CIA Copy of Asia Times Online Article: The Wrong Ayoub

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UNCLASSIFIED - FOUO
Every Time The Wind Blows, Part 5
The Wrong Ayoub
By Nir Rosen, with the US 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Iraq
AL-QAIM, western Iraq - According to a major from the Judge Advocate General's office working on
establishing an Iraqi judicial process, at least 7,000 Iraqis are being detained by US forces. Many languish
in prisons indefinitely, lost in a system that imposes English-language procedures on Arabic speakers with
Arabic names not easily transcribed.
Some are termed "security detainees" and held for six months pending a review to determine whether they
are still a "security risk". Most are innocent. Many were arrested simply because a neighbor did not like
them. A lieutenant-colonel familiar with the process adds that there is no judicial process for the thousands
of detainees. If the military were to try them, that would entail a court martial, which would imply that the
United States is occupying Iraq, and lawyers working for the administration are still debating whether it is
an occupation or a liberation.
The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment's (ACR) S2 section, responsible for intelligence, has not proved itself
very reliable in the past and soldiers are getting frustrated. "You get all psyched up to do a hard mission,"
says Sergeant Scott Blow, "and it turns out to be three little girls. The little kids get to me, especially when
they cry." Even the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operator could not recognize a large picture of Oday
Saddam Husayn, one of Saddam's sons, hanging on a wall.
The little confidence S2 deserves is made clear by the case of a man called Ayoub. Apache Troop, acting
on intelligence Captain Ray and his S2 staff have provided it, raids Ayoub's home. Tanks, Bradleys and
Humvees squeeze through the neighborhood walls as the CIA operator eyes the rooftops and windows of
nearby houses angrily, a silencer on his assault weapon.
Soldiers break through Ayoub's door early in the morning, and when he does not immediately respond to
their orders he is shot with non-lethal ordnance, little pellets exploding like gun shot from the weapon's
grenade launcher. The floor of the house is covered with his blood. He is dragged into a room and
interrogated forcefully as his family is pushed back against their garden's fence.
Ayoub's frail mother, covered in a shawl, with traditional tribal tattoos marking her face, pleads with the
immense soldier to spare her son's life, protesting his innocence. She takes the soldier's hand and kisses it
repeatedly while on her knees. He pushes her to the grass along with Ayoub's four girls and two boys, all
small, and his wife.
They squat barefoot, screaming, their eyes wide open in terror, clutching each one another as soldiers
emerge with bags full of documents, photo albums and two compact discs with Saddam Hussein and his
cronies on the cover. These CDs, called The Crimes of Saddam, are common on every Iraqi street and, as
their title suggests, they were not made by Saddam supporters. But the soldiers saw only the picture of
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small hole dug into a man's back yard. "He was trying to bury it when he saw us coming," one soldier
deduced confidently. He did not lift the crate up to discover that it was protecting irrigation pipes and
hoses that had been dug into a pit.
Saddam bestowed his largesse on the security services that served as his Praetorian guard and executioners.
Elite fighters received Jawa motorcycles Immediately after the war, Jawa motorcycles were available in
every market in Iraq that sold scooters and motorcycles. Some had been stolen from government buildings
in the frenzy of looting that followed the war and which was directed primarily against institutions of the
former government.
Soldiers of the 3rd ACR are always alert for Jawa motorcycles, and indeed it is true that many Iraqi
paramilitaries have used them against the Americans. On a night that Apache receives RPG
(rocket-propelled grenade) fire at the border checkpoint, they drive back to Tiger Base through the town.
When they spot a man on a Jawa, they fire warning shots. When he does not stop, they shoot him to death.
"He was up to no good," Captain Brown explains.
Reilly maintains that Jawas are fedayeen (paramilitaries loyal to Saddam) motorcycles and that most
curfew violators and placers of improvised explosive device use them. Sheikh Mudhafar of the local
Huseiba mosque claims to know the victim. "He was an innocent construction worker," he says. "I saw the
dirt from the gypsum on his hands myself. Now tell me if his father or brother is going to thank the
Americans."
The day after Tiger Strike, Reilly meets with the clerical and tribal leaders, deliberately arranging the
meeting immediately after the operation so that he can explain to them what he has done and why. In
previous meetings following operations, community leaders have informed him of innocent men he has
arrested, and he has deferred to their judgment and released them.
The clerics ask Reilly to release a religious leader he has arrested. "They said it looked bad to arrest him,
they didn't say it was the wrong guy," Reilly explains later. The tribal sheikhs also ask for one man to be
released because his wife has kidney failure and there is nobody else to take her to Jordan for treatment.
The Solomon-like Reilly discusses the issue of paying reparations for the innocent man his soldiers killed
by the border checkpoint, a common way of administering justice among Arab tribes of the region.
