Generals and Desertion

30 Jul 07
Adnan was a lieutenant at the end of the first Gulf War. After the war the base was summoned to the south of Iraq to help put down the Shiia uprising. Adnan was left in charge of a small contingent of maintainers. Late one afternoon some 100 villagers from a nearby town attacked “Saddam’s forces” (Adnan’s 15 maintainers). Adnan ordered the men to fire their weapons over the villagers heads to push them back. He didn’t want to shoot the villagers at the risk of angering them and starting a full attack. Adnan fired the first round then the rest followed but every villager stopped and fired on Adnan’s position. “Why me?” he thought. He ducked behind a wall and saw a huge mural of Saddam above his head. Seconds later he fell back to another position.

The next day he was ordered to abandon the base by the base general. He got into his civilian clothes and walked home. Several weeks later he was summoned to the base general’s office. There were several other generals in the office and his general demanded to know why he had abandoned the base. Adnan chuckled and said, “because you told me to.” The general disputed the claim and said he had ordered Adnan to attack the forces.

Later the general came back to Adnan and said, “Of course I told you to abandon the base. There was nothing left to defend but if you tell them that, we’ll both go down.” Adnan took the blame for abandoning the base and as punishment was sent to the base in Kirkuk far from his family for several years.

We’ve experienced this same mentality of "blame it on the junior, less experienced guy" quite a bit. At times, the Iraqis even blame a fault or error on us Americans. We don’t speak the language so we can’t contest their stories and their bosses won’t follow up on any stories their told. Losing face is a huge deal for Arabs particularly the higher up they go so no one wants to investigate contentious matters for fear of bringing shame on one another. It’s a widespread Arab phenomenon that it is simply not acceptable to shame one another with the facts. We experience it all the time.

You may remember Major Ghassan who defected to Norway some time ago. I spoke with Adnan about it. Adnan said he called and talked with Ghassan’s wife about Ghassan’s whereabouts after he didn't return to duty. She asked to meet Adnan somewhere but Adnan told her to stay put; he would come to her. She explained to Adnan that Ghassan had fled the country and would not return. He did not take his wife or any of their three children but Adnan thinks he will send for them. Hopefully, he will. There is no penalty for desertion in the Iraqi military. As a matter of fact, service members can quit or be fired at any time though it is rare that one is fired and I can’t imagine how bad one must be to get fired.

Adnan and Ghassan are good friends so I’m surprised that Adnan didn’t know anything about Ghassan leaving beforehand. As a matter of fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if Adnan knew (if not helped him) and didn’t say anything.

Range Day

27 Jul 07
For my 5+ month tour we have tried to get to the range to fire a bunch of ammo our predecessors left for us. Today our British friend, Lee, arranged a day at the range for us alongside the RAF Regiment who was qualifying on their weapons. It was no ordinary day though. The Brits were keen to fire their heavy and light weapons also and they had a bunch of ammo from their predecessors as well.

We all met at the range at 0830 and took inventory. We Americans brought our M‑16A2s, Beretta 9mm pistols, and an Iraqi AK-47 with all the ammo we could stand to shoot. The Brits brought their General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG) aka “the General”, as well as the SA80A2 with a SUSAT scope and their Browning 9mm pistols and all the ammo we could stand to shoot.

We all took firing positions with our own weapons and for the first time all of us fired our M-16A2s in “burst” mode (USAF range officials only let us fire in semiautomatic). For the second volley we started to switch around and I stayed with the M-16 briefly showing the Brits how to fire it then supervising as they fired off magazine after magazine. I was surprised at how good of a shot they were with just the iron sites (no scope). Shooter after shooter destroyed the target in both semi and burst mode. To a man, when they were done they said, “I want one!”

After several rounds supervising the M-16, Lee arranged for him and me to go to the end of the range where he had 4 x 30 round magazines of SA80 ammo for us to shoot up. We wouldn’t have paper targets so we would be shooting at rocks on the range. It was a great weapon; very compact (“bull and pup” design), smooth and exceptionally accurate. Grp Capt Burt told us later that the SUSAT takes a good shot and makes it great. I want one!

After Lee and I finished with the SAs I moved to the General. I fired some 4 belts of ammo on it. For a heavy machine gun we were surprised what a smooth action machine gun it was. It had very little kick and always came back on target for the next round. Each of us found a spot on the target to bore out a large hole…I put a 4 in hole in the target’s head. After so many people firing it, there was a large collection of ammo beneath the weapon and I rested my arm as I got up…the hot rounds all about burned the dickens out of me.



Finally, I moved to the AK-47. It fires well on semiautomatic but it’s a terrible automatic weapon. When firing on auto, the first round will take down a target but after that it simply jumps all around the place and is nearly impossible to control. The weapon's saving graces are the fact that it’s reliable (it never fails) and it’s so easy to produce. Each of us said we’d take an M-16 or an SA over the AK any day.

Women!

26 Jul 07
Lt Diya (not to be confused with my other friend Dhiaa…we call this one “Diya, Jr”) brought a cake in the other day to announce that he is getting married. A few days later one of our maintenance officers, Lt Ali (also not to be confused with my friend Major Ali), came back from his home town and announced the same. They are both in their late 20s and are very excited about getting married.

