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Baqubah Update: 05 July 2007

Today marks "D +16" of Operation "Arrowhead Ripper," the Battle for
Baqubah. Arrowhead Ripper kicked off on 19 June 07. I have several
dispatches in the works about the major events since that time. Although
the serious fighting seems to be over, there remains a possibility for
some sharp fighting in the near future. The morning of 06 July began with
the sounds of American cannons firing, shells whizzing through the air,
while they checked systems and aiming for combat. Apache helicopters
orbited Baqubah as the orange sun crested into view.

Media coverage went from a near monopoly (Michael Gordon from New York
Times and me) to a nearly capsized boat as journalists flooded in from
other parts of Iraq to see the fight. They managed to miss most of it.
Today, I'm told, there are now only 3 journalists remaining, including one
writer (me).

As with the Battle for Mosul, which I held in near monopoly for about five
months during 2005, the most interesting parts of the Battle for Baqubah
are unfolding after the major fighting ends. But as the guns cool, the
media stops raining and starts evaporating, or begins making only short
visits of a week or so.

The big news on the streets today is that the people of Baqubah are
generally ecstatic, although many hold in reserve a serious concern that
we will abandon them again. For many Iraqis, we have morphed from being
invaders to occupiers to members of a tribe. I call it the "al Ameriki
tribe," or "tribe America."

I've seen this kind of progression in Mosul, out in Anbar and other
places, and when I ask our military leaders if they have sensed any shift,
many have said, yes, they too sense that Iraqis view us differently. In
the context of sectarian and tribal strife, we are the tribe that people
can - more or less and with giant caveats - rely on.

Most Iraqis I talk with acknowledge that if it was ever about the oil,
it's not now. Not mostly anyway. It clearly would have been cheaper just
to buy the oil or invade somewhere easier that has more. Similarly, most
Iraqis seem now to realize that we really don't want to stay here, and
that many of us can't wait to get back home. They realize that we are not
resolved to stay, but are impatient to drive down to Kuwait and sail away.
And when they consider the Americans who actually deal with Iraqis every
day, the Iraqis can no longer deny that we really do want them to succeed.
But we want them to succeed without us. We want to see their streets are
clean and safe, their grass is green, and their birds are singing. We want
to see that on television. Not in person. We don't want to be here. We
tell them that every day. It finally has settled in that we are telling
the truth.

Now that all those realizations and more have settled in, the dynamics
here are changing in palpable ways.

Since my reporting of the massacre at the al Hamari village, many readers
at home have asked how anyone can know that al Qaeda actually performed
the massacre. The question is a very good one, and one that I posed from
the first hour to Iraqis and Americans while trying to ascertain facts
about the killings.

No one can claim with certainty that it was al Qaeda, but the Iraqis here
seem convinced of it. At a meeting today in Baqubah one Iraqi official I
spoke with framed the al Qaeda infiltration and influence in the province.
Although he spoke freely before a group of Iraqi and American commanders,
including Staff Major General Abdul Kareem al Robai who commands Iraqi
forces in Diyala, and LTC Fred Johnson, the deputy commander of 3-2
Stryker Brigade Combat Team, the Iraqi official asked that I withhold his
identity from publication. His opinion, shared by others present, is that
al Qaeda came to Baqubah and united many of the otherwise independent
criminal gangs.

Speaking through an American interpreter, Lieutenant David Wallach who is
a native Arabic speaker, the Iraqi official related how al Qaeda united
these gangs who then became absorbed into "al Qaeda." They recruited boys
born during the years 1991, 92 and 93 who were each given weapons,
including pistols, a bicycle and a phone (with phone cards paid) and a
salary of $100 per month, all courtesy of al Qaeda. These boys were used
for kidnapping, torturing and murdering people.

At first, he said, they would only target Shia, but over time the new al
Qaeda directed attacks against Sunni, and then anyone who thought
differently. The official reported that on a couple of occasions in
Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to
their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said,
who was about 11 years old. As LT David Wallach interpreted the man's
words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a
moment. I asked Wallach, "What did he say?" Wallach said that at these
luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was
brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served
the boy to his family.

The Deputy Governor for Diyala Province had told me on 04 July that al
Qaeda burned the home of a Provincial Council leader named Abdul Jabar.
Jabar, an Iraqi official who has no reservations about being named as a
source, provided information about the killings I described in the
dispatch "Bless the Beasts and Children." Abdul Jabar lived in the area of
the al Hamira village, which he said is properly spelled al Ahamir. Jabar
agreed to a video interview, during which he said al Qaeda killed and
disposed of hundreds of people in the area. He also said during the video
interview that he did not believe the remains of the murder victims I saw
were people from the village. Abdul Jabar believes the villagers were run
out, and that the people being dug up were kidnapped from elsewhere.

