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Monday, September 19, 2005
Apocalyptic bleakness in Husseiniya
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Husseiniya, Iraq — The stench around the corner was overpowering. “Turn right,” 1st. Lt. David Disi commanded the driver.
“But sir,” said Spc. Jason Faber, “it looks kind of deep.”
Photo by Louie FavoriteSpc. Joseph Monteiro goes on patrol through a souk in Husseiniya. | More photos
“Go! Go!” Disi said. “Don’t stop.”
Within seconds the heavily armored Humvee was plowing through deep muck, the putrid odor of human waste wafting inside through the open gun turret.
“Oh yeah. Oh yeah,” Faber yelled, stepping on the accelerator.
If there is any place in Iraq today that has slid into apocalyptic bleakness, it is Husseiniya, just 15 miles north of Baghdad.
The congested urban slums, home to 750,000 Iraqis, lack continuous electricity, garbage collection, potable water supplies and most of all, proper sewage disposal.
It’s hard for American soldiers to imagine how human beings can live here. It’s more difficult to witness Husseiniya’s devastation and accept that more than two years have gone by since the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Lakes of stagnant groundwater and raw sewage seep into the streets, open fields and in through the gates of private homes. Children walk through disease-inviting sludge as though they were harmless mud bogs created by heavy rains. They play on garbage heaps strewn with plastic bags full of household waste, bottles and food scraps. A barefooted girl picked through a blue bag of trash alongside a stray cat and a donkey looking for its evening meal.
It is as though a full-scale war had occurred just yesterday.
Soldiers of the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team have been routinely patrolling these filthy streets since they arrived in Iraq in June.
“Do you think if you lived here you’d get used to this smell?” asked Faber, who works at a printing company in West Warwick, R.I. “When we first got here I was a lot more sensitive to it,” Disi replied.
Disi, a Harvard University student with Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 118th Field Artillery Regiment, said mostly Shiite Husseiniya was relatively safe compared to more hostile towns nearby, although his soldiers come under fire on the outskirts of town.
But residents said they are fed up with a lack of services in Husseiniya, seemingly forgotten by the civilized world.
“There are no new schools, no new hospitals here,” said Mohammed Amin, who has lived here for 15 years. “The children are getting sick from all the sewage.”
U.S. military officials said Husseiniya grew as a city with a large influx of Iraqis fleeing Baghdad under Saddam Hussein. Public works systems built in Baghdad in the 1960s and 1970s were never fully extended to this area.
What little existed deteriorated even further under years of international sanctions and war.
Last month, U.S. soldiers and local leaders signed a charter to correct the crisis in Husseiniya. The charter mandated the use of local contractors to build sewage treatment plants, improve water quality and storm water runoff systems. It was designed for use as a blueprint for other cities and towns in the northern Baghdad area. But Amin said he had little faith in what he called corrupt city councils to deliver basic services.
“They take our money and we get nothing in return,” he said. “Husseiniya has always been dirty. We need the Americans to force these people to do a good job for us.”
Just as he uttered those words, the electricity went out at Amin’s small shop at a fly-infested souk. “See. This is what happens every day,” he said. “We need help.”
Disi, however, said Husseiniya has already seen improvements since his platoon began patrolling here three months ago.
“This whole area was under sewage water before a sewage system was put in,” Disi said. A nearby soccer field where boys, some of them barefoot, kicked around a ball, was a cesspool just weeks ago, Disi said.
Others in Husseiniya said that U.S. presence in the area would mean the continuation of chaos and that it was time for the Americans to leave.
“Only Iraqis know the Iraqi people,” said Malik Flihiyah, a Husseniya resident. “Iraqis need to deal with Iraqis to solve our problems.”
Disi’s platoon, soldiers from a Rhode Island infantry unit that is attached to the 118th Regiment, ride several times a week through Husseiniya’s foul streets, keeping an eye on local activity.
Like other soldiers in Iraq, Disi, 27, gets a big kick out of handing out toys to the local children. He climbed on top of his Humvee, throwing out hot pink Yo-Yos and other toys as kids crawled through muck and dirt to grab one. Within minutes, the Humvee was surrounded.
“Disi! Disi!, the children yelled as though they were cheering a presidential candidate.
Other soldiers of Delta Company were ambushed earlier in the week just outside Husseiniya; some were injured by roadside bombs.
Disi’s men kept the conversation on the light side and tried not to think about potential danger as they drove down side roads with their headlights off.
“I could go for a piece of Oreo cheesecake,” said Cpl. Eric Madonna, a police officer from Fall River, Mass., while the soldiers waited on a main highway to stop violators of the midnight to 4 a.m. curfew. “From the Cheescake Factory. That’s the best stuff.”
On this patrol, Delta Company checked on several sites in the Husseiniya area that will be used as polling stations in the upcoming Oct. 15 referendum on a new Iraqi constitution. Later in the evening, Georgia Guard trucks would deliver concrete barriers and concertina wire to secure the polling stations, mostly at public places such as schools.
Using a military grid, Disi and his men walked down a dark alley that smelled of fermenting alcohol. The young lieutenant, far removed from his Ivy League schooling, banged on a painted metal gate of a schoolyard.
A startled voice on the other side asked who it was.
“Americans. Americans!” shouted the interpreter.
Samir Hussein, a guard and an Islamic studies teacher at the school, opened the gate slowly.
“I thought you were joking,” he said.
“Come on. Who would joke with a New York accent,” Disi said, storming inside.
“We’re going to start putting barriers up,” Disi told Hussein. “We’re going to make this the safest place in all of Iraq.”
Hussein was pleased to hear there would be more security at the school. But he wasn’t sure the referendum would accomplish anything. He wasn’t sure that the quality of his life would get any better.
“I don’t know if it will help,” he said, looking at his wife and children, sleeping on mats on an open veranda. “Only God can help us now.”
