A Torturous Lunch

In addition to burning up money with our projects, the ePRTs were often used by the Embassy to build relationships on the ground. This was partially because most Embassy big shots were scared to meet with thugs and killers and partially because we often handed project money to those thugs and killers and thus knew them pretty well. While we usually just shared pleasantries over a meal to keep in touch, every once in a while we got more for lunch than expected. A well-known Sons of Iraq (SOI) leader told us over dessert one sticky afternoon that he had been recently released from prison. He explained that the government had wanted him off the streets in the run-up to the election, so that he would not use his political pull to get in the way of a Shia victory. The prison that held him was a secret one, he said, under the control of some shadowy part of the Iraqi security forces.23

The SOI leader had been tortured. Masked men bound him at the wrists and ankles and hung him upside down. He said they did not ask him any questions or demand any information; they simply wanted to cause him pain. They whipped his testicles with a leather strap, then turned to beat the bottoms of his feet and his kidney area. They slapped and punched him. The bones in his right foot were broken with an iron rod, a rebar used to reinforce concrete. He said it was painful, but he had felt pain before. What hurt was the feeling of utter helplessness. A man like himself, he stated with an echo of pride, had never felt helpless. His strength was his ability to control things, to order men to their own deaths if necessary, to fight, to stand up to enemies. Now he could no longer sleep well at night, was less interested in life and activities, and felt little pleasure. It was possible that the SOI leader exaggerated his story, seeking our sympathy in his struggle against the government. This was likely the only reason he was bothering to tell us what happened to him. Exaggeration was not uncommon in these situations and you had to be cautious about believing everything you heard. Still, when he paused and looked across the room, you could almost see the movie running behind his eyes, replaying scenes he could not forget but did not want to remember. The man also showed us his blackened toenails, and the caved-in portion of his foot still bore a rodlike indentation with faint signs of metal grooves, like on an iron rod, the rebar used to reinforce concrete.

The 400,000 Iraq war documents published online in October 2010 included a number of US Army reports of torture and abuse by the government of Iraq against its own Sunni citizens, most of them ignored by the US Army as a consequence of Frago 242. A frago is a “fragmentary order” that summarizes a specific requirement based on a broader, earlier instruction. As published in June 2004, Frago 242 ordered Coalition troops not to investigate any breach of the laws of armed conflict, such as torture, unless it directly involved Coalition troops. Where abuse was Iraqi on Iraqi, “only an initial report will be made.… No further investigation will be required unless directed.”24

The Iraqis knew of torture. FOB Loyalty, where I spent a week, had once been home to Saddam’s secret police. I had walked around and seen torture cells there. Arabic graffiti covered the walls, most of it scratched directly into the stone. Metal rings were set into the floor and walls for chaining people down. The bunk was just more stone, and there was an open hole in one corner for a latrine. The story was that Saddam hired Chinese workers to build the place, then had them murdered so they would not tell anyone what was inside. Many US soldiers who passed through had their photo taken in one of the cells, sometimes lying on the bunk, but it was too creepy for me, too many shadows. Even the tough guys found reasons to avoid the place after dark. There were voices in those walls.

The other SOI men in the room chain-smoked awful cigarettes by the fistful and told us the recent murders of four Sunnis in Tarmiyah were probably tribal revenge killings stemming from the murder of a high-level SOI in the area the previous year. Three out of the four murdered were brothers and the fourth was a blood relative. Under tribal law, they explained, when compensation was not received in a timely manner, the other side had the right to kill the person who committed the murder plus three of his blood relatives.

As for national-level violence, they explained it was all the Iranians’ fault, except for the parts the Americans did (“When will you close the door you opened in our country?”). Kind of hard to disagree with the last bit, but our US military colleague along for lunch tried pretty hard. He started out declaring himself “but a simple solider” and then wound up into a long speech about the American democratic experiment, states’ rights, and the Articles of Confederation. I had no idea what he was saying. Our translator kept right up, however, mumbling something in Arabic, though who knows what was communicated across the space in that room. Our simple soldier hit his stride, raising his voice in volume while he lowered it in timbre, explaining how we all were now brothers fighting a common enemy. This was where I would have given a cornea to understand Arabic, because of course we had invaded Iraq and even our stalwart Iraqi translator was having a hard time figuring out who this common enemy was. After some side conversations, we figured out it was “the terrorists,” and each was left to define “terrorist” for himself. Considering the men in the room controlled militias and could order revenge killings, I guessed their definition and ours were different.

After what could only be described as a multilingual awkward pause, the search for common ground began. We finally stumbled onto something after an older SOI man discussed his recent trip to Iran. He described his dislike of the Persians, stretching back some three thousand years, but noted Iranian women were, well … sort of hot. He did not say “hot” in so many words, but as our hosts smiled and clicked their teeth and made eye gestures, it was all too obvious we had basically started talking about how attractive Iranian women were. I learned that one reason Iraqi men traveled to Iran was to enjoy the pleasures of a temporary marriage. With men free to marry multiple wives and Islam’s handy oral divorce policy and lack of civic records, the prohibition against prostitution was sometimes circumvented through a quick (several hours) marriage and divorce. Iran was known for such things, and discreet as well, so what happened in an Iranian temp marriage stayed in Iran, baby. The mood lightened.

These meetings were supposed to increase our understanding of one another, give us a chance to resolve problems, make friends, and the like. Maybe we did so on occasion. To me, however, it was more like two sides agreeing to play a game together, but we played cards while they played dominoes, diplomacy by Calvinball rules. Unnamed assassins killed two of the men present in the next six weeks, along with their sons, victims of a string of assassinations of Sons of Iraq leaders. A week later someone murdered the man who had visited Iran. The SOI leader who claimed to have been tortured was left alive, wicked, hard, and doomed.