American Sniper in Baghdad

Although I had never been embedded I spent a few days in the US base at Sadr City in the summer of 2004 with a sniper unit. One of the snipers, Griff, had a remarkable story to tell.

One night last month Griff knelt on one knee and peered through the telescopic sight at the dark urban landscape of Sadr City, Baghdad's poorest and most restive slum suburb. It was nearly midnight and as he searched the rooftops, alleyways and balconies he was looking for anything unusual - the inky black of a man's shoulder silhouetted against the dark grey background, the red glow of a cigarette or the tell-tale pineapple-shaped tip of grenade launcher. In the city the last call of the muezzin had faded and the traffic had thinned to almost nothing. But the cloying heat meant we still sweated into our kevlar vests.

Squirting tobacco juice through his teeth into the dust, Griff mapped out his panorama of kills. "You see over there by the dumpster," he said, as I gazed through night-vision binoculars. "I killed a man there. The bullet hit him in the neck and nearly took his head off. He was 220 metres from me. " Then he pointed to a crumbling white wall in the mid-distance off to our left. "I took another one there," he said. "He had just attacked a police station and was scrambling over the wall with his Kalashnikov in his hand. That's 470 metres away."

By now the night was dark except for a few streetlights and the city was silent. A US artilleryman, part of a small squad of soldiers sent to protect the compound, cracked sunflower seeds between his teeth and slouched in a white plastic garden chair, machine-gun at the ready. The radio crackled quietly and occasionally there was a burst of gunfire far away. "I shot a guy over by that radio mast," said Griff pointing at a tall metal structure in the distance built in the shape of an arrowhead. "It's a thousand metres from here. That means you have to aim about three feet above the target. Beyond that distance the bullet begins to wobble and loses its accuracy."

As the night wore on we dozed. Occasionally I looked through the night sights at the green and white world - once a white Nissan pick-up crawled by suspiciously slowly before turning into a narrow alley, another time a man appeared in a window. It was shortly before 2am when the shooting broke out and mortars began to explode. Griff, who had been slumped against the wall, jumped up and went out onto the roof seeking a target. Unlike the others who wore helmets and ballistic goggles, he only had on a floppy hat. He moved almost noiselessly. In the shadows his aqualine nose and the huge evil-looking gun he carried made him the very picture of a deadly nocturnal predator. He said: "I've never hit a civilian and I don't wound."

At 25, Griff is perhaps the best sniper in Iraq. He is single, has 20/20 vision, is wiry, fit and about 5'10" tall. He serves in the 10-man team of sharpshooters attached to 2-5 Cav, a US mechanised infantry unit, and is considered the best marksman there. Since arriving in Iraq less than three months ago he has notched up 15 confirmed kills, making him the more prolific killer in his regiment and probably the whole of Iraq. "Shooting has become second nature. Once I'm behind a gun now it's just all automatic. When there are other people around you cannot let them influence what you're doing. I just put everything else out of my mind. Then I relax and visualise what I want the bullet to do. I see it in my mind before it happens." He is quiet-spoken, with old-fashioned southern manners and, like almost all the men in his unit, has a pronounced drawl.

In the second week of June I spent four days with Griff, two at the US military's Camp Eagle in Sadr City where he is based and two more in a frontline outpost on sniping duty. I wanted to find out what the lonely job of a sniper entailed and why he had become a cold-blooded killer in the service of his country. Much has been reported about the ongoing crisis in Iraq in which 135,000 American soldiers are now deeply mired. The blood-letting, mayhem and slaughter make the headlines daily. But less is written about the individuals involved - their hopes, fears, doubts and motivations. In our first interview Griff was polite but a little reticent. Later, he became more talkative. The most personal details he saved for a final late-night conversation on the eve of my departure from Iraq as we sat in near pitch black with the sound of gunfire echoing off the buildings around us. A tiny cog in the lumbering US military machine, he had a remarkable story to tell.

