Manal knew the Americans’ departure, and the election, didn’t guarantee peace; she knew she wouldn’t be able to walk back into her Baghdad office any time soon. She also knew all too well that one national election didn’t mean the country was democratic. She could see that this wasn’t an election so much as a census. No one had voted on issues. In fact, throughout the campaign not a single party had even mentioned where it stood on the critical questions facing the country: Now that the CPA was gone, should the U.S. military also leave? Should the Iraqi legal system be based on Islamic or secular law? Should the country remain united or divide into three regions based on Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish identity? The victors of this election would oversee the drafting of the constitution in 2005—yet no party ever discussed its vision for the constitution.
Instead, the parties campaigned for the elections on one issue: Are you a Shia, Sunni, or Kurd? Since most of the country was Shia, they dominated the election returns. Manal felt defeated. Rather than unite the nation, the election had only deepened the divisions between the ethnic groups.
The Shia United Iraqi Alliance won 48 percent of the vote, earning 140 out of 275 parliamentary seats. Top Shia clerics had encouraged Iraq’s many Shia parties to unite under one block that would sweep the elections and ensure their dominance in the new Iraq. They did so. The Kurdish parties did the same and came in second. Their group, the Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan, received 26 percent of the vote. The secular party, the Iraq List, led by the interim ruler, Ayad Allawi, came in third with 14 percent. George Bush, who had recently defeated John Kerry for a second term, heralded the elections as a great victory for democracy in the Middle East; but Manal felt like choking.
“Great—American-style democracy has just installed an Islamic theocracy!” she said to Ahmed, who was equally glum.
“Iraqis are voting for security,” he pointed out. “That’s it.”
Yet the election results promised only more violence. The real losers were the Sunnis. Although they made up one third of the country’s population, their party received only 5 percent of the vote because, at the last minute, Sunni leaders called for a boycott of the elections. Anticipating a Shia victory, they had hoped to scuttle the entire process. In some Sunni areas, turnout was negligible on election day and many were threatened against going to the polls.
But their plan had backfired.
The election had gone forward, and was largely considered legitimate, and now the Sunnis found themselves with few seats. They would have almost no political power in a government that would run all the country’s ministries, and oversee the drafting and writing of the constitution. Sunni leaders soon regretted this boycott, and the Americans went to great lengths to bring them back into the power process, but the whole government was so chaotic it was difficult to control or direct.
The other group that suffered, ironically, was the women.
They had won more than their required quota of representation: about eighty-seven members of the new government would be women and there would be six female ministers. Women were allowed to join the army and the police. A “women’s ministry” had been added to the cabinet. On paper, Manal saw, women had done well. Percentage-wise, they now had higher representation in the government elected by Iraqis than in the one imposed by the Americans.
But when Manal looked at the women in office, she was very concerned. They were all on the ticket of the conservative Shia parties. She was furious and frustrated. Well, we got our representation of 25 percent women in government, she thought, and guess what: they’re all covered in black from head to foot and even more conservative than some of the men.
So much for the hope that the quota would mean snap—women’s rights! It’s harder than that, Manal thought angrily. Of course it is. Although they had risked their lives to campaign and were educated professionals—dentists, scientists, and professors—these women all supported Islamic law, which would forbid almost all freedoms for the women they governed. Nasty gossip abounded that they were merely puppets for the male party leaders and would do whatever they were told.
As for the women’s ministry, it wasn’t even given a budget.
In only a few months, this new government would begin to draft Iraq’s first constitution. Would these women fight for the rights of their Iraqi sisters, or would they rubber-stamp whatever the male leaders decided? If they pushed for women’s rights, what kind of rights would they be? For certain they would vote for Islamic law, but would they favor a progressive interpretation of that law on family matters? Would they defend women on issues such as divorce, child custody, polygamy, and inheritance? Would any of it even matter if the violence persisted?
