Curse of the Occupier
by Nyier Abdou
Can the US military be all things to all people? Nyier Abdou tags along with military patrols in Baghdad and finds that the price of US occupation goes both ways
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It's coming on dusk on a Sunday evening in Baghdad and journalists and locals alike are making their way inside, having been repeatedly warned to stay off the streets after dark. In Al- Rasafa, south of the Tigris, US soldiers are marching a handful of prisoners along the riverside and cars are slowing down while drivers gawk.
Just across the river, in Al-Kharkh, broods Saddam Hussein's elaborate palace complex - now the seat of government for the Coalition Provisional Authority. It is also home to the Organisation for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) and the Civilian Military Coordination Centre (CMCC), which watches over, among other things, the Third Infantry Division.
At the palace gates, behind the barbed wire cordon, the mood is playful. Captain James Brownlee is circling the grounds on a borrowed bike, a group of children screeching in delight as they run alongside. First Lieutenant Jason Redmon, 25, is getting a jokey briefing before he sets out on a night patrol with a journalist in tow. "Baghdad is safe. Let's just lay down some ground rules: there are no looters, no thieves, no crime. Back at the hotel by 11.00."
Iraqis are eager to bend a journalists' ear about the lack of services and security in the capital. But the military are just as keen to give journalists a piece of their mind, blaming inflated media tales of Baghdad as lawless and unsafe for their continued presence in Iraq.
LET'S GO FOR A RIDE
Redmon, blond and rosy-cheeked, talks softly with a Tennessee twang. "People here are real friendly," he says, as we pull out of the gates. "They seem to like us."
Like many of the soldiers in Alpha Company that I'll talk to over the next couple of days, this is Redmon's first time in the Middle East. Some six months after shipping out to Kuwait, however, just about everyone feels like its time to go home.
"They say once Baghdad is secure, we can go home," says Pfc (private, first class) Robert Baxter, a Georgia native. "We'll catch every looter and lock 'em up."
In the twilight hour, we make the first round of the unit's patrol zone. Mostly, they are looking for looters, who still haunt government buildings like the banks and ministries we walk through. I ask Redmon what constitutes looting these days, as many of the buildings we check up on are nothing but a shell of crumbling masonry. But people are enormously resourceful, and what to me may appear a wholly looted structure still holds hidden treasures - wiring, electrical fixtures, and, in the case of one bank, a safe with the cash still in it. The bottom line, says Redmon, is that no one is allowed in the buildings.
On a second pass through the patrol zone, the group stops to check in on a girls' school watched over by a lone guard. The guard is slow to emerge, signalling something is amiss, and when he does, his face is grim and his leg bandaged. An intruder, who jumped the fence in the late afternoon, attacked the guard with a knife. "Ali Baba", the man repeats fervently, pointing behind him at where the struggle must have taken place. "Ali Baba!"
I'm dumbfounded, wondering who the hell Ali Baba is. The name has become a working code between locals and the military they see as the only line of defence against rampant criminality. "Ali Baba" is every thief, every attacker, in Baghdad and beyond. But Redmon and Baxter are equally dumbfounded, wondering why the guard did not use his rifle.
The guard maintains the gun doesn't work, but Redmon, checking the gun, finds nothing wrong with it, but stops short of firing it. There is much confusion as the soldiers huddle around Redmon and the gun, the guard stoically insisting he needs a new weapon. Finally, in a shining moment of mutual understanding, it becomes clear that the gun works, just not to the guard's liking. He is actually demanding an automatic rifle. The soldiers are exasperated, claiming that he is sufficiently armed.
But the man is adamant, noting that his wife and baby live there with him and cannot afford to be unsafe. He shines the flashlight on his swollen cheekbone and insists on a tour of the looted school, pointing out the missing electrical fixtures and the bathrooms that have been picked clean.
But all this was looted a month before, and the soldiers are impatient. "I still don't see how he brought a gun to a knife fight and lost," mutters Baxter.
BREAK ON THROUGH TO THE OTHER SIDE
The limits of the patrol zone watched over by Alpha Company 4-64 are rigid, to the extent that most of the soldiers have not seen anything outside these invisible borders since taking Baghdad. They are familiar faces in the neighbourhoods under their watch, but Baghdad beyond the Tigris - what these soldiers refer to as "the other side" - is an unknown entity, shrouded in rumours of chaotic violence. In fact, it's no different from the area patrolled by 4-64.
Cut off from events outside their unit's purview, anti-American sentiment in Iraq is a foreign concept to the soldiers. When I stress that many people see the US as occupiers, and that the idea of foreign occupation is inextricably tied in the Arab consciousness with the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the connection seems obscure and far-fetched to them.
