To Be a Friend Is Fatal (5 page)

But Haifa decided to oblige her father and made plans to spend that last afternoon with Yaghdan. They strode around the Mansour district. He bought her ice cream, and the Egyptian pop singer Amr Diab's song “Ana ‘Aish” warbled from the window of a passing car. They joked about her anxious father. There was no gravity to their good-bye that night; Yaghdan knew he'd see her in a couple days, after the war had come and gone.

On March 19, 2003, Haifa drove an hour south to Karbala' and teased her father about his “war.” Yaghdan and his parents passed a normal evening in their small home on Street Number 2 in the al-Jihad neighborhood in western Baghdad. They had a dinner of rice and fish and went to bed.

Hours later, bombs tore apart the city and burned the night sky in the early morning of the twentieth. At first Yaghdan hoped it was only a demonstration strike, but the bombs fell all night, and in the morning there were more. He felt his ears about to burst and worried that his parents would perish, if not by the bombs, then by heart attacks. At around ten o'clock, the bombers relented, but for how long, he didn't know. He ran out to the driveway and checked their Volkswagen Passat. There was a half tank, more than enough to get them to Najaf if the roads were in one piece.

There was smoldering rubble everywhere, columns of smoke rising from Baghdad. The road out of the city was a mess, thronged with dazed Iraqis piled into cars and trucks and walking alongside the highway, heading anywhere away from the Shock and Awe. Yaghdan had grown accustomed to bombs: there was once a time when his country was not at war with the world, but all he knew was that every few years, the skies over Iraq opened up and showered ruin.

But now, just as he was starting to grasp the edges of a life for himself
as a young man—a steady business and a woman who loved him—here it came again. The electricity vanished in an instant, followed by Iraq's antiquated landline telephone network. He had no way of finding out what had happened to Haifa in Karbala'.

In Najaf, he braced for the second night, which passed without attack. He figured that the Americans would not bomb the holy city, but the ferocity of the first day gave him second thoughts. Najaf sits on a hill, so when Yaghdan climbed to the rooftop, he could see American troops, tanks, and Humvees gathering, churning up massive clouds of dust on the outskirts of the city. He heard the sound of a helicopter before he saw it bearing down on him. Alone on the roof, he waved with exaggerated movements at the chopper, which hovered, circled around, watched him. It flew on, over the city, in search of indications of resistance.

June approached. The Americans had taken Baghdad. Iraqi policemen and soldiers, once iron fixtures of his life in Baghdad, had melted away in the first hours of the war. Looting was rife. Government buildings were stripped of their veins of copper piping and any fixtures of value. Cars were stolen and shops emptied. Old feuds were settled.

Yaghdan wanted to return to Baghdad to protect his business. He drove back north, leaving his father in Najaf.

He and his business partner, Mohammad, reopened the computer store with zeal. Yes, there were looters and a breakdown of order in Baghdad, they reasoned, but the American troops would soon settle and take control. He found Americans everywhere in the streets and could tell when they were lost, offering them directions.

There were plenty of reasons to be optimistic in June 2003. He had heard through a mutual friend that Haifa was safe and would return to Baghdad soon. His shop hadn't been looted, and the fall of the regime meant the end of sanctions, allowing him to import new technology and computers without submitting to a review board. He and Mohammad talked with excitement about the coming year, when American companies would surely return to Iraq. He heard that the Bechtel Corporation was returning to build power plants and repair their infrastructure.
They'd have better electricity, cleaner water, and a free economy. The Americans would leave in a year, he thought, just as they had after rebuilding Kuwait.

On Sina'a Street, Baghdad's high-tech boulevard, business was coming back. New technology flooded into Iraq, and suppliers ferried crates of computers and monitors down the street to vendors.

At the end of the workday on his third Thursday back in Baghdad, Yaghdan and Mohammad locked the outer door to the shop. Yaghdan carried a white plastic bag stuffed with the week's receipts, which he intended to tally up over the weekend.