CHAPTER THIRTY
ZIA DECIDED AGAIN that she would have to leave Iraq. She knew her plan might take months, maybe even years, to execute, but after she made up her mind to get out, she was determined to make it happen. Even if she had to go alone.
Keith, for his part, showed no signs of wanting to leave. In the spring of 2005, he signed another yearlong contract with the Project Contracting Office, this time to wire up the new U.S. embassy and adjacent buildings. Zia was devastated. He assured her he loved her, and that he wanted to finalize his divorce and marry her—but he just couldn’t leave. Keith felt he had to stay because the pay was incredible for the work he was doing, and his expenses were minimal. He needed the money, he explained, since his daughter would be going to college soon, and his ex-wife was always emailing him about child-support payments and bills. There were other reasons Zia suspected: she knew that, to him, the rockets overhead, the long hours, and the lack of modern conveniences were easier to handle than the responsibilities and stresses of life back home. Like so many others, he had become sucked in and lost perspective. Keith had become addicted to an experience that gave his life meaning. He felt a moral obligation to the Iraqis not to abandon them. The United States had to finish what it had started. It was an ironic reversal from the days when she dreamed that they’d both find work with the new government and build a life together in Baghdad. They argued.
One evening, Zia saw Keith staring at his computer screen with a distant look in his eye. Someone had sent him images from a suicide bombing: mangled intestines, arms stuck in trees, legs severed and scattered alongside empty water bottles and plastic bags. “Jesus,” he muttered.
The contractor who had forwarded the photos was complaining about how the media ignored the mass casualties of the suicide bombers to focus on the acts of a few soldiers in Abu Ghraib, that no one understood what it was like to be living there, in fear of this kind of thing all the time.
“Hey,” she said, her hand on his shoulder. “C’mon. Don’t look at these.”
“This is what you and your family see every day,” he said. “I’m here. I have to see it too.”
“It’s a privilege not to see this. Don’t punish yourself.”
Zia finally began to understand that, for whatever reason, Keith couldn’t tear himself away from Iraq. If she wanted to start a new life somewhere else, she would have to leave without him.
But how? She knew she couldn’t move back to Jordan again; last summer had been a disaster. And European countries were all denying visas to Iraqis. She could simply roll the dice and apply for a tourist visa or a student visa to the States, but that was complicated and success was unlikely. Although the largest U.S. embassy in the world was in Baghdad, just steps from her, the State Department refused to accept visa applications. In hopes of thwarting the many legitimate claims for asylum flowing from Iraq—and all the bad press this would engender—the State Department had made applying for visas as difficult as possible. Iraqis wishing to visit the United States had to fly to Amman, usually twice, to submit their paperwork and have an interview. The cost of a round-trip flight was twelve hundred dollars, beyond the budget of most. She couldn’t imagine going through all that only to be turned down. Furthermore, denied applicants got a red DENIED stamped on their pa
ssports, making it almost impossible for them ever to be considered in the future. Plus, other countries looked suspiciously upon applicants rejected by the United States.
Months passed, and Zia refused to give up. Everyone told her, “You’ve got to know someone.” She gathered letters of recommendation from everyone she’d ever worked with, expounding on her loyalty, her dedication, her natural leadership style. She photocopied images of her badges and security clearances, evidence of the two years she had worked for U.S. companies in Iraq. She had bank statements showing more than ten thousand dollars in savings. She had documented the attempt on her life, and that it had happened because she worked for the Americans. In any other time or country, such a background would have been more than enough to award her instant asylum, but the Bush administration didn’t want the political disaster of thousands of Iraqis leaving the country for the States. America was supposed to be winning the war. Sorry, they told her—the State Department is rejecting everyone.
Summer 2005 approached. Zia’s second stint in the Green Zone had lasted six months, and U.S. officials were making noises again about her leaving. Her old friends the IMN security contractors Pappy and Pat were gone. Their replacements distrusted Iraqis, and had no sense of trust or sympathy toward her. There wasn’t space for Iraqis, they said. “No locals on embassy property,” they said. They were going to kick her out again. Her only alternative was to move in with Keith, and share the one small bed in his trailer. Other Iraqi women had taken that route, out of desperation. She wouldn’t do it. Zia felt the walls closing in on her.
