I soon had every incentive to work as hard and as often as I could. My first daughter was born in May 1994; two years later, my first son was born. Another daughter followed a few years after that, and eventually another son. (I am not naming them, to preserve their privacy as they grow older.)
The problems of the country inevitably strained the family. Then one of my sisters ran into debt; to help her, we decided we had to sell the house. The place we rented was smaller, but the sale gave us breathing room financially.
Things became even more difficult for us when Hamid, my older brother, was jailed because of a dispute with a member of the Fedayeen Saddam, the paramilitary organization headed by Saddam’s son Uday Saddam Hussein and then his younger brother Qusay Saddam.
Years later, after Saddam was pushed out, the Fedayeen Saddam became one of the focal points of the insurgency attacking Iraqis and Americans. Before the war it was more like an informal militia or paramilitary group along the lines of the Black Shirts under Mussolini during the fascist regime in prewar Italy. It was said that the Fedayeen were responsible for smuggling and other crimes; they were also said to threaten and even attack political opponents of the regime. Tangling with its members was like tangling with mobsters. If you went against them, you invited all kinds of problems.
My brother’s difficulties began when a member of the organization tried to take money from him. Like me, my brother didn’t appreciate being pushed around, let alone robbed—so he beat the man up. In revenge, the man and his friends trumped up charges against him and had him put in Badush, the notorious regional prison. He was sentenced to five years.
Not only did we now have one less wage earner in the family, we had the added expense of trying to feed my brother, who would have starved on the rations they gave out at the jail. My mother and his wife visited as often as they could; it was never a pleasant experience. Even in America, I would imagine, prisons are not hospitable places, but those in the States are probably like hotels compared to the desolate, cramped, and filthy places in Iraq. It is one thing to keep common criminals locked up in such hellholes, and another to keep political prisoners and people like my brother, whose only offense was to stand up for himself against bullies. He was kept there for a year and half, until a general amnesty and his own good behavior won his release.
I didn’t help by having a conflict with my brother-in-law. I’d been chafing at some of his directions, disagreeing with the jobs he gave me, and feeling that I could do better on my own. I felt he was taking advantage of me, not paying me what I was worth or what my family needed to survive. Finally one day I had enough and told him, “I’m done.”
I walked out and started working for myself as a truck driver, driving loads of goods from Mosul to the south, and from the south back north. At first I did very well, or at least better than I had been doing working for my brother-in-law.
The hours were long; I would usually go from five in the morning until five or six at night. Most times I would come home so exhausted I just shut everything else out. What was happening in the wide world outside of Iraq made no difference to me. I was lucky just to get a shower, eat a bit, and go to sleep.
As time went on, the amount of money people were willing to pay to ship items became less and less. They just didn’t have it. Once I transported some sheep from Mosul to Basra. I made the equivalent of forty dollars. It took me a day and half to get down to the city and back, partly because of the poor roads and partly because the truck I’d leased was old and slow. Once I got to Basra, I had to wait to find a load to take north, another long ordeal. Even after finding a somewhat steady gig transporting chlorine south and fertilizer north, I made only seventy dollars a round-trip after expenses.
Besides legitimate costs for fuel, there were also bribes that had to be paid. These didn’t amount to much individually—the equivalent of a dollar could get you very far with a policeman. But the idea of having to participate in the corruption was galling.
The struggle to keep working and feed my family wore me down. I felt like a donkey, with more and more weight piled on my back. My spirit certainly sagged. If I’d ever felt any loyalty to Iraq as a whole, it was gone.
As time went on, I came to believe I would do anything to feed my family. Anything: if someone gave me money to kill someone, I would take the money and do it, without hesitating.
I look back in horror. It’s a terrible thing to have thought. But it is what I thought.
A terrible truth.
Desperation robs a man of his soul as well as his best intentions. How can a person live in misery and be happy about the place where he lives? How can a person be optimistic for the future? How can he dream in the face of bleakness?
Strapped for money, we moved from the house to a small apartment. There were only three rooms for all of us—myself, my wife, and our children; my brother, his wife, and their two children; and my mom. Soheila was often sad, worried sick about the children’s future as well as ours. It was as if we inhabited a graveyard, without hope for the future.
In 1997, I was called back to army duty for two months. It at least brought a little pay without much work. Since I was a heavy-machine operator, my skills were in demand. I volunteered to grade the airport, an important job—but one that only took a single day.
They were so happy they gave me a month off.
When I reported back, my superiors told me that they wanted me to “volunteer” to represent the unit in a large track-and-field competition. They knew I’d been a high jumper when I was younger and thought I might do well.
Naturally, I accepted. That earned me another month’s vacation. A strange way to run an army, but it worked for me.
I actually won the military competition, with a jump around 1.65 meters. Not bad for a heavy-machine operator who hadn’t competed in years.
