In preparation for the elections and in light of the sectarian violence plaguing the neighborhoods, rumors circulated that the Sunni insurgency would return to prevent polls from operating in Shi’a neighborhoods. An opposite rumor actually proved to be more accurate. The Shi’a militias had actively intimidated Sunni neighborhoods, which already appeared to be boycotting any talk of elections. The conspiracy to undermine the elections reached even higher with a super majority of politicians and administrators representing Shi’a factions seeking to use the elections to cement and legitimize the power of Iran-educated and -trained leaders. I had decided to monitor the election from the headquarters, in order to have a better sense of the total picture Iraq-wide, plus I had already checked out from this job. Or so I thought.
Hours before the election, there were no ballots in several of our Sunni neighborhoods, a fact that caused panic throughout the Green Zone. The voice on the other end of the line nearly went apoplectic when I made my recommendation. I had offered to simply redistribute some of the ballots from our Shi’a neighborhoods if required, although I did not anticipate that anyone would turn out in the Sunni neighborhoods. The Shi’a conspiracy, if it was not merely gross negligence, was a redundant factor in this case. No Sunni person would be seen legitimizing the elections by casting a vote. Sunni politicians were boycotting this vote, and I would be surprised if the Sunni people were not as well.
As the State Department and various voting consultants planned how to deliver ballots without having them touched by Americans in order to preserve the appearance of Iraqi independence, I decided to get out in sector and see what was going on. The Misfits were out already working with another officer to coordinate all of the polling site data, so I was forced to hitch a ride with my commander. I told him about the problem, and I think he laughed. He picked up the radio and ordered the battalion operations office and the Misfits to go to the warehouse, load up all of the ballots, and find the few election monitors who needed physical prompting to leave their safe confines and deposit them all in their assigned schools for the polling.
No one ever asked how the ballots were delivered, nor did they really care. The following day we found boxes of unmarked ballots on streets and stacked next to schools. There were easily enough unmarked ballots to change the result of any election.
“I wonder what the State Department’s plan is for these ballots?” I thought, as children began playing with them as if they were toys.
The children were not the only Iraqis who saw the elections for what they were. They did not change anything. The people still struggled to find safety, the lights did not work, and sewage was still flowing in the streets. The national elections were trumpeted internationally as the true turning point in Iraq. Yet both the Iraqi people and I had grown weary of these “turning points.” Each one only led them down a road more crooked than the last. The dissolution of the CPA, the transfer of sovereignty, the half-dozen constitutional conventions, the weekly council meetings—all had been hailed as turning points, and each one ended in confusion and delusion. There was no way that any realistic person could look at the situation in Iraq and see the elections as anything other than the rubber-stamping of a proxy government for the United States.
Soon spring would be creeping back into Baghdad and with it the end of my tour. The DAC had been completely transformed; there were no Sunni members now, and the only woman was the wife of another council member. Talks of contracts continued unabated, but gone were the discussions of governance and elections.
Iraq now had its third prime minister in two years, and hundreds of American advisers had rotated through the various ministries. My unit was preparing to leave, and the impact on the council was destabilizing. I had been the first person in charge of the council for more than a few months. For nearly an entire year, I had eaten with the council members and laughed with them. I had tried to make them believe that I could help. I had even convinced myself that this was true. We had written our own rules, and we had tasted success.
As I introduced my replacement, everyone realized that Iraq could not exist like this—always temporary, defined by rotations, changes, elections, and conventions. There was no stability, and there was no hope. The only constant was the mosque, and it was only there that the Iraqis placed their faith and their allegiance.
I did not say good-bye to optimistic politicians who wanted a better future. I said good-bye to people who had tried the American way and lost. My friends, such as they were, had learned that not even a constant flow of dollars can fix all of their problems. In the end, only Iraqis know the road ahead. Whether it is fundamentalist or not, I cannot say. My only impression is that it is a road that I could not show them. My way, the American way, of councils and contracts, had provided a year of reassuring headlines to the American public but a lifetime of heartache to the people of Iraq.
