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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Last Tuesday, when the arrangements were finally confirmed, we took a taxi into the dust and the ruin of Sadr City, turning down narrow streets with open sewers. Donkeys and goats ambled by under the fierce sun and the goats ate at the piles of refuse. On the main streets there is a smell of rotten things on fire. Men sold cooking gas canisters from horse carts, while boys called out for bread from the houses.
When we arrived at the meeting place, we were taken inside quickly. In the safe house our host ushered us into a room with carpets and pillows, the rest of the house reserved for immediate family. It was an unremarkable place, a typical poor Shia house in Sadr City, but the host took great pains to make us feel welcome. On one wall there was a painting of Imam Ali and a photograph of Ayatollah Khomeini surrounded by children. While we waited for the al-Mehdi Army, the host brought us water and tea in the cool darkness of the guest room. When our eyes adjusted to the light, a thin 24-year-old engineering student named Muhanned arrived. Over the next few minutes, five other men appeared, all in their 20s. Muhanned, who did not have a trace of youth left in him, was the commander. The engineer was doing the interview because a sheik had given an order, and he was uneasy about it. We stood up and shook hands. Then Muhanned and his men sat across the room from us making a neat line along the opposite wall. Iraqis often sit close to guests on the floor, but the fighters chose to keep a safe distance from strangers. Every few minutes something would happen outside, the sound of a ball bouncing or a kid's shout, and they would all glance at the door.
Who were they? One man worked for the coalition as a building contractor, renovating schools. Another fighter sold cigarettes in the market, which is regarded by Iraqis as little better than begging. They were laborers, ordinary men who were fighting a guerrilla war against the U.S. blocks from their houses. Muhanned was the only man with a college education. "When I see a tank or a large number of trucks, we attack from many directions," Muhanned said. Which weapons did he use? "RPG-7s, Kalashnikov and grenades," he answered. Muhanned's technique was to find a slow-moving target, usually at night, then fire the rocket-propelled grenades and disappear back into the city. I tried to imagine what it was like to be on the receiving end of an attack, to conjure up the shock and the horror of rockets coming out of nowhere, and failed. Muhanned had a great advantage: As soon as he hid his weapons he and his group looked like everyone else.
"I have attacked American forces for every day since the problems began, except for three days," he told us, and went on to say that just in case there were problems, there was always a reserve cell of fighters nearby to help out. They bought their guns in the market with donations from the al-Sadr militia, and some of the weapons came from the Iraqi army before the war. It was obvious that finding weapons in the new Iraq was not a problem. As far as who fired first when the Americans went by, he said it was the al-Mehdi Army.
"Saddam is the son of America," one of the fighters interjected. He wanted me to know that the al-Mehdi Army thought the ex-dictator and the United States were interchangeable oppressors, and it came out that many of his comrades had been imprisoned for taking part in the uprisings in Karbala following the first Gulf War. The fight had become a repetition of recent history. All of the men agreed about this. It was much harder to draw them out about the future: They wouldn't talk about the likely nature of an Islamic state in Iraq, or the possibility of peace; they simply wanted the U.S. out.
Did they ever talk to the Americans? Muhanned said he never did. "American soldiers are scared of Iraqi people and will not talk to me. They bring chocolate for the kids because they are afraid of people in Sadr City."
What they did not say that afternoon, but what is also true, is that Muqtada al-Sadr's organization has given the young Shia men of Baghdad a sense of unity and banished their long-running helplessness. The men are drawn to Muqtada out of nationalism and religious fervor, but also because the organization is truly their own. Then there is the most frightening aspect of the al-Sadr movement -- Muqtada's willingness to kill his rivals and exert absolute control over his supporters conjures comparisons with fascist gangs in a desperate and declining Europe.
As we came to the end of the meeting, I wanted to know if the most respected Shia cleric in Iraq could intervene and end the crisis with the Shia militia. I asked Muhanned if he would stop fighting if Ayatollah Ali Sistani called for an end to it. "No, all my orders come from Muqtada al-Sadr." Muhanned would continue to fight as long as the Americans were in Iraq. We did not ask him what he would do when Muqtada was dead.
The next day, our al-Sadr contact nervously described a wave of arrests directed at the members of the militia. It made sense. We saw posters put up by the coalition that offered citizens $2,500 for information leading to the arrests of fighters. Al-Sadr people put up their own posters after tearing down the reward advertisements, exhorting people to kill spies. At the Iraqi police station next to the Muqtada al-Sadr headquarters, the officers refused to talk about it. They begged me to leave quickly. None of the officers at the station wanted to be seen talking to a Westerner.
During the week, U.S. soldiers were moving through Sadr City at night, picking people up whom they suspected of being involved in the attacks. Our contact made a gesture with his hand of reaching down and pulling someone by the shirt. Everyone the al-Mehdi Army contact knew in the organization was moving from house to house, sleeping in a different place every night. But he had to show up to work as if there was nothing wrong, and when I saw him looking tired and ill Thursday morning, he had another invitation. On Friday, there was a large demonstration scheduled at the al-Hekma mosque. "Maybe all the Iraqi police will join with Muqtada," he said. He believes that the movement is growing, but I am not so sure.
