The Iraqi Army Diaries, Entry 1 (First in a series)

By S.D. Liddick

In the spring of 2009 I embedded with the U.S. Army’s 1-63 Combined Arms Battalion, in the small town of Mahmudiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad. The town is a cardinal point on what American soldiers have termed the Triangle of Death. Within a month I was offered a de facto embed spot with the Iraqi Army (IA), by General Mohammed, commander of the 17th Division. I quickly accepted and we determined that I would stay with one of his sub-commanders, Colonel Wisam Wisam, the Lieutenant in charge of the 2nd Battalion of the 25th Brigade.

Those young Iraqi officers carried me on dozens of missions, kicking in doors and unearthing stashed 500-pound bombs. They carried themselves more or less professionally despite lack of training and a tremendous paucity in equipment and funding (the officers I followed into dark houses during those raids didn’t have rifles as the Battalion couldn’t afford them, and would normally breach doorways with nothing more than a sidearm resting on their hip). They also lacked a fundamental understanding of the media-military relationship and showed me an uncomfortable level of candor, especially in their treatment of prisoners. The following is a series of journal entries from that assignment.

Waking on the Second Day at 2nd Battalion Headquarters

This is a military installation and the men I’m living with are accustomed to waking at six or seven in the morning. I’m told that Colonel Wisam, the Battalion Commander, goes to bed at two o’clock in the morning and rises at six. Last night I saw him up, before I turned in at one o’clock. The Iraqi Army carries its own traditions and customs, distinctly different from the U.S. Army, and I was hoping (in vain) that the waking hour was one of them.

Last night one of those differences came screaming home. I was supposed to go on a mission with First Lieutenant Hamid, the Battalion’s S2 (intelligence) officer. [In hindsight, the thing that sticks out about Hamid—save for the fact that on both sides of the U.S.-Iraqi divide he was considered brave and particularly competent—were the two English phrases he’d mastered … Hoooooly —-, and Whaaaaat the —-?]. The evening wore on and about 11 p.m. I began looking everywhere for Hamid. Eventually, I walked into Colonel Wisam’s office (he was talking with Ahmed, a bright young Lieutenant who speaks decent English) and I asked about the S2. I was told Hamid was tired and went to bed. I was flabbergasted. That would be inconceivable in the U.S. forces I’d been embedded with. [In retrospect, I understand Hamid’s mission schedule changed by the hour, sometimes by the minute, depending on information derived from his sources].

I figured there was some piece of information I wasn’t privy to—something that was lost in the translation. The Iraqi Army is lax in ways the Americans aren’t, but the idea of a mission commander canceling an operation because he’s tired … that was beyond the pale. I figured that maybe the target they were after (it was a snatch and grab op) failed to materialize. Even so, with the Americans there would have been a meeting to discuss having a meeting about canceling the operation. There would have been copious paperwork to deal with, a series of calls to higher ups in places where you didn’t even know there were places, and eventually a debriefing of everyone who’d ever heard of the mission. In the Iraqi Army, they just go to bed.

Before looking for Hamid, I dined with Major Ammar and other officers upstairs in the Battalion’s Spartan meeting room (the walls are two-toned, in need of paint and hung with a couple of large, simple maps of the area … headquarters is housed in a former Baath Party building and built in what could be described as Soviet style before the fall). Ammar was appointed to his position in 2004 by the Americans and there are few greater admirers of U.S. forces. He’s a gruff man with the shoulders of a virile bull and the flat face of scrappy Italian boxer. He’s one of the most serious and devoted officers I’ve encountered and I’m almost embarrassed that he values me so highly simply for my nationality. [Note: In looking back, I’m reminded that Iraqi officers, simply by living at the time and the place they do, wear targets on their shirt-fronts … many don’t own to being in the army when they’re not on duty—a protection for themselves and their families].

About three of the officers I was with spoke sputtering English—enough so that we could communicate—and we were able to trade stories and vocabulary. Then Lieutenant Ahmed arrived (or he was summoned … junior officers are at the beck and call of their seniors here, not unlike a fraternity house … in fact, the atmosphere is rife with fraternity analogies). Ahmed’s father is a high school teacher, his brother is a doctor, and his ambition as a kid was to go to the military academy and become an officer (his second life’s ambition, I think, is to become an American). After dinner, he translated for me and two insatiably curious officers—Captain Zeiad and Major Sallah.