Of Welsh and German antecedents, Griff was born in rural Texas town, population 1,400, not far from the state capital Austin, and grew up on a farm. When he was six his grandfather gave him his first .22 rifle and they set out together to hunt rabbits and small birds. "I loved being out in the woods," he said. "As I got older I'd go off hiking with a few friends. When it got dark, we'd simply light a fire, cook some food and sleep where we lay. Sometimes we'd fish." Early on, his father, a Marine, saw that he was good with guns and encouraged him. He won prizes at competitions organised by youth branches of the Texas State Rifle Association. "My grandfather made me shoot with both hands," he said. "When I said I can't he just told me to keep trying. When I hit something left-handed, he's buy me a coke or a candy bar."

When Griff was 10 he saved up to buy his first serious gun, a Remington .270 that cost him 400 dollars. "It took me months to get the money together," he said. "I'd break the grass for my grandfather and get paid a few dollars." During the summer holidays he was sent off to a grandmother's farm in Oklahoma where he learnt to herd cattle, riding fiery quarter-horses from dawn to dusk. "It was really physical work but it gave you peace of mind," he said. When he was nine his grandfather gave him a young horse and said he could keep it if he could break it. "I broke my arm trying," he said. "But in the end I got there. I called the horse Cyclone."

During his school years, Griff studied hard and was a straight As student, putting him in the top 10 percent of his class. He also broke the State record for the 400 metres sprint. A member of the Future Farmers of America, he was once invited to the Governor's mansion to discuss agricultural policy with George W. Bush. "I was nervous," he said. "But I had prepared two questions and I asked them. One was about facilities in urban areas for people who wanted to rear animals. I was proud to have someone of that stature hear what I had to say."

Meanwhile his siblings were growing up and leaving home. One brother became a Marine, another a plumber, the third bought into a mobile home dealership. His old sister trained as a teacher. On Sundays his family went to the local Baptist Church of Christ. On Saturday nights he would drive with his friends into Austin, drink beer or rye whiskey, and go dancing. Sometimes they went to see Country and Western bands, other times to dance halls or discotheques.

It was during an evening's partying that he met Carol. He had just arrived at a house party with his friends. "I was really drunk, holding a bottle of Jack Daniels in my hand. I saw this girl standing there. She was 6"1' and blonde and I just stared. She was just gorgeous." Carol was 18 and had never had a boyfriend. "That always struck me as funny," Griff said. The two young Texans fell in love. They moved in together. Carol became pregnant and Griff left college, where he was studying structural engineering, to get a job and look after his new family. He began working as an engineer at a small company run by his uncle. "I didn't like to work in an office and this gave me a chance to get out. Life was fine. We planned our wedding but Carol wanted to wait until after she's had the baby." Then, when Carol was eight months pregnant, she was killed by a drunk driver.

Being a sniper puts a man in the elite of the regular US military. As well as training as a regular infantryman, he must be a master of stealth, camouflage and marksmanship. There are only about 400 snipers in the whole US army.

The use of modern snipers dates back to the Raj. They were chosen for their ability to hit a snipe in mid-flight. The hairy camouflage suits that snipers wear in the field are still known as Ghille suits after the Scottish gamekeepers who pioneered them.

In the early days, snipers worked unsupported. The image of the loner who spends days in hiding has been engraved in the popular imagination. During the First and Second World Wars German sharpshooters dominated the trenches and battlefields. They were taught at special sniper schools and their motto became "camouflage 10 times, shoot once." But in modern armies snipers work in pairs. One man find the targets and a second man shoots. Sometimes a third man is added to provide area security.

When they move in the field in combat they inch along the ground, clawing their way forward with just their toes and fingers. Muscle cramp is one of their greatest burdens and there head is so close to the earth that they must often use a compass to orient themselves even over the shortest distances.

In Iraq, the US sniper teams usually carry one of two guns, an M24 bolt-action rifle and an SR25 semi-automatic. They also have Barrett guns available which fire a huge bullet that can stop a car at three quarters of a mile. If they are damaged the guns must be returned to America to specialist gunsmiths.

In 2-5 Cav, the Sniper unit shares a medium-sized room and sleep in bunk beds. The roof is only partly protected against mortars that fall on the compound every night and the men have put up wood and plastic sheets in the window to try and stop flying debris. On the white plywood door someone has written "Baghdad's long distance service." When they are not in the field, they sleep, chew tobacco or watch DVDs on small hand-held monitors. "Enemy at the Gates" - a film about a duel between snipers in wartime Stalingrad - is a favourite. There are also copies of a book written about Carlos Hancock, a Vietnam-era US sniper, who was reputed to have had 93 scalps including that of a famous Viet Cong woman sniper known to the Americans as Apache.

