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those responsible and mete out justice. In the meantime, the bodies of the three Screaming Eagles were returned to the States. In Madras, the memorial service for Thomas Tucker drew thousands of people. The procession to the cemetery where he was laid to rest was eight miles long—longer than Madras itself. Late into the evening that night, hundreds of residents protectively ringed the Tucker residence, keeping outsiders and reporters at bay as they consoled the family.
    Back in Iraq, American intelligence concluded that al-Qaida had lied about al-Masri killing the two soldiers personally. Although Zarqawi had been filmed slowly decapitating an American contractor in 2003, the claim that al-Masri was involved in the murders was seen as a bid by al-Qaida to build up their new commander after Zarqawi’s death.
    But who had planned and carried out the attack? And who had killed Tucker and Menchaca once the al-Qaida assault force had seized them?
    Months passed seemingly without any progress in finding those responsible. Finally, in 2008, the U.S. Army developed enough evidence against three men to hand them over to an Iraqi court. DNA evidence convinced the court that one of the men had been in the truck used to drag the bodies. He received a death sentence for his role. The other two were acquitted.
    Back home, pundits railed against this meager response. Where was justice for the families? One man out of the entire team was convicted? It seemed a pathetic effort compared to the barbarity that befell these two warriors. Bloggers howled at our apparent impotence, one even went so far as to say President Bush should have personally announced he would have every man responsible hunted down, much as Russian president Vladimir Putin had done after a terrorist attack in his country.
    In the shadows, another story developed, far away from the media’s prying eyes. Unknown to the American public, the Iraq War’s most deadly sniper had been put on al-Qaida’s trail.

 
    CHAPTER THREE
    Al Shatan
    JUNE–JULY 2006
AL ANBAR PROVINCE, IRAQ
    That June, sixty miles northwest of where al-Qaida captured and killed Thomas Tucker, Kristian Menchaca, and David Babineau, one of the pivotal battles of the Iraq War was raging. After the second Battle of Fallujah in November 2004, much of the surviving insurgent leadership retreated to Ramadi, a city of about 500,000 people that sprawls for dozens of miles along the banks of the Euphrates River. It had long served as the capital of Al Anbar Province, which made control of it both strategic and symbolic. Despite every Coalition effort, in the spring of 2006 the city remained a hornet’s nest. Daily, American patrols trying to secure Ramadi’s streets ran into fierce firefights or roadside bombs. Iraqi police who dared to take a stand against the insurgents had their families threatened or killed. Some were captured and beheaded by al-Qaida zealots. Others simply walked off the job, or did al-Qaida’s bidding, which inflicted major setbacks on the Coalition’s effort to establish Iraqi control of security in the area.
    In early June, just after Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaida Iraq, was killed by USAF bombs, the Coalition began to concentrate troops around Ramadi. Its citizens learned of this development and, fearing a second Fallujah, began to leave in droves. A big battle was in the offing, and both sides prepared for another brutal urban slugfest.
    The Americans assembled a joint force that included parts of the Army’s legendary 1st Armored Division and the 8th Marine Regiment. Instead of assaulting the city directly, the Americans threw a cordon around Ramadi, using outposts to choke off the flow of supplies and reinforcements to the insurgents hiding within the labyrinth of streets and alleyways.
    Al-Qaida’s legions did not sit quietly as they were surrounded. Using teams of up to a hundred men, they assaulted many of the newly established