Posted on 03/27/2003 8:37:27 AM PST by BunnySlippers
Interrogators Think They Have A Wolf In Shepherd Clothing
A GPS Device and $30,000 Raise a Few Eyebrows At a Desert Checkpoint
"The suitcase, the money, the book, the GPS with the grid positions of U.S. troop movements. Sheepherders don't carry that stuff around"
Twenty miles west of Samawah, Iraq -- Four Iraqis cruising the barren desert in a white Toyota pickup at noon, came across a U.S. military checkpoint set up here to catch spies helping coordinate sniper attacks on U.S. convoys.
As those convoys advanced toward Baghdad, 140 miles to the north, U.S. forces were focused on protecting their ever-lengthening supply lines. Sandstorms and pockets of pitched Iraqi resistance, including around Samawah, were making that a difficult task.
When the Americans searched the vehicle, the contents made them suspicious: A suitcase containing $30,000 in U.S. currency, hundreds of thousands of nearly worthless Iraqi dinars, a satellite telephone equipped with a global positioning system and a notebook with Iraqi military information. The book and the GPS device detailed U.S. military locations around Samawah, the U.S. soldiers said, as well as names of Iraqi deserters apparently targeted for execution.
The men were taken a few miles west to be interrogated separately, in the kind of confrontation being repeated around Iraq as its Army regulars and paramilitary irregulars -- more than 4,000 so far-- are taken into custody by U.S. troops. In this case, despite the evidence recovered from the vehicle, the interrogation yielded little; the men insisted they were sheepherders.
The last to be questioned was Hamid Abd Murat, who sat cross-legged in the sand next to a Humvee, his hands tied in front of him. Surrounded by five American soldiers, the Iraqi wore a flowing white robe, a dusty brown coat and, on his head, a black and white checked kahfiyah.
He was surrounded by Capt. Eric Murray, whose job includes watching out for prisoners' well-being, and Capt. Michael Teaster, an Army intelligence officer, speaking through Bashir Ali Dosky, a civilian Army interpreter who moved to the U.S. from Iraq 10 years ago. A reporter from the Wall Street Journal witnessed the interrogation.
Capt. Teaster asked, through Mr. Dosky, why the man had a GPS. "He says so that he can know which direction his sheep are wandering in," Mr. Dosky said.
Capt. Teaster:"Tell him to quit with the sheep thing. Tell him I know he's not a sheepherder." Mr. Dosky: "He swears he's a sheepherder."
Capt. Teaster: "Tell him I know he's part of the Iraqi Secret Service ... The suitcase, the money, the book, the GPS with the grid positions of U.S. troop movements. Sheepherders don't carry that stuff around."
The prisoner was asked what he thought was going to happen to him. Mr. Dosky translated, "He says, 'I am a war prisoner. I don't care.'"
Capt. Teaster: "Why does he think he's a war prisoner if he's only a sheepherder? He would only be a war prisoner if he were Iraqi Secret Service or an Iraqi soldier." Mr. Dosky: "He says, 'You tied me up, so I'm a prisoner.'"
Capt. Teaster: "We tied him up because he's Iraqi Secret Service. Ask jim where he got the book."
Mr. Dosky: "He says he found the book in Al Samawah. He says he doesn't know how to read or anything."
Capt. Teaster: "Right. Did he find the money and the GPS in Al Samawah, too?"
Mr. Dosky: "He says he doesn't know."
Capt. Teaster: "Tell him to look at me when he's talking. Ask where he got the $30,000".
Mr. Dosky: "He says you have to carry a lot of money to buy sheep."
After another such exchange, Capt. Teaster gave up and walked away. When last seen, Mr. Murat was still in custody.
Next, Capt. Teaster visited four other prisoners, held nearby in a hastily constructed pen of concertina wire. They said they were Iraqi army deserters. "Tell them, 'Thank you for not lying to me,'" Capt. Teaster said. "I know they are all telling me the truth because they all have the same story."
The men asked to be freed before the nighttime cold set in. Capt. Teaster promised food and water, but added, "They're soldiers. I'm sure they've endured worse conditions." But he said they would have to wait and then be set free.
"But we want to go home to see our children," one said to the translator.
"Tell him I want to go home, too," Capt. Teaster said.
This smart-ass "Sheepherder" is being treated with WAY too much deference. A battlefield execution of a behind-the-lines spy and combatant out of uniform is in order. And fully legal too, if WWII is any guide.
I'm not a big fan of Neitzche but this quote always comes to mind when people advocate torture and the like.
"He who fights with monsters might take
care lest he thereby become a monster.
And if you gaze for long into an abyss,
the abyss gazes also into you."
-- Neitzche
"For disinfecting sheep, Mr. American!"
...Scouse.
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