Retrieving the money would be a pleasure. Ammar also had some pretty nice pistols confiscated, and I wanted to get those. I walked back over to the detention facility, where all of the weapons and the confiscated items, including the money, were stored. Another policy change in the last few weeks was that we were now to turn in all confiscated weapons at this central collection point. This really hampered my ability to hand out weapons to the people as tokens of our gratitude, so my unit largely ignored this rule, but we were running low.
The sergeant in charge tried to supervise me while I took the money and Ammar’s weapons, but as he turned to process another prisoner, I slid six more pistols into my backpack. This is what it had come to; we were stealing from one another inside the FOB, fighting the war inside the wall. Sadly, this civil war between the field units and the FOB units, emboldened by the contractors and the lifelong diplomats, came at precisely the time when we were the most successful we had ever been with the Iraqis. Our soldiers were safer in the streets than they had been a month earlier, and that had nothing to do with “how to properly screen an individual for a security risk.”
The trucks were already running when I threw the bag full of pistols and money into the backseat. The Misfits understood the deal better than most. They were on every mission with me and knew that we had a good plan going. They had seen the changes in the street and heard the stories from other soldiers in our unit. No patrol could enter the streets these days without crowds clamoring around and asking for “Captain Whiteley.” My prestige increased daily in the street, and people understood the concept of a person in charge, not a unit. Our arrangement made the transition government structure transparent and easy for everyone.
“Captain Whiteley!” The kisses came in quickly from the scrum of sheiks waiting for me at the DAC. Ammar, sullen, was there, as was Ali, holding a backpack full of the loot from the buyback. Ali, Ammar, and I went into a small room inside the DAC with the money and the receipts. Ali’s former life as a money exchanger was on display as the bills whizzed through his hands faster than any counting machine, sorting the bag of bills into stacks that corresponded to names on our list. One by one, the council members came into the room, discreetly took their money, thanked us, and left. It was a sign of respect that they did not count it.
After I distributed the gains from the buyback, the mood in the council was high. Almost everyone had received a taste of the proceeds. In the army, the buyback was being heralded as a tremendous success that made the streets of Baghdad safer. The ordnance disposal unit had gathered all of the weapons that we had collected, except a few that we plucked out to give away as gifts to our new neighborhood watchmen. They then detonated the pile in a remote area near the FOB. The huge explosion and plume wafted across the skyline, proclaiming that the tools of violence had been destroyed.
Back in the FOB, my phone rang constantly as dozens of people arrived at the gates of the FOB to see me, each promising to show me a cache of weapons. Although the buyback was over, it really only now rang true to the people. They had watched skeptically as their neighbors traded in their weapons to the Americans and received cash. No one (except Ammar) had gone to jail. No one had been tortured. Now a whole new wave of people seeking cash began to show up, and the only name they knew was “Captain Whiteley.”
I was no longer interested in these weapon sellers, even when they described themselves as possible informants. Iraqis have an insatiable demand for attention, and once you met a person, he would return daily seeking favors and offering bribes. It taxed my patience and took my time, and I was not alone. No one, or at least very few people, responded to visitors at the gate. The visitors would come in, check in with an interpreter, and then take a seat in a small waiting room, where they would sit all day. Sometimes people would see them, other times not. In the beginning, I had seen everyone, eager to be helpful, but I now spent my time only with people who could help me. These unfiltered masses were no help to me, one on one. Their stories of woe and begging annoyed and frustrated me. I had a standard message for them to see their council member, unless something was really extraordinary.
“This guy says he has a car bomb.” The soldier on the phone was calling from the front gate, and he sounded excited.
Well, this might be extraordinary. Car bombs had been a recent development here. They really only showed up near the Green Zone. On my way to the front gate, I stopped by the ordnance disposal unit and told them what was going on. There was no way I was walking out there myself to see whether it was a car bomb. Like me, the soldiers in this unit were excited. They had a special remote-controlled robot that could verify that it was a car bomb, and they always liked to use it.
While we waited for the ordnance guys to get their robot and inspect the car, I brought the informant into the FOB so we could chat. Using the interpreter from the gate, I asked where and how this guy had found the car bomb. He had a very long and rambling answer, but the one phrase that kept reappearing in his story was the “Yazeen Mosque”—a Sunni mosque directly across from the FOB that harbored anti-U.S. rallies and could conceivably be a headquarters for al Qaeda in Iraq.
A large explosion startled everyone, as the ordnance team detonated the car bomb. The informant looked at me expectantly, and I made arrangements for him to receive his money before he left. I thanked him and walked back over to my headquarters. I needed to find a way into that mosque.
Eight
ALLEGIANCE
THE DAC MEMBERS WERE SO ecstatic from the buyback that they wanted to throw a party at the former palace of Saddam Hussein, which was now being billed as a community center. The palace compound was guarded by several nephews of a council member whom I paid to be part of my facility protection service. It was a place that I often used as a meeting point, because it gave me an exclusive, safe area to meet with Iraqis who did not want to be seen at the FOB or the DAC building.
