The "Affair" Continues... Part III

When I opened my eyes I saw sunlight streaming in through the single window over Elaina’s bed and noticed that she was already gone. I rolled out of bed feeling like I’d been hit by a truck and began rummaging through my luggage for some clothes. One of the guys from my new team knocked on my door around quarter to seven and offered to walk me to the chow hall, a gesture I was thankful for since everything looked totally different in the daylight and I had no clue how to get to breakfast. He introduced himself as Kyle and as we made our way to the chow hall he told me he’d arrived in Iraq three months ago. We met up with the rest of the team at the for breakfast and Tom introduced me to everyone. Aside from Tom, who was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force, and Kyle, who was a Sergeant in the Marine Corps, there were four other guys on the team – Seth, an Army Sergeant; Kevin an Air Force Sergeant; Robert, a retired Naval Reserve Captain; and Josh, a young NSA civilian employee. I was not only the token female, but also the only one on active duty in the Navy. It was also at this first meeting that Tom explained to me what our mission was there in Baghdad. Our team worked within the Iraqi National Intelligence Service (I.N.I.S.) on the far side of the Green Zone where members of various U.S. government agencies and branches of the military assisted in the reestablishment of an Iraqi Intelligence agency. The new Iraqi employees were recruited, vetted, and trained by U.S. and coalition government agencies and our team was one of the small U.S. contingencies within the I.N.I.S. lending a hand. Our main mission was to help the Iraqis become self-sufficient in conducting intelligence operations to support their own free government. Our secondary goal was pretty much simply a public relations mission to hand-hold the new Iraqi government and prove to them we didn’t simply invade to kick Saddam’s ass and then leave them high and dry, and  were genuinely interested in helping Iraq establish a functioning democratic government.

Following breakfast Tom gave me a quick tour of our team's on-base office, which was simply two pods put together and wired so we could communicate with agency headquarters in the U.S. via computers and phones. He set me up with a computer account so that I could use any computer at the base and issued me a two-way radio. Each member of the team had a radio and call-sign – I’m not sure how but mine ended up being “Triscuit”. I think Seth the Army guy came up with it. This office space was also where we stored our weapons and equipment. Each team member was issued a personal 9mm pistol with three 15-round clips that we kept on us at all times and took to our rooms at night, but we also had several M-4 and M-16 rifles that we had to carry when we left the base to go to work at the building. These we kept locked in the office while we were at the base. Our team’s vehicle was a massive armored white SUV that we affectionately referred to as the White Elephant. It was so heavy due to all the armor plating it only got about four miles to the gallon. According to protocol all team members were supposed to be escorted to and from the building by a security team, but since we didn’t officially exit the Green Zone we eventually just drove ourselves back and forth so the security teams could be available to escort those traveling into more dangerous areas.

     We each worked an eight-hour shift six days a week and Tom decided to start me off on the evening shift, which ran from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. After my tour of the office Tom informed me that my first shift at the building would be the following evening with Kyle the Marine. “Kyle’s been here the longest and knows everyone up there the best so he’ll introduce you to all the department employees,” Tom told me. He then gave me the rest of the day to myself to unpack, get settled in, and explore the base grounds.

Kyle asked me to meet him back at the office at quarter to three the next afternoon with my body armor, pistol, radio, and phone. “Anything else I should bring?” I asked.

“Just a smile,” he replied. “Be prepared to meet a lot of Iraqis.”

I returned to my room for a quick shower to wash off the nastiness the 120-degree heat had left me with after just a couple of hours, and then I walked over to check out the swimming pool. It was a good size and the sparkling blue water indicated it was obviously being well maintained. It even had a swim up bar and plenty of lounge chairs surrounding it on the deck. Oh yeah, this is going to be a rough four months.

Although I didn’t have to report for work until the next afternoon, I tried to go to bed at a decent time to get over my jet lag and adjust to the new time. I tossed and turned for hours and didn’t manage to fall asleep until around 4 a.m. and ended up snoozing well into mid-morning I just prayed Tom didn’t switch me to the day shift any time soon where I’d have to report before 7 a.m. After throwing on some clothes I headed up to the chow hall to get some food. Although it was between meal times, they always had snacks and drinks available. I don’t cook at home and often subsist on an American staple – cereal. So I was happy to find the chow hall had a fairly good selection of familiar cereals. We had a small refrigerator in our room so I returned to my room with a box of cereal and a couple cartons of milk. The milk in Iraq was an interesting experience. It came in a rectangular carton and sat out on the shelf at room temperature until it was opened, then it required refrigeration. It was called U.H.T. (Ultra High Temperature) milk and, as its name suggests, was able to withstand the Iraq heat for travel. Unfortunately, my stomach couldn’t stand the U.H.T. milk. I spent the next two weeks battling daily stomach cramps and diarrhea, but I refused to give up cereal. After a couple of weeks the cramps stopped and I was able to tolerate the milk just fine. I learned that I was one of the few on the base who managed to adapt to the milk so I had it and the cereal pretty much all to myself.