Earlier in the month we received a Bilingual/Bicultural Advisor (BBA). Ali (because three Ali's in the squadron wasn't enough) is an Iraqi who immigrated to Canada in the early 90s but recently returned to Iraq to be a BBA. Much like Mustafa, Ali found his own wife. However, his brother’s marriage was arranged…sort of.

Ali’s brother had seen the “woman of his dreams” at the university during his senior year. He followed her here and there for several weeks collecting tidbits of information about the girl including her family name, where she lived, what sort of family she came from, etc. Finally, he went to his parents and asked them to go to her family and ask for her hand.

Ali says his family is very respected in his town so no family could say no if someone from his family came to them proposing marriage so his parents went to visit hers. Once there the two mothers went off to the side to discuss the arrangement. Ali’s mother explained that she would like her son to marry the other woman’s daughter. The woman said yes but explained she had four young, single daughters so asked which daughter. Ali’s brother had collected all sorts of information about the girl but never thought to get her first name. The mothers agreed it must be the oldest daughter so settled upon her. His brother was horrified to learn it was not the girl he had dreamt of but the arrangement was made. He had never seen the older sister so went to find her. When he saw her he was satisfied that she was equally as beautiful. Years later he confessed the mix up to his wife but to this day her sister has no idea that the boy had secretly been eyeing her.

In a later discussion Ali talked about the custom of multiple wives and its popularity in Islam. At times Ali said he has become dissatisfied with his own wife but would not take another wife explaining that to bring another woman into their home would be an insult to the woman who has already given so much of her life to him. However, he explained, Shiia Islam allows for temporary/short term marriages that can last for one hour, one week, one year, etc. Both the man and woman must agree to the conditions and term limit of the marriage. Additionally, the woman cannot be a virgin. Furthermore, though the marriage can be over within hours, the woman must agree that she will not take another husband within the same menstruation cycle to ensure there is no question of paternity if the temporary marriage were to result in a pregnancy. Ali is very interested in taking a temporary wife.

Single Iraqi men are really funny when you talk to them about women…they’re actually quite immature. Lt Anees is one of the maintenance officers in the squadron. He is in his late 20s. I asked him if he had a girlfriend. He laughed and giggled like a 13 year old boy afraid of admitting that he might actually like to catch kooties from the right lady… “no, no, Bill [shaking head, looking down and smiling/giggling]. I don’t have a girlfriend.”

We talked about dating customs in Iraq, most of which I’ve already discussed. Anees is waiting for his family to find the right woman. When they do, they will approach her family and arrange the marriage. Then Anees will be allowed to court his wife-to-be. Until then he only hopes for a beautiful wife.

He followed the discussion of Arab/Iraqi customs by saying that he believed the same customs are true in the U.S. He believes the big cities are faster more free but that small towns in the U.S. observed the same customs and traditions where families arranged marriages. I tried hard to convice him that arranged marriages are an extremely rare event (I've only met one Korean-American couple whose marriage was arranged). Frankly, I'm not certain he believed me.

Caught In A Quandary

18 Jul 07
If you haven't figured it out, I’ve come to be quite good friends with many of the Iraqis and they tell me they have great respect for me and what I do for them. Not every day is a picnic working with them (some days are far from it) but we have all agreed that business is business and not to be confused with the person.

I try to help them out in small ways and, of course, I share everything sent to me with them. However, the ones I’m closest with inevitably come to me and ask for assistance in some large manner. It might be something somewhat difficult but achievable. Dhiaa asked me to help him get a used laptop computer and Susan’s family stepped up and helped a ton to get him one (he loves it!). But they often ask for something far more complicated. Abdul Aziz asked me to help get his father a job with the U.S. forces in Baghdad. I have very few contacts outside of the military and even fewer contacts in Baghdad so there was really nothing I could do. Ali also asked me to help get his nephew a job with the Coalition. His nephew was born in California back in the mid-80s while his father was a college professor there so is a U.S. citizen. He wants to improve his English and save money before immigrating to the U.S. Of course he will help the rest of his family immigrate.

None of them have asked any of us to help them immigrate to the U.S. but you can sense they want to ask us. They tell us all the time that they dream of going to the U.S. Recently the Iraqi MoD disallowed all travel outside of Iraq for all Iraqi service members because there was such a huge attrition from guys not returning.

Most of us would love to help any one of them immigrate and the ones we would help would genuinely make great Americans but we’re caught in a quandary. There is a large exodus occurring in Iraq particularly amongst educated Iraqis fleeing to other countries in the Middle East or Europe (i.e., Ghassan fleeing to Norway). Additionally, educated professionals are far more likely to support/work with the Coalition so they become targets by the militia within Iraq. Case in point is the bravery our guys show by simply serving in the Iraqi Air Force. The result, we think, is a large "brain-drain" occurring in Iraq. There are fewer and fewer educated people left in the country to take charge and build a friendly, responsible government. The quandary we perceive is that if we helped our guys immigrate who would rebuild (save?) Iraq?