Nir Rosen - Aftermath

The Guardian journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad wrote an article about his time with Abul Abed. “I think Ghaith embellished a bit, but the behavior he describes was a concern for me,” Kuehl said. “We got a lot of reports about his behavior, and it is true we were not with him 24/7. But we were with him a lot, and he came to rely on our presence to ensure that he was not targeted by the government. In some cases we could deny reports because I had someone with him at the time he allegedly did something. In general his behavior was pretty consistent with what I saw from IA officers. I saw him on several occasions work to get Shiite families back into Amriya. Over time I think he learned that he had to tone down his image, since he had become a public figure. I think he grew with the increasing responsibility he gained from leading a large organization.”

In late July 2007 a captain serving under Kuehl wrote to his father, reporting that within two months the Fursan had virtually eliminated Al Qaeda from Amriya—an area, as the captain observed, that had been declared “the capital of the Islamic State of Iraq” two months earlier. “These guys are from the neighborhoods, they know the people, and they are primarily concerned with making their neighborhoods safe again,” the captain wrote. “They conduct joint operations with us and the Iraqi Army. Unlike the IA, these guys are actually a pleasure to work with. Most of them are ex-military from the Saddam era and several are former captains, majors, or lieutenants. They have discipline and know how to plan and execute a mission. The month before the movement started, we lost fourteen American soldiers in Amriya. In the two months that the movement has been going, we have lost zero American soldiers in Amriya.”

The captain noted that people all the way up the chain of command had visited to see the project. Everyone realized the strategic importance of the Fursan, even the Maliki government, which was wary of the Sunni militias. But when Fursan members were seriously injured, their options were limited: “They are paying a heavy burden for their relentless pursuit of AQIZ,” the captain said, using a common acronym for Zarqawi’s Al Qaeda in Iraq. “We can only treat them at U.S. facilities if they are in danger of losing life, limb, or eyesight. Otherwise, they must be treated at an Iraqi facility. This works just fine for the ISF, which are predominantly Shia. The Ministry of Health is dominated by the Sadrists. I have personally been in the three hospitals that these guys would be treated at and all have pictures of Muqtada al-Sadr hanging on the walls. If I send my Freedom Fighters to these hospitals, they will not last a day. Obviously, my only option to maintain the fighting force is to get these guys seen by Americans. To this point, we’ve been unable to provide these guys much in the way of legitimacy, money, or weapons, but we have been able to care for them. They are doing the work that we could not do and they are paying the price for it. Knowing that they will be properly treated if they get injured is an incredible morale boost for them, not unlike any warrior. I can’t emphasize enough how this whole endeavor could go either way at this point. In three years of doing this, this is the first endeavor that’s actually given me hope.”

According to a major who served under Kuehl, “An unsung hero of this entire time period was the commander of the combat support hospital in Baghdad. More than anyone else he kept our sometimes tenuous relationship with the SOI on good standing, simply by admitting their casualties to his facility and treating them. The rules on this were somewhat in the gray area, and lesser men or those who did not see the strategic situation would have been justified refusing care and turning them away. I had one such conversation with a doctor on Camp Liberty who was discussing the practical reasons for not treating them, that they wouldn’t have enough beds for the American casualties. I told him that if he wanted to quit treating American casualties altogether, all he had to do was to treat these SOIs when they were injured.”

From August 7, 2007, until Kuehl’s battalion departed in January 2008, there were no serious attacks in Amriya. In the second half of 2007, the murder and kidnapping rate dropped from at least thirty a month to four. By the time Kuehl left, two hundred shops had reopened. Kuehl does not credit the surge itself for the reduction in violence, nor does he think that violence dropped because the battalion paid off a Sunni militia. But the increase in troops let him defeat Al Qaeda in his area and halt the Mahdi Army advance into north-west Baghdad. The joint security stations and combat outposts that Kuehl set up in neighborhoods, increased foot patrols, improved understanding of the communities his men patrolled, construction of concrete barriers, as well as improved cooperation with the Iraqi Security Forces were all factors that helped reduce the violence, Kuehl believes.

In September the captain wrote once again, reflecting on the contribution played by Sheikh Sattar Abu Risha of the Anbar Awakening and Abul Abed, his Baghdad counterpart. He noted that both were charismatic leaders, uncompromising in their beliefs and corresponding actions—the types who start movements, excite people, and bring them together. But he cautioned: “They burn bright and they burn fast.” Up until the end of July, he noted, if they had lost Abul Abed, the movement in Baghdad would have died. “If he’d died before that point, I believe that many of his men would have gone out to Anbar and fought with their brothers there, while the locals would have gone back to what they were doing before . . . attacking the Iraqi Army, and us occasionally, and trying to figure out a way to feed themselves and their families.” But once Amriya was rid of Al Qaeda and the Awakening was legitimized, Abul Abed’s role seemed, paradoxically, less vital. “At this point, the show will go on with or without him.” The traits that the captain identified in Abul Abed were central to his success and what made him “such a joy to work with”: the honorable warrior, his charisma, the passion and principle that “rubbed off on his men . . . don’t necessarily lend themselves to usefulness in the current environment.” The same could have been said for Sattar Abu Risha, whose death, the captain suggested, was a “blessing in disguise, as now there’s a martyr for the cause.”

“Unless they topple the current regime, they’re going to have to compromise,” the captain explained. “They’re going to have to work with others. They’re going to have to follow principles like due process. It’s not efficient, but that’s the point. Democracies are messy and slow and they put an emphasis on negotiation and accommodation. Those aren’t really traits that Abul Abed possesses. That’s why I like him.”

“As we handed over eastern Amriya upon our departure in January ’08,” Captain Gallagher said, “I told my replacement that this would be his number-one challenge: to ensure the volunteers were formally integrated into the security framework. I did not want to see us, or the Iraqi government, turn our backs on these men, because the blowback could be significant.”

I returned to Amriya in December 2007. My friend Hassan pointed to a gap in the concrete walls the Americans had built around the Sunni bastion. “We call it the Rafah Crossing,” he joked, referring to the gate to besieged Gaza that another occupying army occasionally opened. Iraqi National Police loyal to the Mahdi Army had once regularly attacked Amriya, and Sunnis caught in their checkpoints, which we drove through anxiously, would have once ended up in the city morgue. Police had recently put up Shiite flags all around western Baghdad, which the residents of Amriya viewed as a provocation. Our car lined up behind dozens of others that had been registered with the local Iraqi army unit and were allowed to enter and exit the imprisoned neighborhood. It often took two or three hours to get past the American soldiers, Iraqi soldiers, or the Fursan (most people called them the Thuwar, or revolutionaries). When it was our turn, we exited the vehicle while Iraqi soldiers searched it and an American soldier led his dog around the car to sniff it. I was patted down by one of the Sunni militiamen, who asked me if I was a bodybuilder. Not knowing I was American, he reassured me: “Just let the dog and the dog that is with him finish with your car and you can go.” He laughed, and we laughed with him.