Making It...Nasser Nouri's Story

Yesterday, I attended a briefing by the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs which included special guests Jonathan Finer and Naseer Nouri. Jonathan Finer worked as a journalist covering the conflict in Iraq in 2003 and again in 2005, in addition to covering the refugee crisis in Syria and Jordan. Naseer Nouri, the briefing's most prominent speaker, worked as an Iraqi journalist and interpreter for the Washington Post from 2003 to 2008.

The Tulsa, Oklahoma (USA) graduate, former pilot and aircraft engineer fell into a job with the Washington Post after a chance encounter with Anthony Shadid, the Post's Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent who was covering the looting in Baghdad following the fall of the regime. After a number of meetings with Shadid, either at Nouri's house, where Shadid was welcomed by his family, or at the hotel where Shadid was staying, he introduced Nouri to Rajiv Chandrasekaran, the Washington Post Baghdad bureau chief, and then Nouri started working with him, which brought about his interest in journalism. The looters had broken into Nouri's travel agency and were hauling off anything of value. Shadid couldn't help but notice Nouri yelling at the looters, and they agreed to meet later to discuss the experience. When Shadid discovered Nouri's near-fluency in English, he offered Nouri a job as a translator for the Post's Baghdad bureau.

Nouri explains: "Until then, I had mostly used newspapers to clean windows. After a number of meetings with Shadid, either at my house, where he was welcomed by my family, or at the hotel where he was staying, I became very interested about journalism. With time, I moved from translation to writing."

Proud of his new career, in which he could ensure that the history of Iraq was written correctly, news of Nouri's career move spread throughout his neighborhood. Then, in the span of 15 days, events occurred that changed Nouri and his family's life forever. Twice, a group of men narrowly missed abducting his youngest daughter, while Al Qaeda succeeded in kidnapping his 15 year old nephew. In a separate incident, his nephue escaped his captors by claiming to use the restroom. Other family members were also targeted. His brother in-law was killed by men in police uniform when he was on his way to Baghdad from Kirkuk, at the north east of Baghdad. He came to bring Nouri's family some money so they could obtain passports and be able to travel to Amman.

Nouri took his family to Amman, Jordan to keep them safe. Facing numerous obstacles to a better life there, he knew he had to try to get his family to America. Applying to the UNHCR in February 2007, Nouri wasn't accepted until the 21rst of May 2008. In America, Nouri and his family still face tremendous challenges not unlike the other "lucky" refugees who make it to America, in a system not fully prepared to resettle families. Our Iraqi allies who make it to the United States have considerable talents, which if utilized contribute to society. Instead, many refugees are forced to take low paying jobs that don't match their professional skill sets and educational experience. According to Mr. Nouri, the best thing we can do is to set up a system that fully integrates Iraqi refugees into society, from getting them here to making sure that parents have proper jobs and their children are properly educated. Think about how frustrating it must be for an Iraqi teenager to have to start school many grade levels below their peers once they get to America.

Nouri and Finer agreed that, even if the U.S. meets its goal of admitting 12,000 Iraqi refugees for this fiscal year, in addition to admitting another 5,000 Iraqis through the Special Immigrant Visa program, the U.S. effort is a drop in the bucket considering both the scale of the crisis, over 2 million refugees and over 2.7 million internally displaced, and the U.S.'s moral obligation to its Iraqi allies. No matter you feel about the war, we can all agree that the U.S. must do more to raise its admittance goals and take care of vulnerable Iraqis, even once they make it to the United States. Vulnerable Iraqis should not be forced to choose between a life of poverty and mortal danger.

Photo Caption: A recent photograph of Nasser Nouri

Is the Surge Working?

In the media, that question is being asked a lot these days, and for those of you planning to break bread with extended family this week, it will likely be among the topics of conversation.

So how can I resist but to throw in my two cents. Consider this post a Ground Truth Guide to one of the most political questions of our day.

First, let's recognize the question for what it is: a partisan test of loyalties. Answer "no" and you must be marching with those antiwar Democrats. Answer "yes" and you're a "pro-war Bush supporter."

