), and even more so since I started working in Iraq in 2004, I have often been asked by family members, friends and people in general, What kind of work do you guys do over there? So I decided to tell the story of my journey to Iraq, where I worked as a PMC until late 2017, in an effort to answer this question and to create greater public awareness of the nature of our work there. This is the first eyewitness account written by a South African of what it was like to work as a military contractor in Iraq. In this book I hope to give the South African public a better understanding of the events that took place in Iraq after the regime of Saddam Hussein was overthrown in 2003 with the help of the US.

An important misperception I want to counter is that we did not go to Iraq to wage war. I and other PMCs went there to protect people and assets. The role of PMCs was mostly to escort convoys supplying construction materials for essential infrastructure anything from power plants, roads and military bases to hospitals, schools and oilfields. These convoys also transported critical supplies to the personnel who worked at these sites. Our job was also to guard the personnel and the installations.

That being said, in a war zone one inevitably gets drawn into the conflict, and that made our work dangerous. Many PMCs had to use firearms against attackers in Iraq, but this was to defend the lives of those under their protection and their own lives. As my story will reveal, we acted defensively, not offensively. Although PMCs often have to defend their lives and the lives of their clients through armed reaction, they are not permitted to engage in offensive combat roles, as this could be classed as unlawful by the UN in terms of international humanitarian law. They can be deployed as bodyguards, training officers, consultants and guards at static locations, such as embassies, oilfields and other key installations, such as power plants, communication networks and airports. Where PMCs are deployed to augment military personnel in protection duties and at installations, it critically frees army soldiers for combat.

When I started thinking of writing a book on the stories of private security contractors in Iraq, my thoughts were to write it solely from a South African perspective and to record the experiences of the South Africans who worked in Iraq after the 2003 war with the US. However, when I began consulting my old diaries, notes, photos and hard drives containing operational information, it became clear to me that PMCs from across the globe contributed greatly to the security goals set by the US government, coalition partners, semi-government groups, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and private companies.