IRAQ MIGHT HAVE continued on that downward slide for many more years before hitting the absolute rock bottom. Or maybe not. Maybe Saddam would have come to his senses as pressure increased. Maybe there would have been a revolt that overthrew him, an uprising similar to the so-called Arab Spring. Maybe, maybe, maybe . . .
If any of those impossible scenarios had occurred, my life would have been radically different. What exactly I would have done I cannot say, but surely you wouldn’t know of me. My life would have remained mostly ordinary and not of interest to anyone in America. My dreams would have been irrelevant to the wider world, and maybe even to me.
But fate stepped in.
I WAS HOME in Mosul on September 11, 2001. It was the afternoon. I’d come home from driving my truck and was relaxing, when suddenly someone said to turn on the TV.
The attack on the World Trade Center in Manhattan was being replayed on Iraqi national television.
Holy shit.
I knew that there would be trouble. And somehow I knew it would come to Iraq. I was filled with a strange, desolate feeling, not because I thought there would be a war—that I didn’t know. It was more despair about the world.
Many Muslims were celebrating the attacks. Their glee appalled me.
Why destroy things? Why celebrate hate and death?
Many questions occurred to me as I sorted through my feelings. It was clear to me that violence and destruction were not right, and that killing innocent people was not condoned by any religion, let alone Islam.
So what should a person do?
Build things.
The energy and intellect that it took to plan such horrible mass murder—could not that have been used to make something important? Instead of hijacking an airplane to kill people, why not build an airplane to help people?
If we just want to destroy something, how long will it take? A few minutes? What is the use of that? What is the use of any destruction?
Making things, building, learning—that is what we all should be doing, Iraqis, Muslims, Americans. That is what people were created for. That is our highest achievement. Why do some of us insist on debasin
g the race by following creeds of destruction?
I had no answers at that time; I didn’t even have all the questions. While I didn’t know it then, they would multiply and deepen over the next ten years, until they completely shaped my life.
Questions about destruction, about religion, about our responsibility to each other—they’re not just philosophical or hypothetical for me. I know firsthand what destruction feels like and what happens in its wake. I have walked down its streets. I know what desolation looks like, how it feels on your skin. I know how depression tightens like a noose around your neck until you can’t breathe.
I have been fortunate to see the opposite, to see the hope that education brings and feel the difference that freedom can make.
But in Iraq after 9/11, the predominant emotion favored destruction and all the dark forces that hinder mankind. You heard all sorts of conspiracies about the attacks and all kinds of justifications about why it should have happened.
Oh, those terrible Americans, they did this to justify killing Muslims . . .
The Jews, they did that . . .
Mass murder can never be justified. That is something all people should know in their hearts, no matter where they come from or what religion they follow. But with the state-controlled media blaring these rumors and misinformation, many Iraqis were swayed from their honest opinions and feelings. They didn’t know what to think, and more than a few lost the ability to tell right from wrong.
Rationally, I suspected that America would start hunting the men who had blown up the towers. It was a matter of American pride.
I also knew that the whole world outside the Middle East would support the United States.
What I didn’t know was what this would mean for Iraq.
Iraq was not involved in the attack, and before it happened there was not much regard for Osama bin Laden in the country.
Immediately after 9/11, however, Iraqi television began calling him a hero. The media fed people stories to reinforce that. It was clearly Saddam’s doing. He hated the U.S., so any enemy of America’s was by his definition a hero or a friend of his. The dictator himself called the attack a victory and celebrated it as if he had personally been the one who blew up the towers. More importantly, he celebrated the destruction not as an attack on civilians, but as if the towers were military weapons destroyed in a fierce land battle.
Saddam’s sudden decision to champion Osama bin Laden was just his latest ploy to try to remain popular with Iraqis. He’d been using religion in the same way for several years, trying to portray himself as a defender of Islam. It was pure sham. He stepped up his claims after 9/11, proclaiming he was “God’s slave” and making sure there were plenty of pictures and films of him “proving” he was religious.
I doubt many people believed it, but of course openly questioning Saddam’s sincerity, let alone mocking him, was an easy way to get yourself imprisoned.
FOR WESTERN READERS not familiar with the religion, I’d like to present a few facts about Islam to help explain some of the events that follow. This is not religious instruction, only a bit of background to help people make sense of some things. I am not a scholar or a religious teacher, and my words are only meant to point people in the proper direction. There are certainly many texts available to explain Islam in depth, and anyone with true interest should seek them out.
The faith of Islam began fourteen hundred years ago, inspired by the word of Allah, the one true God, and exemplified by Abūal-Qa-sim Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib ibn Ha-shim—Muhammad—the last prophet sent to restore the faith of Adam, Noah, Abraham, and the other prophets.
All Muslims accept these facts.
All Muslims agree with the basic tenets of the faith, which include the five pillars of Islam: belief, worship, charity, fasting, and the pilgrimage to Mecca, known as the hajj. These pillars are at the core of our religion; they are like the vital organs in the human body, all the same and all present in every living person.