Sometimes they banter, mocking each other in snappy southern slang, unintelligible to an outsider. In the whole team there is only one northerner and the term "Yankee" and "liberal" are uttered with lip-curling disdain. Their arrogance and independence can make them unpopular with the other units. A scout, who shares the building with them, told me: "We stay away from them. For me the army is about brotherhood. You wouldn't know it from the way those guys behave."

When Carol and her unborn baby were killed, Griff was consumed by thoughts of anger and revenge. "God and I had strong words that day," he said. "All I could think of was killing the man who did it." But the killer went to prison and he was left along to nurse his grief. "I realised that up until then in my life I'd been really selfish," he said. "I thought it was time to stop thinking about myself. I'd always been a patriot - it came from my father - so I decided to serve my country." Griff gave his oath on September 10, 2001. When George Bush launched the War On Terror, he approved. "It had to be done," he said. "The president was right. He's very patriotic and he cares about his country. He basically said "You can't do this!" when they came over and attacked us. It would have been just as easy to say "Well, you know, let's just look at our home security." The next spring Griff reported for duty at 2-5 Cav and was assigned to Alpha Company. He said: "My family we all very proud. My younger sister was in college when I joined up. She was more liberal. She thought the war was all about oil. But for me this is beyond politics. When you decide to serve your country its greater than politics."

When the US and Britain decided to invade Iraq, it seemed that 2-5 Cav would be one of the regiments sent. But orders were changed and as the first wave of American tanks rolled across the southern deserts, they were still at base in the US. Griff, meanwhile, had been singled out by his commanders as a soldier of exceptional aptitude and skill. He was made team leader. When his platoon leader heard a sniper team was being put together he suggested he apply. "I was excited I would have the chance to do something not many people have a chance to do. Those guys were the best. There's such a black and white to being a sniper. The thought of finding the guy you're going to kill and he doesn't know you're there makes it different." When Griff was given a new gun, he named it Carol.

At the end of March, 2-5 Cav was posted to Sadr City.

The entrance to Baghdad's poorest suburb is marked by a poster depicting three stern-faced religious leaders in flowing robes - two of them recently murdered - the black, red and green pennants of the Shia strung across the road and layers of rubbish blowing in the wind. On the right there is a car that has been crushed by a tank and piles of old bullet casings. On the left is a large concrete compound guarded by spools of concertina wire and two Bradley Fighting Vehicles - American armoured personnel carriers mounted with two powerful machine-guns - whose turrets sweep the surroundings continuously. When the US military arrived in Sadr City - then known as Saddam City - 15 months ago there was cheering on the rooftops. The 2.5 million residents, almost all of them poor Shias, had been persecuted for decades by Saddam Hussein and his overthrow was greeted with delirium. But since then relations have deteriorated steadily. On April 4, after the US-led administration in Iraq banned an Islamic newspaper run by supporters of the Shia firebrand Moqtada al-Sadr, militant groups rose up in a bid to oust the occupiers. For Griff and his colleagues, almost all untested in combat, it was to herald a baptism of fire.

That day Griff had been escorting a senior commander and didn't return to the base until dinner - stews and meat cuts served in white plastic trays. A runner came up and shouted for all snipers to report for duty. "I chucked my food in the garbage and ran to get my kit." Within minutes Griff and Mook, his quiet-spoken spotter and a fellow Texan ("We don't even have to speak we know each other so well," Griff said of their partnership), were climbing onto the roof of the main command post, a high, flat concrete structure. "We started our observation process. There were ambulances coming in with our casualties and there was a man firing wildly at them. He had a long-sleeved shirt on with rolled-up sleeves. He was 920 metres away. I had already made my adjustments. I just pulled the trigger."

For Griff, it was his maiden kill. "That was the first time I'd done anything like that and it happened really quickly. I knew I had hit him because the rifle jumps and falls back and if it falls back to where I am aiming I know I've hit. I actually watched the bullet impact. It takes a full second to get there at that distance. It hit him on his left side and he hit the ground. It was an upper lung shot." After that first shot, Griff and Mook stayed on the roof for 10 minutes looking for more targets. "The adrenalin was flowing and I didn't feel much," he said. Then they came down to join a relief patrol to rescue a convoy that had come under fire in the backstreets. When they arrived they too were ambushed. "We had no roof on the Humvee and they were firing at us from the balconies." They all jumped out. Bean, one of Griff's closest friend and a fellow sniper, manned the Humvee's machine gun. The road ahead was blocked with burning tyres and piles of rubbish.

