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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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September 9th,
2007 - At Street Level, Unmet Goals of Troop Buildup |
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At Street
Level, Unmet Goals of Troop Buildup By Damien Cave and Stephen Farrell New York Times September 9, 2007 Baghdad, Sept. 8 - Seven
months after the American-led troop “surge” began, Baghdad has experienced
modest security gains that have neither reversed the city’s underlying
sectarian dynamic nor created a unified and trusted national government. Improvements have been made.
American military figures show that sectarian killings in Baghdad have
decreased substantially. In many of Baghdad’s most battle-scarred areas,
including Mansour in the west and Ur in the east, markets and parks that were
practically abandoned last year have begun to revive. The surge has also coincided
with and benefited from a dramatic turnaround in many Sunni areas where
former insurgents and tribes have defected from supporting violent extremism,
delivering reliable tips and helping the Americans find and eliminate car
bomb factories. An average of 23 car bombs a month struck Baghdad in June,
July and August, down from an average of 42 over the same period a year
earlier. But the overall impact of
those developments, so far, has been limited. And in some cases the good news
is a consequence of bad news: people in neighborhoods have been “takhalasu” -
an Iraqi word for purged, meaning killed or driven away. More than 35,000 Iraqis
have left their homes in Baghdad since the American troop buildup began, aid
groups reported. The hulking blast walls that
the Americans have set up around many neighborhoods have only intensified the
city’s sense of balkanization. Merchants must now hire a different driver for
individual areas, lest gunmen kill a stranger from another sect to steal a
truckload of T-shirts. To study the full effects of
the troop increase at ground level, reporters for The New York Times
repeatedly visited at least 20 neighborhoods in Baghdad and its surrounding
belts, interviewing more than 150 residents, in addition to members of
sectarian militias, Americans patrolling the city and Iraqi officials. They found that the
additional troops had slowed, but far from stopped, Iraq’s still-burning
civil war. Baghdad remains a city where sectarian violence can flare at any
moment, and where the central government is becoming less reliable and
relevant as Shiite or Sunni vigilantes demand submission to their own brand
of law. “These improvements in the face of the general devastation look small
and insignificant because the devastation is so much bigger,” said Haidar
Minathar, an Iraqi author, actor and director. He added that the security
gains “have no great influence.” The troop increase was meant
to create conditions that could lead from improved security in Baghdad to
national reconciliation to a strong central government to American military
withdrawal. In recent weeks, President Bush and his commanders have shifted their
emphasis to new alliances with tribal leaders that have improved security in
Diyala Province, the Sunni Triangle and other Sunni areas, most notably Anbar
Province. That area, not Baghdad, was
the one Mr. Bush conspicuously chose to visit this week. But when he announced on
Jan. 10 his plan to add 20,000 to 30,000 troops to Iraq, Mr. Bush emphasized
that Baghdad was the linchpin for creating a stable Iraq. With less fear of
death in the capital, “Iraqis will gain confidence in their leaders and the government
will have the breathing space it needs to make progress in other critical
areas,” he said. That has not happened. More
than 160,000 American troops are now in Iraq to help secure 25 million
people. Across Baghdad - which undoubtedly remains a crucial barometer -
American and Iraqi forces have moved closer to the population, out of giant
bases and into 29 joint security stations. But even as some neighborhoods
have improved, others have worsened as fighters moved to areas with fewer
American troops. Lt. Col. Steven M. Miska,
deputy commander of a brigade of the First Infantry Division that is charged