Mohammad started his car, a white Toyota Crown sedan, but it was sweltering inside, so he got back out and left the doors open to air it out. Yaghdan leaned against the hood of the car, the receipt bag around his wrist.

With a wail of engines and screeching tires, a black BMW and another Toyota skidded up onto the curb alongside them. Their doors flew open and six men poured out. They carried weapons: four AK-47s and two 9 millimeters.

Without exchanging a word, they began pummeling Mohammad, who lunged back into the car in a futile effort to escape. They dragged him out and told him to hand over the keys. Three men surrounded Yaghdan, who shouted, “Why are you doing this?” A gunman approached him. He was short, at least six inches shorter than Yaghdan. When he reached for the plastic bag, Yaghdan shoved him away.

Yaghdan fell to the ground. Someone had shot him in the leg, right through his kneecap. The short gunman yanked the bag of worthless receipts from around his wrist, jumped into Mohammad's sedan, and sped off.

As he lay there, he thought he was a dead man. A bullet through the knee was not necessarily lethal, but everyone knew that the hospitals were in dire shape. In addition to being looted, they had run out of blood and medication from treating those wounded during the invasion. Doctors were scarce.

The sun was unforgiving. Cars and trucks drove by. A neighboring shop owner raced out and saw a puddle of blood forming around Yaghdan, who lay there quietly.

An ambulance arrived forty-five minutes later, and the pool of red had turned into a small pond. Medics hoisted him onto a stretcher and sped off. Soon someone came by with a bucket of water to wash his blood from the sidewalk.

Yaghdan found that he was not as patient as he liked to think. He still hadn't seen Haifa, and wondered if she and her family were okay. Under strict orders from the surgeon not to move without his crutches, he sat in the corner of the living room in his home, tormented by boredom and heat, which made the skin under his cast itch.

He didn't know who had shot him, but didn't even bother calling the police. There were none to call. He could hobble out and locate some American soldiers, but what would he tell them? What could they do?

His impatience churned with frustration until he decided the surgeon must be wrong and it was okay for him to walk, just four weeks after his knee was shot to bits. He stood up without the crutch and felt something tear apart in his knee. He fell back into his chair and called an ambulance, which arrived after two hours to shuttle him back to the operating room.

Yaghdan's cell phone rang loudly from the other room. Summer was easing into fall, and his knee was finally on the mend. He hobbled on his crutches to take the call from Mohammad, who updated him on business. He mentioned in passing that Haifa had come back to work, and Yaghdan's mind raced happily. “I think I'll try coming in soon,” he said, trying to mask the excitement in his voice.

In the three months since he was shot, Iraq had fallen quite ill, stricken by an insurgency that seemed to be equal parts criminal enterprise (kidnapping for ransom, hijacking cargo trucks) and anti-American uprising, fueled by a widening furor over America's inability to restore order.

In the beginning of the war, he and his parents saw massive helicopters carrying tanks and Humvees—sometimes two Humvees suspended from a single helicopter. It was just a matter of time, they believed, before they would see generators hanging from the helicopters.

But the summer passed, and the electricity was weaker than ever. Sewage pooled in the streets, which teemed with US soldiers who never had any answers for the Iraqis who came up to ask about the power and water.

Even though it was September, the house was a furnace. He turned the faucet handle to splash some water on his face, but nothing came out. He didn't care: today he would finally go back to work, to see her. He locked the house door behind him and hobbled past the garden that his mom once tended. There was little hope for the flowers this year, but still they sprouted, sickly but alive.

He lowered himself into the Passat. He could still drive with his good right leg. There were several checkpoints that had sprung up between his house and Sina'a Street, one run by American soldiers, the others by Iraqis. What was once a fifteen-minute drive now took over an hour, but he would not be fazed. He smiled as he handed his identity card to the American soldier and said, “How are you today?” Startled, the soldier smiled, handed back his papers, and waved him through.

