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Wednesday, November 2, 2005
Interpreters risk their lives to aid GIs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Baghdad, Iraq — They venture into hostile areas on raids to capture insurgents. They travel in Humvees knowing that at any time they could drive over a bomb hidden in the road. They know they are moving targets at all times.
They are Iraqi interpreters, a vital link between local residents and soldiers of the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team and other U.S. troops trying to rein in the insurgency.
With nicknames such as Tony, David and Sara, the interpreters — Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds — sleep in the same tents as soldiers and are privy to the most private of conversations.
Louie Favorite/AJC
“Imad” doesn’t use his real name, and he doesn’t make his face public. In the eyes of insurgents, he and his colleagues deserve to die for helping Americans bridge the language gap, even though their missions are often for humanitarian aid.
Some say they have the most dangerous civilian jobs in the world. Videos of beheadings of interpreters have been posted on the Internet; some have been gunned down in their cars.
Several weeks ago, an interpreter known as Nelson was killed by a bomb during a raid conducted by the 48th Brigade’s 2nd Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment. Soldiers said he had volunteered for the mission.
Some interpreters from the Baghdad area try to go home a few days a month. Others — Iraqi exiles from the United States, Britain and Arab nations — live with the soldiers around the clock. Each has his or her own reasons for serving.
Imad
Imad, a former spare parts dealer for high-end cars, left the relative luxury of life in Beirut, Lebanon, five months ago to return to Iraq to settle a family property dispute. While waiting, he sought work as an interpreter.
“I thought I shouldn’t just be sitting at home wasting time,” he said, stunned at how the Baghdad of his childhood had deteriorated into chaos. The son of a Lebanese mother and Iraqi father, Imad, 49, spent his formative years in Baghdad from 1958 to 1975. His father had been a bank manager and raised Imad in a middle-class Catholic household.
He initially felt Iraq was headed in the right direction. But after months in Baghdad, he has become restless. Though Iraqis lived under tyranny when Saddam Hussein was in power, Imad said, most people had jobs and access to basic needs such as electricity and water.
“Now everything is bad,” he said.
Compassion was in every Iraqi heart before, he said, but now people are devoid of trust, devoid of humanity. He asks himself how a nation could have been robbed of its soul.
A few weeks ago, U.S. soldiers came across a homeless woman with six children.
“She needed money. She was out on the street,” Imad said. “I asked all the translators here for money. Can you believe that nobody gave any?”
Sammy
Sammy conceals his face with a mask and dark glasses to hide his identity. But through the dark lenses he can see the resentment in people’s eyes when he asks them tough questions for the Americans.
“They hate us for what we are doing,” said Sammy, 51, who interprets for soldiers in the 121st Infantry Regiment’s 2nd Battalion.
But Sammy is undeterred. One day soon, he is convinced, Iraq will be at peace. “Mr. Bush saved 25 million people in my country,” he said. “I put a picture of him up in my home.”
When he was 22, Sammy found work on an Iraqi merchant ship that took him to ports throughout the Middle East and around the Indian Peninsula. The adventures stopped, however, after the world imposed strict economic sanctions on Saddam’s Iraq in 1991 and the nation became increasingly isolated.
“I worked hard for 25 years,” he said. “And look at me. I have nothing. No house. No car.”
After Saddam’s statue was toppled in Firdos Square in April 2003, Sammy went looking for work with the Americans, and he has been with them since.
“Now, I have a car,” Sammy said. “Maybe in 10 years, I will have a house.”
When Sammy gets a chance to go home to see his wife and four children, he makes the long drive alone and unarmed because he does not have a weapons permit. He is always alert, checking the rearview mirror constantly to see if he is being followed. Insurgents assassinated several of his friends who worked with U.S. troops.
Sammy blames Saddam’s supporters for the violence ripping Iraq apart.
“Saddam was working only for his tribe,” he said. “He didn’t care about anyone else. Now, all these problems are caused by the Sunni. They lost everything when Saddam went down. They think they will be left out.”
Tyler
Tyler grew up with six brothers and sisters in the sprawling Shiite slum known as Saddam City.
After the 2003 invasion, the name was changed to Sadr City, after Imam Mohammed Sadr, a Shiite religious leader killed by Saddam Hussein.