As an example, I point out that the base of the now-toppled statue of Saddam Hussein in Al-Fardous Square bears a message from fed-up Iraqis that is offered in plain, if misspelled, English: "all donne - go home". Scribbled on the back of a road sign beside the Palestine Hotel is a similar missive: "us army go home".
Redmon is surprised - even offended. "Really? Is that on the other side?"
It's not hard to see why Redmon and his company feel loved. As they drive their patrol, people wave, a look of relief on their faces, and children run alongside the truck, cheering. As the truck pulls into a vacant lot once used by Saddam's Republican Guard, overexcited children come bounding out of their houses, bouncing up and down squealing "Mister! Mister!"
The soldiers step down from the truck and are immediately mobbed by giddy children. Redmon is grinning, making introductions and tousling boys' hair, while the other soldiers horse around with the kids. This is obviously the highlight of the day for the kids, but it is clear that Redmon and the others look forward to it possibly just as much.
The soldiers are surprisingly ignorant of current events, dependent on what they can pump out of the odd journalist and what makes it into the weekly Stars and Stripes paper. Specialist Brad Young, 25, said he longed to get his hands on more liberal publications, and was eager to hear how a paper with an anti-war editorial policy had handled its war coverage. It was days after the suicide bombings in Casablanca, but no one I spoke to knew what I was talking about, and the attacks in Riyadh the week before were equally unknown.
When it's time to return to the hotel, the reality hits that the group will deviate drastically from their prescribed zone. Though the area of the hotel is just across the river and perhaps the most well known area in Baghdad, these guys have no idea how to get there. As we pass the palace gates and get on the bridge, Redmon remarks, not without a hint of apprehension, "Well, we're going on a field trip to the other side guys."
COPS AND ROBBERS: The next time I see Redmon and his group, they are roasting on top of a tank next to the bank, closed off from the throng of curious children and passersby by barbed wire. I'm following the same patrol zone with another group from 4-64, this time in the morning.
At the looted Ministry of Information, Staff Sgt Luis Castro, 25, and Sgt Jason Ratcliff, 28, are walking the grounds. Once again, the place looks like it has nothing left to offer looters, but once again, I am mistaken. As the two head up to the roof, they find that the stairs have been stolen. Ratcliff stares at the wall and then up at the next floor level with a look that is far more amused than it is worried. "They were there the other day...," he says.
On a second pass through the area, a man flags down the truck, waving wildly. A distraught woman says there is a thief in her apartment, just across the road. It's evident they have been waiting at this point since the last time the patrol was here. "Ali Baba!" she says, pointing at the apartment building. "Ali Baba!" the man next to her yells.
The soldiers head over to the apartment. Next to the stairwell, one of the residents, his hand bandaged, is hunched in a chair looking miserable. At the apartment door, Castro, Ratcliff and Pfc Ricky Jones, 18, bang on the door, their guns ready, but the woman doesn't have the key.
The residents beseech the soldiers to maintain a presence at their complex, saying that there are incidents every day. The soldiers hear this request from all the workers and residents in their patrol zone, and Castro doesn't even respond. "Everyone wants us here all the time," he says to me. "Obviously we can't be everywhere." He promises to pass by again in the morning and heads back to the truck.
Castro slumps into the front seat of the truck and sighs. "I feel like a policeman," he says. "A very under- appreciated policeman."
It's clear that this is what is expected of the US military, now that they are an occupying force. But soldiers don't feel they have the liberty to use the tough measures they think necessary to really secure the city - measures that would surely involve a harsh crackdown that would play badly on television screens.
"We can't win," says Ratcliff, who comes from Alaska. "If we try to keep things secure and keep the violence down, then we're too hard on them. If we don't, then we're just letting Baghdad slide into chaos."
It's the curse of the occupier. When I raise this point, the poignancy of the dilemma is lost on this crew, who seem more concerned with the fact that their efforts remain underappreciated.
OVER AND OUT
The next time I am at the palace, Private Jones is manning the gate. Private Michael Rusbarzki, 25, who was also on the patrol, is checking the cars. He is upbeat, saying that in a few weeks, he'll be going home to New Jersey. Castro is equally pleased to see his native New York, but adds that it was hard saying good-bye on what turned out to be a surprisingly emotional last patrol.