But just as living people vary in size, shape, and personality, our great religion has some subtle variations among its believers. One of the most important distinctions is between Sunnis and Shiites. This is a division that has marked Muslims for hundreds of years; it is a complicated distinction that has come to involve culture as well as faith.
The simplest way to think of the division is through its history: after the death of Muhammad, one branch of Islam accepted Abu Bakr as their leader or caliph; these people were Sunni. Another group accepted Hazrat Ali; they were Shia. From this seemingly simple split, the two main branches of Islam developed different though related traditions. Though at times their disagreements have been violent, for much of Muslim history individuals aligned with these two branches have lived in peace and harmony. The way I see things, Sunni and Shia have much in common and little in dispute, but many disagree.
It is estimated that Sunnis, such as myself, make up 75 percent of all Muslims. Shiites account for the next largest percent of Muslims, around 20 percent. Other branches of Islam include Sufism, whose adherents believe very strongly in the mystical aspects of the faith.
There are differences of practice and faith within each group of Muslims. And of course there are extremists who pervert the central ideas of the religion for their own evil purposes. Sunni traditions count several important schools, each with different interpretations of Islam. The differences can seem very subtle to an outsider, but they are nonetheless important to those of us who believe.
Osama bin Laden was part of a radical faction of Sunni Muslims who believe that very strict interpretations of Sharia, or Islamic law, must be imposed on the people or Islam will cease to exist. They also preach violence against the West and Jews, and look upon Shiites as enemies. Needless to say, this is not the philosophy followed by most Sunnis.
While the Sunni branch of Islam predominates throughout the world, Iraq has more Shiite Muslims; it has been estimated that 60 to 65 percent of the population are Shia. Many live in the south and east, near Iran. By contrast, the north and west are predominately Sunni.
Saddam was Sunni. His strongest supporters were members of his tribe and people from the region where he was born, Tikrit, who were also predominantly Sunni.
Many Shia believed that the dictator strongly discriminated against them on the basis of religion, and with good reason. Though Shiites were the majority in the country, most of the better government jobs went to Sunni Muslims—more precisely, to Sunnis who were related to Saddam, members of his tribe, or otherwise somehow connected to him, even if only in a distant way. And being a member of the party was essential, at even the lowest level.
In other words, Shia were discriminated against, but so were Sunnis like myself who had no connection with Saddam or his tribe.
Mosul at the time of 9/11 was about 90 percent Sunni; the rest of the people were mostly Shia, with a small community of Christians. (The few Christians I knew in those days were among the most peaceful people I have ever met.)
As I mentioned earlier, there was very little religious animosity between the different branches of Islam when I was young. Even during the Iran-Iraq war, when our enemy was a nation ruled by Shiites, attitudes were not very extreme. For most people, religion was a family matter, private, and not something that the person had much choice in anyway—they followed their parents, as was their duty. At least as I remember it, religion was never an issue for fighting.
One of my best friends growing up was a Christian. There was no religious pressure on him to convert. Nor did he suffer from more discrimination than the rest of us.
For myself, the distinctions are not very important. I have my own relationship with God, and I understand how I should act and behave.
As for our children, when they were small, my kids didn’t even know there was a difference. In 2003, as the fighting among Iraqis intensified along religious lines, Soheila and I gathered our children in a room.
“Okay, guys,” I told
them after we explained a little about our faith and beliefs. “Who’s going to be Shia and who’s going to be Sunni?”
All of them chose Shia. A disappointment maybe for me.
More seriously, I feel that when they are each old enough, they will make their own decision about how to honor God and live correctly. Religion is a choice. Whatever you want, whatever you believe, that is what you should follow. Who am I to impose my faith and religion on others, even my children?
SADDAM’S ATTEMPTS AT drumming up support by using religion after 9/11 mostly failed. But it was more dangerous than ever to talk against him, even with family and friends—you could never tell who might say something about you, either directly to the authorities or to someone who would go to them. Being critical of Saddam had always been forbidden, but now saying anything derogatory about Iraq could also land you in trouble. I heard a story about a man jailed for proclaiming that the French would win a soccer match against Iraq. Whether the story is true or not, I have no idea, but it shows the level of paranoia in the country as we came closer to war in 2002.
We all knew it was coming. The United Nations demanded to be allowed to inspect Iraqi facilities involved in the construction of atomic weapons. Saddam wouldn’t let them. Some of us thought Saddam was hoping to use the conflict to divert people’s attention from the fact that people were starving. But the only thing that would have diverted attention from that would have been full bellies.
Things became steadily worse as 2002 turned to 2003. The country slid further into a black hole. Knowing war was inevitable, Soheila and I began stocking up on as much food as we could. We put away rice and canned soup. We had small freezers where we stocked meat. We stockpiled water. We stacked whatever we could in our small apartment, knowing there would soon be shortages. We had lived through two wars already, so we had a rough idea of what might happen.
Code Name: Johnny Walker: The Extraordinary Story of the Iraqi Who Risked Everything to Fight with the U.S. Navy SEALs Page 5