FOB Mahmudiyah
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The afternoon of February 19 was cloudy in the Iraqi town of Mahmudiyah. The city of 300,000 lies 20 minutes south of Baghdad and is home to the U.S. Forward Operating Base (FOB) Saint Michael. Though it’s been quiet for more than a year, Mahmudiyah was at one time a cardinal point on Iraq’s Triangle of Death.
Since October 2008, Saint Michael has been occupied by the Army’s 1-63 Combined Arms Battalion. Despite the dramatic drop in violence, 1-63’s four companies continue to carry out dozens of missions a day.
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Captain Landgrave Thomas Smith is the Commanding Officer of the four platoons in Delta Company. In concert with his superiors and according to demand (which factors intelligence, the Battalion’s long-term goals, and the needs of the Iraqi Army), Smith plans Delta Company’s missions on a weekly basis; they often change by the day, sometimes by the hour. Many of those missions are basic, mundane patrols and provide backup for the Iraqi Army, which has taken the lead in the country’s security paradigm.
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“It’s a sign of progress,†Smith says, “that we’re bored. When we first got here, we were still kicking in doors and taking away bad guys. The Iraqi Army is handling all that now. They call us when they need backup for an operation. More and more often, they’re not even calling us for that.â€
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Conterminously with the drop-off in kinetic activity, American units across the country have moved into a phase that might be called chai mode. Chai tea is sort of the unofficial national drink of Iraq, and is served whenever a guest enters the diwan (meeting room, generally reserved for men)—which happens often in this social Arabic landscape. Since the “surge†in 2007, U.S. officers have been donning diplomat’s hats, conferring with and advising Iraqi Army colleagues (a shift in duties that’s required endless hours of conference—and oceans of chai).
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Delta Company’s Mortar Platoon, commanded by 1st Lieutenant Cameron Mays, was slated for two missions on February 19. The second was a late night patrol of the area’s major vehicular artery, a road the military calls Main Supply Route (MSR) Tampa. The first, which materialized at the last minute, was a Key Leader Engagement (the military’s term for those chai sessions), with Colonel Wassim, the Mahmudiyah-based commanding officer of the Iraqi Army’s 2nd Battalion, 25th Brigade (2/25 IA BN). Captain Smith was added to the roster for the engagement.
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Before every mission, the platoon comes together in the staging area where its Humvees are kept, for a pre-mission briefing. Fifteen-minutes ahead of its 1600 departure time, Lt. Mays and Sergeant First Class Steven Webb informed the mortar platoon about the roads it would take to reach its destination. They reviewed what-to-do-ifs, and discussed recent and projected enemy activity. The only action of note in the preceding 24-hours was the retrieval of an unexploded Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in 1-63’s area of operations (AO), a case Captain Smith thought was odd, because the IED didn’t appear as if it was intended to detonate (the event would be one of the points for discussion with Colonel Wassim).
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After the briefing, the platoon donned body gear and piled into five Humvees. It passed through two checkpoints on its way to 2/25 IA BN Headquarters, 20-minutes away. In front of headquarters building, an Iraqi squad practiced dismantling AK-47 assault rifles. As Mays’ men set up a security perimeter, the officers and their two interpreters entered Wassim’s office. One of the challenges in this phase of the conflict is convincing enlisted soldiers that these missions (and doing glorified guard duty) are as important as facing down bad guys.
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Each American unit carries an interpreter on missions. Many of those interpreters are English-speaking native Iraqis. Smith’s interpreter on February 19 was Justin (most interpreters borrow U.S. names to protect their identities and to make it easier for U.S. soldiers to remember them). A sharp-looking 24-year-old with a keen wit, quick tongue and blunt views about Iraq’s future, Justin comes from the south of Iraq. He’s a grease-in-the-hair type with mirrored sunglasses and a big cell phone bill; if he lived in the U.S. he’d probably be driving a BMW, running through the girls quicker than the cigarettes he smokes by the carton, and working in finance. (As it is, he’s come of age in a war-torn country where he’s lost a brother and his father to kidnapping/murder, and he knows that if the U.S. effort here isn’t successful, his head will be on the chopping block when American soldiers leave).
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Colonel Wassim is an affable man with a quick and easy laugh. He was an officer in Saddam Hussein’s Army and is now in charge of thousands of soldiers. He meets with officers from FOB Saint Michael several times a week to compare intelligence, plan joint missions, and assess progress in the joint AO. One of the first points of business with Captain Smith is the mystery IED. After greetings and laughs—Arabic meetings begin with hand shaking, cheek kissing and chai—Smith queries the Colonel, through Justin. The two men share their separate intelligence on the find and bandy about possibilities.
