News & Politics > Letter from Iraq

The Road to Baghdad:
Making Peace with Many Truths
Text & Photos by Lorna Tychostup

The flight to Amman, Jordan, is delayed for almost seven hours. A man on the previous flight from Amman has died. It is odd watching his covered body roll its way past those of us waiting to board. Is this just the beginning? It feels like a foretelling of the brand of death we are to see along the way: clearly visible yet covered in a shroud determined to hide certain truths against prying, inquisitive eyes.

Indeed, death in many guises accompanies us as our vehicle hurtles toward Baghdad. I am traveling with Anna Bachman, a peace friend I met in Baghdad last year; Nathan Mussleman, a young Mennonite who has been studying Arabic in Syria and is making his third trip to Iraq; and our favorite driver, Sattar. The highway itself, once inside of Iraq, is a modern marvel: a very nicely paved road, two to three lanes in each direction. We are traveling 100 to 145 kilometers per hour in a loosely connected convoy with two other suburban-type vehicles—other drivers with other passengers. Not many signs of war along this highway: a few blackened areas where some sort of bomb or missile had exploded—no hole in the ground, just greasy splotches 20 to 40 feet in diameter. Hulks of burnt and gnarled vehicles appear here and there. Were these bombed or had cars crashed?

And then come the toppled power-line towers. Some are 25 feet tall, others much larger, and one after the other is broken in half. It goes on for miles and miles. It is as if a giant Ali Baba and his thieves came riding along, smote down each tower at its middle, and then magically swept away the connective lifeline of electrical wire. “There are two stories,” Sattar offers. “Some say the Coalition forces knocked the towers down on the way to Baghdad to make certain there would be no electricity. And others say thieves toppled the towers, stole the wire, and sold it for profit. They come at night so no one sees them.”

The sides of the road open to vast expanses of desert vistas for as far as the eye can see—that is, visible only once the sun comes up, which is the case when we come upon the crash. The vehicle had taken at least one roll and landed right-side up. The woman passenger had already been taken to the hospital, but the dead bodies of her husband and the driver are still inside. The driver, Sattar tells us, after we spend two hours at the site, was a good friend who drove this way with him just the day before. Exhausting, 12-hour, back-to-back journeys between Baghdad and Amman have become the norm as suvs and smaller vehicles carry those now thronging to Iraq: journalists, private security guards, mothers seeking to visit with their children in the military, contractors, peace groups, business people of every persuasion, and even tourists. With two to three trips being made per week by each driver, this may be one of the more dangerous jobs in the country. And yet as the highway death toll rises, many come to replace the dead—and claim the $250 one-way fee.

Dissection of a Murder
Not more than 24 hours after my arrival in Baghdad, I find myself in yet another taxi. This time it’s a compact car belonging to our Iraqi translator, and we’re heading north to the region of Balad and the much written-about farming village of Abu Hishma, located in the center of the Sunni Triangle, where resistance to American forces has been especially strong. “It is as if I have just been a thousand years into the past,” our translator says later, on the way back to Baghdad, “and now am driving back to the present.” The most recent problems in Abu Hishma go back to October, the Islamic Holy month of Ramadan. Americans eased up on their operations, but the resistance here only increased. In Abu Hishma, mortar attacks were traced back to villagers' orchards, road bombings increased, and army convoys were shot at from a house a few miles outside the village. The month of November saw 81 troops killed in Iraq, the largest death toll in one month at that point.

On November 17, a group of guerillas fired a rocket-propelled grenade into the front of a Bradley armored personnel carrier. Its armor-piercing tip burrowed into the Bradley and struck Staff Sgt. Dale Panchot in the chest, killing him. The kid gloves came off. Before the dust settled, the soldiers of the First Battalion, Eighth Infantry, part of the Fourth Infantry Division [4th ID], reportedly surrounded Abu Hishma, searched for the guerrillas, and unfurled razor wire around its five-mile perimeter, leaving only one entrance and exit. The next day, an American jet dropped a 500-pound bomb on the house that had been used to attack the troops. Eight sheiks were arrested along with the mayor, the police chief, and most members of the city council. All the men in the village aged 18 to 65 are now required to carry ID cards written in English with no Arabic translation. A sign posted near the wire reads, “This fence is here for your protection. Do not approach or try to cross, or you will be shot.”

