The Weight of a Mustard Seed (28 page)

SECURITY SERVICES OF SADDAM'S IRAQ

The Iraqi people were subject to a vast and overlapping network of state security agencies. In general terms it's easy enough to think of the Mukhabarat as the CIA and the Amn as the FBI; but in Iraq this comparison is a bit disingenuous. Both agencies pummeled the private lives of Iraqi citizens in the cause of state security.

Mukhabarat
Mukhabarat simply means “intelligence” in Arabic, but it's a word which virtually all Arabs, no matter which king/dictator/Emir/President they find themselves subject to, have learned to utter in a whisper. In Iraq the Mukhabarat attracted the cream of the Sunni state bureaucratic elite; its senior officers were often erudite and more flexible and cunning in the discharge of their duties than the more thuggish Amn.

Amn
Amn means “security” in Arabic. The Amn, with its various branches, operated in the space between the police and the Mukhabarat. The Amn were responsible for the mid-level, everyday business of state control: piles of gray files containing handwritten reports on teachers and doctors, Imams and café proprietors. Matters of petty but terrifying concern were recorded: a brother who lived in Frankfurt, failure to regularly attend Baath Party meetings, a critical comment overheard in a restaurant, a nephew who was a military deserter, an application for an exit visa, a new car
in the time of sanctions that might indicate a black market income, an overly religious cousin…

Istikhbarat
Military Intelligence.

Fedayeen
Translated as “those who sacrifice.” Throughout the Middle East the word Fedayeen has come to refer to volunteer militias who are devoted to their cause and will fight until martyrdom in its service.
In Iraq Saddam created the Saddam Fedayeen, “Saddam's men of sacrifice,” as an elite military cadre of around 30,000 men. Saddam's Fedayeen swore loyalty to Saddam rather than to Iraq and are widely reported to have been used as a death squad, in particular exterminating prostitutes as part of a crackdown on vice in the nineties.

Peshmerga
Kurdish fighters.
Peshmerga
in Kurdish means literally “those who face death.” The Kurdish
peshmerga
fought a series of effective (although not necessarily victorious) guerrilla campaigns against Saddam's government much as they fought for independence from virtually every government in Baghdad over the past century. In the post-Saddam Iraq the
peshmerga
remain a military force.

OTHER IRAQI COMPLICATIONS
OF A RELIGIOUS NATURE

There are two main sects of Islam.

Sunni
and
Shia
The split has its origins in seventh century battles over the succession to the Caliphate; today Sunni and Shia are separated by differences of religious culture, traditions and observance. The Shia, for example, revere early Shia martyrs and Imams, the most famous being Hussein, almost as saints, while Sunnis find this idolatrous.
Throughout the world the Sunni are the majority of Muslims. But the Shia heartland is in the south of Iraq around
the shrine towns of Kerbala and Najaf. Estimates differ, but perhaps 60 percent of the Iraqi population is Shia, concentrated in the poorer south, while the Sunnis are in the center and the north of the country, and historically formed the trading and political elites in Baghdad and Mosul. During the Ottoman period, the British mandate, several dictators and twenty four years of Saddam, Iraq was governed mostly by Sunnis. Herein lies part of the resentment which has given rise to the sectarian violence of the post Saddam era. It should be borne in mind, however, that the preceding paragraph is a vast over simplification; that Shia and Sunni Iraqis all come essentially from the same tribal and Bedu traditions that migrated out of the Arabian peninsula during the Muslim conquests, that many tribes contain both Sunni and Shia and that intermarriage, particularly among the middle classes, is common.

Wahhabism
A Sunni strain of Islam based on the fundamental teachings of the eighteenth century Islamic scholar Mohammed ibn Wahhab. Wahhabism is a strict form of fundamentalism which emphasizes the literal application of the Koran and the Hadith, the book of the Prophet Mohammed's sayings and teachings. For example, Wahhabis often grow a long beard but keep their mustache trimmed carefully above their top lip and wear their
dishdashas
short, at mid calf level, according to the example of the Prophet Mohammed. Wahhabism is espoused by the Saudi royal family and is the predominant strain of Islam in Saudi Arabia.

Salafi
The terms Salafi and Wahhabi are often used interchangeably. Salafis also take the example of the rule of the Prophet Mohammed and the early Caliphates as the template for observance and decry any innovation or modern
interpretations of Islam. Modern politics, for example, are a distraction from the true path of Sharia (or Koranic) law.

Imam
A religious leader or preacher, most likely Sunni.

Mullah
A Shia religious leader or preacher.

Sheikh
Confusingly the world Sheikh can refer either to a religious leader or to a tribal leader.

W
HEN PEOPLE LEARN THAT I HAVE SPENT A
lot of time in Iraq and the Middle East they often cock their heads to one side and say, “Really, but for a woman, a blonde one…isn't it, well, a bit—” The simple answer is no. In Iraq no one ever harassed me or threatened me personally or showed me any disrespect. On the contrary, in difficult and violent circumstances; in the circumstances of an occupation for which (by virtue of my half American–half Brit nationality) both my governments were responsible, I never received anything but the most gracious hospitality. Iraqis helped me, fed me, talked to me, took me into their homes and, most important, patiently explained their lives and their experiences.

For finding and translating these experiences I am indebted to several Iraqis in several countries, who must, in these dangerous times, remain on a first name basis only:

Othello (first day on the job, I said: “Let's go to Abu Ghraib!” Can't believe you stuck with me for six months), Salih (very patient with the absurdity of me holding a pink umbrella against the Baghdad August sun), Mona (incomparable, indomitable, simply the best), Mahmoud (truly above and beyond…), Maher (short, but very effective), Ahlam (I hope, I hope, you got out of Seyda Zeinab and to America) and Sirwan (the great picnic organizer).

The support of friends and colleagues and comrades-in-car-bombs is sometimes the greatest solace for the loneliness of the long distance correspondent: For all those conversations, bottles of wine and evenings; floors to sleep on, advice and difficult roads traveled together: Jon Lee Anderson, Michael Goldfarb, Omar Abdul Qadr, Molly Bingham and Steve Connors, Abdul Rahman Al Jobouri, Dan Murphy, Jill Carroll, Rory McCarthy and Juliette von Seibold, Sean Langan, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, George Packer, Matt McAllester, Patrick Bishop, Patrick Cockburn, Adrien Jaulmes, Charlie Glass, Damien Quinn, Lina Sinjab, Khalid Oweis, Malika Browne, Ramsay Al Rikabi, Deb Amos, Kate Brooks, Maen Abdul Salam and Aliya Mawani, Oliver August, Hassan Fattah, Janine Di Giovanni, Viyan Sherif and Katherine Zoepf.

I would also like to thank the International Crisis Group who write the best reports on Iraq and whose towers of experience and knowledge were invaluable to me: Joost Hiltermann and Peter Harling were especially kind and helpful to me.

Finally thank you to my Beirut family: Lina Saidi, Nadim Mallat, Jeroen Kramer, Ferry Biedermann, Emilie Seuer and especially especially Imma home from home and to those in Paris who kept me going through long winter paragraphs, in particular Mounir Fatmi and Blaire Dessent and Robert Hudson. And to my dad, who always picks me up from the airport, tells me not to worry too much about having a proper job and who bought me a new laptop when mine got fried by Lebanese electrical surges.

Jacket design by Julie Jenkins

Cover photograph © Ziyah Gafic/Getty Images

Photograph of Wendell Steavenson by Ghaith Abdul Ahad