Iraq Journal, Part III

By Jay Nordlinger
Friday, October 10, 2008

EDITOR’S NOTE: Jay Nordlinger was in Iraq from October 4 to October 7

We chopper from the Green Zone to the Besmaya Combat Training Center. This is where they prepare Iraqis to take the fight to the enemy and defend the country. Who’s the enemy? Well, let’s rehearse: al-Qaeda, the militias, and assorted others who wish to terrorize and subjugate a population.

Our band is greeted by Colonel Abbas, who is warm and gung-ho — very. He calls you “my brother.” He is the epitome of the Iraqi committed to a new Iraq. And he is obviously giving it his all.

A couple of us are driven for a bit by a young man from the U.S. Navy. Not much water out here in the desert, huh? “No,” he says. “I bought myself a tide watch [wristwatch], just so I could think about the water.” He says that the Iraq conflict is the longest America has ever been engaged with an all-volunteer force. Therefore, we’re stretched pretty thin — and we need all hands here, including naval ones.

May I make a general observation? I think it many times, during this trip: If the American taxpayer saw things in action over here, he’d be very pleased — pleased that his money was being well spent.

Colonel Abbas shows us how his soldiers are registered: how their fingerprints are taken, how their weapons are logged in — how things are done on a professional basis. He is very proud that Iraqi forces are being professionalized — nothing merely ragtag about the new Iraq.

Our group speaks to some of the soldiers. One says he was in the old army — Saddam’s army. You didn’t have a lot of choice. They’d come along, grab you by the collar, and you were in. If you resisted, trouble ensued — real trouble. You’d get your ear cut off, or your tongue cut out. Your family would be killed. That sort of thing.

They didn’t mess around, back in Saddam’s day.

We see some of the forces in training: They’re going from house to house, room to room — that sort of fighting. Close quarters, very difficult — you want to shoot only the guilty, if anybody. They are learning to work together as a unit, a seamless team.

After their exercises, we talk with them. I say, “Do you practice and train as though your lives, later on, depended on it?” Back comes a chorus of nams — of Arabic yeses.

A colleague of mine asks, “Who is the No. 1 enemy of Iraq?” They respond, “Terrorists.” My friend says, “Which terrorists?” They answer, “All.”

We next go to a center where they learn to defuse bombs — to dismantle IEDs. They have robots among their equipment. The Iraqi officer in charge says, “The robots are our true friends.” An IED (improvised explosive device) is not an IED — there are many types. In fact, this center has a kind of museum of IEDs.

Toward the end of our session, a woman passes out candies — for Eid, the Islamic holiday that has just occurred.

We have lunch with a big group, including Colonel Abbas, who is the dominant personality — an amazing personality. He says that he was the first man to sign up for the new Iraqi army — on July 21, 2003. His ID card, he tells us, says No. 1 — he was the first man in.

According to Abbas, the enemies of Iraq are Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia — in that order. Why Saudi Arabia? “Because they support al-Qaeda.” Pressed on whether it is the government itself that does this, he backs down. No, maybe not the government: but elements in Saudi Arabia, for sure.

Talking about those who menace Iraq — all of them — he says, “They are bad people.” Over and over, he refers to “the bad people.” This is how he names the enemy, as a collective: “the bad people.” If he talked like this in Manhattan (for example), he’d get laughed at. He doesn’t get laughed at by me. I know exactly what he means — and he is right.

He will also say “the good people.” Awfully Manichean, huh? I don’t care. I know what he means by “the good people,” too: people who are willing to let Iraq live.

What would happen if the Americans left too soon? That is a question before Colonel Abbas. He says, “I would leave the country with my family. Otherwise, we’d be killed.” He has already suffered losses — his infant daughter was killed, when the Mahdi Army attacked his house. Abbas also implies that his father died, some time later, from the effects of that attack.

The subject turns to Americans who want to leave Iraq forthwith — or on a strict timetable. Abbas brings up Senator Obama — and says he wishes he could talk to him. To tell him of “the reality of Iraq,” rather than “what is in his mind.” If we withdraw before our time — before Iraq can defend itself — we will be handing victory to Iran and al-Qaeda.

That is Abbas’s emphatic point.

What about George W. Bush? “He’s a great man in the world. I want to see a monument to him in Baghdad. A man like him comes every 300 years.”

Praise like this for Bush is pretty rare, certainly on American shores. But Colonel Abbas is entitled to his opinion too, isn’t he?

I ask why the fight against “the bad people” has been so hard — why they have been so hard to defeat. He says, “Because of house-to-house fighting. It’s very difficult. And we do it clean. Under Saddam, if they were looking for five people, they would wipe out your whole town.” I ask whether his family suffered under Saddam — dumb question. Whose didn’t? Abbas had a cousin and an uncle killed, within the same hour.

And you could be killed for any reason: for example, if your verses about Saddam were not laudatory enough.