But living conditions didn’t get much better. Tyler, 31, still dreamed, as he did as a little boy, of escaping Iraq.
He thought the Americans might provide a ticket out, but Tyler knew little English. On Baghdad’s al-Mutanabi Street, where every Friday second-hand book vendors sell everything from literature to technical guides, Tyler purchased language books and a series of cassettes produced by the BBC.
“I made myself a prisoner in my room for 14 weeks and learned English,” he said. “I studied 16 hours a day.”
On May 22, 2004, Tyler approached the U.S. Army for a job and became an interpreter. He now interprets for a civil affairs unit attached to the 48th.
Bita Honarvar/AJC
U.S. Capt Alan Hicks (right) speaks through an unidentified Iraqi interpreter to a mother (yellow dress) about getting medical care for one of her children.
“I don’t know about the future of Iraq, but I am hopeful about my own future,” said Tyler, who dreams of being a U.S. citizen and joining the American military. “Yes, I have to be selfish. I want a better life for myself. Iraq makes me very, very sad.”
Tyler said he doesn’t understand Iraq’s lawlessness — why one Iraqi would plot to kill another, why the price of life has become cheaper than a pound of potatoes.
“If we continue to use each other like this,” he said, “we cannot achieve a free Iraq.”
Jena
Two years ago, all that was precious in Jena’s life disappeared.
She took her 1-year-old daughter, Hadeel, to a Baghdad hospital for vaccinations. The baby developed a fever and died a few days later. Jena blamed expired medications.
“I blame Saddam and the sanctions for that,” Jena said. “Doctors here didn’t have the experience to save her.”
Consumed by loss, Jena’s sad existence grew bleaker after Hadeel died. Her husband was abusing drugs, abusing her. Her parents and siblings showed Jena little support.
“My husband hurt me. He hurt my baby,” said Jena, 35, now seeking a divorce.
Desperate to find a way out, the former schoolteacher found a job with a CBS News crew in Baghdad. All those years teaching English to sixth-graders paid off. Three months ago, Jena signed up as an interpreter for the U.S. Army. As a teacher, she earned $250 a month. Now she makes about $800, eight times the average Iraqi salary.
With the 48th Brigade, she is assigned to the all-male 2nd Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment. She is vital when the soldiers need to speak with local women. In conservative Muslim homes, women speak only to other women; it would be disrespectful for male soldiers to enter their living quarters.
“When [Iraqi women] see me, they become more comfortable,” Jena said, knowing she is seen as a traitor by some.
“I don’t care,” she said. “I am confident in what I am doing. The Americans respect human rights. We have never had that in Iraq.”
But Jena has no illusions about why she spends her life at Camp Striker these days, severed from her culture and her family.
“Patriotism has been killed in Iraq,” Jena said. “Saddam killed my love for this country. I would be lying if I told you I were doing this job because I love my country. I am here because this is a job I like doing.”
U.S. officer is sheiks’ kind of guy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mahmudiyah, Iraq — When the local sheiks meet U.S. soldiers here, they travel in large groups. They figure that’s the safest way given the threats they face from insurgents.
Other Iraqi leaders have been killed for cooperating with the military. The sheiks, who essentially are unelected community leaders who wield tremendous influence within their tribes, are no exception.
“The way we deal with this is having them all work with us because they can’t kill all the sheiks,” said Lt. Col. John King, commander of Georgia’s 1st Battalion, 108th Armor Regiment.
King has been meeting the sheiks at least once every two weeks since the battalion arrived in June to gain their cooperation in quelling the insurgency in this Sunni-dominated area known as the Triangle of Death.
The meetings are highly political and often run long. But that is nothing new for King, 41, who learned the art of multicultural politics and diplomacy primarily as Doraville’s police chief, but also through his military training.
Louie Favorite/AJC
Lt. Col. John King, police chief in Doraville, thanks sheiks for their help during his time as commander of U.S. forces in Mahmudiyah.
A police officer in Atlanta and Doraville for about 20 years, King said working with city council members and state legislators helped him learn to deal with tough political issues, a skill that comes in handy in Iraq.
“A policeman’s job is good training for working with people,” said King, a divorced father of two teenage children.
