Army Aims to Achieve Delicate Balance in Iraq

The U.S. commander was furious.

Someone had fired a rocket-propelled grenade at his troops, breaking the relative peace in this isolated patch of western Iraq.

Lt. Col. Henry “Butch” Kievenaar, military chief of a vast swath of this occupied nation, had gone out of his way not to interfere too much in town affairs. But now he presented community leaders with an ultimatum: “Bring me the guy who did it.”

That set in motion a chain of events that resulted in a riot, the naming of a new police chief and mayor and a different way of doing business -- one that has, by and large, been successful in keeping the peace here.

“We’ve tried to be as respectful and helpful as possible to the local population,” Kievenaar, 40, said in an interview at his command center, a heavily looted former Republican Guard garrison outside town. “But my No. 1 priority has to be force protection.... How many times have we tried to be considerate to customs, feelings, etc., only to have one of our kids killed?”

Throughout Iraq, U.S. military commanders have been plunged into a mission that involves both pacification and reconstruction. They’re grappling with daily and often complex issues of governance, even as their paramount concern remains the safety of their fighters.

These officers trained in making war have become the on-the-ground managers of the ambitious nation-building project unfolding in this depleted country where even the most idealistic GIs don’t fool themselves into thinking that they are loved.

“We get some training,” Kievenaar said, “but it’s never the same as being here.”

More comfortable leading a tank charge, commanders often find themselves in nonstop rounds of meetings with sheiks, religious leaders and political activists in often-combustible settings. Hidden agendas, pent-up frustrations and sectarian score-settling are ubiquitous after decades of repression and hardship, a blitzkrieg war and the subsequent orgy of looting that left much of the nation’s infrastructure in tatters.

“It’s really about sitting down with the different sheiks, trying to figure out what makes them function,” Kievenaar said. “We try and be fair and equitable. I put out the word: ‘Here’s the thing we do. If you work with us, there’s no problem. If you want to attack us, you’ll get hurt.’ ”

The military throughout Iraq mounts as many as 2,000 patrols a day, mostly without incident. But much of soldiers’ time is taken up with the mundane tasks of restoring civil society -- training police, fixing roads and schools, restoring water and power and even hauling away garbage. Soldiers here just launched a project to construct a proper landfill, although the commander’s preference is to contract out as many civilian jobs as possible.

“I look for ways to employ the out-of-work Iraqi citizens where I can,” Kievenaar said.

Kievenaar, the son of a retired major general, is an 18-year veteran who served as a tank cavalry captain in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He majored in economics in college and has a master’s degree in military arts and science. In many ways, he epitomizes the professional officer the Army is depending on to carry out the formidable Iraq mission.

Compactly built and analytically minded, Kievenaar appears to be a no-nonsense commander. But unlike many officers, he expresses an interest in explaining his actions and decisions. And while his bearing is serious and tough, civilians who’ve worked with him say he tries to be responsive.

He spoke in his simple second-floor billet, exhausted from days of traveling to far-flung bases under his command.

“All of these young soldiers are far away from home and family, but they will stay until their mission is completed,” Kievenaar said. “And the way to get the mission done is to get all the infrastructure running, get people back to work, and get a safe and secure environment where people aren’t afraid to walk up and down the street. We do all that stuff, and we’re done.”

The task ahead is difficult, to say the least. Iraqis are an exceedingly proud people, and many bitterly resent occupation, even if they despised Saddam Hussein. Bellicose graffiti on the dun-hued walls here in Hit denounce cooperating “spies” and vow revenge against the “invaders” and “infidels” now in charge.

“The Americans are for occupation -- they will never leave until they are forced out,” declared Ziad Rawy, 35, whose kebab shop in Hit is a hub for anti-U.S. buzz: that Iraqi oil will soon be pumped cheap to Israel, that terrified U.S. troops are fleeing to Syria in Arab headdresses and robes, that helicopters are dropping the bodies of coalition soldiers in the desert to conceal mounting losses.

“No day will pass without resistance,” Rawy vowed cheerfully, slowly sipping his tea, as patrons nodded in harmony.

Kievenaar has heard all the rhetoric. He, like his superiors, says he sees no coordinated resistance in his sector, but he can’t disregard the potential peril of this irregular war.

“Facing any organized, mechanized force on the battlefield, that’s one thing,” he said. “But when the guy who was nice to you yesterday turns around and puts a knife in your back today, that’s difficult.”