Second, the question invites the answerer to snub either (1) the courageous efforts of 175,000 U.S. servicemen and women who are risking their lives in Iraq right now, while we're all enjoying our Tofurkies, OR (2) the legitimate concerns of millions of Americans, Iraqis, and people around the globe -- civilian and military -- who recognize the limits of what a foreign military can achieve in Iraq.

Third, it's the wrong question asked by the wrong people at the wrong time. For starters, it frames Iraq as an all-American domestic political problem with only one possible solution. The Problem: What to do about this thing called I-rak? Solution: send more of our G.I.s! Problem: Darfur? Solution: Send in our boys. Problem: global warming? Solution: da boyz!

Are you seeing the problem? Ending conflict and suffering in Iraq presents a military, diplomatic, humanitarian, economic, and -- most importantly -- peacebuilding challenge. Is the surge working? That question is not about addressing the world's largest population movement and humanitarian crisis today. The UNHCR estimates 4.5 million people have been displaced. Nor is it about the country's 30-50% unemployment rate, which most experts point to as a major contributing factor of Iraq's instability. Reducing all of America's policy options to an either-or question that suggests only military solutions (surge vs. withdrawal) is just plain silly talk. Most Americans are already wising up to that, but it seems our politicians are a little slower.

Now that we have liberated ourselves from that ridiculous question and the obsession of small-minded media outlets to put all of us into neat little ticky tack boxes, it's time to consider what's really happening on-the-ground in Iraq.

Without question, there has been a remarkable improvement in security. Here's an excerpt from today's report by New York Times Baghdad correspondents Damien Cave and Alissa Rubin:

The security improvements in most neighborhoods are real. Days now pass without a car bomb, after a high of 44 in the city in February. The number of bodies appearing on Baghdad’s streets has plummeted to about 5 a day, from as many as 35 eight months ago, and suicide bombings across Iraq fell to 16 in October, half the number of last summer and down sharply from a recent peak of 59 in March, the American military says.

As a result, for the first time in nearly two years, people are moving with freedom around much of this city. In more than 50 interviews across Baghdad, it became clear that while there were still no-go zones, more Iraqis now drive between Sunni and Shiite areas for work, shopping or school, a few even after dark. In the most stable neighborhoods of Baghdad, some secular women are also dressing as they wish. Wedding bands are playing in public again, and at a handful of once shuttered liquor stores customers now line up outside in a collective rebuke to religious vigilantes from the Shiite Mahdi Army. [more]

And on NPR's Morning Edition, Jamie Tarabay reports: "Nine months after the start of the U.S. troop surge in Baghdad, signs of life are slowly returning to some neighborhoods of the Iraqi capital. In the Sunni enclave of Amriya on the west side of the city, shops are reopening, and the economy is picking up."

Iraqi bloggers, military bloggers, and a U.S. Army surgeon in West Baghdad who I've been talking with by phone confirm these recently reported trends.

But don't blame it all on the surge. There are other important factors contributing to these recent improvements. For example, there's the popular backlash against the terror campaign of al-Qaeda (ALQ) and other extremists and the formation of anti-ALQ coalitions among tribal leaders. Those trends began in 2006 and gathered momentum in early 2007. Here's what I wrote about the trend last May:

The tribal leaders formed the Anbar Salvation Council in fall 2006 to fight al-Qa'ida. Also called the Anbar Awakening, the coalition began with dozens of tribes and now boasts more than 40 tribes or sub-tribes from Anbar. The Sunni Arab leader of the movement, Sheik Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi, lost his father and three brothers to al-Qaida assassins. AP quotes al-Rishawi as saying insurgents were "killing innocent people, anyone suspected of opposing them. They brought us nothing but destruction and we finally said, enough is enough."

Early this year, as the council gained new tribal members and strength, cooperation with U.S. forces began to improve especially in and around Ramadi, Anbar's provincial council. Last month I talked with a Marine fellow in Senator Reed's office who served in Ramadi two years ago. He stays in touch with fellow Marines, including men serving there right now who confirm a remarkable turnaround in Ramadi.

Other related trends include: the organizing of neighborhood militias, the spread of local cease-fires, the growing capabilities of some of Iraq's security forces and commanders, and the shift to a counterinsurgency strategy that emphasizes protecting and securing the local population. In addition, Gen. Petreaus and other commanders have focused on building alliances at the local level with anyone who can help restore order.