Reilly is very concerned about the way Iraqis perceive US troops. "I am responsible for administering
justice here for the whole area," he says. "We cannot treat the Iraqis as second-class citizens." He discusses.
the coming holy month of Ramadan with the clerics, meeting with them at the local Islamic school and
agreeing to lift the curfew that normally extends from 2300 until 0400 for that month, when Muslims fast
during the day but eat and enjoy festivities at night. Three RPGs are shot at the school. "The clerics were in
terror," Reilly says afterward. "They were very angry. It was good for them to feel that terror." It is the third
time Reilly has personally been attacked.
The next night the 3rd ACR's Bandit Troop departs the base at 0200, hoping to find those alleged al-Qaeda
suspects who were not home during Operation Tiger Strike two days before. Soldiers descend on homes in
a large compound, their boots trampling over mattresses, in rooms the inhabitants do not enter with shoes
on. Most of the wanted men are nowhere to be found, their women and children prevaricating about their
locations. Some of their relatives are arrested instead. "That woman is annoying!" complains one young
soldier of a mother's desperate ululations as her son is taken from his house. "How do you think your
mother would sound if they were taking you away?" First Sergeant Clinton Reiss asks him.
They return to the base at 9am. That day there is a pizza party at the chow hall. Soldiers guard the
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detainees, go out on patrols, and battle the desert, sweeping away the sand desert winds have blown on
their temporary home. But the sand comes back every time the wind blows.
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Saddam and assumed they were proof of guilt.
Ayoub is brought out and pushed on to the truck. He gestures to his shrieking family to remain where they
are. He is an avuncular man, small and round, balding and unshaven, with a hooked nose and slightly
pockmarked face. It would be impossible for him to look more innocent. He sits frozen, staring numbly
ahead as the soldiers ignore him, occasionally glancing down at their prisoner with sneering disdain. The
medic looks at Ayoub's injured hand and chuckles to his friends, "It ain't my hand." The truck blasts
country music on the way back to the base. Ayoub is thrown in the detainment center. After the operation
there are smiles of relief among the soldiers, slaps on the back.and thumbs up.
Several hours later a call is intercepted from another Ayoub. "Oh shit," says Captain Ray, "it was the
wrong Ayoub." The innocent father of six who has the wrong name is not immediately let go. If he is
released they risk revealing to the other Ayoub that he is sought after. The night after his arrest a relieved
Ayoub can be seen escorted by soldiers to call his family and tell them he is fine, but will not be home for
a few days. ''It was not the wrong guy," Captain Justin Brown says defensively, shifting blame elsewhere.
"We raided the house we were supposed to and arrested the man we were told to."
When the soldiers who captured Ayoub learn of the mistake, they are not surprised. "Oops," says one.
Another one wonders, "What do you tell a guy like that, 'sorry'?" A third says: "It's depressing. We trashed
the wrong guy's house, and the guy that's been shooting at us is out there with his house not trashed." The
soldier who shot the non-lethal ordnance at Ayoub says, "I'm just glad he didn't do something that made
me shoot him." Then the soldiers resume their banter. Lieutenant-Colonel Gregg Reilly, the squadron
commander, acknowledges that he will have to make a big gesture of apology. "I can't just drop hini off at
home and say 'sorry'," he says. "We embarrassed him in front of his family."
The tapes of the other Ayoub's conversations are sent for analysis. In them he speaks of proceeding to the
next level and obtaining landmines and other weapons. This rightfully alarms the army's intelligence
officers. They are confounded by the meaning of the intercepted conversation until somebody realizes it is
not a terrorist intent on obtaining weapons. It is a kid playing video games and talking about them with his
friend on the phone.
The procrustean application of spurious information gathered by intelligence officers who cannot speak
Arabic and are not familiar with Iraqi, Arab or Muslim culture is creating enemies instead of eliminating
them. One intelligence officer of the 3rd ACR can barely hide his disdain for Iraqis. "Oh, he just hates
anything Iraqi," explains an officer engaged in operations on Tiger Base, adding that the intelligence
officers do not venture off the base or interact with Iraqis or develop any relations with the people they are
expected to understand.
A lieutenant-colonel from the army's civil affairs office explains that these officers do not read about the
soldiers engaging with Iraqis, sharing cigarettes, tea, meals and conversations. They only read the reports
of "incidents", and they view Iraqis solely as a security threat. They do not know Iraq.
In every market in Iraq, hundreds of wooden crates can be found piled one atop the other. Sold for storage,
on further examination these crates reveal themselves to be old ammunition crates. For the past 25 years
Iraq has been importing weapons to feed its army's appetite for war against Iran, the Kurds, Kuwait and the
United States. The empty crates are sold for domestic use. The soldiers of the 3rd ACR assume the crates
they find in nearly every home implicate the owners in terrorist activities, rather than the much simpler
truth.
During Operation Decapitation, one of Apache's soldiers discovered one such crate overturned above a