Like many things in Iraq, the question of whether or not the murderers
were al Qaeda is flawed from beginning. Al Qaeda is not a union, it
doesn't issue passports. What is al Qaeda but the collection of people who
claim to be al Qaeda? Those responsible for murdering and burying those
bodies in al Ahamir (or al Hamira) had the markers of al Qaeda, the same
al Qaeda that had boastfully installed itself as the shadow government of
Baqubah. The al Qaeda who committed atrocities in Afghanistan, New York
... the list is long. As for al Ahamir, the massacre "walks like a duck."
It happened in duck headquarters. The people here say the duck did it. The
duck laughs.

And so on 05 July, or D + 16, after the meeting, Iraqi leaders including
the Deputy Governor of Diyala, and also Abdul Jabar, one of the Provincial
chair holders, headed to some of the most dangerous areas in Baqubah on
what Americans would call "a meet and greet." At first the people seemed
hesitant, but when they saw Iraqi leaders - along with members of their
own press - asking citizens what they needed, each place we stopped grew
into a festival of smiles.

The people were jubilant. None of the kids - and by the end of the day
there were hundreds - asked me for anything, other than to take their
photos. These were not the kids-made-brats by well-meaning soldiers, but
polite Iraqi kids in situ, and the cameras were like a roller coaster ride
for them. The kids didn't care much for the video; they wanted still
photos taken. While the kids were trying to get me to photograph them, it
was as if the roller coaster was cranking and popping up the tracks, but
when I finally turned the camera on them - snap! - it was as if the roller
coaster had crested the apex and slipped into the thrill of gravity. Of
course, once the ride ended, it only made some clamor for more. Iraqi kids
that have not been spoiled by handouts are the funniest I have seen
anywhere.

This boy wanted his photo taken over and over.

These girls - one of them had lost her two front teeth - were like the
boys and just wanted more and more photos taken. A man came up and laughed
and grabbed her teeth saying she had no teeth, and that really set the
girls to giggles.

The man laughed, and so did the girls, but as the girl on the left grabbed
her own teeth self-consciously, the boy dived into the scene.

Kids were flooding out of the apartments as their parents talked with the
Iraqi leaders.

American soldiers just watched, but during one of the impromptu stops, an
Iraqi man who might have been 30 years old came up and said that he'd been
beaten up by soldiers from the 5th Iraqi Army. He had the marks on his
face to lend initial credence. But most striking was that he hadn't gone
to the Iraqi leaders, nor did he come to the man with the camera and note
pad. He did what I see Iraqis increasingly doing: he went to the local
sheik of "al Ameriki tribe." In this case, the sheik was LTC Fred Johnson.
(Note: I have not heard anyone calling the American commanders sheiks, but
during meetings around Iraq, American officers often preside like sheiks
and with sheiks.)

More and more Iraqis put their trust in Americans as arbiters of justice.
The man said he was afraid to complain to Iraqi officials because he might
get killed, but he wanted to tell LTC Johnson, who listened carefully.
When the man pleaded for anonymity, Johnson said he needed written
statements from witnesses. The man pointed to some witnesses, and then
disappeared and came back with statements, and I can say from my own eyes
that Johnson was careful with those statements, guarding them until he
could get alone with an Iraqi general later on 05 July.

These kids crack me up. But you do have to be careful: every once in a
while they throw a hand grenade or detonate an IED. The enemy uses them
like fodder.

Iraqi fathers constantly dive toward the camera: Got to show those kids
off. They'll walk all the way across the road just to get a photo of their
baby taken.

On D +1 and for those first few days of Operation Arrowhead Ripper, the
Iraqi leaders seemed mostly inert. But now on D+16, only about two weeks
later, they are out politicking, showing their faces in public, letting
the people know they are in charge. And, unlike the tired cliché of a
politician in a parade, they truly have been working behind the scenes. I
know because I sit in on the meetings, and listen to the progress reports
as items on the lists get checked off. I hear the whining as each section
of Baqubah seems to think they are the forgotten ones. "Why the Sunni
getting help first?" they ask. But then in another neighborhood, "Why the
Shia getting help first?" But I watch the sausage-making. LTC Johnson will
say, "Mike, c'mon. It's time to make sausage and you need to see this."
It's messy and frustrating. But food shipments have resumed to Baqubah
after 10 months of nothing. Not that Diyala Province is starving: Diyala
is, after all, Iraq's breadbasket.

Michael Yon does not receive funding or financial support from Fox
News,
movie, book or television deals at this time. He is entirely
reader supported. He relies on his readers to help him replace his
equipment and cover his expenses so that he may remain in Iraq and
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