with controlling northwest Baghdad, said, “We’ve done everything we can
militarily.” He added, “I think we have
essentially stalled the sectarian conflict without addressing the underlying
grievances.” Sunnis and Shiites still
fear each other. At the top levels of the government and in the sweltering
neighborhoods of Baghdad, hatreds are festering, not healing. The political standoff
identified by this week’s Government Accountability Office report can be
found not just in the halls of Parliament. The distrust and obstinacy start
in the streets. Dealing with intermittent
electricity, few jobs, widespread corruption and fresh memories of
unspeakable horrors, Iraqis of all sects are scrambling for power, for
control. Iraq’s mixed neighborhoods
are sliding toward extinction. During the troop increase, Shiite militias
have continued to drive Sunnis out of at least seven neighborhoods of
Baghdad. The Mahdi Army, loyal to the radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr, is
turning into what many describe as a shadow government, while desperate
Sunnis have come to rely almost exclusively on American troops for their
protection - a remarkable turnaround from four years ago when the Americans
arrived. In the minds of many, the
fight is for survival. For others, the moment of calm has raised
disconcerting questions about Iraq’s societal breakdown and where to go from
here. The past seven months have crystallized a sense that the Americans are
no longer the primary issue: Sunnis most fear Shiite Iran; Shiites are
terrified of Sunni extremists and Baathists. What Congress must now
decide, based on extensive data and testimony from Gen. David H. Petraeus,
the top commander in Iraq, and Ryan C. Crocker, the American ambassador, is
to what extent an American presence can define Iraq’s future. The fifth and
final brigade of the troop buildup arrived only in June. General Petraeus has
focused on “tactical momentum,” citing the so-called Sunni awakening as proof
of success and cause for a continued and expansive American investment of
lives and money. But a close look at three
kinds of neighborhoods - Sunni, Shiite and mixed - indicates that while there
is certainly momentum, it is still largely driven by the sectarian forces in
Iraq, and moving according to their rules. In Huriya, a Shiite Takeover The Sunni mosques in Huriya
sit empty, burned and broken, while new monuments to revered Shiite imams
have arisen, framed in sparkling black marble. In that working-class
western Baghdad neighborhood, the signs of a Shiite takeover stand out - and
offer a glimpse into a possible future of a Shiite-ruled Iraq without a
capable, nonsectarian government. The Sunnis are gone, forced
out by the Mahdi Army. And in the wake of that rout - which peaked just
before a company of American soldiers moved into a joint security station on
Jan. 31 - violence has declined. One or two bodies a week now appear in the
streets instead of the 30 or 40 that surfaced weekly in December. Terror and instability,
however, have remained. Here and in nearly every other Shiite-dominated area
of Baghdad, from Ur and Sadr City east of the Tigris to Shula west of it,
residents and American officials report that the Mahdi Army has expanded and
deepened its control of daily life. Families in Huriya depend on
the Sadr organization for gas, medicine and other necessities. In return,
many Shiites say they live in constant fear of a knock on the door: sometimes
the gunmen come to borrow a car or a house; sometimes they demand help at a
checkpoint, or for a mission to kill or displace Sunnis from another
neighborhood. Whatever the militia
demands, it gets. “You have to prove your
loyalty to them, otherwise you won’t be safe,” said Lamyia al-Saedi, 31, a Shiite
government employee who moved to Huriya eight months ago after being expelled
from neighboring Adel, a Sunni stronghold. American commanders in
Huriya (Arabic for “freedom”) recognized the strength of the group’s
wide-ranging network soon after their arrival. In early May, a 40-year-old
Shiite police officer whose brother had been killed by the Mahdi Army would
only agree to talk to American soldiers at 3 a.m., after pulling an officer