From this and other surrounding villages have come reports of Coalition-led midnight raids: doors are broken down, sleepy inhabitants are dragged into the night air, some are bound and hooded, and many are detained. Other reports describe the bulldozing of sections of orchards, demolition of homes, helicopters strafing the countryside with machine-gun fire, lobbing of mortars, and random killing—all at the hands of soldiers intent upon putting down the resistance.
I have come to investigate a claim—the latest made by villagers—involving the killing of Ali Hameed Mehia, a 24-year-old linguistics student in his final year at a college in Baghdad. According to reports, he was shot and killed by us troops while walking from morning prayers with two friends on Friday, February 6, just three days before my arrival in Iraq. I interview Fa’ath Musleh Hussein, a farmer in Abu Hishma, at his home. His 15-year-old son is among the 30 to 240 people detained by Coalition forces (the exact number could not be verified); he has been held since July. Fa’ath tells me that Mehia’s two friends were detained and taken to the nearby military base. He suspects they were targeted because the Army found missiles buried in the ground, aimed at the base, able to fire automatically. It is unclear how Mehia would have been targeted as a result and then shot. His body was kept at the base until Sunday, when it was delivered to his family and buried the same day.

While driving home from the funeral with his teenage son and cousin, Taha Rasheed Lattef, a 39-year-old farmer and father of 26, was shot from behind while seated in his pickup truck. I ask if I can see the truck and am immediately taken to the site of the funeral. A huge mourning tent is set up in front of a home, where the dead man’s pickup is parked under an awning. I am shown the entry hole directly behind the driver’s seat, the exit hole in the bloodstained seat, and a broken area at the base of the steering wheel, where the bullet supposedly lodged. All piercings are in a straight line. Villagers claim that a helicopter strafed the pickup from “20 meters above the ground when it fired without warning” three bursts of machinegun fire before flying off. The two witnesses to the shooting do not answer direct questions about the incident, it is later pointed out by our translator. We only hear from the many other men gathered around us.

There are conflicting stories as to the nature and whereabouts of the bullet, which I ask to see. Some say it was a dum-dum, others say it was from a machine gun. But the bullet is nowhere to be found. An Iraqi police officer arrives. After asking that his identity not be revealed, he recounts his story: “I was on patrol in my truck that night. I heard three bursts of shooting, although I did not see it. I immediately went to where I heard it and, when I reached it, saw the helicopter hovering overhead at about 20 to 30 meters. I turned on my lights and siren to let the helicopter crew know that I was responding to the incident, and they flew away. I then took the shooting victim to the hospital.”

I come away with more questions than answers. The villagers’ claims do not add up. The bullet hole is directly behind the driver’s seat, as if a sniper assassinated him—one shot, not several, as a machine gun from a helicopter would have left. All of this my peace journalist friend seems unable to accept, as if the troops must be to blame for everything that happens here. But among the Iraqis very real tribal and religious feuding is going on and villagers accuse one another of being close to and collaborating with the Americans in order to get special attention and aid. Perhaps the troops are being scapegoated while the real killer remains free.

a who’s who of complexities abound
We are in the center of the Sunni Triangle, and the Sunni villages where the resistance is strongest are in the middle of a larger Shiite’ community. The Shiite’, glad to have some sense of power after years of persecution by Saddam, are “oh so very happy” to work with the us, a baby-faced Iraq Civil Defense Corp (icdc) soldier tells me. We are standing at the entrance of the military base shared by coalition forces and the newly formed icdc. I am here to set up an interview with Lt. Col. Sassaman, the commander of the base; I am told that Sassaman is out on patrol and to try again. The soldier tells me his father was killed by Saddam years before. He then thrusts his Kalashnikov into my hands in a friendly, trusting gesture.
Some villagers talk of a “Mafia” and of smuggling that snakes back to the days of Saddam. “How do you think some people were able to live so lavishly under his reign?” more than one Iraqi asks me. “The Kurds are the best of smugglers,” another man offers. “In fact, the cpa [Coalition Provisional Authority] had to ask them to put an end to the overflow of vehicles that flooded the country immediately after the bombing ended. The sudden influx of cars was creating such horrible traffic jams.”

Indeed, on a second journey to Balad one week later, two newly minted, white suvs come hurtling toward us. From my van’s rear window I see the barrels of Kalashnikovs pointing outward from every window. The men inside are exquisitely attired in black, complete with sunglasses, and immediately I am reminded of the Clash’s “Rock the Casbah” while thinking, “This could be it...” As the first suv passed, our driver brakes. He too must have had a moment. The second suv passes without pause, and it is explained that the trucks must be carrying an important sheik.
In my old neighborhood we too called them Mafia.