She desperately started emailing every American friend she had: “Please, can you help me?”
A REPORTER WHO received Zia’s email had recently met a senator’s aide at the March 2005 funeral of the aid worker Marla Ruzicka, who had been killed, along with her Iraqi colleague, Faiz al-Salaam, by a suicide bomber on the Baghdad airport road. Marla had been a popular figure in Baghdad, and she had started an organization, the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC), to aid innocent Iraqis who were accidentally harmed by U.S. military action. Although Marla was only twenty-eight, she had successfully lobbied for more than $10 million in funding for her cause. Her car had been on the highway when a suicide bomber slammed into a convoy of diplomats. Unable to afford the kind of armored car that diplomats drove, Marla and Faiz both died from the blast. Zia herself had been on the airport road after the explosion, and had seen the plumes of smoke and charred, carcass-like remains of the vehicles.
After hearing of Zia’s desperate situation in the Green Zone, and that it was due to her two years’ working for the Americans, U.S. senator Patrick Leahy agreed to write a letter on Zia’s behalf to the U.S. embassy in Jordan.
After several months of emails and paperwork, Zia formally applied for a visa to the United States and flew to Amman for her interview. A tourist visa would give her only three to six months in the country, but a temporary solution felt better than nothing. She was taking a chance in applying, and she knew it. But it was her only chance.
The U.S. embassy in Amman was a sorrowful scene. Hundreds of Iraqi refugees crowded into chairs and stood along the walls. Embassy officials, through thick glass, were shaking their heads. Finally, Zia’s turn came. She approached the counter and spent ten minutes answering the questions of a young man with sandy hair who couldn’t have been much older than she was. He sat comfortably under the U.S. flag, safely behind bulletproof glass. The senator’s letter lay in front of him. Zia knew she was just one of millions across the world who dreamed of going to America, but she tried to make him see that to reject her was to issue a death sentence to someone who had fought for and believed, more strongly than anyone, in the values of freedom and justice that the United States was supposed to stand for. She just couldn’t let him deny her.
Finally, the official started nodding his head. She watched in awe as he stamped her passport APPROVED. She wanted to sing and dance. Her relief was so great that she leapt into the air. “Thank you,” she said to him, almost in a whisper.
He smiled. “Ma’am, we appreciate all the work you’ve done for us in Iraq.”
It was the first time she had ever heard those words.
NUNU ANSWERED THE phone.
“Nunu, they accepted me!” Zia was practically yelling for joy. She would return to her trailer in the Green Zone until her tourist visa went into effect two months later, in September 2005. She didn’t have a long-term plan, necessarily, but she was sure something would happen.
Mamina and Nunu were thrilled to hear the happiness in her voice, though it was all happening so quickly. Nunu envied her sister: at least her life was moving. She, on the other hand, was stuck in this tiny house with Baba. He, for his part, opposed the idea of Zia’s move: “You don’t leave your country” was all he said.
Zia explained to Nunu that Keith, too, was upset, and didn’t want her to leave him. “Good,” Mamina said. “When he sees he is losing you, this will force him to make a decision.” Privately, in recent months, Mamina and Nunu had grown irritated with Keith’s inaction and spoke disparagingly about the American custom of “dating” that Nunu had learned about on television. If an Iraqi man desired to spend so much time with a woman, he had to marry her and provide a furnished home. Yet Keith wanted to enjoy the best of both worlds: a first wife in the States and a younger “second wife” in Iraq. From Mamina’s viewpoint, a man had no incentive to marry a woman with whom he was already sexually active. So her daughter’s only advantage was her virginity, and the hope that Keith had fallen so in love that he couldn’t live without her. But as the months passed and Keith made no move to leave Iraq with Zia, Mamina and Nunu had begun to doubt that he truly loved her. Knowing the depths of Zia’s feelings for Keith, neither she nor Nunu dared share their concerns.
