The Company We Keep

by Robert Baer

  After Marwan worked on several projects for the tribal chief, a close friendship developed between the two. Marwan soon was treated like a member of the chief’s family, eventually taking over management of the family’s money. “I’m closer with them than with my own family,” Marwan said.

  That first night in Paris, Marwan gave me a tutorial on Iraq that paralleled the one Ali gave me on Syria. As Marwan told me, Iraq’s tribes, held together by tradition and blood loyalty, are a permanent fixture in Iraq. Their unbroken allegiances and ties go back thousands of years, before even Islam. While they’ve always stuck together, even during the worst times in Iraq, men like Saddam seize power for the moment, but they inevitably fall and are eventually forgotten. The tribes are what endure. “They’re of the land and aren’t going anywhere,” Marwan said.

  In marked contrast, without genuine tribal roots, Saddam and his family lack any sort of traditional social standing in Iraq, or respect. In fact, most Iraqis look at Saddam’s family as little more than common criminals who stole power and held on to it through sheer brutality and cunning. Saddam pretended to have tribal roots and solicited the support of the tribes as a way of firming up his political base.

  After dinner at the Meurice’s restaurant, Marwan and I walked in the Tuileries. It was dark, and the park was nearly empty. We got all the way to the Louvre and walked back. We must have done this three times while Marwan talked on and I made mental notes. Finally we sat down on a hard stone bench to talk some more. It was only when we got up that we noticed the gates were locked—with us on the inside.

  We walked to the Seine side of the park until I found a place where I thought we could get out. I climbed down the battered wall to the street and then helped Marwan down. He was surprisingly agile for a man over sixty and more than two hundred pounds.

  It was past midnight when I walked home in a light drizzle. I passed the movie theater on the Champs-Élysées where my mother had taken me to see Lawrence of Arabia, starring Peter O’Toole, when I was ten years old. I remembered being completely mesmerized, making her sit through a second showing. It must have been six hours in all.

  That fall, during the run-up to the Gulf War, I would see a lot of Marwan. He’d fly into town and immediately call me for dinner. We’d usually eat at the Meurice’s restaurant—seven courses with two bottles of wine, followed by a cognac and a cigar. It was Marwan who taught me about French wines. He’d never let me pay, to make sure our relationship couldn’t be misunderstood.

  Often, when I met Marwan for coffee, I’d bring along one of my kids. They called him uncle. When he’d phone, he’d chat with them for a long time. Marwan told me he relished spending time with them, having no children of his own.

  Marwan would talk for hours on end about Saddam and his family, mentally walking me through Saddam’s natal village, Al ‘Awjah. When Saddam was born there in 1937, Al ‘Awjah was a miserable little hardscrabble village with mud houses and mud streets. Almost everyone was poor, many of them servants to Tikrit’s rich. Al ‘Awjah also had its share of outcasts and thugs, and it was from them that Saddam learned about street fighting—lessons he’d carry into politics. When Saddam came to power in 1968, it was from Al ‘Awjah that he drew his closest advisers. Roughly speaking, Al ‘Awjah was to Saddam what Plains, Georgia, was to Jimmy Carter or what Midland, Texas, was to George W. Bush.

  I didn’t know the term then, but Al ‘Awjah was home to Saddam’s “charismatic clan.” It was his refuge in times of trouble, and a source of strength for his extended family. Publicly, Saddam professed a commitment to Arab nationalism and Ba’ath socialism, but in fact he only cared about his family’s survival and what Al ‘Awjah symbolized for it.

  I absorbed everything Marwan told me, fascinated by the idea of Al ‘Awjah, how a close-knit clan, held together by blood loyalty, could so neatly trace its origins to a poor village. I couldn’t help noticing the similarities to the Assad clan in Syria, and the small village they came from in the Alawite mountains, Qurdaha. I would later see the same phenomenon in Tajikistan’s Kulyab Province. Families like these were so different from anything I knew.