Major Sallah is the Executive Officer of the base. He’s an overweight Iraqi (proudly so), and he continually grabbed his belly with both hands, like a pregnant woman, and said, Fat man, with a heavy Arabic accent. Other times, Captain Zeiad —himself the bearer of a more than modestly-sized paunch—pointed at the corpulent Major and echoed, Fat man, fat man. In fact, the majority of the officers here are fat; at least beefy. The Western idea of exercise doesn’t translate well in Iraqi culture. That probably has something to do with economics (it’s hard to find time for the gym when your kids have no shoes or a toothbrush), as well as the West’s media and mass communications obsession—and the derivative fixation with looking like the people on television.

Part of the Iraqi’s relative lack of obsession with artificial waistlines may have to do with the fact that for the last thirty years the country had only two TV channels (the Saddam channel and the children’s channel … which was run by Saddam’s sons). The skinny officers are the anomaly here, and perhaps it has something to do with the likeness of robust Saddam and the interspersion of that image with notions of success. Or maybe it has to do with the idea, entertained in the West at one point, that a person able to pack on the extra pounds must have the leisure time and the access to food given to the wealthy.

Whatever the case, the two fulsome officers sat back (the Major, with his quick smile and propensity for laughter, reminded me of Jackie Gleeson) and regaled me with questions.

“We’re sorry for asking so many questions,” they told me repeatedly. “Are we bothering you? We’re just so damned curious.”

The conversation was typically cross-cultural (it’s striking the number of similarities between all cultures). We hit on the point, for instance, that there are a lot of good people in Iraq—as well as bad people. Ahmed had to take my word for it that the rest of the world is similar. Like the vast majority of people in this country, he’s never crossed Iraqi borders. Until six years ago, the people here weren’t issued passports and they weren’t allowed information concerning the happenings outside the country’s borders (I’m told travel restrictions went into effect during the 1982-1988 Iran-Iraq war to prevent young men from evading the draft).

Zeiad and Sallah wanted to know if America was like what they’ve seen on TV, and if its houses are really that big [in Anbar Province, months earlier, an Iraqi interpreter explained to me that when he and his fellow interpreters signed on with American forces they were shocked to discover that rampant sex and heavy drinking weren’t the norm … they were convinced hard core vices were standard American traits]. For my part, I wanted to know if the progress I’ve seen (the dramatic decline in violence, developing faith and trust in the Iraqi Army, ubiquitous construction, and the boom in housing prices) was an indication that the insurgency was over.

The officers began what was to become a litany—things are much improved, they said, but the Iraqi Army can’t finish the job without American help.

Don’t leave yet,” they begged, as if I could affect U.S. policy. “You can’t leave yet. We’ll fail miserably without American help.”

“You do realize that when the Americans leave in three years there will still be bases—with gun-toting Americans here,” I said. “And by wishing them here you might just be asking for permanent occupation?”
“Stay as long as you want,” they said, “Stay forever.”

They pointed to the examples of South Korea, Japan, and Germany and said if that’s what American occupation meant—stability, economic might and an enhanced quality of life—they wanted every part of it. The conversation continued for another hour before Ahmed began to tire. As I got up to go, the officers reminded me what a great country America is, as they ordered a late-night snack from their pageboy. And they thanked me again, profusely, which felt weird.

I wanted to tell them that five years ago I was protesting their war—or any hostile act used as an avenue for U.S. diplomacy—and had been privy to conversations with other grad students in which the bombing of government buildings was proffered as means of civil disobedience.

“I think you actually want to talk to the poor young American kids that got their dicks blown off by RPGs or watched their buddies die,” I told them. “Those are the guys you should be thanking.”

We didn’t have a chance to get into our views on America’s reasons for being here—and my belief that it didn’t come to Iraq for the primary purpose of liberating a people (that liberation, I think, has been a propitious corollary but not a primary objective). But how do you tell a wide-eyed kid like Ahmed that Santa Claus doesn’t exist? I just smiled graciously at him and took my leave.

For more observations and anecdotes from Iraq, go to www.sdliddick.com

S.D. Liddick is one of the national writers of the year with the City and Regional Magazine Association. He’s been on international assignment for Rolling Stone and San Diego Magazine (where he was website editor before leaving for Iraq). His investigative articles have garnered dozens of awards with the Society of Professional Journalists, including half a dozen Best of Show nods. In 2006, he won the Sol Price Prize for Responsible Journalism after being jailed in pursuit of a story. In 2008 and 2009 he spent eight months in Iraq (five months with American forces, two months with the Iraqi Army and a month living with sheiks in Anbar Province). More at www.sdliddick.com.