The second visit to Fa’ath’s home in Abu Hishma is met with the same grand hospitality as the first but soon dissolves into conflict. During lunch, the sheik of the village arrives fresh from meetings in Baghdad, where he is a senator in the new government. He and Fa’ath argue right in front of us—a definite no-no in this culture. There is no doubt that some in the village are working with the resistance. Are we spies? Are we journalists? Why, after all their complaining and repeated visits by peace groups, has nothing been done? Why have no reparations been made toward damages? And Fa’ath’s biggest question, reflecting the concerns of many in the village: “When is my detained son to be returned?”

hard truths
It is true that many are not happy with Saddam gone. For these people, security disappeared when he did. So did the electricity, personal safety, and the rules and regulations that only a government system can provide. For these people it is not just that the Americans are killing people left and right—sometimes for no apparent reason, sometimes as retaliation for specific attacks (a fact that does not always get mentioned in the press). What worries them are the massive detentions—primarily males of all ages. During the day soldiers hand out goodies—pencils, crayons, blankets, and a few soccer balls (there are never enough soccer balls)—but at night the soldiers return; they break down doors, pull people out of their beds into the night air, put bags over the men’s heads, and make them sit for hours. Some are taken away. Many people speak of a friend, relative, or neighbor hauled off to some prison without any formal charge. In many cases family members go from prison to prison, hunting down loved ones, sometimes to no avail. And no one knows how many are being detained. When the Christian Peacemaking Team folks went to the Abu Ghraib prison, they could not get a straight answer from those on guard. One soldier said 10,000 were detained; another said maybe twice that.

Then there are the Iraqis lobbing mortars at the troops. One driver and interpreter, a very intelligent man in his 30s who served reluctantly in the Iraqi military for the mandatory one and a half years, blames the attacks on criminals “Five thousand dollars American to kill a soldier. Ten thousand to take out a crowd.” Others confirm this possibility. So the troops’ retaliatory methods, called Harassment and Interdiction Fire, are carried out for reasons that are legitimate, according to military thinking.

In Balad, the 4th id is aware of reports of the killing of families and other atrocities committed in places like Falluja, where the 2nd Airborne is in charge. John, a would-be journalist who recently arrived from four days embedded with the 4th id, says the soldiers were watching a cnn special two nights ago and remarked that the 2nd Airborne has been screwing up big time by their mistreatment of the people in their area.
Such ill treatment creates resentment and increased violence. Suicide bombings and other violent attacks currently number 30 per day and are spread across the country. Anyone seeming to help the coalition forces is a potential target. Translators, workers, drivers, doctors—these folks are being assassinated. But since no one, including the provisional government, is interested in counting the Iraqi dead, these numbers don’t make the headlines. That’s true in the American press, where soldier's deaths are no longer even second- or third-tier news. And perhaps that is the key—a large-scale attack receives large scale media attention. Everyone, on all sides, suddenly stands up and pays attention.

Iraq has become a free-for-all. Through its unguarded border with Jordan come hoards of businesspeople from every corner of the world to do business. There is the man from the Cato Institute, the Washington, dc, libertarian think tank, who would like to see private education established as a leading force in teaching democracy and civics. There is the man from Syria staying at my hotel who is looking to sell jeans. An oil-buying businessman from Amman downs wine with a software dealer from Kurdistan. Two Bulgarians working in the Green Zone are on the lookout for business opportunities for people back home. The guns and weaponry, very visible, are certainly coming from specialized shipping companies. Pseudo- and independent journalists and peace groups are selling their version of the truth just as are corporate journalists. It has become a joke that the ladies of Code Pink, an antiwar group that has become a media darling, showed up for a heavily scheduled eight-day visit but left early to go on their speaking tour back in the States in order to tout their book on the war and conditions in Iraq. How much time did they spend with families, walk the streets alone, smell the smells, and listen to the many voices? Yes, indeed, everyone has their eye on Iraq and all the riches to be reaped from this brand new “free” market.
iraq today

The Iraqi people are a resilient bunch attempting to rise from the rubble like a giant Gulliver breaking free of his restraints. Despite the 45 percent unemployment rate, there is a great deal of construction and renovation. Here in Baghdad I have seen people cleaning, sweeping, men with trucks hauling away trash. The electricity is working as it was before the war, when generators had to kick on to produce when the grid could not. Many streets are thronged with people. Stores are bursting with products, especially electronics—cell phones, tvs, Internet hardware, satellite dishes—to meet demand. If you have money, you can buy. Even in our worn and threadbare hotel, an industrious Hungarian reporter has hung wires from the roof to supply rooms with private Internet connections for a fee.