  The closer we got to the Gulf War, the more I pressed Marwan to tell me what he thought was going on in Saddam’s head. Was Saddam really going to fight to hang on to Kuwait and lose his army? I could not comprehend how this would aid Saddam and his clan’s vicious hold on power. Marwan would only say that his friend the Dulaym chief, who’d spent time in prison with Saddam, was confident that Saddam would only leave Kuwait if he was compelled to—by armed force.

  I trusted Marwan, but I had a hard time understanding how a tribe such as the Dulaym could remain so well plugged in and influential in a modern state like Iraq. To check his story, I asked him if he could arrange for me to meet the Iraqi ambassador to Paris. This wasn’t as easy as it sounds. The ambassador was Saddam’s unofficial emissary to the West, very much in demand. Marwan told me to pick a night and a place. The ambassador showed up at the George V exactly at eight, without bodyguards. We had a pleasant dinner, although I can’t say that I learned anything new from him. But the dinner did fortify my confidence in Marwan and his Dulaym chief.

  A couple of days later I met Marwan for coffee. He told me that my meeting with the ambassador had gone over well in Baghdad. I didn’t ask, but it made me wonder what exactly the Dulayms’ relationship with the Iraqi government was. Or Marwan’s, for that matter.

  As we watched people run out of the Metro, unfurling umbrellas against a cold rain, Marwan signaled the waiter for another coffee. “Now you have to meet the family,” he said.

  “Is this some sort of a back channel to Baghdad? Because if it is, I can’t do it.”

  “It’s just a token of friendship.”

  I understood that with Marwan there would always be a certain degree of ambiguity in our relationship, and I agreed to meet the Dulaym chief’s son Malik and the chief’s brother when they got to Paris. Within the week, though, Marwan called to say French visas couldn’t be arranged. Would I meet them in Rome?

  At first I lied to Marwan, telling him I had commitments in Paris. The truth was, there wasn’t enough time to get permission to travel to Rome. I couldn’t do it on my own hook, either—traveling across international borders without Langley’s permission was a no-no. If caught, I’d be brought home and reprimanded.

  “They’re coming here especially to see you,” Marwan said. “They think of you as their only American friend.”

  “Can’t this wait?”

  “They’re already in Amman.”

  I made a quick calculation. I could fly to Rome for dinner and be back the next morning at work before anyone knew. “OK,” I told him. “I’ll move my appointments around.”

  Two days later I left work early, took a taxi to Orly airport, and bought my ticket to Rome in cash. The plane was delayed, and traffic into Rome was at a near standstill. But Malik and his uncle were in the hotel lobby waiting for me.

  We were all tired, and over dinner we talked about mostly small things: the empty plane, Rome, the price of the dollar. No one said a word about the war, which was all but inevitable now. So far, our dinner—my trip to Rome—was only a gauge of our mutual respect.

  At the end, though, as we were getting up to leave, I hazarded the question still on my mind: Would Saddam withdraw from Kuwait at the last minute to avoid a war?

  Malik noticed his napkin was still tucked into his trousers, pulled it out, and placed it on the table. “Saddam will never withdraw.”

  “But if he loses his army?”

  “He will stand and fight.”

  “So will the United States,” I replied.

  The war that started on January 17, 1991 proved us both right. The Dulaym lost thousands in Kuwait fighting the American onslaught. Their businesses were nearly ruined. Malik’s father, the Dulaym tribal chief, would soon fall ill and die. He’d positioned Malik to replace him as tribal chief, but Malik wasn’t immediately accepted by the tr
ibal elders. But the Rome dinner launched a relationship with Malik, one that neither of us wanted to let die.

  Malik and I kept in touch through Marwan. On his way back to Toronto from Iraq, Marwan would make a point of coming to see me in Paris with news of Malik and the Dulaym. When I was posted in Morocco, Marwan and I would meet in Casablanca and eat dinner at a fish restaurant on the harbor’s mole, Marwan bringing fresh news of Malik and his family. When I was on leave in France from Dushanbe, I made a point of taking a train up to Paris to meet Marwan for lunch.