Do average Iraqis consider themselves Shiite, Sunni, or Kurdish, rather than properly Iraqi? No, says Abbas — “We are Iraqis.” There is one flag, not three. People are waking up, he says. “They now know who’s good and who’s bad.”

Someone asks whether it was right to execute Saddam Hussein. Abbas says yes. “He was an evil man, and he needed to go — to go to hell.”

He is plainly skeptical of his government — the government in Baghdad. But for the Americans, he is extraordinarily grateful. “Why do we [in this training center] have these good meals, and this good equipment, and air conditioning, and all those other things? We know where they come from.”

An American general with us — Salazar — says that the Iraqi government was responsible for the solving of some problem recently. (I believe this problem had to do with soldier payment.) Abbas doesn’t quite buy it. If they solved the problem, he seems to say, it was only with American prodding.

Back to the subject of “What if America departed too soon?” “Iran would come in after one minute,” Abbas says. “After one minute, Iran would take over.” They would not rule directly — they would rule through their proxies. Abbas implies that Iraq has its willing Jaruzelskis (to choose just a Polish example).

I ask whether Iraqis consider Americans occupiers. He is almost offended by the question: “They are our partners, not occupiers. They are our helpers — like policemen, keeping order. Anybody who tells you differently doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Here is another question: What happened to Saddam’s WMD? “He sent them to Syria,” Abbas says. That is his answer in toto. He answers as confidently as he would if asked his own name.

I know that Abbas wants to think about the present and the future — but I ask whether we could go back a little. “What mistakes did we make, in those first years? What did we do wrong?” Abbas won’t even concede that we made mistakes. “If you do something sincerely, from the heart, how is that a mistake?” I later tell an American general what Abbas has said. The general says, “That is very Iraqi.”

And I think of something a wise friend in New York once said: “Everybody says, ‘We’ve had four years of failure in Iraq.’ Actually, we’ve had four years of learning.”

Abbas will not hear that Americans may turn away from Iraq — that they might depart before Iraq has been secured. The suggestion renders him indignant. I tell him that his faith in the staying-power of the American people may be greater than mine. He wants to argue, and we do, a little.

Finally, I tell him — “friend to friend” — “Do your work quickly. That’s all I can say. Get up and running as quickly as you can.”

Leaving lunch, I think about Vietnam, as I do a fair amount during this trip. There were lots of Vietnamese just like Abbas: people who had great faith in America, and the staying-power of our country. The luckiest of them ended up in California.

And as I walk to our helos, I think of April ’75 — one of the most shameful months in our history. I think of those people desperately clinging to the skids, trying to get out. Knowing that, if they didn’t make it with the Americans, murder or worse would be their lot.

I’m sorry to voice the darkest fear, but could this happen to the Iraqis? Could they really be abandoned to the wolves? Could Iraq again become “the Republic of Fear”?

In front of the choppers, Abbas embraces us and says, “God bless you.” I say the same to him — and mean it, deeply.

We travel to the place where they train the carabinieri — and, quite naturally, Italians are in the lead. “These are Silvio’s boys,” I think to myself — Prime Minister Berlusconi’s boys. Italy is a fine ally, don’t you think? Carabinieri are half soldiers, half policemen. A slide presentation outlines the trainers’ goals. One of them is, “They do [meaning, Iraqis do], we watch.” That can describe much of the transition process currently taking place in Iraq.

Incidentally, after our meeting with the Italian-led team, members of our group remark, “They served exceptionally good coffee. Figures.”

Part of the job of the Iraqi carabinieri is “dignitary protection” — the physical protection of dignitaries, such as governmental ministers and judges. Kidnapping is on the increase; attacks in general are on the increase. I think, not for the first time, that you have to be very brave to serve in the Iraqi government. There is always tremendous risk; you become a target for terrorists. And so do your loved ones, your bodyguards, your friendly acquaintances . . .

I have attended many Davos meetings, both in Europe and the Middle East. And the Iraqi officials are often mocked and derided — not given a break. One of the things that burn me about this is: They risk so much, to do what they do; their critics have it perfectly cozy. They may screw up, these Iraqi officials. They may even be corrupt. But they stick their necks out.

Judges are a particular issue: A U.S. general confirms to me that judges face ungodly peril. I think of Peru and the Shining Path. There is, of course, a lot in common between the Shining Path and the Iraq terrorists. I once wrote an entire, long piece on this. When Guzmán and the boys were finally tried, the judges sat in hoods. And everyone in America said, “How shocking! What kind of justice is that! The judges are hooded!”

Well, the reason they were hooded is that all of the other judges had been killed. I don’t know how many of us would have had the spine to serve as judges, even in hoods.

Anyway, our group observes demonstrations of Iraqi carabinieri in action. In one exercise, a limo is “down” — attacked by terrorists — and the squad has to maneuver quickly, to get the dignitary safe and whisked away. Highly interesting, highly professional.

We then question some of these young recruits — recruits to the Iraqi carabinieri. They tend not to tell their neighbors what they do for a living. Some people — Qaedists, militiamen — may not like it. The brother of one of these men was killed, after terrorists learned of the carabinieri connection. That is life in today’s Iraq — a life unimaginable, fortunately, by most people.

