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Iraq's restive 'Sunni Triangle'
Job No. 1 for US: knowing who's who
When Capt. Mike D'Annunzio wrote home from Iraq, the first books he asked for were "Catch-22" and "Through the Looking-Glass."
The novels sustain the Harvard-trained Army lawyer in his often maddening real-world job: Reforming the justice system in Tikrit, where for decades a dictator's word was law.
Figuring out who's who in a court system dominated by ex-Baath Party members is one of Captain D'Annunzio's hardest tasks. Salahaddin Province, with at least 600,000 people, boasts four times more party members than any other. "They're all thugs - just better or worse thugs. It's kind of like dealing with a mafia family," says, the tall, bespectacled D'Annunzio.
Still, D'Annunzio realizes the courts could not function without the provinces' 52 experienced judges - all former Baathists. The same dilemma exists with teachers, university professors, and doctors across Iraq. Like other US officers, D'Annunzio favors retaining benign regime holdovers whose technical skills keep basic institutions running.
One of those holdovers is Salah Khadar al-Jubouri, the province's silver-haired chief judge. Sitting behind a large wooden desk in his spacious Tikrit office, he explains that he had to join the party to attend law school. Now, he says, he is eager to deliver true justice. "And above me, there is a higher judge - God," he says.
Mr. Salah and other judges openly oppose some US-imposed legal reforms, such as the suspension of the death penalty. "If I don't impose the death penalty [in a murder case] the family of the victim will take revenge on their own," explains felony court Judge Shahb Ahmad Khader. "It will be like the jungle, the tiger eating the rabbit and the lion eating the mouse."
The judges also cling to old habits of patronage. As D'Annunzio leaves one meeting with Salah, a court employee corners him in the dirt parking lot. "The chief judge needs a new car. This one is not suitable for his position," he says pointedly. "You will do your best?"
Still, when civilian occupation authorities in Baghdad advised D'Annunzio to fire four Salahaddin judges, including Salah, he hesitated. The dismissal order amounted to "taking someone's political views and using it as grounds for removing them from office - in America, that would be unconstitutional," he countered. Besides, he said, "they've done everything I ask."
D'Annunzio and his interpreter scoured the judges' personnel files. They found no evidence against two of the judges. But documents showed Salah and another judge ranked within the top four tiers of the Baath Party, meaning they were barred from public sector jobs. Soon after, he fired Salah.
"[He] was upset but reacted in a very professional, almost eerily dignified way," says D'Annunzio. "At the end of the conversation, he offered me a candy from his dish as he had on every previous visit. His hand was trembling as he passed the dish."
An Army convoy rolls past fields and orchards to a gated farmhouse across the Tigris River from Tikrit. Ostensibly, the occasion is a social luncheon between US officers and influential tribesmen. Camouflaged by the grilled chicken, steaming pita bread and watermelon, however, some intense politicking is underway.
Capt. Dave Owens, the Salahaddin governor's US Army liaison, is on a mission to assuage the ego of Col. Jassam Hussein Jabara al-Jubouri.
The colonel, a key US ally, has been "ill" for two days and absent from his job as provincial security chief. In fact, he's threatening to resign over the failure of the US-appointed governor to fire the lieutenant governor, whom the colonel had investigated and accused of corruption.
Captain Owens brings excellent news. The governor, "advised" by Owens, fired his lieutenant that very morning. A wide smile lifts the colonel's black beard.
Hovering in a spotless white tunic, he urges the soldiers to partake heartily of the picnic spread before them on colorful quilts. He seems delighted as the Americans, literally, eat out of his hands. Back at work the next day, he kisses Owens on the cheek and hands him a string of blue worry beads.
Colonel Jubouri's power play illustrates how large tribes such as the Jubouri are making political inroads in US-occupied Iraq. The governor and police chief, to name a few, also belong to the Jubouri tribe. As part of Iraq's elite, such men are valuable sources of intelligence for the US military. Yet they also have a greater stake than other groups in excusing former Baathists and maintaining the status quo.
US commanders assert that they can replace at will the top provincial officials, whom they appointed. "They serve at our pleasure, and at any time we can have them removed," says Col. James Hickey, commander of the Fourth Infantry Division's 1st Brigade, which oversees a large region including Tikrit.
Yet a more symbiotic relationship appears to exist with the Jubouri tribe. Members of the tribe attempted to assassinate Hussein in January 1990, leading to a wave of arrests, retirements, and executions. Still, like many in Iraq, the tribe also benefited from preferential treatment and official sinecures under Hussein.
Gov. Hussein Jabara al-Jubouri, a former Republican Guard general, seems to relish his new job. "I used to be a very tough commander, but now I'm very peaceful politician. People say bad things about me, and I don't care," he says. He laughs off the RPG, small arms, and mortar strikes on his high-rise Tikrit headquarters as "weak attacks." Unbuttoning his shirt, he shows he wears no bulletproof vest.
Colonel Jubouri displays a similar bravado. He walks with a swagger that befits his personality, but actually resulted from a head wound sustained in the 1980s Iran-Iraq war. In 1991, he claims, he broke the arm of one of Hussein's personal bodyguards, who had opened fire during a tribal funeral. "Even Saddam threatened me because of that," he recalls. Today, Jubouri heads a special security force that protects the governor and reports on guerrilla activity. Coincidentally, the bodyguard he fought with was detained by US troops the day before.
Both men stress the need to co-opt ex-regime members who, if idle, could threaten the coalition. The province took the lead in distributing payments to the Iraqi Army, including 16,000 former soldiers in Tikrit. It made "exceptions" to allow 1,500 Baath Party members to retain their jobs. Finally, it assigned a deputy governor to promote "reconciliation commissions" - a move favored by some senior US commanders in Iraq.
Colonel Jubouri asserts that even members of Iraq's former intelligence agencies, such as the feared Mukhabarat, should be forgiven and employed. "Some security officers have asked me for a job," he says, as attendants serve tea. "There are 100,000 of these people in all Iraq - If we don't pay them and win them as friends, they will be our enemy."
Once Iraq has a new government, Jubouri says he hopes "our [American] friends will leave peacefully and return home."
As for his aspirations? "I would like to be part of the future Salahaddin government, such as lieutenant governor," he says, smiling over his role in ousting the man in that job. "There is an empty position now."
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TOM BROWN - STAFF
SOURCES:CIA; CIA WORLD FACTBOOK; PERRY-CASTANEDA MAP COLLECTION, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS.
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