The real question is less about whether or not we're seeing improvements in security. We are, and that's good news. But can these recent improvements be sustained? And will the downward trend in violence continue? After all, Iraq's rate of conflict-related deaths remains among the highest in the world.

Our friend Abu Aardvark and other experts are not so sure. They caution that, despite recent improvements in security, current military tactics carry the risk of moving Iraq "towards a warlord state, along a Basra model, with power devolved to local militias, gangs, tribes, and power-brokers, with a purely nominal central state."

Abu Aardvark's caution, if not pessimism, got strong military back-up in last Thursday's Washington Post. In his front page article "Iraqis Wasting an Opportunity, U.S. Officers Say", Tom Ricks writes:

Senior military commanders here now portray the intransigence of Iraq's Shiite-dominated government as the key threat facing the U.S. effort in Iraq, rather than al-Qaeda terrorists, Sunni insurgents or Iranian-backed militias.

In more than a dozen interviews, U.S. military officials expressed growing concern over the Iraqi government's failure to capitalize on sharp declines in attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians. A window of opportunity has opened for the government to reach out to its former foes, said Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the commander of day-to-day U.S. military operations in Iraq, but "it's unclear how long that window is going to be open."

...all the U.S. military officials interviewed said their most pressing concern is that Sunnis will sour if the Iraqi government doesn't begin to reciprocate their peace overtures. "The Sunnis have shown great patience," said Campbell. "You don't want the Sunnis that are working with you . . . to go back to the dark side."

The Army officer who requested anonymity said that if the Iraqi government doesn't reach out, then for former Sunni insurgents "it's game on -- they're back to attacking again."

The year-long progress in fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq could carry a downside. Maj. Mark Brady, who works on reconciliation issues, noted that a Sunni leader told him: "As soon as we finish with al-Qaeda, we start with the Shiite extremists." Talk like that is sharply discouraged, Brady noted as he walked across the dusty ground of Camp Liberty, on the western fringes of Baghdad. [more]

In short, despite improvements in security, the challenge of building an enduring peace remains.

So that's the Ground Truth Guide to the BIG political question of this year's Thanksgiving. I'll leave it to our readers and future blogs to generate some more intelligent questions that the media ought to be asking and elected officials and candidates ought to be answering.

Photo caption: Women walk through Baghdad's Zawra Park. Joao Silva for The New York Times.

Blogger alert: Abu Aardvark recently hosted an interesting mano y mano debate between Georgetown scholar Colin Kahl and Center for American Progress policy analyst Brian Katulis.

The Story of Diyala and the Promise of a New Awakening

So why are so many foreign fighters and homegrown suicide bombers blowing themselves up in Diyala? What do we know about Diyala?

Diyala province covers an area of 6,828 square miles (about 4% of the total area of Iraq). It extends to the northeast of Baghdad as far as the Iranian border. The province is drained by a major tributary of the Tigris, the Diyala River. These two rivers support a largely agrarian economy. Throughout much of the province are large groves of Date Palm. Diyala is also considered the orange capital of the Middle East.

Out of Iraq’s 18 provinces, Diyala is the 8th most populous. In 2004, it had an estimated population of 1.4 million people, mostly Sunni Arabs, with a sizeable community of Shi'a Arabs and Kurds [1]. By comparison, Baghdad province has an estimated population of 6.5 million and Niniwa province has roughly 2.6 million. However, these estimates don’t factor in the movement of more than one million Iraqis who have been displaced by the war since 2004. By many accounts, some of Baghdad’s Sunni Arab residents have fled 35 miles northeast to more homogenous areas including Baqubah (est. pop. 280,000), the capital of Diyala province.

Baqubah has emerged as the scene of some of the heaviest insurgent activity. It was just north of Baqubah on June 8, 2006 that a U.S. airstrike and subsequent raid killed the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. By late 2006, Baqubah and much of Diyala province were reported to have come under the control of Sunni insurgents operating under the rubric of the “Islamic State of Iraq.” On January 3, 2007 the previous Iraqi government in Baquba was reported to have fallen, leaving the city in the hands of insurgents.