and a reporter into a dark, unfinished room far from the street. A week ago, it was much the
same: to receive a tip from one of their sources, soldiers from Company A,
First Battalion, Second Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division had to wait until
everyone else in the neighborhood had gone to sleep. Some Mahdi leaders have been
pushed out, killed or captured, said Capt. George W. Feese, 29, the company
commander, but threats from others remain. Abu Sajat, one of several
Mahdi leaders known to Captain Feese’s unit, says he commands several hundred
fighters in Huriya, Washash, Iskan and Topchi, a cluster of middle- and
working-class areas that have become increasingly violent, and more Shiite,
in recent months. He showed up wearing a brown
shirt unbuttoned to his sternum, dark sunglasses and brown polyester pants
with a belt that had missed several loops toward the back. Pulling his belt over a
sizable stomach, he bragged that they were playing a game of cat and mouse
with the Americans in which the Mahdi Army always has more men, more loyalty
among Baghdad’s residents and more freedom of movement. Huriya, he said, was
stable because the Sunnis were gone, not because the Americans had arrived. “They can’t break up our
organization,” he said. “If you count all the Americans in Iraq, they are
really just prisoners.” In return for about $120 a
month plus “donations” collected from Shiite neighbors or Sunni victims, Abu
Sajat said his men had sworn loyalty to Moktada al-Sadr and promised to kill
Americans or Sunnis when called upon to do so. A younger member of the
Mahdi Army in Huriya said two men who refused to follow such an order in July
ended up dead. Sunnis remain Abu Sajat’s
primary target. After seizing control of roughly 100 Sunni-owned houses in
Huriya, Abu Sajat said his men moved on to Iskan and Washash, areas with a
lighter American presence to the south. Business has been good - pushing
Sunnis out brings in rents from Shiite families moving in, and profits from
the sale of furniture or cars. But Abu Sajat, 36, a former
pushcart vendor who said he spent seven years in prison under Saddam Hussein,
insisted that he had no interest in money. He said the militia’s earnings
from Huriya often went to less fortunate Shiites. Last week, he said his
command contributed 23 million Iraqi dinars, or $18,400, to Sadr City
families whose homes had been damaged or whose relatives had been killed in
American military raids. His justification for
attacking Sunnis was simple, and sectarian: “Their houses belong to us,” he
said. “They’ve colonized us for more than 1,000 years.” “Sunnis are just like the
puppies of a filthy dog,” he said. “Even the purest among them is dirty.” The Americans soldiers in
Huriya acknowledge that trying to dismantle the Mahdi network has been a
struggle. Several months ago, a photograph of another Mahdi leader, Haider
Kadhim, - “the No. 1 action guy in Huriya,” a soldier said - hung on the
walls of the windowless joint security station where they live. He was
someone whom the soldiers hoped to arrest or kill. Last week, his mugshot was
still there. Abu Sajat said Mr. Kadhim
was busy in Topchi, out of the unit’s reach. Captain Feese, the Company A
commander, said Huriya residents felt safer without thugs like Mr. Kadhim on
the streets. But even with the extra troops, there are parts of Baghdad, like
the northern neighborhood of Shula, where militias roam with impunity. There, at one of its refugee
camps, the Mahdi Army now brazenly issues laminated badges to those it deems
worthy of admittance. A recent American report
concluded that Mahdi Army leaders in Shula enjoy “freedom of movement” in
part “because of a lack of permanent CF presence,” referring to coalition
forces. Colonel Miska, who oversees
Shula, Huriya and other Shiite-dominant areas, said units regularly entered
the neighborhood for raids, which had killed or captured many prominent Mahdi
fighters. But, he said, referring to joint security stations, “We do not have
a J.S.S. in Shula, due to lack of combat power.” In Huriya, Captain Feese’s
men have tried to erase the militia’s signs of strength. They have not
touched the new Sadr monuments, but they initially tore down posters of Mr.
