Desert Sheikhs Feast On Hate For Detested American 'Invaders'

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 6-28-2003 | Peter Foster

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Desert sheikhs feast on hate for detested American 'invaders'

(Filed: 28/06/2003)

Peter Foster finds the Bedouin in north-west Iraq are increasingly irritated with their occupiers

The Iraqi desert is a lawless place. On the advice of a British diplomat we travel armed, although not with a Kalashnikov. Our safety is to be guaranteed by a letter written by Sheikh Fahran al-Sadeed. He is the head of Iraq's Shamir tribe and, we are told, a very powerful man.

We meet and drink Turkish coffee for about three hours. The sheikh, fresh from a meeting with Paul Bremer, the US administrator, spends most of the time enthusiastically denouncing "ignorant Americans" and foreigners in general.

We also get our first lesson in the complexities of local Iraqi politics. He explains that not all sheikhs are "real" sheikhs.

After 1990 Saddam created hundreds of "pet sheikhs" and kept them loyal by paying them large sums of money. The last payment of three million Iraqi dinar was made only a month before the war. In Iraq these are disparagingly known as "Sheikh 90s".

Sheikh Fahran says the "fake" sheikhs are queuing up outside Bremer's office daily for a slice of the reconstruction pie. He laughs wildly at Bremer's gullibility, predicting Iraq will be in flames if the Americans don't start creating jobs and stability soon.

He doesn't much like foreigners. Our letter of safe passage is written in Arabic in his own florid hand. I hope it says the right thing.

In Baiji, a provincial oil-town 160 miles north of Baghdad, we knock on the door of a large house. Whatever the letter says, it has an almost magical effect. The guard on the gate is a narrowed-eyed Bedouin with a loaded gun. He looks at us suspiciously until the letter is produced, with Sheikh Fahran's personal card attached. Suddenly those eyes are wide open.

Inside we submit to the obligatory three hours of tea and chat. Forty or more local sheikhs sit against the walls, all traditionally dressed in white tunics and head-dresses. Everyone is complaining about the Americans.

In the garden outside the charred stump of a date palm - victim of a night-time grenade attack - is testament to the lack of security. Renegade Ba'athists are to blame.

It is not clear what, if anything, the meeting is meant to achieve. The sheikhs complain that the Americans don't listen to them. This is not entirely surprising as there seems to be little consensus even on simple things, like what is the most serious problem facing the town - security, salaries, or sewage? If nothing else, cursing the American invader has a cathartic effect.

Another sheikh, Abu Fayed, joins the party. Everyone stands. We are introduced. He nods. "Tonight," he says, "we shall go to the desert."

Our romantic notions of the desert and its nomadic Bedouin people are soon disabused. There is not a sand dune in sight. After driving 30 miles due west into the scrub towards Syria we reach the first Bedouin settlement.

There are no tents, but single-room, mud-brick houses. Since the 1970s the camel has been replaced as chief mode of transport by the Toyota pick-up. The families sleep outside on iron bedsteads that look like cast-offs from an English prison or public school.

We ask the headman about the war. Had he seen any American soldiers out here? He says he heard the jets in the sky every night. Then he saw tanks - at least seven of them - rolling through the night. The children all cried. And the Americans nearly killed his donkey, which became frightened and bolted. Since that night, nothing.

What does he feel now? Is he happy to see the back of Saddam? "Of course," he says, adding in the same breath that he hates the American "invader". The Coalition ceased to be "liberators" after the first day.

Is life better since the war? No, he says, it's worse. Before the war, the ministry gave them food every month. Contrary to all the assurances given by Mr Bremer at his Baghdad press conferences, the headman says the American-led authority gives them nothing. The food is not getting through.

These are the rural poor of Iraq. No one in the village is starving, but none of the children is going to school either. While the village poor scrape together an evening meal of bread and yoghurt, we are invited to a feast. Word had been sent ahead of our arrival, a sheep has been killed in our honour. The crowd of guests grows with the setting of the sun, and soon we have a hillside full of parked Toyotas.

There is not an American soldier in sight, but at no time during the last five weeks have we been more secure. The only risk is from the stray dogs which are wolf-sized and crazy. After eating, the discussion turns once again to the American invasion.

Everyone has a story to tell, apocryphal or otherwise. The most senior man, Saba al-Dhaib - whose name means "the wolf" - tells how his two sons found an arms cache and, ignoring his advice, helped themselves to "just a couple" of machineguns.

The men of the family were all arrested by the Americans and taken by helicopter to Nasiriya. As a parting shot, he says, the Americans opened up with the helicopter's heavy machinegun and destroyed his vehicle. The story is unverifiable but typical of those told all over Iraq. True or not, they have same effect - feeding resentment against the Coalition.

Another sheikh wants to know why a country can put satellites into space - literally translated from the Arabic as "artificial moons" - but can't fix the sewers in Baiji. After all, it was coalition bombs that broke them.

Another tells how the Americans have sacked 4,000 workers from the Baiji oil refinery and now intend to bring in foreign workers.

There is no alcohol but the party does not seem to flag. Tired of Coalition-bashing the talk turns to farming and women. The men sitting around the table can muster more than 4,000 sheep between them. That makes them very rich.

Like farmers the world over, however, they protest that they are all as poor as minaret mice.

The Americans are not paying enough for the grain - prices have almost halved since the war. Sheep prices are also down to US$60 (£36) each - a sum that would delight most English farmers.

All night, the women have been nowhere to be seen. They are busy cooking, washing and looking after a child that can be heard bawling behind a closed door.

Camels and sheep seem as important as wives. I can't help thinking of Baghdad and Mr Bremer's assurances that women will have an equal station in the new Iraq.

The last guest leaves after 1.00am. We sleep outside on the same raised earthen platform where we ate dinner.

The "wolf", grandiloquent as ever, has the final word. "If the Americans stay as our guests, they can stay 100 years.

"If they stay as our invaders, they will not last two. I will fight, my people will fight too."