Iraqis in Utah Say They Face Bias, Suspicions
Karim al-Hamdani is no longer one of Saddam Hussein's soldiers.
He is a U.S. citizen and a Utahn, and until late last summer, life was good. "Here I felt peace and secure," he says.
But no longer. Today, al-Hamdani and many of the hundreds of his former compatriots who settled in Utah with the U.S. government's blessing are feeling lost and afraid amid America's war on terrorism and talk in the nation's capital of invading Iraq and getting rid of Saddam once and for all.
In the wake of the Gulf War, al-Hamdani was among thousands of Iraqi soldiers and others who attempted to overthrow Saddam in a March 1991 uprising encouraged by the former President Bush but not supported by the U.S. military. Saddam quickly snuffed the rebellion with tanks and helicopters and thousands of Iraqis fled to become refugees in Kuwaiti and Saudi Arabian camps.
Al-Hamdani said he escaped his desert homeland by trudging barefooted past land mines, enemy tanks and the bodies of dead soldiers. He was one of about 41,000 Iraqis who, according to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, immigrated to the United States between 1991 and 2000.
And like the hundreds who eventually found their way to Utah, he has lived here quietly for nearly a decade. "We escape from danger and war and destruction," al-Hamdani said during an interview. He was joined by five other former Iraqis, some of whom had been soldiers. All had participated in the failed 1991 uprising; all had found peace and security in the Beehive State.
But everything changed after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Al-Hamdani and other transplanted Arabs say they instantly became the focus of suspicion, fear and hatred. Then last month, the public's attention seemed to focus on the 1,000 or so former Iraqis living in Utah after Iraqi immigrant Hani Salem al-Bazoni was indicted for lying to FBI agents after allegedly making death threats toward Americans.
Stopped and cited for trespassing at Mountain Dell Reservoir in July, al-Bazoni allegedly told a Salt Lake County Sheriff's deputy that all Americans would be "blown up and die."
Questioned by FBI agents in November, al-Bazoni denied making anti-American statements. But two days before the opening of the 2002 Winter Games, he was federally indicted for making false statements to the FBI agents and arrested.
The implication he might be a terrorist sent a shiver of suspicion through his Holladay neighborhood. Al-Bazoni, who owns a Salt Lake City car repair shop, returned home from jail to discover copies of a Salt Lake Tribune article about him had been placed in mail boxes and on doorsteps.
Someone scrawled on the pages that al-Bazoni was "a thief and suspect in numerous burglaries in the Holladay area."
"This is very scary," said another Iraqi immigrant, Ali Najim, 42, an unemployed machine operator living in Salt Lake County. "We are peaceful. We have suffered enough. We love Utah and Salt Lake City. We want to live here -- but we don't want to live in fear."
Said Banen Zahawi, an executive council member of the Al-Rasool Islamic Center in Salt Lake City: "They escaped from [Iraq] just to come here and find the same thing, to a lesser extent. They are targeted, wherever they go."
Utah's Iraqis are a loose-knit community with no central spokesperson -- a lack they say they felt keenly after al-Bazoni's indictment. After dozens of Latino immigrants were arrested at Salt Lake City International Airport in December, activists and community leaders immediately objected, holding news conferences and rallies alleging discrimination.
But no one spoke for the Iraqi community after al-Bazoni's arrest and as President Bush labeled their homeland part of an "axis of evil." The handful of Iraqis who agreed to be interviewed by The Tribune insist they are not a threat and were horrified and saddened by the events of Sept. 11.
"Every Iraqi condemns everything that happened in New York," said al-Hamdani. "He [Osama bin Laden] can't go kill innocent people that way. I wish I died before I see that terrible thing."
They also want people to understand that they had tried to overthrow Saddam, and were thoroughly screened before they were allowed into this country. State Department officials completed background checks and they were also scrutinized by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said INS spokeswoman Nina Muniz in Denver.
The men interviewed by The Tribune came to Utah in the early 1990s, drawn by friends who described it as quiet and friendly.
Arriving in America, Iraqi refugees received monetary assistance for eight months, but little orientation to the American way of life. "Now we suffer from it," said Wasfi al-Rudan, 42, a permanent U.S. resident who has lived in Utah for eight years. "People don't know how to act, how to talk."
Nevertheless, they have adapted, and most live lives indistinguishable from other Americans.
Al-Rudan is a skilled machinist who works eight hours a day and comes home to an ordinary apartment. "I get my sofa from R.C. Willey, like everybody else," he joked.
He married an American woman and has two children. Despite the fact he occasionally speaks Arabic, neither child is bilingual. "It's hard," he said. "They watch TV, their mom speaks English and their friends speak English."
Added Mohannad Shakir, a 39-year-old Salt Lake City taxi driver who also married an American: "There is no way to stay in touch with the culture. There's no community."
Several of the Iraqi immigrants who spoke to The Tribune work as cab drivers, saying they enjoy the relative freedom and independence. Many have children born as U.S. citizens. Some, like al-Bazoni, own businesses.
Beyond traffic tickets, they say none has been in trouble with the law.
Said al-Hamdani: "Everything in our record is excellent. We don't know how to prove ourselves. We need help. Now I am very worried about my safety here."
Noted Zahawi of the Al-Rasool Islamic Center: "Some of them [have been] here for 10 years and nobody has seen anything from them. So why come now and single them out?"
Zahawi calls for "more understanding, on both sides. Here, in America, whoever is dark-skinned has become a target. It's easy. Islam has been the hanger we hang our dirty clothes on."
If al-Bazoni did make threats at Mountain Dell Reservoir, al-Hamdani suggests it was prompted by the fear of being confronted by an officer with a gun, and then finding himself handcuffed and on the way to jail.
"We've been afraid all our lives because of living under Saddam Hussein," al-Hamdani said.
"The fear is still here," he said, pointing to his chest. "We're still scared. We don't know who's right and who's wrong."