Sadr at the market, only to see them reappear. Many Iraqis, Captain Feese
said, hesitate to work closely with the Americans because “they know I’m
going home.” Even now, most Iraqis in Huriya still do not believe that the
Americans can protect them in a city where, two weeks ago, the Shiite head of
a neighborhood just southeast of Huriya was shot dead in a Mahdi-controlled
Shiite area. The killing was understood to be punishment for working with the
Americans. “You can put pressure on
it,” said Captain Feese, “but you can’t claim victory.” Contrasts of Sadr al-Yusufiya A roadside ditch here in the
Sunni triangle town of Sadr al-Yusufiya contains the two extremes of the
American experience in that Euphrates River farming village southwest of
Baghdad. At one end sit the remains
of a truck bomb that a suicide bomber from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia tried to
ram into the village’s American base in June. At the other end, a thousand
overheated Sunni men, ages 18 to 35, wait to be given physical examinations
and literacy tests by the very same American troops some of them were trying
to kill recently. The push-ups, pull-ups and
reading exams are the American military’s attempt to screen the candidates
and hasten their hoped-for entry into the Shiite-dominated Iraqi police. Those Sunnis now hope the
Americans will help them rejoin the new Iraqi order that they rejected, and
that has in turn rejected them for so long. But it remains unclear
whether an Iraqi government dominated by religious Shiites will be eager to
embrace the large-scale return of these young men of fighting age. Nor is it
clear whether the Americans’ new allies of convenience will submit to the
Shiite authorities in Baghdad. Many of the men’s fathers
and tribal leaders were officers in the Baath government’s military. Whatever the suspicions
harbored by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government - and
the suspicion is entirely mutual - it is the Sunni belt that has produced the
most tangible fruit for Mr. Bush and General Petraeus. Young men in fluorescent-banded
jackets stand on every corner, operating checkpoints as part of a growing
neighborhood watch venture that General Petraeus has seized upon and branded
“Guardians” or “Concerned Citizens.” Under the project, financed
by the American military, the local tribes are paid $10 a day per man to
provide security in their areas. Despite protestations from
United States commanders that they are not arming those “volunteers,” local
American officers confirm that the sheiks can spend the contract money as they
wish, diverting money from wages to buy weapons, radios or vehicles if they
choose. The “awakening,” as it has
been called, has brought early dividends. Suicide bomb attacks in Baghdad are
down - partly because those areas manufactured bombs and sent them into the
capital. Certainly, life at Patrol Base Warrior Keep in Sadr al-Yusufiya has
become much easier for Capt. Palmer Phillips and his men of Company B, Second
Battalion of the Second Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, out of
Fort Drum, N.Y. There have been only two
roadside bomb explosions in the last five months, and this week they drove
their Humvees without incident to and from sheiks’ houses late at night along
country roads that only a few months ago would have been treacherous. “We are now getting
information from the local volunteers,” said Captain Phillips. “They are
telling us very specific things about Al Qaeda’s activities. They are very
specific about checkpoints, people, ratlines and targets.” (Ratlines are
supply lines.) But there are undercurrents. On a visit to Sadr
al-Yusufiya last month, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the second-ranking
American commander in Iraq, met with the local sheiks. They made it abundantly
clear that their cooperation did not come free, and that they wanted tangible
benefits like jobs, weapons, vehicles, military supplies and electricity. They also delivered
not-so-veiled warnings that the Americans’ low-paying job-creation plan,
while welcome, was unlikely to keep their people on the right side of the law
for long. “We are determined to kick
out terror from our areas but, sir, you shouldn’t forget that fighting
terrorism has to be balanced,” cautioned Yassin Abed al-Gurtani, a former
general in Saddam Hussein’s army. “After a month or a few
months, what if this contract ends and people find themselves without jobs
and can’t join the police or the army?” he said. “We are worried that they
might join the wrong side, and we return back to square one.” Some have already reverted.