I have occasion to tell these men that they strike me as the equivalent of our Secret Service. And that is a corps very much admired in America. Indeed, they make movies about them — a fact that seems to be appreciated.

Among the U.S. officers is a major named Millay. I ask whether he’s any relation to the poet — no, though he’s asked about that, now and again.

An American general here is named Milano — a fact the Italians must especially appreciate.

After another demonstration — another exercise — the visiting journos receive some firearms instruction. We go to the range, to shoot some AK-47s, some Glocks. I am not a picture of smoothness, in my five minutes at bat. But given another five minutes — I like to think I’d be sniper material.

At various junctures on this trip, I think, “This is Erect-a-Nation. What we’re doing, or trying to do, is erect a nation — virtually soup to nuts. This is war, yes, but also nation-building. The most fervent ‘Wilsonian’ might blush.”

In a private conversation, I ask a general, “Is this going to work?” He says, “Oh, yes, we’ll succeed. We have no choice, really.” But we always have a choice, don’t we? Did we have a choice in Vietnam? Did we have a choice when we cut off funding to them, after Watergate, after the ’74 election, after that new Congress took power in January ’75?

We go to see the Iraqi special forces, trained by our own special forces. Actually, these guys are called Special Operations Forces, or “SOF.” And the acronym first hits my ear as “soft” — which is, of course, the opposite of the truth. These men are apparently the best of the Iraqi fighters. And they get double pay — double the pay of regular forces. They are evidently the elite of their country’s military.

They had a bad day yesterday: There was an accident, involving helicopters, and one of their number was killed. Today they are in mourning.

What is it like to be part of Iraq’s special forces? Well, when two of the men were on leave, they were shot — shot because terrorists knew what they did. (The men survived.) Iraqi special forces have to be on guard all the time, whether they're “on duty” or not. And the same, unfortunately, goes for their families. Saving the country from terrorists comes with horrendous costs.

I ask an American a usual question of mine: why the terrorists seem so hard to beat. Surely our guys — our guys both American and Iraqi — are better, right? He says, “They can blend in, disappear” — they’re slippery. In a more open fight, our guys would cream them, instantly.

We have some questions for an Iraqi special-forces man. “Why did you join up?” “To defend my country,” he says. “Did your family suffer under Saddam Hussein?” “Yes, many families suffered under Saddam Hussein.” “Are Americans occupying your country?” “There are different definitions of ‘occupation.’ Saddam Hussein occupied this country.”

By the way, this man’s brother was killed, not long ago. If I’ve understood correctly, he was killed because of his brother’s involvement in the special forces.

An American says, about the Iraqis he works with, “They’re all in. They’re committed. This is their home. I can leave, but they have nowhere else to go. They have to stand and fight.”

The man in charge out here is Gen. Simeon Trombitas, who comes from northeastern Ohio. He has a lot of experience. He says, “I’ve worked with indigenous forces all over the world, and these guys are the best. Their lives depend on it.” He also has great respect for his own: the young Americans under his charge. “The Vietnam guys taught us a lot — they taught us how to stay alive. But these guys now are even better. They are just amazing.”

Trombitas has worked in Colombia, and I ask what he thinks of President Uribe. He says, “He’s a great man. And a personal hero of mine.” Ditto. We also reminisce about El Salvador, where Trombitas worked in the ’80s. That’s when Reagan & Co. beat, not just the extreme Left, but the extreme Right — the death squads and all. Of course, the Gipper seldom gets credit for that.

“Have you been to El Salvador lately?” Trombitas asks. I have not. He says, “It’s a nice place to visit.” Who would have known, those years ago, when it was on fire with war? And will Iraq someday be a nice place to visit?

Sometimes, U.S. politicians portray our soldiers in Iraq as little babies, in need of rescue. We heard a lot of this in Denver about a month and a half ago. I did a good deal of writing about it then. I think I referred to the “infantilization” of our troops. I received many letters, both from active-duty men and veterans. One of them said, “Yeah, to them we’re dupes, dopes, or disabled” — the three Ds.

No doubt American soldiers are sick of the Iraq War, like everyone else (including the Iraqis, first and foremost). Our men have gone through hell, being at war. But I see a great deal of idealism, energy, and commitment. It is also clear that our people — many of them — believe they’re engaged in a great and noble effort, one that should be seen through.

If you don’t believe me, please ask them, for yourself. And take a wide enough survey.

One final thought: Which was worse, the portrayal of our soldiers as baby-killers, back when, or the portrayal of them as babies, now?

We leave the special-forces site for the embassy-palace in Baghdad. And we travel in MRAPs, or Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected vehicles. You indeed feel secure in these lumbering armored behemoths. You feel you are in a traveling fort. And you wish everyone in Iraq could ride around in MRAPs, until such time as normalcy appears — normalcy, that great and cherished goal.