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Smith says he thinks it was laid by one of their allies, a local sheik named Salih Sabah Abbas Al-Ubaydi, who is also head of the area’s Sons of Iraq, or Sahawa. Sahawa is the grassroots Sunni movement that began in 2005 and is largely credited with defeating the insurgency in Iraq … which, for all intents and purposes (in that part of the country) meant Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Smith knows that Sheik Salih has been discontented for some time with the Iraqi Army (IA).
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The IA has been late with payments for Sahawa the past couple of months—there are still more than 50,000 Sons of Iraq on the Ministry of Interior’s payroll, at $300 a head, per month (friction has mounted between regular army forces and the highly irregular Sahawa—a force that’s untrained, undereducated, and consists largely of former Al Qaeda sympathizers and operatives). Exacerbating the problem, several weeks before the meeting Sheik Salih detained and beat a man he thought tried to kill him (though he’s in charge of the area’s Sahawa, he has no legal right to detain people). That event was a sticking point with the IA.
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Now that the shooting seems over in Iraq, knowledge is capital—and Captain Smith knows a few things about Sheik Salih. He knows the 37-year-old formerly fought with AQI—against the Americans. But that’s not a great surprise—most of the country’s tens of thousands of Sahawa have had connections with AQI. On the flip side, Salih has provided the U.S. with useful AQI intelligence in the past.
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Fellow officers say Captain Smith is adept at the cat-and-mouse games dominating the contemporary picture in Iraq. And Smith understands that Sheik Salih’s not in an unenviable position. AQI is still operating across Iraq (though its abilities have been greatly diminished) and the sheik has already lost one brother to the insurgency. Which is likely why he’s become frustrated with the IA and what he perceives as its inadequate overtures at cooperation and assistance (and which may have prompted the IED hoax).
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A common tactic of sheiks who have cooperated with the Americans (they’re now emerging as Iraq’s new power brokers) but who aren’t getting what they want, is to hint that “the violence could returnâ€â€”a veiled threat that AQI could be allowed back on the scene. Salih has been too circumspect to threaten directly, but Smith wonders if he didn’t have the faux IED planted as a reminder to the IA that it needs to play ball. Colonel Wassim’s intelligence supports the theory and the two men deduce that the device was accidentally discovered by an American unit patrolling an area usually covered by fellow Iraqis.
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Wassim says he’s been trying to contact Salih for weeks and now is the time to talk to him. He calls the Commanding Officer of 2nd Company, Captain Fadel—who is from the area where Salih lives—and tells him to pick the Sheik up. It’s time to bring him in for a talk.
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“It’s all about relationships,†Smith says, “how you either use them to your advantage or don’t. Salih’s just like everybody else in the AO, whether it’s on the Shia Extremist side or the AQI side; everybody knows everybody. It’s not like people grow up and move away from home. Your entire family lives in the village.
“If you worked with AQI, you’re still all buddies. The JAM guys [the Jaish Al Mahdi militia is associated with anti-U.S. cleric Muqutada Al Sadr … though the movement has gone political, it still has militant offshoots] are still friends with the JAM’s militant guys. It’s all about relationships—and knowing the relationships that these people have is the important part of getting them to do what you want. You balance interests and you balance relationships and you work those two together in order to effect the security piece.â€
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Smith has had crucial information about Salih for months—and Salih isn’t aware of it. The Captain had hoped to hold onto it longer, but if there’s to be a confrontation, it’s probably going to spill.
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“This is going to be a more exciting visit than I thought,†Smith says. “I think we better pull another witness in here.â€
Lt. Mays sends for Specialist Sean Henry, who speaks some Arabic. When Henry arrives, he joins Smith, Mays, their two interpreters, Colonel Wassim and Iraqi Major Ammar, the 2/25 IA BN Executive Officer. In addition to Captain Fadel, the men will also be joined by Headquarters Commander Captain Salah.
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In the minutes before the sheik’s arrival, the men exchange news and catch up on current events—and chai is served. The interpreters chat in Arabic with the IA officers, as Smith and Mays discuss how to handle the meeting with Salih—they will follow Wassim’s lead (as is the case with most facets of security in Iraq today).
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Sheik Salih comes into the room with Captain Fadel—he’s as reserved as I’ve seen him on two other occasions. He’s quiet and he avoids eye contact. It occurs to me that he’s in a shifty and lethal situation—stuck between the overwhelming might of U.S. forces and the baleful underground influences of the still viable AQI network. He’s lucky to be alive (it would be difficult to find a company willing to sell him a life insurance policy). After a round of handshakes, he takes a seat next to Major Ammar, near Wassim’s desk (the Colonel calls for another round of chai).
