Iraqi Army and Police leaders often corrupt
I promised in my short bio in the column to the right of this post (About Double Tap), that I would talk about both the good and the bad in the military and the war on terror. Unfortunately, it’s time to talk about the bad.
Michael Yon, embedded in Iraq, tells the tale today of the arrest by U.S. soldiers of Iraqi General Hamid - who was once considered a “hero” by Iraqis because of his violent opposition to Al Qaeda terrorists in his area of operations, but who’s lust for power corrupted him.
First, the “hero” part of the equation:
Many people in Hit directly attribute the resurrection of this city in large part to the courage of Iraqi Police General Ibrahim Hamid Jaza (General Hamid), who took an aggressive stand against the Al Qaeda (AQI) terrorists who had brazenly made Anbar province a home base and slaughter pad with their marketplace car bombs, beheadings, and reputation for hiding bombs intended to kill parents in the corpses of dead children they’d gutted.
Over time, AQI provided ample demonstrations of their ruthless and reckless abuses of power over civilians, shooting people for using the Internet, or watching television, or other “moral transgressions” such as smoking in public. AQI’s claim of fundamentalist piety proved to be a thin veneer that was quickly eroded by blatant drug, alcohol and prostitute use. The people of Anbar rejected AQI, but AQI was still strong and well-armed, so rejection was only a first step.
AQI operatives are not amenable to change, so there was killing to be done. General Hamid was one of the brave souls who took an early stand and went for their throats. In doing so, he demonstrated that the terrorists were also vulnerable. Some soldiers in the Task Force 2-7 began to jokingly refer to the general as “Bufford Pusser” because Hamid literally carried a big stick. But AQI wasn’t laughing; they beheaded Hamid’s son on a soccer field in the center of Hit in 2005.
Now, the not-so-heroic part:
…concerns about General Hamid’s conduct were frequent topics of discussion. Some local officials who had once regarded Hamid as a hero were now beginning to fear him. Allegations claimed he was committing murders (extra-judicial killings), releasing some detainees for money, abusing other detainees, making deals with various insurgent groups (to include selling them weapons and ammunition), and condoning prostitution in Hit. (It is rumored that the prostitutes had provided critical intelligence on their AQI johns.) Our side believed many of the charges, because there was growing evidence that General Hamid was engaging in criminal activity that could unravel progress towards stability here that can only be described as astounding.
We all know the old saw - power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I won’t lie, corruption is a major problem in Iraq. It was problem under Saddam, and that corruption culture didn’t end with his departure.
We had a similar problem at Q-West Base Complex. A local Iraqi Army general named Ali was the regional battalion commander. He was very good at catching bad guys. In fact, the bad guys hated him so much that his home was mortared and his convoys were regularly targeted. Many, both Iraqi and American, thought he was a great and patriotic Iraqi. But, some of us knew better.
Because he was good at catching bad guys, he was also able to develop his own little fiefdom in the area, using Iraqi Army soldiers to enforce his
will. For example, we received several complaints from local contractors that General Ali’s men would stop them at their checkpoints outside our base and shake them down for “taxes” in order to continue on to our base and conduct their business. There were also rumors of him arresting innocent people he just didn’t like and even committing extra-curricular killings. The MiTT team that worked with him didn’t like him, didn’t trust him, and definitely wanted him gone. They finally got their wish a few months after my unit left Iraq.
Iraq is an Arabic country. Corruption is rampant there. I don’t know if it’s cultural, Arabic, or Iraqi in nature. In any case, it’s dragging the country down and make our efforts there even more difficult.
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Michael Yon ROCKS! He is embedded deep within the working of important people and seems to be honest and unbiased in his reporting! What a refreshing change!
“working” s/b “workings” Sorry.