I also benefited from the legacy of the palace itself. Although Saddam had hosted feasts there as well, its location on the Tigris made it a useful place for the Hussein family to dispose of dissidents’ bodies. There still remained a great deal of that aura of imposed loyalty here. I sensed that the Iraqis were more respectful of the power of this building than they were of the power of the FOB. The palace’s imposing walls and foreboding legacy fit well within my emerging belief system that fear and respect were complementary inside Iraqi society. I noted that the stronger and less forgiving one became in Iraq, the more security one enjoyed. At the moment, my reputation approached its zenith. The people in the neighborhoods knew my name, the council members were enamored of the prospect of making more money from me, and the facilities’ protection teams had been working out well, although they had come under increasing attacks in recent weeks.
To help the Iraqi neighborhood guards and continue to build their effectiveness, I had overseen the installation of several fortifications that they could use. The U.S. patrols had also routinely resupplied them with water and food. We were building a pretty reasonable coalition, and nothing, not even the new policy in the FOB or the increased scrutiny of the program by Green Zone officials, was capable of derailing it. In the end, we achieved positive results, and those results mattered. The people in our sector were more secure, and the soldiers were better off. In order to showcase this success, we invited not only my boss, but also his superior to the party held that night at the community center. The previous unit had paid to renovate the two cavernous buildings, as well as the indoor swimming pool. On the evening of the party, the council members hung lights and set up an outdoor music system.
The night was warm and the atmosphere friendly. By the time the commanders had arrived, the music was playing, the food was set out, and a group of young women danced wildly on the steps of the palace. It was the type of evening and party that most Iraqis there would never have attended. It would have been unthinkable a year earlier to host a Western-style barbecue like this, with all of the new power brok
ers of Al Dora in attendance, none of whom was a Hussein family member.
The Iraqis took turns currying favor with the commanders, neither of whom was as accustomed to their sycophantic groveling as I was. From various pockets and bags, the Iraqis produced trinkets, cheap jewelry, and baubles for the commanders, which they sheepishly refused. Even more amusing was watching the commanders attempt to dodge the traditional kiss on both cheeks from the bearded masses—the Arab “man-kiss.”
The Iraqis’ conversation with me centered on the future of the community center. Most, if not all, of us wanted this to be a place where the families of Al Dora, especially those living in the urban areas with no green space, could come and enjoy a day outside. The idea of a safe place for children to play and picnic was idyllic in this war-torn area. A vocal minority of council members, however, wanted it to become a men’s club—a posh retreat for enjoying alcohol and women that would hearken back to the previous regime’s paradigm for a display of power and wealth. Most of the advocates in this camp alternated between joining the conversation and joining the women on the dance floor, who were more than willing to provide additional services for the newly influential men of Al Dora.
When a few of these enterprising young ladies made their way toward the laps of our commanders, they decided it was time to leave and said their farewells. My commander, however, had a special request of me. A young, socially awkward soldier was often the butt of many of our pranks. He was likable and genuine, and my commander thought that the soldier just needed a “manly experience.” My boss had recently discovered him with a stack of porno magazines and, while ridiculing him, learned that he was a virgin.
“Can you get him laid?” my commander asked with a huge Texas smile. He already knew the answer.
“Well, I probably need to stay out here tonight and make sure the party winds down, so we could use an extra hand,” I replied, exchanging a knowing glance.
By now, the pro-alcohol Iraqis were drunk, having mixed various bootleg liquors into their soda cans all night. It reminded me of a high-school party where everyone was dancing badly or awkwardly socializing, while surreptitiously sipping booze from a Pepsi can. I motioned to Ali to start moving these guys along and get them home. Drunk driving had become a rite of passage in Baghdad these days. After curfew, American patrols stopped all cars that were being driven erratically and found many drivers who were too drunk to stand, but in the words of one particularly inebriated Iraqi, “This is freedom, isn’t it?” Yet too much of this freedom had resulted in drunk driving deaths every day or drivers failing to stop at coalition checkpoints and subsequently being killed by soldiers who thought they were suicide bombers.
There were half a dozen hours left until daylight. I had about as many soldiers under my command and a directive to get someone laid. I briefly chatted to my senior noncommissioned officer and informed him of the plan. We pulled the trucks back toward the pool, did another security sweep of the entire area, and positioned a couple of guys on each roof. We had secured this palace so many times, it was like second nature to us. We placed a few antipersonnel mines down in some strategic spots and then let the junior guys join the girls in the pool.
The young soldier clumsily looked around. As the place emptied, he had grown noticeably more nervous. This was his first night out of the FOB. I put my arm around him and walked him toward the girls. They were giggling and flirting, talking to Ali about American soldiers and how much they loved them. The entire festivities, including the services of the girls, had been paid for with the proceeds from the weapons buyback program, courtesy of the council. These young women were hired to do a job tonight, and, by my count, none of them had performed just yet.
“Which one do you think is the prettiest?” I asked the young soldier.
“That one,” he replied, bashfully indicating a small brunette.
“Good choice,” I said.
I gestured to the girl and then to the soldier.