Similar to what's taken place over the past eight months in Anbar, there are emerging reports of an Awakening in Diyala province. IraqSlogger reports:

An official in Diyala Province announced that more than 280 prominent personalities and tribal and military leaders have formed a “Baquba Salvation Council” to confront acts of violence in the province, focusing especially on combating the so-called “Islamic State of Iraq.”

Citing “resentment and anger among the tribal leaders at the conduct of these gangs,” the head of the new Baquba Salvation Council, Sheik 'Awad Najm al-Rabi'i, said the leaders were insistent on “declaring war against them and expelling them from the province and bringing security back to the citizens,” the agency writes.

The tribal leader added, “We are prepared to cooperate with the armed factions that maintain loyalty to a nonsectarian, non-partisan Iraq with the goal of rooting out these terrorist groups,” adding that the current situation in the province was “tragic” and saying that it was urgent that the government get involved to deliver the city from the control of “takfiris and tens of Arab and Afghan terrorists that hide in the agricultural areas,” al-Melaf reports.

Bill Roggio of the Roggio Report blogs:

Several tribes have banded together to form the Diyala Awakening and have vowed to battle al Qaeda. "Tribesman Sheikh Wameed al-Jabouri told al-Hayat that a number of tribes had signed a cooperation agreement to undertake this mission and to bring the city [of Baqubah] back to how 'it used to be,'" reports Deutsche Presse-Agentur. "The agreement could be considered 'a national charter' that proves their rejection of the actions of the terrorist groups, al-Jabouri said."

This second Awakening along with growing cooperation against al-Qaeda in Anbar might help to create a more hostile environment for terrorist groups to operate. The Salvation Councils of Anbar and Diyala may also lead to better representation in the provincial governments, reversing the Sunni Arab boycott of the January 2005 elections which most Sunni Arab leaders now acknowledge as a mistake.

Three years into their war, some were becoming introspective. In Amman, I was reunited with Sheik Saad Naif al-Hardan, leader of the Aithawi tribe in Ramadi since 1995. I first met him in his village of Albu Aitha in 2004, when he was closely involved with antioccupation forces, refusing even to tell me how many men his tribe had, viewing it as a military secret. Sheik Hardan said he had been arrested by the Americans as early as July 2003, along with 85 men from his tribe. Since I last saw him, Sheik Hardan had briefly served in the Iraqi government (as minister for provincial affairs). But he spent most of his time in Jordan. "All the leaders of the Anbar are outside of Iraq," he told me. "In the Anbar, America is killing and Al Qaeda is killing."

Like many Sunni leaders, Sheik Hardan had grown pensive about the past few years. "The Sunnis left the political process," he said. "This is our fault. Sunni scholars forbade political participation." But not all had changed. "We all support the muqawama sharifa," he said -- the "honorable resistance," by which he meant to distinguish resistance warriors from the many armed people who attack civilians. "And I am part of it," he said. When I raised my eyebrows, he added, "With words." I asked if there was still an honorable resistance given the civil war that Sunni and Shiite militias were engaged in. "It still exists," he said. "You don't see how many Americans are killed in the Anbar?"

One of Sheik Hardan's companions that day, who served as deputy chief of police for Anbar Province under the American occupation, had survived numerous assassination attempts. He blamed them on Al Qaeda, which he also believed blew up his house. "Al Qaeda is not cooperating with the Iraqi resistance," he said. "The real Iraqi resistance considers Al Qaeda an enemy."

Sheik Hardan's refugee counterparts in Damascus told a similar story. There I met one of the leaders of the Anbar that Sheik Hardan referred to when he told me they had all fled. Sheik Yassin was a weathered and frail man with a thick white scarf over his head. He fingered black beads as we spoke. He led a mosque in the Anbar city of Hit but fled a month before we met and left it in the care of his sons. Hit was deserted, he told me. "The situation there has become disastrous," he said. "They hit my son's house in an air strike and destroyed his house and killed my grandson. The people of Hit are caught between Americans on one side and Al Qaeda on the other side. And the police and army do not treat people properly."

