Iraqi Death Squad Hits Close to Home
Mandi Matti, 22, Western Iraq
(Two Iraqi men's names
withheld for security reasons.)
The following article was written after returning from my first trip to Iraq in the summer of 2005. I spent four months in Baghdad and other towns within the infamous Sunni Triangle as an active duty military service member. I longed to write about my experiences while I was in country but chose against it as I witnessed firsthand and heard the reports of numerous military members being chastized and punished by their chain of commands for the content of their blogs. I have recently separated from the military and am returning to the Middle East as a civilian non-combatant, hopefully able to operate within the full realm of freedom of speech. I did, however, want to share this article from my previous journey.....
While sitting here at my desk struggling to find the perfect attention grabbing line with which to open this article, I focus my gaze upon the small silver ring I have been wearing on the middle finger of my right hand every day for the past 10 months. This seemingly insignificant distraction just so happens to be the fundamental symbol of my inspiration for writing this article. It is nothing but a simple trinket that, aside from its obvious Arabic/Mid-Eastern design pattern, looks as if I could have retrieved it from a bubble gum dispenser at the local supermarket. However, the ethereal emotional strings that link this modest bauble to my heart are beyond precious to me and worth as much or more than any of my other material possessions.
The ring was a friendly gift from an Iraqi man with whom I worked while on a deployment to
When I arrived on my first day of work and discovered that I would be working side-by-side with Iraqi civilians and even former Ba’ath Party members, I fully expected to be disrespected and ogled barbarically; but my new coworkers were a far cry from the ignorant, heathen, womanizing degenerates our media often portrays typical Mid-Easterners as being. I quickly realized that I had been severely mistaken in my negatively preconceived and stereotypical perception of the Iraqi people. They were predominantly members of the middle and upper-middle classes of
I developed a uniquely compelling relationship with many of the Iraqis with whom I interacted on a daily basis and found it more enjoyable to socialize with them than some of my American counterparts. It was an interesting two-way learning process that I reveled in and absorbed like a sponge. At the time of my arrival in country I could barely locate
Rubah, an engineering graduate of
This seemed to be the common sentiment amongst most of the Iraqis I socialized with, both at work and throughout the country. I realized there was a slight inconsistency between the concepts of the Iraqi people and the American government regarding the overthrow of Saddam’s regime and the redevelopment of the country.
Like most of the Iraqi civilians who support the
Due to the Shi’ite domination – with its significant Iranian backing – of the new Iraqi government, massive anti-Sunni sentiments spread like wildfire. The Interior Ministry’s personal security brigade, known as Badr Forces, evolved into a full-scale death squad rounding up and executing numerous Sunni Muslims who held positions in the former government. Badr Forces specifically targeted former intelligence operatives like Hajji Haitham and many of my other fellow coworkers because of their involvement in the 1980’s war between
For several months, at least one of our Iraqi employees was kidnapped every 72 hours. Their tortured corpses were usually discovered dumped in alleys 2-3 weeks after their disappearance. The employees begged my bosses for help and protection against the secretarian crimes. “Why you no help us? Why you not confront the new government and go after Badr Forces for these horrible things they are doing?” But these pleas were usually met with a shrug and a response of, “I’m sorry but it is not our business or in our control to interfere with such occurrences.”
I felt helpless and ashamed that we, the American liberators, were doing nothing to protect the people who were risking everything –their homes, their lives and the lives of their families – to work with us and support our cause. I often asked myself, “How can we expect these people to continue backing the American agenda when we leave them fully exposed and vulnerable to the enemy?” It was a textbook case of red-tape bureaucratic politics that adversely affected both parties and thwarted our overall mission.
For most of my time in country I remained relatively disconnected from the violence and dangers of
Exhausting every connection Laith had with the Americans and within the new government, he finally managed to track down his brother. He learned that Hajji Haitham had indeed been ‘arrested” by members of Badr Forces and was being held in an Interior Ministry prison. I was relieved to know that he was still alive and not in the hands of the insurgency (meaning I probably wouldn’t have to see his decapitated corpse on any internet video) but this was still little consolation; I still knew Badr Forces was just as likely to murder him as any terrorist organization. I struggled to grasp how such a situation was even possible. The Interior Ministry was an official department in the new government that was implemented and supported by the American forces; Hajji Haitham worked for a separate department within the new government equally supported and even controlled by the American government, meaning everyone is “supposedly” on the same team, yet Hajji Haitham’s life was in grave danger and our hands were tied.
The prison in which Hajji Haitham was held was the same illegal Interior Ministry prison an American special forces unit liberated several weeks after Hajji Haitham’s capture. Unfortunately they were too late for my friend. Hajji Haitham’s tortured body was found in a garbage field in a small villiage near the Iranian border with approximately 30 small holes believed to be made by a power drill and
I grew up in the blink of an eye that summer. I learned about many vicious and dark aspects of reality that my 22 years of sheltered American childhood and adolescence had shielded me from. I was cruelly introduced to and taught the underlying meaning of a common word whose roots below the surface are entangled with a conveyer of true evil – CORRUPTION. It is a daunting experience when you finally open your eyes and realize the world is a vulnerable sphere of shameless imbalance and immoral malfeasance.
Comments