At the entrance to the CMCC headquarters, a small side room has been converted into a barbershop and soldiers can be seen being shorn reflected in gaudy palace mirrors seated on chairs with gold finishing. At the main hall of the CMCC, which watches over the Third Infantry Division (3rd ID), the halls are air-conditioned and the staff are dressed light for desk work. A board keeps tabs on press-friendly events for the day: "Girls school gets Girl Scout cookies", "Joint inter-agency cleanup - UN, USAID [United States Agency for International Development], Military". The adjacent meeting hall hosts a seemingly endless stream of briefings. More often than not, one can find a sea of servicemen looking serious with notepads in their laps being addressed by someone in civilian clothes - the mark of ORHA.
On one occasion, the crowd was especially large, spilling into the rest of the hall, and the orator addressed his audience with considerable pomp. "First of all, you should know that what you have done here is liberated Iraq. You have liberated the Iraqi people," he said. Feeling ignorant for not knowing who this evidently eminent figure was, I sheepishly asked a nearby sergeant who he was. The look I received made it clear that I had asked a manifestly absurd question. "I have no idea," he said.
I asked around, whispering quietly, but it was obvious that most people in the room had no idea who was talking - and that this was not only acceptable, it was perfectly common. He was just one of the talking heads from ORHA.
A 15-minute drive away in good traffic, the quarters of Alpha Company 3-69 - actually stationed inside the Martyr's Monument - is a world apart. Air-conditioning is only a dream here, as is electricity or a shower. At night, the mosquitoes are fierce, but zipping up in a sleeping bag is equally tortuous, given the heat.
First Lieutenant Wayne Sok, 25, is happy to take a reporter along as he goes about his business. He's looking forward to disappointing me, saying that if I'm here for the trenches of inter- city warfare, I came to the wrong place. "You're going to be so bored," he says with satisfaction. But as the tank pulls out onto the main road outside the gate, Pfc Ruben Esparza, 21, points to two red splotches on the wall across the road. "Two guys got shot there the other day," he says, slipping on his sunglasses.
FISH OUT OF WATER
The 3rd ID is one of the US military's few Combat Arms divisions that can move quickly. Although war preparations at the Pentagon were set in motion more than a year before, the 3rd ID were combat ready in less than 72 hours after being given the green light to move. Many think that this success was actually a curse, as it proves that a heavy military can still deploy rapidly, meaning the 3rd ID could be called on again and again to the front lines.
The 3rd ID led the attack on Baghdad and were involved in intense fighting during the war. With the arrival of the First Armoured Division (1st AD) last month, the 3rd ID had been told that they would be headed home by 1 June. Their families were informed and most were already counting the days, looking at Kuwait as the promised land. That was why Rusbarzki and Castro were in such good moods when I saw them at the palace a week before. But as time passed, it soon started to seep in that they weren't sticking around just to help ease in the 1st AD.
Most of what Sok does is community work, helping to get schools up and running and facilitate the formation of local organisations. But these soldiers feel that this is not what they were sent to Iraq to do. They were trained to move in tanks, guns blazing, not to attend to the gentler side of conquest: reconstruction. At the very least, if the US wants to keep a strong military presence in Iraq, it would benefit from drawing on the energy and good will of a fresh division, rather than further stretching the endurance of the 3rd ID.
Throughout the patrol, people find their way to the soldiers to air their grievances. Common complaints include disputes over property and theft. Sok has tried to gather together some sense of order by helping to arrange elections for a local council. The project has been so successful, the powers that be want more councils, more elections, and fast. Again, success is a curse, because it shows that the war-hardened 3rd ID is a versatile lot - they can fight the war and clean up the mess.
"The thing I really hate is that now that we're doing all these projects, humanitarian projects, no one cares," says Specialist David Dellenbaugh, 27. "No one writes about it."
At a local nursery school Sok sits in the office of the headmistress, arranging matters of payment for workmen, one fixing windows shattered during looting, another fitting the doors with locks. Dellenbaugh fidgets in a chair next to the door. It's hot and stuffy, but considering what the soldiers are wearing - a heavy flak jacket, a Kevlar helmet, one gun strapped to their leg and another slung over their shoulder and a knife strapped to their chest - I can't complain. Eyeing me with envy, Dellenbaugh says quietly, "I can't wait to put on a pair of jeans again."
As the unit unloads school supplies from a truck and carries them to the school next door, children peep out of their classroom, looking giddy and nervous. At last, the teacher asks the soldiers if they will come in for a few minutes. Esparza, Dellenbaugh and Pfc Lee Harless, 22, square their shoulders like they are bracing themselves for a mission, but they go in smiling. The small classroom explodes in cheers and Esparza positions himself in front of the blackboard, calling on students to read from the board. The kids shoot up to show off their English.