He, too, recognized the strategic Sunni error made at the beginning of the American occupation. "That is the origin of the problem," he said. "They boycotted. If they had participated with all their weight, they would not have let the Shiite militias take over the government of Iraq." He blamed the Iraqi Sunni leadership for denouncing elections and threatening those who participated. "They made the wrong interpretation," he said. "Shiites wanted to prevent Sunnis from voting, and jihadists did as well. The jihadists fight the Americans on one side, and on the other side they destroy the community. The only solution is if the Americans stop the Iranian interference." Sheik Yassin did not flee Shiite militias. He fled from Al Qaeda. "Sunnis must choose between death or seeking refuge in the Anbar, Syria or Jordan," he said.

Another opponent of Al Qaeda was Sheik Mudhir al-Khirbit of Ramadi, a former leader of the Confederation of Iraqi Tribes. The Khirbits were favored by the former regime, and in March 2003, they told me, an American air strike on the sheik's home killed 18 family members, reason enough to seek vengeance. Sheik Khirbit sought shelter in Damascus but made frequent trips to Lebanon for medical treatment. The Iraqi government reportedly placed him on its new list of 41 most wanted, and in January, on a medical trip to Lebanon, he was arrested by that country's Internal Security Forces. His affairs are now being handled by his oldest son, Sattam, who is only 18 but, according to one Western diplomat, had his father's trust and went on missions for him. I found him in a Damascus apartment. He was in a gray suit and wearing pointy leather shoes and taking business calls from sheiks well into the night. Sattam had a few days of stubble on his tired face.

In 2004, when he was 15, Sattam and an uncle were arrested in an American military raid on their home. He called the initial Sunni boycott of Iraqi politics "a big mistake" that opened the door to Shiite domination. "Now it's too late," he said. "People here, and in Amman, feel like they lost." In Sattam's view, the only way to protect Sunnis was a Sunni state that would include Anbar Province, Mosul and Tikrit. But radicals like Al Qaeda were now in control of Anbar Province, and the resistance was finding it hard to resist Al Qaeda. "Al Qaeda kills Sunnis the most, and you don't know what they want," he said. His priority was to deal with Al Qaeda in the Anbar first, then reconcile with the Shiites and then work to end the occupation. "When Sunnis in Baghdad get arrested by the Americans they feel good because it's better than being arrested by Shiite militias." Despite this, he did not show hostility to the Shiites. "My father doesn't differentiate between Sunnis, Shiites and Christians," he said. "We don't have anything against Shiites. Shiites didn't kill 18 people from our family, the Americans did."

Suicide Bombings shift from Anbar to Diyala

On May Day, I came across a smugly penned speech by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. He had written an apology and a warning for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to deliver to Arab and Muslim nations on behalf of President Bush and the American people.

The apology: “I’m sorry that I rushed into the invasion of Iraq... I was wrong, and I now realize that in unilaterally launching the war the way I did,... Not only did that alienate you from us, it made us less effective in Iraq. We had too few allies and too little legitimacy. I’m most sorry, though, because my bungling of the war has prompted all of us to take our eye off the ball. I messed up the treatment so badly that people have forgotten the patient really does have a disease.”

The warning: “We are being defeated by nihilistic Islamist suicide bombers, who are proliferating across the Muslim world. We are losing to people who blow up mosques, markets, hospital emergency wards and girls’ schools.”

Friedman then detailed the rise of suicide bombings in Iraq and the region, including what he believes to be the handy work of “12 suicide bombers in a little over a week.” The man is definitely a columnist, not an academic -- in other words, imminently readable yet imprecise.

With the help of EPIC Spring intern Dominique Arvanitis, I tracked down the details of the “suicide bombings” that Friedman listed, to see where al-Qaeda and its allies have been focusing their attacks lately. All of the bombings Friedman writes about occurred from April 18th to April 30th, although the wave of car bombings in Baghdad on April 18th that killed 191 people and wounded 250 may not qualify as "suicide attacks." While al-Qaeda may have been involved, it may have not required foreign fighters or homegrown militants committing suicide.

So here are details of the only 6 confirmed suicide attacks that occurred during the last 13 days of April:

On April 23rd in Diyala Province, a pair of suicide bombers detonated explosive-packed dump trucks outside a U.S. patrol base, killing nine U.S. soldiers.

On April 25th, not far away in Balad Ruz, a suicide bomber killed four Iraqi policemen.