There is a definite level of fear. It is, I imagine, like the fear of the crime victim, in shock and wondering when the next attack will come. Yet for some, perhaps many, life is much better than before. The stress of living under the oppressor is gone. Yes, helicopters fly overhead and tanks roll down the streets; handguns are visible under jackets and tucked into waistbands; Kalashnikovs are seen in cars bottled up in traffic; at night there is gunfire, whether in celebration of special occasions or in skirmishes; people are targeted, attacked, robbed, and killed. Yet amid the din, people who last year could not speak about anything political are talking up a storm. There is this sense of relief about them, a newfound ability to speak up without fear now that Saddam is gone.

It is important for me to remember to drop all my prejudices as I work here. When talking with an Iraqi driver-translator about this, he says that some Iraqis lump Americans together so that whenever anything bad happens—a murder or accident—it is the Americans’ fault. The same paradigm is found among many of those who call themselves journalists and within the peace community. Others place the blame on the different factions of Iraqis. The people of Iraq and the world are watching to see what slips and slides and groans its way from this chaos. But there is no denying a distinct feeling of hope amid all the dread and worries.

And so it goes. Normalcy where nothing is normal.

America, imagine this if you can...
There are many who are overjoyed that Saddam is gone. Bush is a hero because he has removed Saddam. Many don’t understand why many Americans who are here—journalists, peacemakers, and the like—dislike Bush. "Lesh?" (why?) asks a 31-year-old Iraqi filmmaker who spent four years as a film student without ever touching a camera. “ Why do they hate Bush? Before with Saddam we are all afraid. We cannot talk to anyone about what we think. Now we are free to talk. When you are afraid of what to say, when someone is always listening and you will get hurt or worse if they hear you, you are not free. Now we are free, free to think, free to talk. When your mind is not free, your heart cannot be free. When you are afraid you cannot be free.”

He tells me about his dreams, that for all those years under Saddam he made films in his mind. But in the next breath he raises the specter of Saddam and says that he will never realize his dreams because of Saddam and a past that is rapidly becoming ever more distant—a past he perhaps is not ready to let go of. “I am not like you. The Iraqi people are always afraid. Afraid of Saddam. Afraid of what he would do. We have become a fearful people. We cannot have our dreams.”

But he is no longer here, I say. Saddam is gone. Who will you blame now for your lack of a fulfilled dream? His ghost?

I am accosted by Bush-lovers wherever I go—out on the street, in stores, in taxis, even when I leave my hotel room. One day the men and women of the cleaning crew literally step in my way. Smiling, one man, obviously having heard from the woman who cleans my room the day before that I would not be voting for Bush, says, “We like Bush.” Pointing to his cross (this man is Christian, this is a Christian-run hotel), he says, “Saddam bad. Bush good. We are free.” I try to explain that one must be wary of those who speak of freedom, and that Bush and his friends may not necessarily care so much about the welfare of the Iraqi people as they do about the business of making money. I also try to explain that many in America are alarmed at the loss of our freedoms at the hands of the same man who claims to have set the Iraqis free.

Then there are others. “Where is the freedom?” asks Hannah, a secretary and translator. She has been a single parent of two daughters since the early 90s, when her husband died in the Iran-Iraq war. “Security. Without security we are not free. Electricity is life. Without electricity there is no life. What sort of freedom is this? I cannot get a passport. There is no government and I am not free to come and go as I please. I worry about my daughters every minute while I am at work. At least with Saddam we were safe. No one would dare to rob or hurt anyone else. They would not dare.”

Hannah tells me this while seated in the spiffy, well-designed Internet cafe where she is doing business for her employers. She laments the trashing of the wire phone system here and worries she will not be able to afford the cell phones that have just been introduced. “And without wires, how will I get on the Internet?” she says.

Perhaps her answer lies in the likes of the owner of the Internet cafe. He is an enterprising young man who proudly says he designed the look of the cafe himself, from the blue Formica desks to the curved dividers between the stations and the cool blue exterior reeking of modernity. He tells me and Hannah that education and hard work are the key to a good life. As he works very hard to meet the various needs of his customers amid the din of helicopters flying overhead and tanks rolling by, he holds his dream in his hands. He is just one representation of the many new forms of life making its way out of this primordial soup called Iraq.

Lorna Tychostup will be in Iraq until the end of March and will be sending further dispatches for the April issue.