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PART 5 (final)
The wrong Ayoub
 AL-QAIM,
western Iraq - According to a major from the Judge Advocate General's office
working on establishing an Iraqi judicial
process, at least 7,000 Iraqis are being detained by US forces. Many
languish in prisons indefinitely, lost in a system that imposes
English-language procedures on Arabic speakers with Arabic names not easily
transcribed.
Some are termed "security detainees" and held for six months pending a review
to determine whether they are still a "security risk". Most are innocent. Many
were arrested simply because a neighbor did not like them. A lieutenant-colonel
familiar with the process adds that there is no judicial process for the
thousands of detainees. If the military were to try them, that would entail a
court martial, which would imply that the United States is occupying Iraq, and
lawyers working for the administration are still debating whether it is an
occupation or a liberation.
The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment's (ACR) S2 section, responsible for
intelligence, has not proved itself very reliable in the past and soldiers are
getting frustrated. "You get all psyched up to do a hard mission," says
Sergeant Scott Blow, "and it turns out to be three little girls. The little
kids get to me, especially when they cry." Even the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) operator could not recognize a large picture of Oday Saddam Husayn, one
of Saddam's sons, hanging on a wall.
The little confidence S2 deserves is made clear by the case of a man called
Ayoub. Apache Troop, acting on intelligence Captain Ray and his S2 staff have
provided it, raids Ayoub's home. Tanks, Bradleys and Humvees squeeze through
the neighborhood walls as the CIA operator eyes the rooftops and windows of
nearby houses angrily, a silencer on his assault weapon.
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"How do you think your mother would sound if they were taking you away?"
- First Sergeant Clinton Reiss
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Soldiers break through Ayoub's door early in the morning, and when he does not
immediately respond to their orders he is shot with non-lethal ordnance, little
pellets exploding like gun shot from the weapon's grenade launcher. The floor
of the house is covered with his blood. He is dragged into a room and
interrogated forcefully as his family is pushed back against their garden's
fence.
Ayoub's frail mother, covered in a shawl, with traditional tribal tattoos
marking her face, pleads with the immense soldier to spare her son's life,
protesting his innocence. She takes the soldier's hand and kisses it repeatedly
while on her knees. He pushes her to the grass along with Ayoub's four girls
and two boys, all small, and his wife.
They squat barefoot, screaming, their eyes wide open in terror, clutching each
one another as soldiers emerge with bags full of documents, photo albums and
two compact discs with Saddam Hussein and his cronies on the cover. These CDs,
called The Crimes of Saddam, are common on every Iraqi street and, as
their title suggests, they were not made by Saddam supporters. But the soldiers
saw only the picture of Saddam and assumed they were proof of guilt.
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"What do you tell a guy like that, 'sorry'?"
- US soldier
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Ayoub is brought out and pushed on to the truck. He gestures to his shrieking
family to remain where they are. He is an avuncular man, small and round,
balding and unshaven, with a hooked nose and slightly pockmarked face. It would
be impossible for him to look more innocent. He sits frozen, staring numbly
ahead as the soldiers ignore him, occasionally glancing down at their prisoner
with sneering disdain. The medic looks at Ayoub's injured hand and chuckles to
his friends, "It ain't my hand." The truck blasts country music on the way back
to the base. Ayoub is thrown in the detainment center. After the operation
there are smiles of relief among the soldiers, slaps on the back and thumbs up.
Several hours later a call is intercepted from another Ayoub. "Oh shit," says
Captain Ray, "it was the wrong Ayoub." The innocent father of six who has the
wrong name is not immediately let go. If he is released they risk revealing to
the other Ayoub that he is sought after. The night after his arrest a relieved
Ayoub can be seen escorted by soldiers to call his family and tell them he is
fine, but will not be home for a few days. "It was not the wrong guy," Captain
Justin Brown says defensively, shifting blame elsewhere. "We raided the house
we were supposed to and arrested the man we were told to."
When the soldiers who captured Ayoub learn of the mistake, they are not
surprised. "Oops," says one. Another one wonders, "What do you tell a guy like
that, 'sorry'?" A third says: "It's depressing. We trashed the wrong guy's
house, and the guy that's been shooting at us is out there with his house not
trashed." The soldier who shot the non-lethal ordnance at Ayoub says, "I'm just
glad he didn't do something that made me shoot him." Then the soldiers resume
their banter. Lieutenant-Colonel Gregg Reilly, the squadron commander,
acknowledges that he will have to make a big gesture of apology. "I can't just
drop him off at home and say 'sorry'," he says. "We embarrassed him in front of
his family."
The tapes of the other Ayoub's conversations are sent for analysis. In them he
speaks of proceeding to the next level and obtaining landmines and other
weapons. This rightfully alarms the army's intelligence officers. They are
confounded by the meaning of the intercepted conversation until somebody
realizes it is not a terrorist intent on obtaining weapons. It is a kid playing
video games and talking about them with his friend on the phone.