Zia was also frustrated with Keith. But she felt sadness mixed with pride that she had made her own destiny, without his help. Nunu admired that about her big sister—she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to do such a thing.
Zia flew back to Jordan in September, and Mamina and Nunu flew in to meet her with clothes, makeup, and jewelry for the trip. Almost a year had passed since the family had all seen one another. When they arrived, Zia had been napping. She opened the door half-lidded and in rumpled work clothes, and the three women hugged with happiness. They spent two days rushing around preparing for Zia’s voyage. At night, the mood was bittersweet. Who knew when they would see one another again? Mamina thought of all the relatives she had said goodbye to over the years. Her family had been torn apart and scattered across the world. Now she was losing her daughter as well.
“Mamina, sleep with me,” Zia called out from her bed. “I want to be close to you. I will miss you.”
Mamina felt that her entire body was being twisted. She swallowed her tears. “Don’t be sad. The way was closed for you, and at the last moment, God opened up this passage, like a crack in the door, and the light is coming through. This is the way intended for you. Go through the door.”
It broke Zia’s heart to leave her family, but returning home would only put them in danger. She took Nunu’s T-shirt to sleep in, for comfort. As she drifted off, Nunu tried to picture what the future might hold for her sister, but it was impossible to imagine. She had never left her family, or taken such a journey in her life. Iraqi women were not expected to leave their homes unaccompanied, and here she was getting on an airplane by herself and flying halfway across the world. All Nunu could do was shake her head and say, “It takes guts to do what you are doing. I would never have the bravery.” They were worried for Zia; it never occurred to them to worry for themselves.
They didn’t know when their family would be together again. She didn’t intend to stay in the United States illegally, but as Zia lay in bed with Mamina and Nunu, they all knew, silently, that she didn’t plan on returning to Iraq.
The following morning, they decided to say goodbye in the apartment, not at the airport, to avoid d
rawing attention with tearful scenes. The morning of Zia’s departure, she spoke with Baba. He seemed sad. Zia suspected he wanted to say more, but he was trapped in the mentality of an old Arab man; he had to be tough and show no emotions. Upon leaving, all he said was “I am happy that you are getting what you want out of life. Maybe I’ll visit you in America, but I’ll never leave Iraq.” Nunu figured that was the closest he’d ever come to giving his blessing.
Nunu barely remembered the goodbye. Had she not steeled herself against her emotions, she would not have been able to let her sister leave. She watched through her tears as Zia softly closed the door behind her and left the Middle East for good.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
ALTHOUGH SO MANY of the people she had known and worked with over the past two and a half years were leaving or had already left, Heather was determined to stay in Iraq. When she had arrived, she had been filled with such a deep hope to help turn Iraq into the Arab world’s first true democracy. She now knew that was impossible, but her new dream, however unlikely it might be, was to see the country rescued from complete disintegration and brutal civil war.
Such a goal was getting harder and harder to achieve. The tension she felt between the Westerners and their Iraqi staff on the night Samson died had only grown worse as more and more Iraqis were retaliated against due to their jobs. Heather had hoped the January 2005 elections would move the country toward peace, but it had only marginalized the Sunnis and deepened the divisions. Every day brought new, extremely worrisome signs of division between Sunnis and Shias. A letter had been intercepted by the U.S. military from the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who had ties to Al Qaeda, calling for Sunnis to attack Shias as a battle strategy to regain Sunni dominance in Iraq. Shia shrines, mosques, and neighborhoods were coming under attack. In retaliation, the new Shia-led government was systematically purging government ministries of any Sunni employees. Iraq’s Interior Ministry, which was running the police force, was accused of arresting and torturing Sunnis. Sunnis were planning attacks on Shia neighborhoods, and vice versa.
Sisters in War Page 29