  In 1994, after I came back from Tajikistan and was assigned to Iraqi operations at Langley, I had good reason to see Malik. Every month or so I’d fly to Jordan’s capital, Amman, on business, and would make sure to fix in advance a time to see him, in between my CIA meetings. Usually it was the first night I arrived. Exhausted and jet-lagged, I’d go to the Dulaym’s house right from the airport. It was an austere place, a limestone house on top of a limestone hill. We’d sit for hours talking about Iraq and drinking tea. Family always played a big part in our meetings. Malik’s children would come down and hug me before going to bed. Like Marwan, Malik knew the names of my children and would ask about them. Dinner wouldn’t be served until ten, followed by more tea. I wouldn’t get to my hotel until after midnight.

  At first, conversations with Malik were difficult. Iraq’s Anbar tribes speak a corrupted Arabic, peppered with Turkish and Farsi, even a few words of Aramaic. But with each meeting I understood a little more. Malik’s confidence in me grew at the same pace. Every time we’d meet, he’d regale me with fresh stories about Saddam’s sons and their dirty business deals, wild parties, and brutality. On one level it was amusing—Saddam the tyrant, unable to control his bratty children. On another, it gave me insight into how Saddam ruled. It was Malik who first told me in 1995 that Saddam’s son-in-law was about to defect to Jordan, and Malik who later told me how Saddam intended to lure him back and murder him, which Saddam did. With each meeting, the confidence we had in each other grew.

  In all these years serving in the Middle East, with maybe the exception of Ali, who instructed me on Syrian politics, I felt stuck in the shallows, never coming close to the inside of national power structures, or truly understanding these societies. With Malik, though, I felt I was finally starting to see down into the depths. It helped that our relationship was based on friendship alone, and had nothing to do with the CIA.

  At a meeting in Amman in 1994, Malik offered to sneak me into Ramadi. I’d be safe in the family compound there. Who knows, he said, maybe Uday would drop by one evening, and I could judge his character for myself, see what Al ‘Awjah produced. I couldn’t go to Iraq then, but I promised Malik I would one day.

  Now the day is here.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  And it came to pass, that, as I made my journey, and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me.

  —King James Bible, Acts 22:6

  Damascus, Syria: DAYNA

  As is true of many cities in the Middle East, Damascus’s modernity is a thin veneer covering ancient civilizations. But a visit to old Damascus, which hasn’t much changed since Saint Paul walked its streets, is enough to convince you there are parts of the city that don’t even bother with the veneer.

  Bob and I are at the door of the Chinese restaurant at the Cham Hotel waiting for a table, when Marwan and Malik come up behind us. I’ve known Marwan for several years now, although he still calls me Riley, as do most of Bob’s friends from the Middle East. Marwan gives me a hug, and Malik shakes my hand.

  Malik isn’t anything like I’d expect an Iraqi tribal chief to be. Clean-shaven, he’s in a dark, European-cut suit, a starched white shirt, and a conservative tie. He’s young, maybe in his mid-thirties, handsome in a weatherbeaten way, and looks serious and self-assured. He sits with his back straight, hands folded over each other on the table, while Bob and Marwan talk about the coming war. Malik has a presence that’s hard to describe. I’m fascinated by him.

  Marwan speaks English for my benefit, but I tell him to go ahead and speak Arabic. I pick up words here and there—they’re talking about family. Marwan asks about Bob’s children and his mother, and Bob asks after Malik’s children. As they move on to the Dulaym tribe and the war, they lower their voices. Syria is allied with the United States in this war, but still can’t be trusted.

  Toward the end of dinner they discuss plans for getting Bob and me across the border into Iraq, and Marwan translates for me.

  “You’ll be Malik’s guests in the compound for as long as you like,” Marwan says.

  “But how do we get there?” I ask.

  “You just drive across the desert and call Malik on a satellite phone. You give him your GPS coordinates, and someone from the tribe will come and get you.”

  Marwan sounds as if he’s giving us directions to take the Metro from Capitol Hill to the mall at Pentagon City. He must see the look on my face and adds, “Don’t worry. It’s done all the time.”

  I don’t like the sound of “it’s done all the time,” and Marwan hasn’t exactly said what he means by “just drive across the desert.” I let it go, though, and ask Marwan the more basic question I need answered. “Really, how safe is the compound?”

