Teaming Up With Tribes to Try to Quell Insurgents

As the convoy of buses rolled out of Abu Ghraib prison, the freed inmates hung out the windows, flashing victory signs to the large crowd of relatives who had gathered since early morning.

Such scenes have been repeated outside Abu Ghraib several times in recent months -- more frequently since the prisoner abuse scandal exploded in April. But this time, instead of being released to their families, the prisoners were driven east to a U.S. base near the Baghdad airport. There, they emerged into the embrace of arguably some of the most powerful men in Iraq: tribal and clan leaders.

The release last week was the result of a fledgling relationship between Iraq’s largest tribal association and a U.S. commander in the town of Abu Ghraib -- for which the infamous prison is named.

Both sides believe the arrangement -- in which the highly influential leaders guarantee the good behavior of their tribe members, former prisoners and regular Iraqis alike -- may hold the key to blunting Iraq’s persistent insurgency.

It remains to be seen whether tribal leaders can ensure the long-term cooperation of their kinsmen -- and there’s no clear agreement on how noncompliant tribe members will be handled. What’s more, the accelerated prison releases could create a newly embittered pool of recruits for the insurgency.

But for now, the Abu Ghraib model serves as a new approach for the U.S. military.

The key is a “truce” brokered by the National League of Sheiks and Tribal Leaders and U.S. Army Lt. Col. Tim Ryan, the 1st Cavalry Division officer responsible for Abu Ghraib -- a Sunni Triangle town west of Baghdad and a hotbed of the insurgency.

Under the agreement, Ryan now meets regularly with tribal leaders and provides them with lists of residents suspected of taking part in attacks. The sheiks and their subordinate local clan leaders then promise to keep their kinsmen in line. Newly released Abu Ghraib prisoners are similarly turned over with a tribal assurance of good behavior.

“We tell them that these guys are your responsibility now,” Ryan said. “They do have a lot of influence. To ignore that is to ignore 6,000 years of the way business has been done here.”

In return, Ryan has drastically reduced the amount of anti-insurgent raids and house searches -- essentially trusting the sheiks to police their own.

“If there’s any kind of information about somebody, the Americans have to come to the local leader. He’ll go personally to the suspect and say, ‘Stop -- this is your last chance,’ ” said Sheik Mohammed Khamis Saadi, national head of the Saadi tribe and vice president of the league of sheiks. “We have the same blood. I’m responsible for them. It’s my duty to give them another chance.”

Ryan actually has little say in which prisoners are released from Abu Ghraib prison, apart from limited special requests. Instead, he receives notification of which men are to be released and notifies their respective tribal leaders. But Ryan said it’s convenient for all sides to allow the league of sheiks to take credit for the releases, increasing their own stature and enabling them to claim influence over U.S. military decision-making.

Ryan said the alliance with the sheiks -- and the accompanying reduction in raids -- has produced a measurable drop in roadside bomb attacks in the Abu Ghraib area. Between early February, when the 1st Cavalry Division arrived, and April 10, when a small uprising in the town ended, two men in Ryan’s 2nd Battalion were killed and 28 injured. Since then, he said, there have been no deaths or injuries in attacks.

Saadi, whose tribe includes an estimated “200,000 mature men able to bear arms,” credits Ryan with understanding the true power of Iraqi tribal society.

“We are the real leaders of Iraq,” he said, “more powerful than any of the political parties.”

After the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein’s government, Saadi said, the Americans made a fundamental mistake by interpreting Iraq’s societal dynamics along purely religious and ethnic lines. “They came and saw the society as Kurds, Sunnis, Turks, Shiites and Christians,” he said. “They didn’t understand the tribal culture.”

As for the newly released prisoners themselves, many don’t seem to share Ryan and Saadi’s optimism. When asked whether the tribal commitment would help reduce attacks, one young prisoner waiting on a bus, who declined to give his name, rolled his eyes and muttered, “Just get us out of here.”

The prisoners and Saadi say the arrests have been largely unjustified anyway. All of the prisoners interviewed by The Times said they were picked up in indiscriminate sweeps or were the victims of informants seeking profit or settling personal vendettas. A recent Red Cross report lends credence to those claims, saying that as many as 90% of Iraqi detainees have been wrongly imprisoned.

Not surprisingly, antipathy for U.S. forces runs high among the newly released prisoners. “It’s all just for show. It doesn’t matter about the sheiks. We’re all innocent,” said Mahmoud Abdullah, who was being released after nine months inside. “This week they’re releasing a group of innocent men to the council of sheiks and saying, ‘You’re responsible.’ Next week they’ll release a group to the Islamic Party, and then they’ll give some to [interim Prime Minister] Iyad Allawi personally.”

Nevertheless, Ryan and Saadi appear eager to expand the Abu Ghraib example throughout Iraq. But both say that skepticism runs deep within the U.S. military.

“All of my counterparts think I’m turning into some kind of flower child,” Ryan said. Saadi added, “Without naming names, we’ve talked with other U.S. military leaders and didn’t find the same willingness.”

On May 1, Ryan convened a meeting of community, religious and tribal leaders. One of his first challenges was undoing the damage wrought by the prison abuse scandal.

As a show of faith, he led tribal leaders on a tour of the prison. “He seemed serious,” Saadi said. “He seemed like he wanted to accomplish something.”

Ryan asked for alternative suggestions to the cycle of attacks, raids and arrests. Jailing people, he said, is “only a holding action. It’s almost counterproductive because if I throw your brother in jail, it doesn’t matter if he’s guilty, you’ve got to attack me.”

The league of sheiks had long advocated this sort of arrangement with coalition officials. In January, Coalition Provisional Authority chief L. Paul Bremer III announced an identical prison release plan in cooperation with the league, but Saadi said the CPA appeared to lose interest in the deal after two months, and it was dropped.

It is unclear, however, whether the tribal leaders will be willing to follow through on what Ryan sees as a natural extension of the agreement. For those who continue to conduct attacks in defiance of their tribal elders, Ryan expects the sheiks to inform him and to allow their arrest without complaint.

That hasn’t happened yet, and Ryan acknowledges that tribal leaders “have to be careful not to compromise their position” by cooperating too openly. Saadi appears genuinely uncomfortable when asked whether he would be willing to turn over rebellious tribe members to Ryan’s men.

“We still haven’t faced that situation to see how we’ll handle it,” he said. “Hopefully, we won’t find out.”