After another scalding shower, I dressed and geared up for my first day of work. I stepped out the door into the merciless Iraqi heat and was drenched with sweat after the short 5-minute walk to the office. When I arrived Kyle tossed me an M-4 rifle and said, “Let’s head out.” We walked to the vehicle corral and were picked up by our security escorts in the White Elephant. When I climbed up into the back seat I noticed the thermometer on the rearview mirror read 109 degrees Fahrenheit. Considering it was only May I shuddered at the thought of how ungodly hot it would be come July and August.

            The base was fenced in with high concrete walls so the drive to work was my first opportunity to see what was beyond the borders of the base. As we rolled outside the main gate, I plastered my face to the window and soaked in as much of the scene as possible. The Green Zone was a concrete jungle of barricades with concertina wire and checkpoints on practically every corner. Since arriving in Iraq I’d been relatively isolated from the local population. Only Americans were allowed on the base and I’d seen only Americans at the transient house after arriving at the airport. Although the Green Zone (also referred to as the International Zone or IZ) was a secured area, there were still many Iraqis who lived and worked within the perimeter. The traffic was very heavy and the streets bustled with women in burkas and kids kicking soccer balls in empty lots. As we crept along the IZ’s major thoroughfare in bumper-to-bumper traffic I felt nervous for the first time. We were soon surrounded by local traffic and I realized the possibility that any of these vehicles could be a car bomb and in a booming flash I could be dead. But I just figured when your number is up it’s up and if I’m meant to die in a car bomb in Iraq then there’s nothing I can do about it. I don’t know how rational this thinking was but I immediately relaxed and never felt particularly nervous again while traveling around Iraq. You just can’t think like that or you’ll go crazy – you have to find a way to detach yourself from the fear.

            I realized how truly “international” the Green Zone was on this first outing. It was like Epcot Center at Disney World. Each country seemed to have their own little section and their own checkpoint. I saw Japanese military personnel, Georgians, British, Australians, and a lot of Gurkhas. The Gurkhas were my favorite. They are soldiers from Nepal and the northern regions of India who have served in the British Indian Army since the 1800s and are well known for their combat skills and military strategy. They carry long curved knives that customarily are not to be removed from their sheaths except to draw blood. Gurkha regiments continue to be employed by both British and U.S. forces in several areas of the world. They were consistently very nice to us and I always felt safe when they were nearby.

            Our security escorts dropped us off in the rear parking lot of the I.N.I.S. building and we had to walk around to the front gate, which was technically beyond the Green Zone, to access the building. Four Iraqi civilian sentries armed with AK-47s guarded the main entrance to the building. Once inside I noticed several more stationed in the main hallway right outside a pair of large cherry wooden doors with the title “Director General” posted above. The Director General of the I.N.I.S. is basically the Iraqi version of the Director of the CIA. I later learned that the Director General at the time, who we referred to as the DG, was a former Special Forces General under Saddam and was actually trained in the U.S. by the Army Rangers during the Iraq Iran War. He was also a helicopter pilot who made a name for himself when he defeated an entrenched Iranian force that numbered in the thousands in an air assault. He turned dissident against Saddam’s regime in the late 1980s and started assisting the U.S. government in plotting an overthrow in the early 90s. He was one of the masterminds of an elaborate coup in 1996, but unfortunately the coup failed. Three of the General’s sons were murdered by the regime and the DG fled to the United States. Following Saddam’s ousting, the CIA appointed the DG as head of the new I.N.I.S.

Kyle and I continued on to a pair of tiny elevators near the center of the building. The building has twelve stories and resembles a large Holiday Inn. It’s pretty much a perfect rectangle with one main hallway on each floor and offices on either side. We took an elevator up to our department, which was located in the east wing on the 9^th floor. As soon as we entered through the department’s large double doors, Kyle was heartily greeted by a group of Iraqi employees gathered in the main hallway for a smoke break. They waved and shouted hellos to Kyle. Kyle said hello and shook hands with each of them and then introduced me. They spoke no English beyond saying hello, but each smiled brightly and happily offered their hand for me to shake – typically a culturally uncomfortable gesture for Arab men but these guys were obviously beyond that. Before coming to Iraq my small minded media shaped outlook had me expecting most Iraqis to be ignorant heathens clinging to ancient customs, but I was pleasantly surprised by the outpouring of warm welcomes I received on my first day.

After making it past the group in the hallway, Kyle shuffled me into a small office reserved exclusively for the U.S. liaisons assigned to the department. Two other guys from our team, Sam and Jeff, who were on duty for the morning day shift, were sitting at the two desks in our office when we walked in. They were obviously happy to see us because it meant their workday was over and they were free to head back to the base.

The office had a couple of computers, one connected to the Internet, and one on a closed network for our work stuff. You could definitely tell the place was used by a bunch of guys, especially when I noticed the TV with a Sony PlayStation-2 connected to it. There were also a few storage cabinets and a rack with a mainframe computer, which was basically the brain system for all the computers in the department. Once inside the office I was able to drop my body armor and M-4 rifle, but I kept my 9-mm on my hip – after all, I was in a building with over 1,000 Iraqis and just a handful of Americans.