Fueling concern over the Americans’ eagerness to embrace untested new allies,
Captain Phillips concedes that he has already arrested 15 of the Concerned
Citizens “for suspected Al Qaeda ties.” Most were turned in by their own
checkpoint colleagues for “facilitating” the movement of wanted men. Captain
Phillips says he is convinced that most of the Sunnis genuinely want to get
back into the system, in which 85 percent of the National Police force is
Shiite, and is encouraged that the Iraqi government sent a senior
reconciliation official to talk to them. But there has been little
action. And he points out that there is simply no government near Sadr
al-Yusufiya for the Sunnis to turn to, even now that they want to. American
officers in areas where similar arrangements have been in place longer say
that the Sunni groups lack training and are already growing frustrated with
the slow process of being accepted by the Shiite-dominated police. As yet undeterred, the
Sunnis in Sadr al-Yusufiya spend all day in line, baking in the 100-degree
temperatures, desperate for jobs. Others show little interest
in national policing, saying they simply want to defend their local areas and
are sick of being unable to go even to nearby Mahmudiya without risk of being
killed by Shiite militias. Just as many Shiites
instinctively mistrust the minority that kept them down during the Baathist
era, so the Sunnis in Sadr al-Yusufiya show little sign of remorse, or of
desiring reconciliation. Many bridle at criticism of
Saddam Hussein. Heads shake at the mention of Hussein-era mass graves,
including one at Mahawil, just half an hour’s drive south. “Saddam just put
bad people in jail,” said Abu Ali, 40. “Some people, they exaggerate.” Almost all predict an
intensified civil war once the Americans leave. “We will fight the government
until the very last bullet,” threatened one, before dashing inside to try to
join it. Sahar Naeem Suleiman, 27,
went further. “If we get into the Iraqi police we can move to Mahmudiya and
Yusufiya and south Baghdad to free them and kill all the militias.” Col. Michael Kershaw,
commander of the Second Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, denied
that the United States was simply arming one side for future conflicts in
Iraq, saying that wider factors were at work. “Are they playing us?” he
said. “To some extent we are all playing each other, right? Everybody’s
self-interest is at the center.” “Somewhere they made a
political decision that Al Qaeda does not meet their self-interest,” he
added. “All Iraqis see that the United States’ time here is numbered. There
is a finite amount of time the United States is going to stay here and do
this, and they are going to have to figure this out eventually on their own.” Militants Quit Dora for Saydia Visible from any high point
in Baghdad are twin pillars of smoke that rise from an oil refinery and a
power station near the city’s southern edge. The eastern plume rises from
Dora, an area of industry, spacious homes and brutal Sunni extremists, while
the western plume edges closer to an area of mixed neighborhoods, including
Saydia. The wide Hilla highway has
long acted as a border, keeping the bloodshed of Dora from the stability of
Saydia - until the troop buildup. Nineteen-ton Stryker vehicles have hammered
through Dora over the past few months, bringing enough peace for a third of
the shops in Dora’s main market to reopen. But the push drove Sunni
militants out of Dora and into Saydia, where they began attacking Shiites. It
was not long before Shiite militias, including the Mahdi Army, responded in
kind, despite repeated calls by Mr. Sadr for a freeze in violent activity.
Saydia descended into chaos. With that, its status as a
tolerant, middle-class district shared by Sunnis and Shiites was lost,
following the precedent of so many other Baghdad neighborhoods. Saydia is now a virtual
ghost town, where the Shiite Mahdi Army and Sunni Arab death squads roam the
streets. If Iraq’s civil war has stalled in other parts of the city, in
Saydia the engines of sectarianism are running at full throttle. The hostilities now reach
down to the next generation. “I have been attacked personally by children as
young as 10 and 13 with hand grenades and so forth,” said Lt. Col. Barry Huggins,
a Stryker commander, describing the fight for Dora earlier this summer. The once-ruling Sunnis have
become even more hostile toward what they now regard as a triple occupation
of their country: by Americans, Iranians and Shiites who have seized power
from them. “The most dangerous thing is
the government and the people representing the government,” snarled Abu
Hashemi, 48, a Dora resident. He said, “If you ask anyone
in Dora, ‘Do you prefer an American soldier or someone belonging to the Mahdi
Army or the Badr Brigades?’ they will say ‘Leave the American and kill the
other.’ Because the Americans will leave Iraq but the other people are staying
with us.” American commanders are
worried about their staying power, too. Some of Col. Ricky Gibbs’s Stryker
battalions are rotating out, he told senior Iraqi and American officers last
month, and he wants more Iraqi police officers sooner than training units say
they can be properly screened, drilled and equipped. Even if the additional
troops stay on, Dora’s gains seem fragile. The restoration of order is still
too brittle to persuade the people who matter the most: the thousands of Dora
residents who have fled the violence, Sunni and Shiite alike. Sahira, 40, is a Shiite, but
her two daughters are Sunnis, like her former husband. Now living in Karada,
she was too afraid to give her full name. She hopes to return to Dora one
day, but her children have no such expectation. “All the residents have left
our area; it’s completely empty,” said one of her daughters, Noor, 20.