LET IT BE, LET IT BE
As the afternoon drags on, the soldiers look worn out, not so much by the heat but by the monotony of their days. Everyone is on edge ahead of a meeting with the generals called that evening. No one is expecting good news and when we get back to the Martyr's Monument, tensions are high.
When the soldiers start to trickle out of the meeting, the mood is solemn and angry. They've just been told that their stay has been extended indefinitely - three to six months were the numbers being batted around. Rather than being relieved by the 1st AD, the 3rd ID will remain as reserves, serving as a quick reaction force and helping out with patrols. Some will be sent out of Baghdad to hot spots like Tikrit and Faluja, but essentially, by holding onto the 3rd ID, the US has doubled its forces in Baghdad.
This has to be the lowest point for morale and the danger isn't just a matter of unhappy soldiers spreading their gloom around town. "This is going to backfire," says one soldier angrily. The threat of keeping the soldiers in Iraq is that they could end up venting their frustrations aggressively, responding to delicate situations inappropriately or violently. "It happened in Bosnia, and mark my words, it will happen here. They don't learn," the soldier said.
Although the march to Baghdad was depicted as swift and triumphant, it was not a smooth ride. "I learned to hate the night," recalls Specialist David Dellenbaugh. He joined the army right out of university, but five years later, he still can't say why he did it, or why he stays.
After one shoot-out with Iraqi soldiers, the soldiers went to check the bodies for information. Dellenbaugh discovered one soldier who was shot dead and lying on the ground. "He looked about my age," he says. "I don't know what it was, but it really affected me. I've seen a lot worse things, but I always remember that. I just thought, God, please don't let me end up lying face down dead on the ground."
I found one disgruntled soldier manning the gate to the headquarters of the First Brigade who was wondering why he was standing at a dusty checkpoint fending off locals.
"It's hard going from war to being a peacekeeper," he told me wearily. "We've seen this thing through from the beginning. We were the first ones over the bridge; we were told that anyone that comes in front of you is the enemy. We were to shoot them on sight. Those were our orders. The Iraqis were the enemy. Everyone is an enemy."
"Now they're our friends. Everyone's our friend," remarked the soldier.
"Actually, I thought we were supposed to be here to get one person, not take the whole country. But I guess that's not the case. Now we're here to keep the peace." Pointing to four guys in a car waving madly in enthusiastic friendship - they had just been rebuffed from entering the gate - he says dryly, "Those guys are the same people I was supposed to shoot on sight a month ago. Now they're supposed to be my friend."
IF IT BLEEDS, IT LEADS
"If you could sum up your patrol in one word, what would it be?" Wayne Sok asks one sergeant returning back to the barracks. "Safe," he replies. Sok looks at me and grins. "You see? I didn't even set that up."
This exchange serves as a launching pad for nearby soldiers to castigate the media for painting a picture of Baghdad as the "wild west". "Did you feel unsafe?" they demand. The truth is no. I too had heard the reports, seen the news footage. The Baghdad I found was a city rocked by uncertainty and shell- shocked by war, but not the lawless hellhole one could easily conjure from reports or even from the warnings of hotel staff.
"I think the real problem is the disparity between people feeling insecure and the city being insecure," suggests Sok. When I point out that people are being threatened in what many fear will spiral into a Ba'thist witch hunt, Sok notes that in his experience, he has heard stories about a lot of threats, but not about them being carried out. He does concede that there are violent crimes being committed in Baghdad and that there is a problem with criminal activity. "The fact is, it's not any kind of organised, anti-American group; it's not terrorist activity."
"The easiest way to have total security in Baghdad is to have electricity, an interim government and a police force," says Sok. "We're not the solution."
Painting Baghdad as dangerous and lawless, both in the media and within policy circles, could become a self-fulfilling prophecy and the hand of fate may already be in motion. A few well-timed attacks on American soldiers could easily provoke a disproportionate response from wound-up soldiers. Events like the killings of demonstrators in Faluja early after the war could become more widespread, enflaming anti-American sentiment and in turn encouraging more attacks.
Talking about the controversial breakdown in security, I told Luis Castro that in the south, and in parts of Baghdad, Islamists extremists were filling the credibility gap. I told him about the fatwa in Al-Thawra (formerly Saddam City) about punishing women who are not covered and anyone selling televisions and satellites.
"Makes you wonder if we did something good or something bad here," he said, looking out beyond the compound gates.
"Probably both," I replied
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– Nyier H Abdou
Nyier H Abdou
Al-Ahram Weekly
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E-mail: Nyier H Abdou
This article was first run on Al-Ahram Weekly
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