Griff threw himself down flat in the middle of the road. He had spent months training for this moment in the hills and the bushes but never expected to be lying in the road with no cover. Bean worked the machine gun trying to suppress the militiamen. "That’s when I started doing what I do. I would see them come out of the alleyways. They'd peek out and shoot and dive back in. We're taught to fight trained soldiers. This was an eye-opening experience. There were no rules. They were hiding behind women. They had children on the balconies pointing us out. I don't think there's a lot that can prepare you for something like that." Once the shooting started training took over. "It just flowed. Once I fired that first round it was like turning on a tap I just started going at it. There was a guy with an RPG (rocket propelled grenade launcher) who came out of an alley. They put a laser on him. I saw the RPG and I shot him." As the battle reached its crescendo, Bean was hit in the side and thrown to the ground. He got up and kept firing. Then he was hit again. Remarkably the bullet lodged in the very edge of the ceramic plate that soldier's use to supplement their flak jackets. Then, just as it seemed things could get no worse, Griff's gun jammed.

"I thought: Hell No this isn't happening. The bullets were chewing up the asphalt in front of me and I thought any minute now they're going to hit me. I was lying flat on the ground and my body armour wouldn't have done anything - I probably would have been hit in the face. Then I heard Carol talking to me. She just kept saying: Don't think negative!" Griff dropped the magazine out of the gun and prised the jammed bullets from the chamber. He began throwing them in, one at a time. By the time the battle was over he had killed seven men. Bean, whose Purple Heart hangs proudly by his bunk bed, was taken off to be treated. Remarkably he survived with light injuries. But when the death toll was taken, eight of their colleagues had been killed and more than 60 wounded. "That night I couldn't sleep," said Griff. "Three guys in Alpha company were killed. They had family and children. One had a baby on the way, that made me really angry." For a week after April 4, the Sniper Team were out every day. Chipping away at the ranks of the militants, they brought the insurgency down to manageable proportions though to this day they haven't managed to crush it completely. "After that week I felt like I'd been hit by a truck," Griff said.

Since their baptism of fire the Sniper Team has become more hardened, less gung-ho. Most have overcome any moral misgivings. Ben, 21, who lost a cousin in the World Trade Centre and now serves as Griff's security man, said: "I don't see human beings out there any more just green silhouettes. It's like shooting Ivans." (Cold-war era slang for life-size targets the US military use in training.) In the blue chemical toilets nearby a soldier, perhaps from another unit, has scrawled "Fuck Iraqi Freedom, what about America?"

Many of the men also say they feel closer to God. "I'm certainly more religious," said Bean, showing the mangled bullet that lodged in his flak jacket. Some have taken to wearing small crosses around their neck, Griff wears a Zoonie Bear, an American Indian totem. "We all worship in our own way," said Bill, the sergeant. "We don't pray but when you go through something like this you become closer to God. There's a sense that we're doing God's work."

Griff said: "It's not normal to kill another human being. After you make the kill you don't want to talk, you just want to be left alone. How do I make my peace? I think that everybody has a purpose and God gave me abilities for a reason. So I truly believe. I think what we are doing here is just. I'm not out there to kill everyone. I'm out there to get the bad guys. There will always be weak and strong, good and bad, that's the way the world is. When it's really tough I think of Carol and that keeps me going."

Bean, will be allowed home this month to visit his new baby. Ben and Mook both say they will leave the army when this tour of duty is over. Griff still has at least nine months to serve in Iraq, probably without any home leave because he is single and childless. "Being a sniper is a state of mind. It's an art. Right now I wouldn't exchange it for any other job. This is where I'm needed." And when war is over? "Either I'll join the special forces or I'll go back to college and live a nice quiet life. I'd live in Texas. It's my state. I haven’t had a girlfriend since Carol, but maybe one will come along. I'd like to have a family, medium-sized, maybe three children."

(Some of the names have been changed).