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“You have to know who these guys are close to,†Smith says, “and you have to be comfortable with idea that there is no black and white. In a lot of cases, they’re in a tough spot. It’s easy for us to say, right, wrong, good or evil, but it’s a lot harder for them when they still have to go home. They’re fighting the fight at the same spot where their family lives. It all exists in that world of gray over here, somewhere in between right and wrong.â€
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Smith says Arabic culture isn’t much for direct confrontations (I think that’s because confrontation is impolite and too harsh for the region’s highly decorous cultural traits … whatever the case, the men of Iraq can talk for hours without reaching decisions or arriving at hard results).
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Phones ring throughout the conversation and people correspondingly drop out of the dialogue, and pop back in (Iraqis didn’t get cell phone technology till the fall of Saddam and they’re making up for lost time … every person of age seems to have at least one phone and they ring constantly). Justin’s phone rings and he talks briefly, before calling across the room to the Lieutenant. The Iraqi officers and Sheik Salih, who speak no English, understand nothing of what he’s saying.
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“Sir,†Justin calls to Mays, in his Middle Eastern accent. “It’s my mother—she says she wants to fuck you.â€
I don’t know if Mays is stunned or if he’s just that cool. He’s a product of rural Kentucky and blessed with the placid demeanor of the South—and he has, of course, been trained to maintain his composure when all possible hell has broken loose—so I think he may be just that phlegmatic. He stares at Justin with a thin smile.
“She wants to fuck you, but it has to be tonight,†the interpreter says.
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Wassim and Ammar look on, wondering, no doubt, what’s being said. Mays has never met Justin's mother and would probably be more surprised if he didn’t know the incorrigible interpreter so well.
“Uh, Justin,†he says, “You’re gonna have to stand by on thatâ€
Wassim and Ammar go back to chit-chatting and Mays tries to follow their conversation.
“I’ll let you fuck her,†Justin says, “But you have to do me that favor I asked you about.â€
“Justin—â€
“She really wants to,†Justin cuts him off.
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“Hey Justin,†Captain Smith says, pointing in the direction of Wassim, “I need your attention over here.â€
The interpreter directs his gaze to the Iraqi Colonel—but not before slipping in a final comment.
“She’s going to be really disappointed, Sir,†he calls to Mays.
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Mays shakes his head wondrously, continuing to stare at Wassim, who holds court from behind his palatial desk. Salih, meanwhile, pulls out pellets from another IED find in the area and the officers crowd around, examining them. At the same time, he denies working against Coalition Forces and says they’re all friends. Justin shakes his head (while the Americans rotate out of country roughly every year, to be replaced by new soldiers and officers, Justin—as is the case with many interpreters—has been in the Mahmudiyah AO four years).
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“What’s he saying?†Smith asks.
“He’s saying the same shit he says every time,†Justin responds. “We’re all friends, we’re working against AQI. It’s all bullshit. The next time I’m going to start talking and finish his sentence for him. It’s the same exact shit he’s been saying since I’ve been here.â€
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That’s about it for meaningful conversation. Another course of chai is served and the group chit-chats for the next 40 minutes—until Sheik Salih mentions leaving. Smith offers, through Justin, to walk him out—there’s something he wants to discuss.
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“I walked him out, and I said, ‘You’re a good person,’†Smith says. “Salih said, ‘Well, thank you.’ I said, ‘You know, Colonel Wassim used to work for Saddam Hussein. And I’ve got an interpreter that worked for the Baath Party. And you worked for AQI. He looked at me, his eyes got really big, he kinda shrugged, and nodded his head. Which is the first time anybody’s seen him admit to that—including the interpreters.
“I said, ‘That’s okay, you are forgiven all of that. But, this shit stops. You have to choose sides. You’ve got this side right here … we’ve got schools to rebuild, like your Ubaydi school, the market school, and I’ve got water purification pumps to put in, and I’ve got money for redoing roads. On this other hand, you’ve got nothing but people getting shot, people getting blown up, doors getting kicked in in the middle of the night, women screaming and dudes going to jail.
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“It’s up to you,†Smith tells Salih. “You gotta decide right now. Which side are you going to be on? Well, of course he says, “I’m going to be on your side.†The gauntlet was thrown down, so he got the message—everybody knows everything, so at this point you have been warned. The politics of this are so complicated. You’ll sit in a meeting with people and everybody there knows what’s really going on, but the conversation tone and everything else that happens in the meeting is altogether different. Sheik Salih, for example, sat in local meetings for years, with everybody knowing he had been AQI—and nobody has ever said anything about it. That’s just the two faces that you wear here.â€
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Smith, Justin, and the sheik return to Wassim’s office for another round of chai before Salih takes his final leave. Smith fills the others in on their meeting and the men agree they’ll have to wait and see if Salih has really chosen sides or if things will continue to operate in between the black and the white. And even if that’s the case, the Mahmudiyah-gray of 2009 is still a hell of a lot better than the Triangle of Death this place was, just two years ago.