Nodding in agreement the other daughter, Sura, 23, said she was afraid to
admit at checkpoints that she is Sunni. “Shias are trouble,” she said,
heedless of her mother sitting opposite her. “They kidnap Sunnis at
checkpoints.” Wincing slightly, Sahira
rallies but has caught the gloomy mood. “They can’t control Dora,
despite the existence of the American bases,” she said. For now, the fight
has simply moved to Saydia - another example of the whack-a-mole problem that
the American military has struggled to overcome in Iraq since 2003. Qassem Hussein Jasem, a
40-year-old Sunni who fled Saydia two months ago, laid the blame for his neighborhood’s
collapse squarely on the surge. “It was a good area until
Operation Imposing the Law began to chase the terrorists and outlaws and they
started infiltrating from Dora and Bayaa,” he complained. It was here that Mr. Jasem
watched as Sunni extremists sprayed graffiti on the walls threatening, “Leave
the Neighborhood.” In response Shiite slogans sprang up, including, “Long
Live the Wolf Brigade,” a National Police unit widely feared by Sunnis. No one is more aware of the
police’s sectarian reputation than the American military transition teams
that advise them. They are frank about infiltration by the Mahdi Army, known
as Jaish al-Mahdi or JAM. “Because the National Police
are influenced or afraid to stop JAM, they will basically turnstile them and
let them drop down, conduct any Sunni missions, and then come back,” said
Maj. Andy Yerkes, an American adviser of the Iraqi police. “We know it
happens.” There are successes. Some
Iraqi commanders instill pride and discipline in their units, the Americans
say. In July, one Saydia policeman, Capt. Mushtaq Hassan, rescued a
9-month-old girl from a house where a death squad had just killed her family. This week in Washington, a
20-member commission on Iraq’s security forces harshly condemned the country’s
uniformed protectors. Captain Mushtaq dismissed
Sunni accusations of killings and torture as the smears of enemies “trying to
ruin our reputation because the Iraqi National Police has eliminated
two-thirds of the terrorists.” Pressed, the most he would
concede was that some “individuals” had done “bad things,” but he insisted
that they were exceptions. Few are convinced. First
Sgt. Timothy Johnson’s experience of the National Police is particularly
stark. Driving in mid-June past a National Police checkpoint, Sergeant
Johnson, a 43-year-old from El Paso, waved at the smiling Iraqis he knew
well, and received friendly waves back. Barely 50 feet later a
sophisticated roadside bomb known as an explosively formed penetrator hit the
rear of his Humvee, missing the crew but blowing his luggage out into the
road. The same smiling police officers promptly stole his computer, mobile
phone and camera and demanded a $40 bribe to give the computer back. “I don’t trust them,” he
said. “They will smile in your face and stab you in the back. They were just
too close to that E.F.P. not to have known.” Asked if things have
improved since then, he shook his head emphatically. “No, they are the same,” he
said. “It’s bad and it’s not going to get better. We’re not going to make a
difference, not in the short term. Maybe if we stayed here forever.” Reporting was contributed by
Ahmad Fadam, Karim Hilmi, Ali Hamdani, Mudhafer al-Husaini, Wisam A. Habeeb,
Sabrina Tavernise, Diana Oliva Cave, Johan Spanner, James Glanz, Michael R.
Gordon, Khalid al-Ansary, Ali Fahim, Ali Adeeb, Qais Mizher, Hosham Hussein
and Sahar Najeeb. Copyright 2007 The New York
Times Company External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/world/middleeast/09surge.html |