Posted on 10/18/2005 9:12:25 AM PDT by Mountain Dewd
RAMADI, Iraq - With each passing day, distrust of the Iraqi people grows among Nebraska soldiers who patrol the streets of this city known as a stronghold for insurgents.
Iraqi men displayed a less than welcoming attitude toward members of the Nebraska National Guard's 167th Cavalry last week as the soldiers checked cars and people for contraband in Ramadi, Iraq.
"I don't trust anybody," said Sgt. Lucas Smith of Lincoln, who has endured enough brushes with roadside bombs that the medics know him by his first name. "They don't know how to help themselves."
Staff Sgt. Joel Hestermann of Grand Island said he gave the people of the western Iraqi city the benefit of the doubt when he first arrived.
"But now, I don't trust what they are saying at all," he said.
Ramadi, west of Baghdad, is the southwestern point of the "Sunni Triangle." The region is home to many Saddam Hussein loyalists, and the city of about 450,000 has been an insurgent stronghold since the U.S. Marines cleaned out Fallujah earlier this year and many of them escaped to Ramadi.
Among U.S. soldiers assigned to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team here, those of Troop A, 1st Squadron of the Nebraska Army National Guard's 167th Cavalry have the most interaction with local residents.
They face bombs hidden in roadside trash and potholes. When they stop cars or sweep through marketplaces, everyone tells them they have seen no insurgents.
The soldiers' anger percolated up the ranks until the 2nd Brigade's commanding officer, Col. John Gronski, confronted the governor of Anbar province in a tense face-off across a table in Ramadi's government center.
Gronski told Gov. Ma'amoun Sami Rashid al-Awani that the local people need to start cooperating and telling soldiers when they see insurgents planting bombs. That cooperation should begin with state employees, he said.
Lt. Jacques Smith examines a rifle that was found in a shop during a sweep of businesses last week in Ramadi, Iraq. Homeowners and certain businesses are allowed to have one rifle and one clip of ammo for self-protection. The rifle was disassembled and returned.
Iraqi electrical workers, for example, must see people planting roadside bombs along the street separating their building from the Saddam Mosque, Gronski told Ma'amoun. It's the most elaborate mosque in the city and a suspected center of opposition to Americans.
Reporting insurgent activity is not state workers' responsibility, Ma'amoun responded.
Yes, Gronski said, it is.
"It's the people's responsibility, if we are to defeat the insurgency," Gronski told the governor. "The insurgency can only be defeated if the people of Ramadi rise up against them."
Ma'amoun had his own complaints about Americans using snipers to combat the insurgents.
"I'll be honest with you," Ma'amoun told Gronski through an interpreter. "Yesterday a sniper shot someone in a parked vehicle by his house."
"Nine out of ten shot are innocent," Ma'amoun insisted, basing his number on complaints from family members making monetary claims to the government.
Gronski didn't buy it.
"The insurgents are great about lying about these things," Gronski responded. "They intimidate people who come to you and tell you lies. The insurgents are the ones who don't like the snipers."
Snipers have proved more effective, in many cases, than tanks and artillery in battling the elusive enemy. This is the low-tech answer to roadside bombs, called improvised explosive devices.
"The IED is a mind game," Hestermann said of the soldiers' fears of the booby-trap bombs. "Snipers work the same way with the insurgents."
Hestermann is one of three Troop A snipers. He proved himself in training by hitting four of five small targets from 1,100 yards.
Snipers are trained to shoot only when they see someone with a weapon or planting an explosive, Hestermann said.
"It's one shot, one kill," Hestermann said. "We are not spraying rounds. We can hit one person out of a crowd."
Hestermann and Staff Sgt. Lauren McConnell, both Grand Island police officers, understand that soldiers' negative attitudes could be the result of constantly dealing with the aftermath of IED attacks and people who say they don't see anything.
"The Sunni Triangle is hard to understand - how all the IEDs can be placed by the side of the road and no one sees a thing," McConnell said.
Even if the insurgents are a tiny fraction of the population and intimidate the rest, it is human nature to generalize to the larger population, McConnell said.
At home, McConnell and Hestermann have to fight a police officer's natural tendency to see the criminal population as larger because of constant dealings with people breaking the law.
In Ramadi, soldiers have virtually no casual exposure to the Iraqi people. Almost all interaction comes through searches, sweeps and response to bombs and ambushes.
The soldiers are armed and wearing full body armor as they interrogate Iraqis through interpreters.
No Americans go to Iraqi restaurants or shops in the city. Some Iraqi shops are allowed on military bases, but the merchants are carefully screened.
The interpreter working with the 167th, a young Shiite from south of Baghdad, said fear of insurgent retaliation is only one of the reasons people won't talk with the Americans. The interpreter understands that fear, which is why he wouldn't allow his name or photo to be used.
Another reason people don't turn in the insurgents, he said, is that they call themselves mujahedeen, or soldiers of God.
"It's against their beliefs to tell the Americans about the mujahedeen," the interpreter said. "But they are not mujahedeen. The real mujahedeen should not hurt the people. They should defend the people."
I never trusted him.
Like his daddy before him, GW never met a big-government snake oil he didn't like love!
Condition 1 is your friend.
Ping.
Exactly. They expect protection but won't do anything to protect themselves. I don't trust them either.
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