Nir Rosen - Aftermath

In Dora the Mahdi Army was under the command of the Karkh, or western Baghdad Brigade. The leader for western Baghdad and many of his local commanders were recently replaced for ignoring the freeze, and the Sadrists were trying to provide social services and help local municipalities. Some Sunni families who had been displaced by Al Qaeda in Arab Jubur were received by the Sadrists in Abu Dshir and provided with assistance. Mahdi Army men complained that the cease-fire was paralyzing them and causing them to lose respect or authority in their areas. In the nearby Bayya district, the Sadrist office was furious when an unknown corpse turned up on the street; several days were spent investigating whether somebody had disobeyed Muqtada’s orders. But the Mahdi Army was unable to control the rogue groups; sometimes, in fact, they received help from them.

In Abu Dshir the Mahdi Army relied on lookouts who watched for the Americans on rooftops and street corners. They also released pigeons from coops when American patrols approached. In the past this had led Americans to shoot innocent pigeon keepers. Apart from going on raids in Abu Dshir, the Americans conducted “presence patrols” in which they walked through the streets and interacted with people. I followed a platoon of soldiers from the 2-2 SCR around Market Street and spoke to the local shopkeepers about them. Flocks of sheep were herded through the streets, a common sight in the city. The Americans walked past furniture shops, waved to shopkeepers, and bought roasted chicken and fresh bread at inflated rates. “The Americans don’t have a strategy,” one local observed. “They don’t know who is with them or who is against them, and they’ve been here for four years.” I asked a group of men if Muqtada was powerful in this area. “It’s a Shiite neighborhood,” one said, as if it were obvious. “JAM has lookouts on streets dressed just like that,” an American officer said, pointing to a young man in a matching tracksuit. “It’s funny, you can look at these guys and know that they’re bad and have nothing to detain them for.”

Shopkeepers whose shops were destroyed during the fighting were supposed to receive money from the Americans. “Why did some get money and some didn’t?” I was asked by men who assumed I was a translator for the Americans. A group of men called the American officer over to show him an old man’s leg that was injured in an explosion. “Can’t anybody help him?” they asked. Another man asked if the Americans could help his unemployed son find a job in the security forces.

Platoon leader Lieutenant Cowan decided to visit a random house and ordered his men to “clear” it. Uninvited, they pushed open the outer gate and the door to the house. As the translator was elsewhere with Cowan, I had to explain to a frightened and bewildered woman and her two sons that the officer merely wanted to talk to them and they needn’t worry. The younger boy clung to his mother’s abaya and whimpered in terror. A soldier gave him some candy, and he stopped crying. “I feel bad walking on these people’s carpets with my shoes,” one major said. “My wife would kill me.” He went back outside. Cowan came in with his Iraqi translator, who wore a mask and sunglasses. He asked the woman how much electricity she received per day, about her water and sense of security. Cowan asked her if she knew who Ziyad al-Shamari was and how much influence the Mahdi Army had over the area. She laughed sheepishly with her older son. “We don’t go outside, we close the door,” she said. “You don’t hear rumors?” asked Cowan. “You don’t hear whispers? Do you know if there is JAM activity in the Kadhimayn Mosque?”

In a different home Cowan encountered an old man in a wheelchair who was a retired Iraqi colonel. “All Shiites here love the U.S. Army,” the man told him. “Yeah, well, we love you,” Cowan said with a smile. “In the beginning the Mahdi Army protected us from Al Qaeda,” the old man said. “Then they joined the police, they are all police. They protect us from mortars, Al Qaeda in Arab Jubur.”

One day I accompanied twenty-two-year-old platoon leader Rob Johnston as his men took two masked Iraqi “sources” from the Badr militia to identify Mahdi Army suspects. The Americans had been collaborating with this militia since 2004, when they teamed up with Jalaluddin al-Saghir, the Supreme Council cleric and politician. Saghir would send his security chief, known as Haji Dhia, to the Americans. Haji Dhia would wear a ski mask, point out the house, and tell the Americans what they would find there. He once escorted an American unit to a house at 2 a.m. They found an arms bazaar inside, with more than one hundred Kalashnikovs laid out in neat rows around the walls, along with ammunition, Glock pistols, and two MP-5s. Though at first the information was directed against Sunnis and helped the Americans arrest Al Qaeda cells, the Supreme Council provided information about the Sadrists as well, especially during the 2004 fighting in Najaf.

That morning in December 2007, the Americans descended from their vehicles and entered the main covered market in Abu Dshir. People tried to navigate around the large soldiers, looking at them quizzically as they squeezed through the tight alleys of the market. The Iraqi sources stayed in the vehicle. As women bought vegetables, fish, and clothes in various stalls, the soldiers rounded up all the men in the market, as well as those entering or leaving, pushing them back and holding them by their shoulders, ordering them to obey. One by one they led dozens of men to the street so the sources could identify them. One young boy started crying. A man hurrying back to his stall was halted. “Fish, fish,” he said in Arabic.

I wandered off to buy some popcorn from a stand. As I returned men warned me to go in a different direction because the Americans were stopping people. Sergeant Bowyer, charged with carrying out psychological operations, distributed an Arabic-language newspaper published by Americans and asked people inane questions. “So, how is everything here?” he asked one man. “What’s your sense of the people? Are people really happy in regards to reconciliation?” “Do you think JAM feels threatened by reconciliation?” he asked another. “When JAM tries to influence the people in Abu Dshir, how do they do it?” he asked another. “We can’t talk about this openly,” one man replied. “I’ll take that as a sign that it does happen,” Bowyer said. His vehicle was equipped with speakers, and as he drove through Market Street it blasted an announcement in Arabic calling on the people to continue with reconciliation and ignore those who would “take them back.”

The men raided a house and found some bewildered men working. “We’re laborers,” the men protested as they were taken to be identified by the sources, who had pointed out the house. They were pushed against the walls. One soldier held one of them by the back of the neck. The three men were quickly interrogated one by one. “What do you think of the way he talks,” the lieutenant asked me. “Do you think he’s honest?” Their stories were consistent with the obvious—they were mere laborers. “Can I go?” the last man asked me. “They’re not taking me away?” As I said no, he smiled and kissed my cheek. “We appreciate the time you gave us,” Lieutenant Johnston told them.

Children chased after the soldiers asking them for candy and teasing them. When they learned I spoke Arabic, they pointed to the pigeons that were flying above homes. They had been released by Mahdi Army lookouts. All the children liked Muqtada. “The Americans are dogs and Muqtada will defeat them,” one boy said. “The Americans are donkeys and the boys who take candy from the Americans are donkeys,” another boy said. “When they are here we say, ‘I love you,’ but when they leave we say, ‘Fuck you,’” he told me. Another boy showed me his watch, which had a picture of Muqtada’s father on its face.