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Wed 27 Oct, 2004 06:24 am
1. (Full story
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0922/p01s03-woiq.html )
Note - date of article 22nd September 2003
Iraq's simmering south
By Ann Scott Tyson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Three cities, one Iraq
Monday the Monitor begins a three-part series that examines initial US efforts to transfer power at the grass-roots to Iraqis. US commanders, virtually alone in overseeing vast regions of Iraq, have pushed for at least superficial local empowerment as vital to stability. They have often forged ahead of civilian occupation authorities in Baghdad, resisting top-down mandates in favor of pragmatic problem solving from below. Yet so far steps toward Iraqi self-defense and self-rule remain fitful and tentative, hampered by mutual misunderstanding, resentment, and mistrust.
The series is based on scores of interviews conducted in July and August in three distinct regions: the Shiite-dominated south; the ethnically mixed crossroads of northern Iraq; and the Sunni strongholds of central Iraq. In each, the Monitor focuses on different problems: In the south, searching for common ground between conservative Shiite factions, Iraqi civil authorities, and US-led military forces. In the north, forging a new Iraqi defense force out of Iraq's broken, demoralized Army, and laying the building blocks for representative government. In central Iraq, sorting out the influential groups from the old regime - as well as establishing effective police and court systems.
KARBALA, IRAQ - Night was falling swiftly over the golden domes of this Shiite holy city when US soldiers manning the main police station received an urgent call: A robbery and stabbing had stirred trouble outside the Imam Hussein Mosque, and the newly trained Iraqi police needed backup.
The Americans knew the mosque area was off-limits to their troops - so did the thieves, arms merchants, and drug dealers who frequented the surrounding marketplace. Still, the situation sounded dire, so they dispatched a dozen US military police in four Humvees.
As the American MPs neared the mosque, which was thronged with evening worshipers, some Iraqis began shouting at them to leave. Rumors spread that the soldiers would violate the holy shrine. A hostile crowd of hundreds began pelting the Americans with rocks and bricks, denting the Humvees and smashing their windshields. Meanwhile, the 70 Iraqi police fled the scene on foot.
Surrounded in their vehicles, the MPs attempted to back down the street. They were still inching backwards, the soldiers say, when two Iraqis from the crowd opened fire and hit one MP, Staff Sgt. Carlos Lopez, in his right middle finger. Sergeant Lopez managed to shoot back with his pistol, killing the gunman. Firing into the air with a machine gun to keep the crowd at bay, the soldiers finally turned the Humvees and withdrew. At least one other Iraqi was wounded in the fray.
"It could have been a real bloodbath," says Capt. Leo Merck of the Army National Guard's 870th Military Police Company, which responded to the call in late July. Days of violent anti-US protests followed. Men slashing themselves with swords and wearing black suicide bomber vests marched through Karbala, long considered one of the most peaceful cities in postwar Iraq.
The Karbala incident is one of many that demonstrate the fragility of the US-led occupation in Iraq. Five months after the fall of Baghdad, American and other foreign troops, along with the fledgling Iraqi security forces and local leadership they installed, are struggling to restore order in the swirling power void left by Saddam Hussein's collapsed dictatorship.
Indeed, the relative quiet of the south, dominated by Shiite Muslims who make up 60 percent of Iraq's population, belies stubborn challenges for coalition forces trying to promote self-governance. Here, powerful yet rivalrous Shiite clerics are divided whether to support the coalition and the interim Iraqi authorities it has installed. The clerics, some linked to Shiite Iran, have tense relations with the Sunni sects of Iraq, a division that further complicates the road to self-rule. A recent spate of assassinations and attempted killings of Shiite leaders has intensified frustration here and prompted calls for revenge.
As one drives down Highway 8 past date palms and overgrown canals toward Karbala in south-central Iraq, the tension of Baghdad 60 miles north seems to evaporate in a dry, hot breeze.
US troops wearing caps instead of helmets appear relaxed as they stand in clear view of roads with passing traffic. With attacks on coalition forces here unusual, sandbags are not stacked as high or deep as they are at the gates of military camps further north. Iraqi women cloaked in black abayas and men in long tunics fill the squares and markets..........
Part three - (Full Story:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0924/p01s02-woiq.html )
Iraq's restive 'Sunni Triangle'
By Ann Scott Tyson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
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..............
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