by Nir Rosen
In December 2007 the 1-28 Infantry Division, which controlled the Jihad district, staged one of these slightly absurd “reconciliation” ceremonies when it released fifteen Shiite men. Col. Pat Frank of the 1-28, who supervised the ceremony, explained to me that Jihad was part of what the Americans had named Northwest Rashid, and was about 42 percent Shiite and 58 percent Sunni. There were a little over 1,800 ISVs in Northwest Rashid. There were also 985 Shiite police recruits and 834 Sunni police recruits; 850 of them came out of the ISVs. “Moderates have gained the momentum in the area and overtaken extremists,” Frank said.
Frank’s men staged a reconciliation accord between Sunnis and Shiites as a gesture and requested a list of local men they had imprisoned that the district’s leaders wanted to be released. “They were suspected of Shiite militant activity,” Frank said, but were screened by the Americans and Iraqi government before their release. “Some people on the list were rejected at senior levels” by the Americans, he told me. Only fifteen men had been approved. The Americans built a “reconciliation hall” for the “Reconciliation Committee.” Frank showed neighborhood leaders charts in which he gave them red stars or green stars depending on whether violence had gone down in their area. He gave a metal emblem of the black lion, which symbolized his unit, to a female American correspondent in case she ever had problems. “The Iraqis know us and love us,” he said. “Just show it to them and you’ll be fine.”
The fifteen prisoners were brought in to the building in handcuffs. The few journalists present were ordered not to take pictures until the cuffs were removed. The event was clumsily choreographed. Journalists, council members, and local dignitaries were herded into a separate room and guarded by soldiers. Tahsin Ali Samarai, of the Reconciliation Council’s security committee complained that they had given the Americans a list of 562 prisoners from their area that they wanted released. The Iraqi army colonel in charge of the area told me that all the men were innocent. Another tribal sheikh agreed. “The Americans arrest people randomly,” he said, adding that some of the men had been imprisoned for nearly two years. Sheikh Awad Abdul Wahel, also known as Abu Muhammad, was president of the tribal sheikh council, which had submitted seven hundred names of prisoners from the Jihad district alone. “I serve my people, not the Americans,” he said. “They were never accused or found guilty,” Sheikh Hussein Karim al-Kinani said. “American accusations and arrests are random.”
Outside one angry young woman called Leila waited with her two children. Her husband, Muhammad, was arrested sixteen months earlier while sleeping on his roof to avoid the summer heat. A neighbor was shot and Muhammad was rounded up with all the other men of military age in the area. Their son was born while he was in prison. Leila blamed the Americans for the civil war and did not want to talk about reconciliation. One woman in an abaya came because she heard men were going to be released. Her son was captured by Abul Abed, the notorious Awakening leader in the Sunni district of Amriya.
Inside the prisoners were boisterous. They were seated in alphabetical order, and behind them sat “guarantors” for a “bond” they would have to sign. “It’s not an oath on the Koran,” Frank explained. “It’s on their honor. A guarantor is a mentor, just like in the U.S., when an individual runs in trouble with law and somebody steps up to mentor them. The reconciliation committee wants to see these fifteen men do well.” The Iraqis seemed uninterested and amused by the American show. They endured speeches given by Frank and Captain Ducote. “We want to make this a special event,” Frank said, and asked the men to quiet down. “Thank you for being patient, but this is for you.” Prisoners and guarantors got up pair by pair to each sign their “bond.” The Iraqi colonel played his part. “The government is in control now,” he said, “not like before. There is a state and there is law.” He told them to join the police or the army. Frank was uncertain how to describe the prisoners. He could no longer call them detainees. “We will now ask each individual to stand,” he said. “Guarantors stand too. You raise your right hand. Guarantors put your left hand on the shoulder of the individual.”