While he is gone on the year-long deployment, King keeps in touch with what’s going on at the Doraville Police Dept. through e-mails every few days and satellite telephone conversations at least once a week.
There are about 35 sheiks in the greater Mahmudiyah area where the battalion was based until recently. When the unit first arrived, the sheiks wouldn’t meet with King. But King started getting their attention by arresting them on charges of cooperating with insurgents.
He gained the respect of the others by treating them well while they were detained and publicly clearing their names when he couldn’t prove they were guilty.
On a recent Sunday, seven Shiite and Sunni sheiks in multicolored keffiyahs and robes filed into an office to meet with King. He began by thanking them for encouraging their tribes to vote in the recent referendum on the national constitution.
He told them he was pleased they were getting involved in Iraq’s budding democracy.
More than 50,000 in the Mahmudiyah area cast ballots on Iraq’s proposed constitution despite the threat of violence from insurgents, King said.
“You have deeply touched me. And you have not only taught me to be a better soldier, but a better man,” he continued. “Mahmudiyah will be a part of me and my soldiers for the rest of our days.”
The meeting with the sheiks was King’s last as the commander of U.S. forces in their area. His battalion is assuming new missions and moving to another base 65 miles south of Baghdad.
“We like your personality and image — very smart and always smiling. You always have jokes. We are very sorry to hear you are leaving,” Sheik Kalid Al-Gouriri told King through an interpreter. “We would like to come and visit you some day.”
Hammering for help
Once the niceties were finished, it didn’t take the sheiks long to start hammering on King for help in getting 23 officers assigned to the local Iraqi Army brigade.
The sheiks endorsed the officers, while complaining many of the soldiers in the brigade are outsiders from southern Iraq. Those outsiders don’t know the local traditions, the sheiks said, and have been raiding homes unnecessarily, mistreating residents and humiliating men in front of their wives.
“Sometimes they commit things without regret because nobody knows them,” said Sheik Sadoon Al-Saidi. “We ask you please to reconsider this request very firmly as a friend.”
King told the sheiks they will likely be successful in their efforts. But he asked them to be patient and let the Iraqi army decide about the appointments.
“I do not want the Iraqi army to be told everything to do by the American officers,” he said. “All good things take time to grow.”
Al-Saidi then complained King’s artillery is knocking out power and killing livestock in the town of Yusufiyah.
Al-Saidi and the other sheiks said later that at least eight Iraqis and 200 cows and sheep have been killed by Iraqi and American soldiers since the U.S. invasion in 2003. They died from either small arms fire or artillery shellings, the sheiks said.
“We would kindly ask you if you would stop the artillery,” Al-Saidi told King. “These shellings are scaring people out of their houses. And it is opening doors for insurgents to move in and take their places. By doing that, you are helping the insurgents.”
‘Catch the insurgents’
King eventually had an opportunity to voice his complaints, encouraging Al-Saidi, to turn in the insurgents who are firing mortars at U.S. soldiers from his tribal lands.
Soldiers said they have also found roadside bombs in Al-Saidi’s tribal area.
“The quickest way to shut down artillery is to help us catch the insurgents who are shooting artillery from your land,” King told Al-Saidi. “We only fire artillery at the places where insurgents are firing. We have to defend ourselves.”
After the meeting, King disputed the numbers of dead. He said he is aware of only one civilian and 10 cows killed by his men.
The civilian, he said, was killed after ignoring six warning shots and rushing toward a U.S. soldier who was preparing to destroy a roadside bomb.
Soldiers said they found what they believe was a destroyed mortar tube in the area where the cows were killed.
“There is a level of exaggeration always with my friend,” King said of Al-Saidi. “They use Mahmudiyah math. One becomes twenty.”
He added: “If I don’t fire back, I will have mortars rain constantly on me.”
As he prepared to leave the meeting, King gave each of the sheiks a coin with the battalion’s insignia on it.
“This is a small token of our appreciation for giving me your friendship and your help,” King told them. “I know it is something that is not very valuable, but it is something close to our hearts.”
King shook the hand of each of the sheiks and then turned to go. His battalion was heading south to its new base.
His howitzers had already fired their last shots.
