Iraqis fight out of fear and fervor

The 19-year-old Iraqi war prisoner shook and cried as he was led into a US medical tent at a dusty camp. But it wasn't because he had a gunshot wound in his right leg.

"He thought we were going to execute him," says Sgt. Mark McLaurin of the 3rd Infantry Division's 566th Medical Support Company. By the next day, the boy was saying, "Thanks," and calling Sergeant McLaurin "Doc."

The young prisoner, like many captured Iraqis here, said he had been forced to fight by Saddam Hussein loyalists who made death threats against his family.

The teen's story illustrates the fear that grips many Iraqis - and how the desperate choices they make are shaping the course of the war. His experience lies at the core of one of the central mysteries of the two-week-old conflict: Have the Iraqis been fighting so diligently in the south because they've been coerced or because they're defending their homeland against an outside aggressor?

While many clearly have fought because they resent the US and British presence, others have taken up arms out of fear of retribution from internal forces.

Of the more than 700 Iraqi prisoners handled by the Army's 3rd Infantry Division so far, about three-fourths are soldiers and the rest civilians. Interrogations have indicated that the majority does not support the Iraqi leadership, US officers say. "Frankly, I'd say about 50 to 75 percent of these guys are afraid of the regime and glad to be in our care at this point," says Csm. Chuck Medley of the 3rd Military Police Battalion, which guards the camp.

Teenaged boys trembling with fear, 70-year-old farmers run off their land, college students abducted from their dormitories - all driven to the front lines and handed a weapon - have recently passed through this temporary camp.

"You put them in the middle of combat, with the Americans on one side and the Baath Party on the other, so they take a gamble with their life," says Mike, a former Iraqi Army officer working as a US military linguist. "They think, 'Maybe there is a 50 percent chance I will be a war prisoner with the US, but if I go back to the Baath Party, it's 100 percent sure I will die,' " says Mike, who withheld his full name.

Fear of Baath Party reprisals - and a deep skepticism of Washington's staying power due to the abrupt withdrawal of US forces from Iraq in 1991 - explains, in part, why the number of Iraqis surrendering has been far lower than expected, US officers say.

"We thought we would have anything from 10,000 to 16,000 [prisoners]," says Capt. Mark Germano, who handles operations for the 3rd Military Police Battalion. Some officers say they expect the number of prisoners to increase "dramatically" as US forces advance north.

Not all Iraqi prisoners were motivated to fight by fear. In interrogations here, a number of relatively senior officers and hard-core Hussein backers have openly voiced their opposition to the US-led military campaign. "They say, 'The US invaded our country, and so we are going to fight,' " says Mike, who recently questioned an Iraqi colonel and two lieutenant colonels.

These staunch Hussein supporters are considered highly dangerous to US troops. "We have some Iraqi soldiers who would kill you in a heartbeat if they got the chance. So we have to be constantly on guard," says Sergeant Major Medley.

Page: 1 | 2