“I acknowledge that recent signings of the Reconciliation Agreement have ushered in an era of peace and partnership between Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish, Christian, the Mahdi Army, Iraqi Security Forces, and American Forces,” the oath said somewhat optimistically. Interestingly, the only militia that was mentioned was the Mahdi Army, though the Americans were granting it a role as a legitimate actor. “Based on my arrest record, Iraqi Government and Coalition Force leaders have agreed that my immediate release would be beneficial to the Reconciliation process. I pledge to not commit any violations of the Reconciliation Agreement’s 12 points, violate Iraqi Law, or attack Coalition Forces.” The men were not told what those twelve points were. “As a proud Iraqi citizen living in Northwest Rashid, I will become a contributing member of the community in the historic effort to rebuild this proud nation.” The Iraqis might have wondered where Northwest Rashid was, since they never used this designation. They might also have considered that they were rebuilding a proud nation the Americans had helped destroy. The guarantors took a similar oath stating that they were “bound by honor” to notify American or Iraqi authorities if the “individual” violated the oath. “As an Iraqi living in Northwest Rashid, I am proud to guarantee the mature and peaceful future actions of this citizen,” they said.
Then Frank spoke. “The coalition would like to welcome all the members of the free Jihad community,” he said. “The area of Jihad has been changed a lot. Violence has been reduced tremendously, and this reconciliation is proof.” He did not explain who the men were reconciling with. “With your release from detention we expect that you will become part of the reconciliation, and we look forward to working with you and the guarantor, the person behind you. All the citizens of Baghdad are watching Jihad now.” It was unlikely that any of them were, because the only Iraqi journalist present was a lone freelance cameraman. “Welcome back,” said Captain Ducote. “Jihad is not the same place that you left. You were released based on your ability to join the reconciliation process. I look forward to seeing you on the streets as we patrol.”
It was a reconciliation between the Americans and the Iraqis, not between Iraqis, just as the Awakening was a reconciliation between Sunnis and the Americans. By December, up to eighty thousand men were part of the ISV program in eight Iraqi governorates. Nearly all were Sunnis, though there were a few thousand Shiites as well, in separate units. The Awakening program peaked at about one hundred thousand men. Though it was meant to compensate for the sectarian imbalance resulting from Sunnis’ boycotting the security forces and being black listed by the Shiite government, the creation of new Sunni militias seemed to be promoting sectarianism and a fissiparous future. The drop in violence resulting from the decision of Sunni militias to cooperate with the Americans, the Mahdi Army’s decision to regroup, and the “surge” in American troops was meant to buy time for reconciliation between Iraq’s warring parties and bickering politicians, but there was no political progress. Apart from the security forces, the Iraqi government was nonexistent outside the Green Zone. The Americans were the government. Walls created small fortress neighborhoods in Baghdad, preventing militias from fighting one another directly. Shiite militias battled one another in the south over oil and control of the lucrative pilgrimage industry. Everybody waited for the civil war between Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen to start in the north. Sunnis and even some Shiites had quit the government, which couldn’t pass laws or provide services anyway. The prime minister’s office circumvented Parliament to issue decrees and sign agreements with the Americans that Parliament opposed.
Iraq was still under a foreign occupation. American soldiers were not mere policemen walking their beats on patrol, helping old women cross the street and working on reconstruction and beautification projects.
A foreign military occupation is a systematic imposition of violence and terror on an entire people. When I visited Iraq during the peak
of the surge, at least twenty-four thousand Iraqis languished in American prisons. At least nine hundred of them were juveniles. Some were forced to go through a brainwashing program called the “House of Wisdom,” in which American officers arrogantly arranged for prisoners to be lectured about Islam—as if a poor understanding of Islam, not the occupation itself, was the cause of the violence. The Americans were supposed to hand over prisoners to Iraq’s authorities, since it was officially a sovereign country, but international human rights officials were loath to make this recommendation because conditions in Iraqi prisons were at least as bad as they were under Saddam. One American officer told me that six years was a life sentence in an Iraqi prison, because that was your estimated life span there. In the women’s prison in Kadhimiya female prisoners were routinely raped.
Conditions in Iraqi prisons worsened during the surge because the Iraqi system could not cope with the massive influx. Prisoners arrested by the Americans during the surge were supposed to be handed over to the Iraqis. They often were not, but those were the lucky ones. Even in American detention, Iraqis did not know why they were being held, and they were not visited by defense lawyers. The Americans could hold Iraqis indefinitely, so they didn’t even have to be tried by Iraqi courts. A fraction were tried in courts where Americans also testified. But observers were yet to see an Iraqi trial where they were convinced the accused was guilty and there was valid evidence that was properly examined, and no coerced confessions. Lawyers did not see their clients before trials, and there were no witnesses. Iraqi judges were prepared to convict on very little evidence. If Iraqi courts found prisoners innocent, the Americans sometimes continued to hold them anyway after their acquittal. There were five hundred of these “on hold” cases when I visited in early 2008. Often the Americans still arrested all men of military age when looking for suspects.
