Searches produce weapons, provoke hatred

By Hal Bernton
Seattle Times staff reporter

	THOMAS JAMES HURST / THE SEATTLE TIMES An Iraqi translator, far right, and soldiers from the 4th Engineers Battalion pass by women and children who wait by a wall as soldiers question a man over suspicious items found during a search of his home in rural central Iraq. Soldiers follow careful procedures during the searches — no longer called raids — but are aggressive in looking for weapons, explosive devices and those who might be helping insurgents.
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AD DUJAYL, Iraq — The soldiers move cautiously into this clutch of concrete-block homes, rousting the men, women and wide-eyed children.

Uninvited, the Americans head inside, poking through cabinets, closets and shelves, and peering beneath the beds. Others circle outside, searching mud-block barns and corrals. Chickens, calves and sheep scoot away; only an irate turkey gobbles a protest.

These missions are no longer called raids; the soldiers now refer to them as searches. They are careful to bring interpreters to explain what they're doing, and they avoid taboos such as frisking the women.

Whatever the term, this is the boot of the American occupation, a show of military power intended to seize weapons and materials used to make improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, and detain those suspected of aiding insurgents.

These searches are frequent events in rural central Iraq, where farmers by day try to coax tomatoes and other crops from the dusty clay soils. By night, some are said to support the insurgents who seek to oust Americans from this Sunni Muslim heartland, a place that gave fellow-Sunni Saddam Hussein much of his support and that is now threatened by his fall.

For the U.S. Army, attempting to broaden support among Sunnis — who face living in a country where Shiite Muslims are in the majority — these searches are not without peril. Even as they yield suspects and arms, the actions may deepen a cycle of violence and revenge among tribal kin who say they resent the intrusion of American soldiers into Muslim homes in the Sunni heartland.

"It provokes people's hatred," said Mohammed Ibrahim, imam of a Sunni mosque near Forward Operating Base Vanguard. "When your life is threatened with raids, and you are expecting that every day, life becomes so cheap, so worthless that you would rather die than live."

Editor's note Reporter Hal Bernton and photographer Thomas James Hurst are spending a month in Iraq, reporting on the U.S. military campaign as well as the lives of Iraqi civilians. Today's dispatch is from an air base north of Baghdad.

The intensity of military searches has also picked up in Baghdad and the city of Samara, which has been the scene of numerous attacks against U.S. forces. During the past two weeks, soldiers from the Fort Lewis-based Stryker brigade have conducted numerous searches in the area, yielding truckloads of weapons and munitions.

On this day, the soldiers say they have good reason to launch this search. In less than a 24-hour period, an improvised explosive device exploded on their firing range, narrowly missing injuring or killing a demolitions team; a patrol came under small-arms fire; and a second bomb on the side of the highway damaged a convoy. They suspect the farmers of aiding — or at least acquiescing to the presence of — the insurgent forces behind these attacks.

Capt. Jim Riely, of the 4th Engineers Battalion of Fort Carson, Colo., has planned today's mission. In recent months, his life has been an uneasy balance of politics and war. He spends part of his time trying to build a new local government in Ad Dujayl, but he must also react to attacks on troops, truck convoys and Iraqi allies.

	THOMAS JAMES HURST / THE SEATTLE TIMES A soldier uses the flashlight attached to his M-16 rifle to look under the bed in a home where a man was detained after a search last week by members of the 4th Engineers Battalion out of Fort Carson, Colo.

"Even if we did not find anything, these people need to take responsibility for their neighborhood," Riely tells his soldiers at a briefing. "We are going to search each structure and anything in the perimeter area that might be a place for hiding IEDs."

"Someone might start running. The first option is to fire warning shots. If that doesn't stop (the person), you can shoot to wound or shoot to kill."

The soldiers then pile into armored vehicles that rumble down the highway, crossing over onto narrow muddy lanes that wend through the fields to a grouping of about a half-dozen homes. Local police and a newly formed militia join in.

Some of the farmers appear relatively well-off. They live in large, simply furnished homes surrounded by bare-earth courtyards shaded by palm and eucalyptus trees. They greet the soldiers' arrival with surprise but no outward sign of fear. A few of the men smile, as if to show they have nothing to hide.

The soldiers have been through this routine many times. They are not self-conscious about pawing through a stranger's personal affairs, even a closet full of women's clothes. And when a key fails to open part of a safe, they break it open.

Inside, they find a battery device that looks like it might be of use in making an IED. The farmer is put in plastic handcuffs.

In another house, soldiers examine a bundle of wiring attached to circuits. It's nothing that would raise any suspicions in the U.S., but this farmer also is taken away.

In a small, mud-roofed hut, the soldiers find nothing. Yet outside, underneath a manure pile, they uncover two green boxes containing Russian night scopes that fit on an Iraqi military vehicle.

This discovery quiets the head of this house, a gaunt, bearded man in a white robe and soiled turban, who is told to stand against an outside wall. He is joined by a half-dozen children and several generations of women wearing red and purple dresses.

For their next half-hour, their lives are in limbo. Then an English-speaking Iraqi police officer arrives. He says the scopes probably are just loot from an old Iraqi air base. The soldiers take the scopes and leave the farmer.

	THOMAS JAMES HURST / THE SEATTLE TIMES Staff Sgt. Andy Overgard stands guard over Hussein Mohammed, who was detained after ammunition, explosives and a container full of weapons were found on his property.

At a last farmhouse, soldiers find a duffel bag full of ammunition and three sticks of a dynamitelike explosive that can also be used for making roadside bombs.

The head of the household is Hussein Mohammed. Police officials say he comes from a large and relatively prosperous Sunni family. Mohammed says the dynamite sticks were gathered from a lakeside, where Saddam loyalists used them to stun and gather fish. He produces a note from an American named "Jerry," which says that Mohammed helps supply intelligence to U.S. forces.

Riely is skeptical.

"You have no more weapons, nothing?" Riely says.

Nothing, Mohammed assures him.

The search continues.

In a haystack, the local militia uncovers a wooden container filled with more than a half-dozen weapons ranging from a Chinese machine gun to an ancient Russian rifle.

No one is sure why Mohammed has the weapons. Maybe he is a black-market merchant. Maybe he wants them to settle old scores. Maybe he is an insurgent.

Mohammed is handcuffed, along with two young cousins who try to flee across a field.

The search ends as light begins to fade. The soldiers head back to the base. With them ride five detainees, their fate to be determined after interrogations.

Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com

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