Once I had been shown around our office, Kyle asked if I was ready to tour the rest of the department and meet all the employees. There were approximately 50 Iraqi nationals working in our department and I was going to get to meet most of them in the next half hour. I was pretty overwhelmed from the whirlwind activity of the past few days and nervous now that I was in the building so I just did my best to smile my way through all the introductions.

Our first stop was to meet the Iraqi Head of the department. His name was Abu Zaid and he had his own office at the end of the hall. He was a pretty big guy who looked to be in his mid 40’s. He spoke a limited amount of broken English but was very nice. He welcomed me to Iraq and to the department. Like the first group of Iraqis, Abu Zaid did not hesitate to shake my hand and flashed me a sincere smile. I instantly liked and respected him.

After a few minutes of chatting with Abu Zaid, Kyle and I continued on to the next office across the hall. Kyle informed me that this next room was the translators’ office. There were typically two translators on duty at all times to help us out in communicating with the non English speaking employees and translate work documents back and forth between English and Arabic. When we walked in an Iraqi man who looked to be in his late 30s quickly approached us. He said hello to Kyle and then introduced himself and told me his name was Ihab while he shook my hand. Ihab’s English was quite good. It was obvious he had spent some time in the UK as he had a pretty thick British accent. The other translator then came over and my life changed forever. He looked at me with strikingly hypnotic green eyes and extended his hand as he introduced himself. His name was Fahdi. He was in his early 20’s, about 5’9” with olive skin and black hair. He had a slender build and I noticed a hint of stubble on his angular face. He did not have the typical Arab facial features and I figured he was possibly a hybrid with a European parent. He introduced himself as Fahdi and smiled as he gently shook my hand. I managed to squeak out my name but couldn’t stop staring at his eyes. Kyle chatted with Ihab for a couple of minutes and Fahdi returned to his desk while I continued to ogle him out the corner of my eye. Kyle then shuffled me on down the hallway to meet the rest of the employees but I didn’t remember anyone after Fahdi.

When we returned to our office Kyle sat at the secure computer, which was linked with another computer at the office back at the base, and started typing. I sat at the internet computer and checked my emails. I noticed that every few minutes Ihab would come in and hand Kyle a small piece of paper with information that Kyle would type into the computer. I was about to ask him what he was doing when he turned to me and said, “I’ll show you what this is tomorrow so you can start doing it too, but for tonight just relax, roam around the building a little to get your bearings and interact with the people here.” I was still feeling a little shy so I wasn’t comfortable with walking around the building alone yet so I tried to make myself look busy on the computer. A few minutes later Fahdi entered to give Kyle another one of those small papers. I tried not to stare but I couldn’t help myself. He and Kyle chatted for a few minutes while I did my best to gaze discreetly at Fahdi from behind my computer monitor. I overheard Fahdi mention he was in the process of applying for a Visa to visit the U.S. and was asking Kyle how he could apply to immigrate to the U.S. to live. “The easiest way to get over there is to just marry an American girl,” Kyle informed Fahdi with a sideways smile. Then he turned in my direction and said jokingly, “Mandy over here is single, maybe she’ll help you out.” Even though Kyle was just kidding around my face turned beat red and I did my best to hide behind my computer.

Fahdi smiled and said, “Well I don’t want to use anyone.” All I could think was Use me, use me! “I’ll do some more research and see if I can come up with anything,” Fahdi added and then returned to his office.

After Fahdi left Kyle was giving me the well get out there and mingle look and I realized I couldn’t stall any longer. Instead of aimlessly roaming around I decided to venture out and try to find the bathroom. Instead of ask Kyle I headed over to the translator room for directions, mainly in hopes of catching another glimpse of Fahdi. When I walked in Fahdi and Ihab were at their desks and two other men were also seated in the office. Fahdi gave me a passing glance from behind his computer and, as if he were expecting me, said, “Hi, come on in and have a seat,” and motioned toward an empty desk chair near the office. I decided to hold off on getting bathroom directions until I needed to use it to break some ice or as an escape subject. Fahdi continued to type on his computer but asked, “So, how do you like Iraq so far?”

Things are definitely looking up. “I like it a lot. It’s a little hot but everyone has been very nice. I just wish I could speak some Arabic so I could communicate a little easier.”

“If you want I can work with you on some basics,” Fahdi offered.

 “That would be great, if you have time, I don’t want to put you out or anything,” I replied.

“Trust me, I have time. I sit here most of the night playing online poker. I’m usually here from 4 p.m. to midnight, are you going to work the evening shift regularly?” I told him that so far the plan was for me to work 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. until Tom told me otherwise. So we planned to meet the following evening in his office and start an informal language class.

I hung out in the translator room for most of that first evening and successfully fulfilled my duty of mingling with the employees as they floated in and out of the office to chit-chat with Fahdi and the others. As the shift wound down Kyle said he’d give me a break for my first night and decided we’d leave a little early. As I reluctantly donned all my equipment, body armor, and rifle I felt excitement begin to tickle the pit of my stomach at the thought of returning the next day.

TO BE CONTINUED...