Epilogue
I HEADED BACK TO THE UNITED STATES via the same roundabout process that had taken me to Iraq. This time Camp New York in Kuwait was not filled with wonder and hope but, rather, resignation. I had never felt such complete failure. My best had not been enough to stem the tide of blood or even to change lives for more than a few fleeting seconds. Still, there was a part of me that wanted to go back to Baghdad. I thought about volunteering to stay on with another unit. I thought I could make a difference if I just had more time—and more of chance to become “more Iraqi.” Against the backdrop of my own failure to make a difference the first time, I am not sure whether this was a true desire to help Iraqis prosper or a request to retake the test and pass. I had seen a small window of change in myself and could not help but wonder what would happen if I committed myself to being as Iraqi as possible. The dynamics were changing all of the time, though, and Baghdad as I knew it last year was completely different from the Baghdad that awaited the new replacements heading north.
When the plane finally arrived back at Fort Hood, our families greeted us with hugs and tears. There were speeches and yellow ribbons and American flags. It was a hero’s welcome, but I didn’t feel it. It seemed wrong to me that we could simply eject from Iraq without committing to a solution. The military’s repeated rotations there did not give us the continuity necessary to really understand the issues. Once again, I found myself longing to be back. I did my best to set all of those memories behind me and seek out the things that were important to me now, my family and my new life starting law school. Ironically, I no longer felt that close to the Americans around me, and even my family felt further from me than some of the people I had grown to trust in Iraq. Everything about life back in America seemed pretentious, from the carefree way we could drive on the highways to going shopping without any concern for safety. The downside to not facing these dangers was that American society appeared isolated and selfish to me. Whereas in Iraq, families lived together for generations, shopped together, and huddled together in tea houses and on porches, in America cars whizzed by with single occupants, and solitary people pushed their way through life without saying a word to one another. The vivid independence of each American stood in contrast to my recent Iraq memories and made me increasingly uncomfortable. I was not ready to accept this level of entitlement. The disparity between my life in America and my recent experience gnawed at me until I could no longer stand it. I needed to leave again.
A few weeks later, I left the army for good and left the United States for the summer. I rented an apartment in Barcelona, in a sweaty neighborhood in the Arab quarter where the families were piled onto one another. Throughout my building, I could hear their fights and their almost ceaseless chatter and smell their cooking. It was perfect. The return to American society had been too quick, too stark a contrast to the disorder and lawlessness to which I had grown accustomed. In Barcelona I had sought a confusion that would remind me of Baghdad. From my window in a trash-strewn street, the characteristic beats of Arab pop danced between the sounds of the chopping knives of the halal butcher shops. I wen
t downstairs to find comfort in the scrawled Arabic letters on the billboards and the placards and in the steaming cups of tea available in every shop.
I lost myself in these streets as I had during my first days in Baghdad. I wandered until I was exhausted and then drove myself even farther. Whether I was running from something or looking for someone—a council member, perhaps—I can’t say. All I know is that I took comfort in the crowds of men wearing dishdashas and women wearing veils. It felt like home to me, and I became comfortable. Eventually, I began to write. I wrote to memorialize, I wrote to remember, but most of all I wrote so that people would understand that hope was being built and destroyed not in the Green Zone or on CNN but under the table in windowless rooms. The future of Iraq would not be decided in palace halls or conference rooms but in the hopeless streets of forgotten places that Abu Floos knew well.
About the Author
JASON WHITELEY was born and raised in Lumberton, Texas, a small community near the Gulf Coast. After graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1999, he served as an officer in the 1st Battalion, 8th U.S. Cavalry in the 1st Cavalry Division, from 1999 to 2005, including a six-month tour as a staff officer in Honduras as part of Joint Task Force Bravo.
From 2004 to 2005, he served in Baghdad as a governance officer in the Al Dora District of Southern Baghdad. In 2005 Captain Whiteley was featured in the PBS Frontline documentary A Company of Soldiers. He left the army in 2005 to pursue a law degree and a master of science in foreign service at Georgetown University, both of which he received in 2009. Whiteley has been quoted in numerous newspapers on the subject of building governance capacity in Iraq. He lives in Washington, D.C., where he practices law.
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