Iraq's restive 'Sunni Triangle'
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TIKRIT, IRAQ –
"Walah! By God! He's just a sick old man!" the Iraqi women wailed as US soldiers blindfolded a balding, gray-haired suspect during a predawn raid in downtown Tikrit.
The man claimed to be a firefighter. US military officers said he was Brig. Gen. Daher Ziana, the former security chief for Saddam Hussein's sprawling palaces. This time, the Americans were right.
More often, though, US forces find Iraqis they detain pose little threat. Since June, troops have seized thousands of Iraqis in aggressive sweeps in the "Sunni Triangle," the 100-mile swath from Baghdad north to Tikrit where 80 percent of guerrilla attacks occur. The bulk of people apprehended - 86 percent of the nearly 700 captives in two operations - are quickly freed.
To be sure, the tough American tactics come as resistance fighters mount increasingly sophisticated strikes on US troops in what has become Iraq's killing zone. Three more US soldiers died in coordinated ambushes last week in Tikrit.
Yet whether it's US infantrymen kicking in doors, or intelligence officers sifting through files, the difficulty of distinguishing friend from foe is stymieing the US-led occupation of Iraq. Each case of mistaken identity - from detaining a student instead of a Saddam Fedayeen, to putting a corrupt Baath Party official in power, to accidentally gunning down Iraqi police - alienates more of the Iraqi public.
The problem is stark in Tikrit, a stronghold of regime diehards, powerful tribes, and senior members of Mr. Hussein's Baath Party. Here, graffiti scrawled in English on city walls declares "Down Bosh!" and "No USA!" Slogans in Arabic proclaim "All love and loyalty to our leader Saddam Hussein!"
Each morning, a line of citizens shuffles past a Bradley Fighting Vehicle at the dusty, barbwired gate of a Tikrit military compound. Skirting a machine-gunner at the front door, they make their way to a public complaints office run by the Army's 4th Infantry Division.
Half of the visitors are inquiring about Iraqis detained by the US-led coalition. Ten percent are seeking compensation for damaged property or for relatives killed accidentally by American forces.
Army Spc. Frank Mejorado, a blunt-spoken artilleryman from Aurora, Ill., who runs the office, says the requests range from the serious to the absurd. "One old man claimed he wasn't married because American forces invaded Iraq. He wanted us to go find him a wife," says Specialist Mejorado. "I'm not running an escort service."
Much of the day, though, Mejorado repeats his mantra on detainees. "We don't beat them. We don't kill them. They have food, water, and a chance to shower," he says in a voice scratchy from overuse.
One recent morning, a woman wearing traditional black robes, her face creased with worry, came begging for the release of her 25-year-old son. "He was sleeping and the Americans came and arrested him" 18 days ago, says Sabri Kahlal Gomai, dabbing her face with a handkerchief.
Mejorado's brusque tone softens. "In order to get the bad people, sometimes we take innocent people," he explains. "If your son is truly innocent, he will be released soon," he says. "
An asef - I'm sorry."
Sitting on a concrete ledge outside the Tikrit police station, patrolman Ali Hussein Jamel narrows his eyes and recalls the night that cooperating with American forces cost his friend a leg.
"A US headquarters was attacked, and they thought it was the [Iraqi] police, so they attacked us. My friend had his right leg amputated," says Mr. Jamel. In all, seven Iraqi patrolmen were injured, provincial police say. Similar tragic mix-ups, such as the accidental killing of 10 Iraqi police by US forces in Fallujah Sept. 12, reinforce the wariness of recruits such as Jamel.
"It's wrong to work with the Americans," he says to the nods of his comrades. "People are shooting at us all the time!"
In Tikrit and elsewhere, such suspicion is hampering cooperation between US forces and the 34,000 Iraqis hired as police nationwide - a force the coalition hopes to double next year. Indeed, US military police also doubt the motives and reliability of their Iraqi counterparts.
Under Saddam Hussein, powerful Iraqi secret police dominated while ordinary cops worked short hours and directed traffic. "We only did small jobs," says Maj. Gen. Muzhir Taha Hamed, chief of the 7,000-strong police force in Salahaddin Province, which includes Tikrit.
Today, US MPs must push recruits to work beyond 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., mount night patrols, and aggressively investigate crimes. Seeking to change the "military mind-set" of Iraqi trainees, they are spending $50 million to outfit the Salahaddin police with new uniforms, handcuffs in place of rags, and pistols instead of AK-47s. Moreover, in a three-week class, they are teaching Iraqi recruits basic ethics, such as refusing "gratuities" for their service and never forcing confessions by torture.
"There were a few who really thought torture was part of the process. If you couldn't get the information by interrogation, you just beat it out of them," said Sgt, 1st Class Michael Robledo of the 720th Military Police Battalion.
Some Iraqi police in Tikrit welcome the training and new power to enforce laws fairly. "Now we make the decisions," says Iraqi 1st Lt. Basel Misfer. "Before the war, Saddam Hussein's relatives were untouchable."
Others, however, tick off drawbacks to the US-Iraqi partnership.
"It's too dangerous, [we] want to stay alive," says Fadhel Mesher Mohammed, adding about that 30 of his colleagues have quit the Tikrit force. Several police suggested they patrol separately from US forces, to avoid being targeted as traitors. Police pay, ranging from $60 to $120 a month, is too low to compensate the risk, Mr. Mohammed complained. Moreover, he's lost the hefty "bonuses" from the resale of confiscated smuggled goods under the old regime.
The bottom line, says provincial chief Hamed: "Iraqis don't like Americans telling them what to do."
To counter such sentiments, US commanders have at times adopted Machiavellian tactics. North of Tikrit in Bayji, they set up a new police headquarters next to a US civil-military center. "Now if [guerrillas] shoot RPGs [rocket-propelled-grenades] at us at night, Iraqis are in the line of fire, so they have a great incentive to go out and find these guys," said one Army officer.
Next:
Job No. 1 for US: knowing who's who
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