As politics and power became more and more local in Iraq, the Iraqi state itself seemed as though it were an American protectorate. As long as the new militias and security forces in Iraq fought Al Qaeda, they had the backing of the United States, much as dictatorships during the cold war enjoyed U.S. support as long as they fought communism, regardless of human rights abuses they might commit. The same logic applied to dictatorships in the Muslim world that collaborated in the war on terror. For sure, violence in Iraq was down, but there were still at least six hundred recorded attacks by resistance groups every month and about six hundred Iraqi civilians being killed in violence related to the civil war and occupation as well as more Iraqi soldiers and police. Since the surge began, nearly a million Iraqis had fled their homes, mostly from Baghdad, which had become a Shiite city. One reason fewer people were being killed was because there were fewer people to kill, fewer targets for the militias (which was why they turned on their own populations). The violence was not senseless; it was meant to displace the enemy’s population. And if war is politics by other means, then the Shiites won. Opinion polls showed that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis blamed the Americans for their problems and wanted them to leave. American officials tried to put a positive spin on this, explaining that at least it united Iraqis, but Iraqis had opposed the American occupation from the day it began.
In early 2008 I met Captain Adil again. The Americans were threatening him, saying he would lose his value to them if he didn’t pursue the Mahdi Army more actively. His chain of command wanted to fire him for the feeble attempts he had made to target the Mahdi Army. He picked me up in his van, and for lack of anywhere safe and private we sat and talked as he nervously scanned every man who walked by. He complained that the Americans called every Shiite suspect Mahdi Army and every Sunni suspect Al Qaeda, and that the Awakening was raiding houses without the permission of the Americans or Iraqi Security Forces. Now the Mahdi Army worried that the ISVs and Awakening were a new force meant to target them, he said, and that they would replace Al Qaeda. He worried that the Mahdi Army could start fighting again out of fear of the Awakening. “No one can control these guys. Abu Jaafar, the ISVs—the coalition must be tough with them. The situation won’t get better. If someone kills your brother, can you forget his killer? You work hard to build a house and somebody blows up your house. Will they accept Sunnis back to Shiite areas and Shiites back to Sunni areas?”
Pilgrimage to Ramadi
Early in the morning on February 2, 2008, I joined Osama’s comrades Abu Salih, Abu Yusef, and other ISV leaders from their area as they gathered to depart for Ramadi, the national seat of the Awakening Council, the political movement led by Abu Risha. They hoped to translate their military success into political power, but rivals from Dora had pre-empted them and appealed to Abu Risha to grant them recognition. We left in a three-car convoy. Abu Salih drove the car I was in. He explained that he named his son after his uncle Salih, who was killed by the Mahdi Army. Close to the Hero House we were stopped at an Iraqi army checkpoint. A soldier ordered Abu Salih to open the trunk. “I’m Abu Salih,” he said. “Open the trunk,” said the soldier. “Dog, son of a dog,” Abu Salih muttered. “They have shitty manners.” We passed by workers putting up new concrete walls. “They closed off Baghdad, but they didn’t close the Iranian border,” he complained.
Driving west, we entered the Anbar province. Looking at the desolate flat desert with a few trees, Abu Salih said, “Iraq is beautiful.” Past the town of Abu Ghraib we saw a pickup truck with a large Russian anti-aircraft gun called a Dushka affixed to its back. The Dushka was often used as a heavy-infantry machine gun. Somali warlords had made it famous by placing it on their “technical” vehicles. “Now that’s the Awakening,” Abu Salih said, wistfully gazing at the Dushka. “How can we stand up to Gen. Abdul Karim with only Kalashnikovs?” We drove by more Awakening Council men with American Hummers and Russian PKCs, or belt-fed machine guns. “Ooh, look at that PKC,” Abu Salih said.
