In the Belly of the Green Bird The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq

Introduction On April 9, 2003, as the world watched, Iraqis dragged a bronze statue of the body of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein through the streets of Baghdad. Sahel, a word unique to the Arabic of Iraq, means, literally, to pull a body through the street. Iraqis have coined the term because they have done it so many times before, to other deposed leaders, usually in the flesh. Once again change had come with violence. This time, the violence did not end with the change. It was that April that my experience of the new Iraq began. The overthrow of Saddam unleashed a wild mix of reactions: a spontaneous burst of repressed fury from one segment of Iraqi society, which caused more damage to property than did the American bombs; solidarity and a volunteer spirit eager to restore security and normalcy from another segment. Common civilians stood all day, directing traffic in a country with no traffic lights or rules, and the absolute liberty to drive anywhere, in any direction, at any speed. These volunteers protected neighborhoods and established order. Shia groups self-organized and managed hospitals, city governments, and police. But many criminals, gangs, and mafias took over, and the fear of Saddam's totalitarian state was replaced with complete indifference to the idea of a state. This is the story of the occupation, reconstruction, and descent into civil war of the new Iraq. It makes no attempt to cover the invasion or debate the decision to invade. (Those topics have been well covered, if not resolved, elsewhere.) Instead, this is an attempt to capture the story of the new Iraq from the point of view of the Iraqis themselves. From the start of the liberation, Iraqis have been divided not only in their views of America, but also among themselves. Many Iraqis might have preferred an occupation, imperialist or not, to the anarchy that prevailed. When I would ask Iraqis what they wanted, they would always say "amn,"safety, security. Some called for an immediate evacuation of U.S. and British troops, others asked to be the fifty-first state, and some asked for both in the same breath. Most longed only for a place in the shade and a better future than their past, though they were proud of their history. New political parties and organizations appeared every day, announcing their birth and their intentions on walls. Their banners covered the abandoned buildings they had confiscated. The Iraqi Communist party headquarters bore the hammer and sickle associated with dogmatic atheism, right next to a huge banner proclaiming their participation in an important Shia holiday. Seventy newspapers appeared in Baghdad after the war, their viewpoints as divergent as possible. Azzaman, the most popular, professional, and mainstream paper, was owned by a former senior intelligence official who worked directly for Saddam's son Qusay. In May, Azzamanused a Reuters picture of an old Iraqi man being held by two American soldiers on each side. Its caption read "American soldiers help Iraqi man cross street." Tariq al-Sha'ab, the Communist party paper, had the same picture over the caption "American soldiers beat Iraqi man." Everywhere I looked, I saw division, conflict, struggle. (Only one group of Iraqis remained virtually invisible amid the throngs. Iraq's greatest majority, its women, outnumbering men by as much as 1.5 million, were imprisoned in silence. In my many months in Iraq, I met hundreds of men, but very few women. I became afraid to look at them or walk too close to them and thus arouse the ire of their male guardians. Among the Shias in particular, Arab tribal mores had combined with religious conservatism. The ShRosen, Nir is the author of 'In the Belly of the Green Bird The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq', published 2006 under ISBN 9780743277037 and ISBN 0743277031.