On April 26th in the Diyala town of Khalis, a suicide car bomber rammed an Iraqi checkpoint killing nine soldiers. On the same day in Zamar, a town just west of Mosul, two suicide car bombers attacked the local headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party killing five people.

On April 30th, Khalis suffered a second attack. A suicide bomber walked into a crowded funeral tent and blew himself up, killing 32 mourners. The funeral was for the son of a Shi'ite family who had been killed by gunmen.

That's 6 suicide attacks carried out by 7 suicide bombers, killing 59 people in one week and a day. All but one of those suicide attacks took place in Diyala province.

So why are there noticeably less suicide bombings taking place in Baghdad or in the predominantly Sunni Arab cities of Fallujah, Ramadi, and Samarra? Last year, there were plenty of suicide bombings throughout the country. Why are most occurring in Diyala now?

It can be partly explained by the increasing difficultly al-Qaeda is finding in trying to operate in much of Baghdad and Anbar provinces. Following President Bush’s announcement in January of a “military surge,” the recruitment of foreign fighters picked up in response. The New York Times reports: “…Iraqi intelligence had concluded that Al Qaeda was in effect surging at the same time in Iraq to counteract the American program, damping any immediate gains.”

So what’s a terrorist organization got to do with so many would-be suicide bombers including the variety from Zarqa, Jordan (see Emily’s May 10th post Radicalization Spillover). The result has been increasingly ruthless and abhorrent bombings of innocent civilians, some even involving the use of trucks filled with chlorine gas.

That has led to a backlash particularly in Anbar province. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius writes:

In al-Qaeda's stronghold of Anbar province, tribal leaders have begun allying with American forces against the Sunni terrorists. According to Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, who commands day-to-day military operations in Iraq, there were just 60 attacks in Anbar last week, compared with 480 per week a year ago.

The tribal leaders formed the Anbar Salvation Council in fall 2006 to fight al-Qa'ida. Also called the Anbar Awakening, the coalition began with dozens of tribes and now boasts more than 40 tribes or sub-tribes from Anbar. The Sunni Arab leader of the movement, Sheik Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi, lost his father and three brothers to al-Qaida assassins. AP quotes al-Rishawi as saying insurgents were "killing innocent people, anyone suspected of opposing them. They brought us nothing but destruction and we finally said, enough is enough."

Early this year, as the council gained new tribal members and strength, cooperation with U.S. forces began to improve especially in and around Ramadi, Anbar's provincial council. Last month I talked with a Marine fellow in Senator Reed's office who served in Ramadi two years ago. He stays in touch with fellow Marines, including men serving there right now who confirm a remarkable turnaround in Ramadi.

Anyone hear about this?

Was reading through the Institute for War and Peace Reporting's Iraq Press Monitor section when I saw this:

Baghdad Declared an "Islamic State"
(Asharq al-Awsat) A new fundamentalist Islamic group, al-Mutayyibeen Coalition, under the leadership of al-Qaeda, has declared an "Islamic State" in Baghdad and five more governorates. It said this was in response to the setting up of Kurdish "state" in the north and Shia "federalism" in central and southern Iraq.

Apparently, this al-Qaeda linked group declared this “Islamic State” in a video posted to the internet. You’d think this would be a big news story considering the administration has specifically stated that the possibility of Al-Queda taking over Iraq is one of the greatest threats faced by Iraq, but after doing a quick scan of the major papers I came up empty. Regardless of their motivations for doing so, the newspapers are right not to attach too much importance to this development (though a brief mention wouldn’t have killed them.)

First off, who declares the creation of a state on-line? And can we really trust that a video anonymously posted on the internet is in fact authentic? Fortunately, whether the tape is authentic or not is really a moot point. Thing is, Iraqis regardless of sect, tribe or religion all seem to agree on one thing: they do not want al-Qaeda in Iraq. This has been shown time and time again in many polls, most recently in the WorldOpinion.org/PIPA one and is echoed almost daily in Iraqi discussions. Furthermore, regardless of who is declaring a state, most Iraqis do not favor the break-up of Iraq. It seems that most Iraqis earnestly want a more centralized government, despite what some of their top militia leaders (and some of our politicians) might say.