He saw Haifa's eyes flash with happiness when he walked into the shop. Yaghdan tried to make small talk with the other employees, but he spent most of his time with her. They made plans to see each other the next day.

As thrilled as he was to see her, he wrestled with the realization that between the checkpoints and the throbbing pain in his leg, he was not yet ready to return to work.

An American organization, Creative Associates International, was looking for Iraqi employees. The recipient of a $62 million contract to revitalize Iraq's schools, the company was hiring Iraqis to help on a range of projects. Millions of schoolbooks needed to be drained of Saddam and Ba'ath Party ideology and reprinted. Over a million schoolbags were filled with pencils, pads of paper, and calculators and given to every Iraqi child. Tens of thousands of teachers were trained.

Suhair, a friend of Yaghdan's from the university, had started working with Creative. She called Yaghdan and recruited him for a massive data-entry project compiling the results of a countrywide survey about
the needs of Iraq's schools. He planned to work for the Americans from home for a couple months until he could return to Sina'a Street to run the computer shop.

But he soon began to see how his work was impacting the lives of his fellow Iraqis. He felt that he could do more good with the Americans than with his computer business, so what started as a temporary job became full-time. When he was well enough to walk without crutches, he began commuting to work at the Creative Associates compound in the Karrada neighborhood of Baghdad, just across the Tigris from the Green Zone.

The well of Yaghdan's optimism was filling once again. Although he walked with a slight limp, his knee had healed. Haifa was back in his life, and they had begun talking about marriage.

He went to Haifa's father and asked for his blessing. The wedding took place in January 2004. Haifa moved into his home on Street Number 2, and the pair lived happily alongside his parents.

Eight months later, in the fall of 2004, officials at USAID, which oversaw the Creative Associates contract, noticed Yaghdan's work. He accepted their offer of a job working directly for the US government at the agency's compound in the heart of the Green Zone.

EXCERPT FROM:

A SHORT GUIDE TO IRAQ

1943

For use of Military Personnel Only. Not to be republished, in whole or in part, without the consent of the War Department. Prepared by: Special Service Division, United States Army

You have
been ordered to Iraq (i-
rahk
) as part of the world-wide offensive to beat Hitler.

American success or failure in Iraq may well depend on whether the Iraqis (as the people are called) like American soldiers or not. It may not be quite that simple. But then again it could.

The best way you can do this is by getting along with the Iraqis and making them your friends. And the best way to get along with any people is to understand them.

That is what this guide is for. To help you understand the people and the country so that you can do the best and quickest job of sending Hitler back to where he came from.

And, secondly, so that you as a human being will get the most out of an experience few Americans have been lucky enough to have. Years from now you'll be telling your children and maybe your grandchildren stories beginning, “Now, when I was in Baghdad–.”

MEET THE PEOPLE

But don't get discouraged. Most Americans and Europeans who have gone to Iraq didn't like it at first. Might as well be frank about it. They thought it a harsh, hot, parched, dusty, and inhospitable land. But nearly all of these same people changed their minds after a few days or weeks, and largely on account of the Iraqi people they began to meet. So will you.

The tall man in the flowing robe you are going to see soon, with the whiskers and the long hair, is a first-class fighting man, highly skilled in guerilla warfare. Few fighters in any country, in fact, excel him in that kind of situation. If he should happen to be your enemy—look out! Remember Lawrence of Arabia?

Differences? Of course! Differences? Sure, there are differences. Difference of costume. Differences of food. Differences of manner and custom and religious beliefs. Different attitudes toward women. Differences galore.

But what of it? You aren't going to Iraq to change the Iraqis. Just the opposite. We are fighting this war to preserve the principle of “live and let live.” Maybe that sounded like a lot of words to you at home. Now you have a chance to prove it to yourself and others. If you can, it's going to be a better world to live in for all of us.

D
o you still want to go to Iraq?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Can you go in two weeks?”

The phone call that finally came in December 2004 was brief but exhilarating. I stared down at the half-completed practice Law School Admission Test in front of me and grinned. Law school could wait.