The girl’s clumsy attempt at being sexy and the awkward way in which she pulled him toward her and around to the back of the building, all suggested that this was a new occupation for her. But their partnering up broke the ice. The remaining soldiers and the rest of the girls dove into the swimming pool. Every so often, a pair would disappear outside the building and return about fifteen minutes later. It was a good time. The senior noncommissioned officers and I took turns walking outside and surveying the security of the compound from the roof. For security purposes, there was no way that I could allow anyone or anything to get close to this building. The soldiers had worked hard for months and tirelessly sacrificed for me; now it was time for them to relax. The young soldier, having lost his fear and conquered his lack of confidence, was a new man, making jokes and, I think, making several more trips outside with different ladies.
Things were going well, until Ammar’s phone rang. He suddenly got deadly serious. The conversation went back and forth, but it was over in seconds. He looked at me, visibly shaken.
“Someone just told us to get out of the pool because this is house of Hussein family.” His English was breaking, he was so shocked. “They knew my name and your name.”
This was a strange call, and I could understand his fear. Despite our successes with the Shi’a, the Sunni had steadfastly remained loyal to the memory of the Hussein family, and it was not all memory. The caretakers of the mansions and the people around them still received money from the Hussein supporters in exile. Something big was lurking in the background there, but we could not get close enough to see it. The Sunni were gathering their forces, and we had just insulted them with an orgy of our own in a Hussein palace.
“Let’s get everyone out of the pool,” I said quietly but urgently. Minutes later, the soldiers were dressed, as were the whores. Interestingly, the girls dressed as religious women, in black from head to toe, and their pimp dressed as an imam. As they left, they looked absolutely devout, except for a piece of torn red lace dragging from behind one of the girls. They left the gate and walked toward the highway. By the time they climbed into a van, it was impossible to believe that they were not pilgrims on a holy mission. It was another lesson in not believing what you see.
Quietly, we repositioned the Humvees and settled in for the night. Whoever knew we were here could easily ambush us on the way out, and I preferred that to happen in the daylight. Meanwhile, we would set up here and watch the night grow older. During the next few hours, the phone calls to Ammar started to come in from various Iraqi agencies, decrying our presence and the gathering, claiming the compound to be the residence of the new “governor of Baghdad.” It was unclear to me who this was or what it meant. Frankly, I did not even know such a person existed. For as long as I had been in Al Dora, I had introduced myself as the governor of Al Dora, because I was the governance officer and the de facto leader of our only governance structure. For all I knew, this was just another scam.
Finally, the calls ended in a threat. The governor would be at the palace in the morning, and if we did not want trouble, then we would not be there when he arrived. Ali made a few return calls while I relayed this breaking news to my commander. After a few frantic phone calls, two things were clear. First, there really was a governor of Baghdad, although his precise duties were largely unknown. It appeared to be a Green Zone creation that gave each of the State Department positions an Iraqi analog. Second, the meeting with the governor would be tomorrow at the DAC.
This pattern of posturing and threats was inherent to Iraqi politics, and I viewed it as a test of authority for me. The council members had all been here tonight, and in addition to the disagreement over the future use of the facility, there had probably been some discomfort at the presence of the prostitutes. Yet there were actually a million other reasons that people might not have been pleased with the evening—the most likely one being power. It was clear that someone in our little group had called this governor and made some type of deal. He had been alerted to the possibilit
y of taking this complex, newly renovated, as his own. The man knew as well as I did that once it was his, it would remain so, whether or not he was in office. In these days of murky rules and power plays, no one in a position of strength gave anything back without a fight.
Such a rise in Iraqi nationalistic pride was almost to be expected since the return of the national flag outside Iraqi government facilities earlier in the week. That had been a sad day. I had stood at the police station with a number of other soldiers, Iraqi and American, watching the Iraqi flag ascend the flagpole. You could feel the electricity race through the air; it was as if the spirits of the people swelled with each centimeter the flag climbed. By the time the flag reached the top and began snapping proudly in the breeze, I could barely recognize the Iraqis. They seemed taller, more capable, and, most important, more dangerous. The return of their sovereignty, as commemorated by the hoisting of their flag, signaled, in many minds, the end of the occupation. If they previously had looked at us simply as if they wanted us to leave, they appeared positively homicidal now.
After the raising of this flag, most Iraqis I spoke to, even the learned ones, expected us to be gone as quickly as we had come. The reality, of course, was much more complex. The police were incompetent, the Iraqi army was absolutely without function, and yet somehow we were supposed to turn this entire operation over to them. By order, there could be no more missions unless an Iraqi group went along. This usually meant three Iraqis sat in the truck while the Americans completed the raid.
It took fewer than twenty-four hours after the flag raising for the relationship between Iraqi police and U.S. soldiers to grow strained. It had become customary for me to stop by the gas station across from the DAC building after the meetings. It was a social center for the Iraqis. With eight decrepit pumps, it ran for eight hours a day, while people often stood in line for two days or longer. The single biggest complaint of the people was this line for gas. The obvious solutions were to raise the prices and cut the demand or run the pumps longer and increase the supply. At least, those were the capitalist solutions.
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