The procrustean application of spurious information gathered by intelligence
officers who cannot speak Arabic and are not familiar with Iraqi, Arab or
Muslim culture is creating enemies instead of eliminating them. One
intelligence officer of the 3rd ACR can barely hide his disdain for Iraqis.
"Oh, he just hates anything Iraqi," explains an officer engaged in operations
on Tiger Base, adding that the intelligence officers do not venture off the
base or interact with Iraqis or develop any relations with the people they are
expected to understand.
A lieutenant-colonel from the army's civil affairs office explains that these
officers do not read about the soldiers engaging with Iraqis, sharing
cigarettes, tea, meals and conversations. They only read the reports of
"incidents", and they view Iraqis solely as a security threat. They do not know
Iraq.
In every market in Iraq, hundreds of wooden crates can be found piled one atop
the other. Sold for storage, on further examination these crates reveal
themselves to be old ammunition crates. For the past 25 years Iraq has been
importing weapons to feed its army's appetite for war against Iran, the Kurds,
Kuwait and the United States. The empty crates are sold for domestic use. The
soldiers of the 3rd ACR assume the crates they find in nearly every home
implicate the owners in terrorist activities, rather than the much simpler
truth.
During Operation Decapitation, one of Apache's soldiers discovered one such
crate overturned above a small hole dug into a man's back yard. "He was trying
to bury it when he saw us coming," one soldier deduced confidently. He did not
lift the crate up to discover that it was protecting irrigation pipes and hoses
that had been dug into a pit.
Saddam bestowed his largesse on the security services that served as his
Praetorian guard and executioners. Elite fighters received Jawa motorcycles.
Immediately after the war, Jawa motorcycles were available in every market in
Iraq that sold scooters and motorcycles. Some had been stolen from government
buildings in the frenzy of looting that followed the war and which was directed
primarily against institutions of the former government.
Soldiers of the 3rd ACR are always alert for Jawa motorcycles, and indeed it is
true that many Iraqi paramilitaries have used them against the Americans. On a
night that Apache receives RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) fire at the border
checkpoint, they drive back to Tiger Base through the town. When they spot a
man on a Jawa, they fire warning shots. When he does not stop, they shoot him
to death. "He was up to no good," Captain Brown explains.
Reilly maintains that Jawas are fedayeen (paramilitaries loyal to
Saddam) motorcycles and that most curfew violators and placers of improvised
explosive device use them. Sheikh Mudhafar of the local Huseiba mosque claims
to know the victim. "He was an innocent construction worker," he says. "I saw
the dirt from the gypsum on his hands myself. Now tell me if his father or
brother is going to thank the Americans."
The day after Tiger Strike, Reilly meets with the clerical and tribal leaders,
deliberately arranging the meeting immediately after the operation so that he
can explain to them what he has done and why. In previous meetings following
operations, community leaders have informed him of innocent men he has
arrested, and he has deferred to their judgment and released them.
The clerics ask Reilly to release a religious leader he has arrested. "They
said it looked bad to arrest him, they didn't say it was the wrong guy," Reilly
explains later. The tribal sheikhs also ask for one man to be released because
his wife has kidney failure and there is nobody else to take her to Jordan for
treatment. The Solomon-like Reilly discusses the issue of paying reparations
for the innocent man his soldiers killed by the border checkpoint, a common way
of administering justice among Arab tribes of the region.
Reilly is very concerned about the way Iraqis perceive US troops. "I am
responsible for administering justice here for the whole area," he says. "We
cannot treat the Iraqis as second-class citizens." He discusses the coming holy
month of Ramadan with the clerics, meeting with them at the local Islamic
school and agreeing to lift the curfew that normally extends from 2300 until
0400 for that month, when Muslims fast during the day but eat and enjoy
festivities at night. Three RPGs are shot at the school. "The clerics were in
terror," Reilly says afterward. "They were very angry. It was good for them to
feel that terror." It is the third time Reilly has personally been attacked.
The next night the 3rd ACR's Bandit Troop departs the base at 0200, hoping to
find those alleged al-Qaeda suspects who were not home during Operation
Tiger Strike two days before. Soldiers descend on homes in a large compound,
their boots trampling over mattresses, in rooms the inhabitants do not enter
with shoes on. Most of the wanted men are nowhere to be found, their women and
children prevaricating about their locations. Some of their relatives are
arrested instead. "That woman is annoying!" complains one young soldier of a
mother's desperate ululations as her son is taken from his house. "How do you
think your mother would sound if they were taking you away?" First Sergeant
Clinton Reiss asks him.
They return to the base at 9am. That day there is a pizza party at the chow
hall. Soldiers guard the detainees, go out on patrols, and battle the desert,
sweeping away the sand desert winds have blown on their temporary home. But the
sand comes back every time the wind blows.
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 "You
get all psyched up to do a hard mission and it turns out to be three little
girls. The little kids get to me, especially when they cry."
- Sergeant Scott Blow
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sales and syndication policies.)
Part 1 -
'This is the wild, wild west'
Part 2 -
Why we are here
Part 3 -
The locals
Part 4 -
Operation Decapitation
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