Double Trouble Snares Sunni Leader in Iraq

For weeks, Sheik Adnan Fahd had been avoiding meeting U.S. Army Lt. Col. Ross A. Brown. Going to see the officer at his base would be extremely dangerous, given the intelligence network of Iraqi insurgents. To invite him to his home would be courting death.

Finally, Brown came north, traveling six miles in a heavily armed convoy of four Humvees for a June 21 meeting in the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad -- a strained get-together that summed up the conundrum facing the U.S. military and Sunni Arabs in Iraq.

For the American officer, the objective was to win Fahd’s cooperation in the fight against insurgents in Mahmoudiya in an area south of the capital known as “The Triangle of Death.”

But for Fahd, a Sunni tribal leader heading a clan of 30,000, the meeting highlighted his double dilemma: He must keep at bay both the insurgents who watch his every move, and the U.S. military that wants his help in persuading militants to lay down their arms.

Brown sought to tempt Fahd with water pumps, jobs and other aid in an area where most farms have lacked irrigation since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. “With the central government, the police and the army all still weak, the tribal system is the only institution that’s working in Iraq,” he said.

Fahd, a 64-year-old retired police brigadier, appears to have no genuine wish to cooperate with the Americans -- not because he supports the insurgents, but to protect his family and avoid the shame of being labeled a collaborator.

“I just want to be a shepherd,” Fahd said at his Mahmoudiya home, when a relative relayed Brown’s requests for a meeting. “I want to raise sheep and occasionally sell one and live off the money.”

Fahd’s predicament mirrors those of other Sunni Arabs, and of all those who live in a large swath of central Iraq -- including Baghdad -- where insurgents are most active.

The sheik’s story paints a picture of a nation struggling for stability in the throes of a brutal insurgency, rampant crime and economic woes.

Many Iraqis have been killed for having suspected links to the Americans -- a fact Fahd knows firsthand: Insurgents held him captive for several hours May 21.

“They told me the Americans came to my home eight times, but I told them they came to search it. They did not believe me,” he told Brown, a tough-talking West Point graduate from McLean, Va., who recently took command in Mahmoudiya.

One of Fahd’s six daughters, Jinan, was killed in November by U.S. Marines under circumstances that have never been clear. Two other relatives lost their lives in violence, and at least 15 clansmen and relatives are in U.S. or Iraqi custody, some for more than a year, he said.

During their meeting in the Green Zone, Brown was sympathetic at first to the clan leader’s situation. But he wasn’t impressed when Fahd began to speak of his helplessness against the insurgents and his diminishing influence over the clan.

Their 90-minute encounter, attended by an Associated Press reporter, took place at a small banquet room at the Al-Rasheed, once Baghdad’s most luxurious hotel and now sleeping quarters for hundreds of U.S. soldiers.

The meeting occurred as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld acknowledged that talks had taken place with some insurgent leaders in Iraq in an effort to help the Shiite-led Iraqi government reach out to minority Sunni Arabs.

A few days earlier, Fahd had complained about the tensions created by the insurgency and Sunni-Shiite friction. He spoke at his house’s large reception room where he has received visitors since becoming the al Ghrirs clan’s leader in 1987.

Hot and sweaty, he had just returned from an all-morning meeting with leaders of a Shiite clan, the al Kalabiah. The two groups are at odds over a bombing that destroyed a Shiite mosque and was blamed on an al Ghrirs clansman.

“They are proposing joint patrols between us to guard Shiite mosques,” Fahd said, with the knowing smile of a man who knows the proposal will never get off the ground.

*

Anmar Faleh is Fahd’s son-in-law. Faleh, 40, received word from a cousin that insurgents wanted to talk to him.

On the morning of June 10, Faleh waited for them at his Mahmoudiya farm. At lunchtime, a masked man with a gun tucked in his pants approached. Three other men, all masked, waited in a pickup truck.

Faleh recognized his visitor, but the masked man insisted he was mistaken. Faleh decided to let it go, but the exchange raised tensions.

The insurgent wanted to know why Faleh still employed 65-year-old Shiite Hassan Klayoush when every other Shiite farmhand had been forced to leave the area.

Klayoush was so afraid of the gunman that he collapsed.

Every time the discussion became heated, Klayoush tugged on Faleh’s dishdashah to get him to calm down. Klayoush knew he could be killed by the insurgents, who earlier shot several Shiite workers whom they suspected of spying for the government or the Americans.

Faleh recounted parts of his conversation with the insurgent.

“He’s not supposed to be in this area,” the insurgent said in a threatening voice.

“Why? Is there anything in Islam that says he should not be here?” Faleh replied.

“We force them to leave so we can carry out operations,” the insurgent retorted.

“What operations? You know where the Americans are and where their camp is; go and do your operations there,” Faleh snapped.

“No, jihad tells us that we must strike the Americans wherever they are.”

“So, what has that got to do with Hassan?” Faleh asked.

Klayoush’s family has moved south of Mahmoudiya, but he still comes to town once a week to work at Faleh’s farm.

*

Abu Ahmed is Fahd’s brother-in-law. He’s a 30-year veteran of the Iraqi army, a hero of the war with Iran who took part in the 2003 Iraq war.

The former major general who once commanded an army division is now a fugitive, hiding in a relative’s office in Baghdad. He spends time watching television, listening to the radio and reading. Sometimes, he telephones his family.

He’s cagey about why he went into hiding a month ago, and would only say that he fears for his life. His relatives say he’s convinced that a Shiite hit squad acting on orders from Tehran is after him because of his role in the ruinous 1980-88 war.

A father of five in his early 50s, Abu Ahmed looked nervous, spoke while sitting on the edge of a sofa and swung his head around every time he heard a door slam or a car stop outside.

Like many Sunni Arabs who have lost their prominent places in society after Saddam Hussein’s ouster, Abu Ahmed -- who insisted on using his nickname for security reasons -- is bitter.

“I was a soldier who did not commit any crimes. I defended my country and, like many, gave it my blood,” said Abu Ahmed. “We will contest the next election and we will realize our ambitions.”

*

The goodwill Lt. Col. Brown showed to Fahd at the start of their Green Zone meeting evaporated when it became obvious the sheik wasn’t going to give the American what he wanted -- information on insurgents.

Fahd pleaded that he did not personally know of any.

“I will come and tell you if I knew any of them, even if it’s my own brother,” he told an unconvinced Brown.

Then, trying to defuse Brown’s anger, he told the officer: “You’re attaching too much importance to the influence of clan sheiks like me. Things are not what they used to be.”

But Fahd seemed evasive and Brown knew it.

“If you’re not my friend, you’re my enemy in this war,” the officer told Fahd sternly. “I am very disappointed in this conversation. I came here today with hope, but now I will treat you, your family and the al Ghrirs differently.”

“I am so sad that you’re disappointed,” Fahd answered. “But there is nothing that I can do. I don’t have your guns and armor, what can I do?”

The officer replied: “I don’t want you to fight. I want you to organize the al Ghrirs and take a stand against the insurgents and your fear.”

“Please be sure that I will always be your friend and I will not hesitate to help you if I can,” Fahd said. “Do you accept my friendship?”

“No,” Brown snapped.

Fahd left, shaken by Brown’s attitude. Now, he said, he expects the worst.

“He can do whatever he pleases,” he said. “Allah is my protector.”

Associated Press writer Hamza Hendawi has interviewed a clan chief in one of Iraq’s most insurgent-infested areas several times over the last year, meeting with him and members of his family and community. In late June, Hendawi met him twice and attended a meeting between him and a U.S. military commander for this story.