Baghdad

April 2003. After we reached downtown Baghdad, we did not have a mission. The original plan ended south of Baghdad with us cordoning the city while someone else went in. Thomas Ricks documents the strategic blundering in Fiasco: The American Misadventure in Iraq, but the events on the ground were much more traumatic.

The most important thing that you learn when conducting a raid in a house is to find a job. If your sector is clear, then you help your buddies by finding something important to do. There is always work to be done during a clearing mission, and that’s what we did in Baghdad. In the absence of a plan or orders, we found a job.

The neighborhood was nestled somewhere deep inside northwestern Baghdad, past the Abu Gharaib prison, north of Saddam International Airport, and a couple of blocks from the Mother of All Battles (MOAB) mosque. I can probably still pick it out on a map. The remnants of a Republican Guard artillery unit were scattered everywhere- the neighborhood littered with artillery pieces, ammunition, grenades, and artillery shells. When we arrived, the children were tossing hand grenades back and forth for fun. I was flabbergasted.

I ordered the platoon to remain in their tanks, and I took two soldiers and began going door-to-door desperately seeking someone who could speak English. Finally, I met Ali. He became my first translator. We sent the children home. The following day, we went house to house again ordering all the men to come outside and clean up the area. No one volunteered. I was irritated. My men and I cleaned up the neighborhood by ourselves.

The next day, Ali invited me to his home for tea. I brought a bag of Starbuck’s Breakfast blend coffee as a gift. He found it amusing, but thanked me nonetheless. We met in the sitting room and drank some wonderful chai. Being a guest, I would never be admitted past the sitting room into the privacy of their home. Completely covered, his wife darted in and out of the room providing refreshments and snacks. I’ve never been subtle, so I asked him to explain his society to me. I explained that in America, the wife runs the home, and there is no way I could ever force her to wear that type of dress.

At first, he didn’t understand what I was saying. After three or four tries, he burst out laughing.

“Mike, it’s no different here. I’ll be damned if I try to tell my wife what to do in the home. We just have different customs. Outside the house, I am the head of the household. Inside the home, my wife is in charge. In Islam, women wear the veil as a means of respect for their husbands- it’s how they submit to Allah; it’s part of their jihad.”

Although I did not agree with it, it made sense. Anyways, it was their culture, and who was I to tell them how to live? I certainly had enough problems of my own to fix in order to live a righteous life. I then asked him to explain jihad. It was foreign to me, and I only had pictures in my head of the planes hitting the twin towers.

“Mike, jihad is two-fold: 1. one’s never ending inner struggle to live a life that is acceptable to Allah, 2. Society’s attempts to live collectively in peace.”

I had so much to learn. We talked for many hours over his future employment, the hope for his children, and the wonderful things that would happen now that Saddam was gone. I thanked him for the chai, and I said goodbye.

The next day, we moved back to Abu Gharaib.
I never saw Ali again.