Thunder Squadron of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Unit rolled into the area about 90 miles northwest of Baghdad in early May, the first U.S. soldiers to arrive in the region. The people weren’t especially welcoming, but they also weren’t notably hostile.

“Their thing was, ‘We’re good people. We’re quiet people. There’s no bad people in town. But we really don’t want you in the town,’ ” Kievenaar said.

He and his officers decided not to occupy the town, both because of security concerns -- buildings tend to be clustered together, offering little protection -- and because of a desire not to appear too heavy-handed.

Instead, the squadron set up shop in the former Republican Guard outpost a few miles east, now renamed Camp Eden. (The unit’s huge territory actually extends west and south toward the Syrian and Jordanian borders, encompassing ancient trade and smuggling routes.) But mounted patrols with Humvees and Bradley fighting vehicles rumble regularly through the streets of Hit, boisterous reminders of who is in charge.

Hit (pronounced Heat) is a hardscrabble tribal town of grain and fruit farmers and small merchants who boast that their community along the lush Euphrates dates back more than 5,000 years. Residents plainly felt neglected during the 35 years of Baath Party rule. Resources flowed to the wealthy neighboring cattle and market town of Kubaysah, where Hussein would visit when he was in the vicinity. The ruler never deigned to stop in Hit.

“Life was pretty much going on as usual” when U.S. troops arrived, Kievenaar recalled.

Town leaders, on their own, had formed a kind of interim ruling council, but the top guy was the police chief, whom many residents resented as a holdover from Hussein’s regime. Kievenaar made his rounds to the sheiks. The Army went to work on the smashed infrastructure and schools while trying to train a professional, nonpolitical police force -- a novel concept.

Then, in late May, the peace was shattered.

U.S. troops discovered an illegal weapons market. Kievenaar ordered it cleared out. The next evening, someone fired the rocket-propelled grenade at U.S. troops. No one was hurt, but the attack was a wake-up call.

“I went down and saw the chief of police the next morning, with the council,” Kievenaar said. “I told them I wouldn’t accept this.”

The police chief soon produced the name of the suspected shooter. The military’s preference was that the police roust him, with U.S. support.

What followed was a debacle. The suspect got away, escaping through the warren of winding streets and smoky souks. As a military helicopter hovered overhead, residents complained bitterly of intrusive searches of their homes -- a near-universal objection by Iraqis unaccustomed to such tactics.

That same day, critics whom Kievenaar regarded as remnants of the Baath leadership had scheduled a protest about a lack of services. The searches only upped the ante. Angry demonstrators gathered outside the police station, tossing stones. Soon, they were lobbing grenades.

Soldiers fired warning shots. The squadron’s Quick Reaction Force, alerted by aircraft, rolled into town, with several Bradleys. A tense standoff ensued. Town elders asked for 48 hours to calm things down. The Army pulled back. That night, a mob burned down the police station.

The turmoil forced drastic change. A new police chief and mayor have been installed, following tribal caucuses, although U.S. authorities cleared the names. Like all functionaries in the new Iraq, they must disavow the Baath Party. And they can’t afford to delude themselves about who really runs the show.

The new mayor, Naim Abdul Muhsin, 40, is a scion of one of the region’s wealthiest tribes. He proudly shows Western visitors a framed “proclamation” -- titled Order No. 0015 -- from Kievenaar’s commanding officer endorsing his status as mayor. The U.S. Army imprimatur leaves no question as to who is the ultimate authority here.

Down the street, the new police chief, Salam Hity, a chunky former army colonel, says the town remains divided. “Most people want to wait and see what the Americans can do for us,” said Hity, who sat in a heavily fortified police annex while repairs went on in the charred station next door. “Others want to attack them.”

Things were quiet for a time in Hit after the riot, but then, in June, an antitank mine exploded one evening beneath a Humvee on a side road. A soldier lost part of his foot but survived. That same evening, a fuel line detonated in what authorities suspect was an act of sabotage, one of an ongoing series of attacks targeting the country’s crippled power grid.

“Some of these things are just beyond my capabilities,” Kievenaar said. “Three to five years down the road, hopefully, Iraq will be a very thriving Third World country. But it’s the Iraqi people more than anyone else who will decide that. They will determine their own destiny.

“Right now, as long as the people coexist with us, that’s fine with me.”