  “Nobody cares about the place. It’s way in the middle of the desert. There’s no need to worry at all.”

  The next day we hire an old Range Rover and driver and head to the border to see for ourselves if it’s as easy to cross as Marwan says. We’re about sixty miles outside Damascus when the Range Rover starts to whine and lose power. The driver pulls over to the side of the road, gets out to open the hood, and is met by a cloud of smoke. As Bob and I get out to assess the damage, a truck with Iraqi plates stops. A balding, heavyset driver climbs down from his cab with a bottle of water in each hand, and runs over and douses the engine fire.

  We’re all standing there studying the charred engine block, when our driver turns to the Iraqi and tells him we’re Americans. The Iraqi’s face turns crimson with fury. He yells at us, “Why are you bombing us?” He stomps back to his truck, climbs in, rolls down the window, and shouts as he drives away, “We are poor Iraqis only trying to make a living.”

  Bob’s trying to call for help on the cell phone, but there’s no coverage. I’m the one who sees a lopsided, rose-colored bus coming down the road from the border. Bob steps out in the road to flag it down, and the driver agrees to take us to Damascus. As we climb in, Bob tells our driver we’ll send help. The Iraqis on the bus smile at us and make room so we can sit together.

  The next morning while Bob goes out to rent a car—this time without a driver—I buy a Syrian map from the gift shop at our hotel and sit down to study it. It shows what look like spur trails crisscrossing the desert, a few even cutting across the Iraqi border. These must be the routes Marwan’s talking about. When I show Bob, he says that maybe it’s like the border between France and Switzerland, porous, with no one caring who comes and goes. I’m thinking, Yeah, right, but agree to take another drive to find out.

  After an hour and a half we catch sight of the border post from a rise in the road. Bob pulls over to see if we can spot any tracks in the desert. We’re parked only a minute when a Bedouin with a tethered female camel and its baby come out of a wadi walking toward us. I ask Bob if we should ask if the Bedouin knows about the spur tracks, but when Bob opens the car door, the wind snatches up our map and sends it across the desert at a full gallop.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow.

  —Euripides

  Amman, Jordan: BOB

  There’s this to be said for a professional lifetime spent in the company of eccentrics, rogues, and scoundrels: I have someone to call on for just about every occasion, and now, just when we need one, a prince of the Jordanian royal family. There are hundreds of them, but this one knows the back alleys of his country better than any.
Inside the family he’s nicknamed the Black Prince.

  As soon as the Black Prince sees Dayna and me, he shouts from across the Hyatt’s lobby, “To lunch, to lunch.”

  The Black Prince is a big, baggy man, with a big Hemmingway beard. In black fatigues and black combat boots, he looks the character he is. I first met him in the mid-nineties, and we’ve kept up ever since.

  “I’m famished,” he says. His accent is English public school.

  The three of us file into the Hyatt’s cavernous restaurant, where a sprawling buffet waits. Dozens of servers stand at the ready, but we’re the only guests.

  “It’s fixed,” the prince says, sitting down with a plate of pasta and a Pepsi. “Can you be ready in two nights?”

  The plan is that the prince’s driver will meet us in front of our hotel and drive us to al-Ruwayshid, a small town in the Jordanian desert. From there the Bedouin will take us north through the desert to a place where they regularly cross the border, about ten miles north of the Baghdad-Amman highway. They’ll walk us across the border, and on the other side we’ll be met by fellow Bedouin who’ll drive us to Rutba, a town back on the Baghdad highway. Malik’s people will meet us there.

  “Why will they do this for us?” Dayna asks.

  “I promised to pay them a hundred sheep,” the prince answers.

  I agree to the Black Prince’s plan, but need a reality check. As soon as we’re back at the InterContinental, I call another Jordanian prince, an adviser to the king. That night he sends his car to pick up Dayna and me for dinner.

  This prince’s house is outside Amman, in the royal compound in the middle of snow-covered hills and pine forests. On walls of the prince’s house are paintings you find in art books with the notation that they belong to a private collection—no name offered.