We drove by the large yellow Awakening Council flag. The flag bore the Bedouin coffee pot as its symbol, stressing the group’s Bedouin origins, of which some Sunnis were proud. Some Shiites, in turn, prided themselves on a settled farmer heritage. “Hopefully we will have this flag today,” said Abu Salih. We were meticulously searched before entering the Awakening Council headquarters, our pens checked, our candy squeezed. Inside a large opulent guest hall, supplicants sat on long sofas lining the walls. Abu Risha, brother of the slain founder of the movement, sat on an ornate throne under a picture of his brother Sattar. We were served tea by Bangladeshi servants, and he ignored us. Eventually he turned to our group and asked, “How is Dora?”
We followed him into a smaller office, where three of the rival men from Dora were sitting. They referred to Abu Risha with deference, calling him “our older brother” and “our father.” It was a strange phenomenon, urban Sunnis from Baghdad pledging their allegiance to a desert tribal leader, looking to the periphery for protection and representation, a reversal of past roles. But the Americans had empowered Abu Risha, and Baghdad’s Sunni militiamen hoped to unite with him to fight their Shiite opponents.
Abu Husam, one of the rivals, told Abu Salih that his men were merely guards, not the Awakening. “You are military and we are political,” he said. Abu Jawdat, the elderly leader of ISVs in an area adjoining Abu Salih’s, bristled. “We are a political entity,” he said. “We are not mercenaries.” Abu Risha’s political adviser attempted to calm the increasingly loud men. “Dora is big and can’t have one leader,” he said. “Are we in the time of Saddam Hussein?” He explained that the Awakening Council was preparing for national elections and that they should have elections in Dora as well to decide who will represent the Awakening there.
“Who fought Al Qaeda in Dora?” demanded Abu Yasser. “We all fought,” said Abu Husam. “No, you didn’t,” Abu Yasser snapped. “I fought and I won’t let somebody who I was protecting and was behind me come in front of me and say he fought. I was in the Army of the Mujahideen.”
Abu Husam stood up and accused Abu Salih of having been an Al Qaeda member. Abu Sali
h turned red and waved his arm over his head. “Nobody lies about Abu Salih!” he shouted. One of his companions jumped to his defense and explained that he belonged to the 1920 Revolution Brigades and was wanted by the Americans. “No, he wasn’t,” laughed Abu Husam. All the men spoke with respect of the resistance and jihad. To them this was merely a hudna (cease-fire) with the American occupation while they fought the Iranian enemy, meaning Iraq’s Shiites.
The men who fought Al Qaeda believed they deserved to be the new leaders. Abu Yusef explained that he had defended Dora’s Tawhid Mosque from the Mahdi Army and the Iraqi National Police. “I won’t let somebody who was behind me come in front of me,” he said. He was backed by Muhammad Kashkul, Osama’s former rival and a former officer in Saddam’s feared intelligence service. Kashkul fought alongside several resistance groups in the area, and still clashed with his American paymasters over his hatred for the local INPs.
Abu Salih was forced to kiss Abu Husam, but in the end Abu Salih and his men, and not their rivals, left with the Awakening Council flag. They would be the new political bosses for their area. On the way back they listened to Bedouin music about Arabs standing together even when the whole world confronts them. Abu Salih recited the songs. In one of them a guy swore he would get in his GMC and use his PKC and marry an Iraqi woman.
The previous night Osama received a phone call from the Americans. They had decided to appoint him head of a new tribal advisory council, something Maliki had just created, even though the makeup of the councils was vague. Osama didn’t know he was even a candidate, and he was not sure he wanted the added responsibility, though he knew it would help him protect his men. He explained that he made good money as a KBR contractor and that his wife wanted him to quit this Awakening business. In December he only made one thousand dollars from the ISV contract, and in January he made two thousand dollars. It was not a lot, he explained. He was also increasingly frustrated with the Americans. They were one week late paying him, and his men were agitated. Some suspected that he had been paid but kept the money for himself. A few days earlier Brig. Gen. Abdel Karim’s men had opened fire on Osama’s neighborhood and beat some of his men with their rifles. When the Americans did nothing, Osama threatened to quit and withdraw all his men. He argued with Lieutenant Colonel Reineke. “Reineke keeps telling me Abdel Karim is a good guy, he is the government,” Osama said. “I said, ‘Fuck the government. If I leave Al Qaeda will take over Dora.’”