June 2008

Going to War

By David Matsuda

My team climbs into heavily armored vehicles for the trip northward along the banks of the Tigris River.  The convoy slowly snakes along the river’s edge behind a detachment of oddly shaped vehicles that search for Improvised Explosive Devices and Explosively Formed Penetrators.  A sniper’s shot dents the bullet proof glass on one of our vehicles as we enter the small remote village of Shinsoi on the far end of our area of operation.  

Our platoon reaches the village center where we set up a temporary base in an abandoned Ba’ath party headquarters and prepare for the first Abnaa al Iraq (Sons of Iraq or SoI) pay day.  A neighborhood watch with guns, the SoI began in al-Anbar province when al-Qa’eda killed a sheik who opposed their blatant disregard for tribal customs.  Thus was born the Sahwa or awakening movement, as tribes rose from the drunken stupor of jihadism and began to struggle against al-Qae’da.

The SoI took up arms, manned checkpoints and, with their local knowledge, arrested terrorist sympathizers and foreign fighters in droves.  Sometimes they exacted tribal justice; on other occasions they turned their former terrorist allies over to Coalition Forces (CF).  CF pays the largely Sunni SoI as a way to stimulate local economies, maintain security, and eventually to incorporate them into the Iraqi police, army and civilian reconstruction brigades.  In this way the CF is helping the Sunni’s regain power and resources that are equal to the Shi’a before the United States departs Iraq.      

After a restless night in the remains of a bombed-out building we breakfast on “Meals Ready to Eat” (MREs) – which the more cynical among us claim stands for Meals Rejected by Everyone – and move to the courtyard of the Na’hia, or village government building.  There we set up chairs and watch as SoI stream by to collect their pay.  All appears to be proceeding smoothly until several SoI begin to complain bitterly.  Representatives from the al-Habibi, the village’s dominant tribe, try to calm the disgruntled SoI, to no avail.  

Muhammad, my Iraqi Interpreter, whose grandfather was a sheik, whose father is a sheik, and who will someday be a sheik himself, understands tribal ways and convinces the disgruntled SoI to talk.  It seems that the al-Habibi sheik had promised the CF proportional representation of all the tribes in Shinsoi village.  But on pay-day evening all the SoI checkpoint rosters were sent to al-Habbi Sheik Ali Babba who switched the names of those who stood guard for relatives and friends who’d never even seen a checkpoint.

The next day Sheik Omar, Sheik Sharif and other representatives of the disaffected tribes come to talk.  Sheik Omar’s tribe had 220 SoI and Sheik Sharif’s had 60 SoI before Ali Babba pulled a bait and switch and left them with respectively 60 and 5.  The scam unfolds over successive pay days until even people from Ali Babba’s tribe break ranks and come forward to say that they were excluded from the rolls.

The platoon captain is unsuccessful in his initial negotiations with Sheik Ali Babba so he asks Muhammad and me to advise him in a grievance meeting with all the village sheiks.  Muhammad and I know that “contract exclusions and tribal proportionality” are key negotiating points, and that Sheik Ali Babba will do anything to keep these topics out of the discussion.  

An artful negotiator, the Sheik begins the meeting by stating that there’d be no reconciliation, because Iraqi Army soldiers had touched his genitals when they frisked him, a violation of tribal propriety.  I whisper in the Captain’s ear that he should make a short apology; address the Sheik’s claim by saying that CF would co-monitor check points so this violation of aadat (tribal custom) wouldn’t happen again; and to bring discussions back to the contract.

We resume our discussion of the excluded SoI, but Sheik Babba again tries to side track the negotiations by claiming that those who’d been paid would return to al-Qa’eda if CF took back their money.  The young captain was about to take the bait when I firmly grab his arm and tell him to say, “Ever since we came to Shinsoi people have been telling us about the horrors al-Qa’eda unleashed on the villagers:  the countless loved ones lost to murders, rapes and torture.  If these men rejoined al-Qa’eda the CF and the just people of Shinsoi would again resist them and drive them out of the village.”

The verbal jousting match goes on until Sheik Ali Babba tires and agrees to negotiate.  The captain said the entire contract would be pulled unless all of the tribes reach a consensus agreement about proportional representation.  Hours later the sheiks emerge from the Na’hia building with an equitable agreement.  A sheep is slaughtered in our honor by the reinstated tribes, we’re offered four wives, and we feast till we can eat no more.

David Matsuda returned safely to his Texas Street home late last month.  See next month’s View for news on his re-entry to the States.

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