December 11th - Ramadi
Modified: 22 Dec 2003
Meeting the witnesses to the killings in Ramadi and the family and friends of the men who were shot.
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There was, after all, a welcome in Ramadi. I can’t say the rumours that it’s dangerous are exaggerated, but my hands were not cut off and wherever I went people gave me chai, invited me in and wanted to talk. It’s true there was a constant percussion of gunfire, but Thursday afternoon is peak time for weddings and a lot of firing in the air goes on.
We were outside the army base to ask the commander for an explanation about the raid which killed Ibrahim and Sabah Odai and their cousin Mohammed when guns were pointed at us and we were surrounded by an incoming convoy of humvees. They were already “on lock down” when we got there, apparently having some warning of the attack on the other side of the palace which, a couple of minutes later, made the ground quake as I haven’t felt since the war and the appointment with Captain Galloway was postponed by implication.
In Ramadi, for the first time since I got back to Iraq, I was besieged by people saying they want Saddam back. The anger is tangible: not only the lack of electricity, petrol, water, jobs and so on, but the collective punishments, the deliberate cutting of supplies and services, raids and the continued presence of the US troops in the town, a couple of months after it was agreed that they’d withdraw to the edges.
Ismail Odai went to get the bodies of his brothers, Sabah and Ibrahim. The doctors wrote and signed death certificates saying the men died from fractures and body wounds. Both men were shot dead by the troops in a raid on November 20th. “There were American soldiers there with a Lebanese interpreter. They asked why is that man [Ismail] shouting?
‘The interpreter said, because they have written that the cause of death was fractures and wounds in the body. The Americans were on the head of the doctor when he wrote the death certificate. It was not wounds and fractures, it was assassination – they shot them on the ground, but the doctor refused to write that. There are bullets in the ground where they shot him. The doctor was sitting writing and the Americans were there standing over him.
“This was doctor Khattan Abed Hanish at Ramadi Hospital who signed the death certificate for Sabah. It was apparent that the doctor was under pressure from them. A different doctor, Dr Hamdi, signed the certificate for Ibrahim but he gave the same cause of death.”
We chased wild geese around the city and eventually failed to find either doctor but an Iraqi friend who works with foreign journalists explained that he has encountered Dr Hamdi before. He signed the death certificate for a Hungarian civilian worker killed recently. Three different causes of death were given in public statements by the US authorities, none of them mentioning shooting, though witnesses indicated that the man was shot by American troops. My friend stayed outside the hospital chatting while the reporters went inside and were told nothing. Away from the cameras the guards told him the man was bleeding from bullet wounds when he arrived.
Khalid was outside the house with Sabah, Ibrahim and their cousin Mohammed, waiting for futtoor, the meal which breaks the day’s fast during Ramadan. “American cars came on the road. Ibrahim’s mother asked what’s going on. He said it was only traffic control. We stayed outside the house, not thinking the troops were coming for us.
“The first car stopped beside the bush there and the others were standing on the road. The soldiers came from the road towards the house and they were running. They surrounded the house. We were outside the front of the house. The soldiers came and put ties on us and put us on the ground. The Americans entered the house through two doors – this is one and the other one is at the back.
“The women and children were in and outside the outdoor kitchen building when the Americans arrived. The soldiers entered through two doors and started shooting each other. The soldiers were terrified, between themselves, and reacted thinking each other were the enemy. They were firing as well from outside the house, through the windows. Three or four Americans were killed inside the house, killed by Americans. As revenge they came outside and shot us on the ground. They killed Ibrahim and Sabah and Mohammed and I was shot in the arm.”
He carefully removed the coat from around his shoulders and undid enough buttons to show us the wounds on his arm, dark scabs surrounded by yellowed bruising, a smallish, ragged entry wound and a larger exit wound. He’s no idea why they let him live. The house was devastated by continued attacks. Shell casings litter the ground outside. The US troops threw a grenade into a front room with no one inside. Ibrahim was a human rights lawyer and the papers for all his cases were taken from his car. One of the family’s Qurans was torn and thrown outside.
The rest of the family is now living in the medical aid building. Ibrahim’s wife is in mourning for three months and wouldn’t see us though her brother in law says she wants to send the information overseas for lawyers outside Iraq to take on the case. Ibrahim’s daughters were also indoors in mourning. His nine year old son Ibed stood outside among the adults in silence, the devastated, lonely, speechless, powerless rage in his eyes answering any question you might think of asking him. I’m not clear exactly where he was standing but his uncle says he saw his father shot.
“Bush is the head of the terrorists,” Ismail said. “The Americans came the next day and smashed the car. On the second day after, they came and said we are sorry, you are not the people we want, it’s a mistake. They were from the 8th Brigade – the commander was Isle.” (No one had any idea how the commander’s name was spelt, so that’s my guess).
A local police officer came with us from the outskirts of Ramadi to show us the way. He told us his full name but asked to be identified only as “Hussein”. He knew Ibrahim as a police cadet, an uncommonly honest man who refused to accept bribes. “He was very ambitious to be a lawyer, so he studied and got his degree and when he became a lawyer he started coming back to his friends who were still policemen, asking us to send him our cases in which the people in prison were illegally or dishonestly accused, in Saddam’s time.
“He graduated 2 years ago and started to work with those people accused by the others. He wouldn’t work for anyone who was trying to harm anyone else – it was the first time I’d ever seen a lawyer who wouldn’t accept bad things being done. Beside Ibrahim’s house, which you saw, near the medical aid place, there was an office of the Baathist party. When any soldier leaves his unit and goes absent without leave the Baathis used to come and take him from his house and send him back to his unit.
“This was near Ibrahim’s house and he told all the police that when people escaped from the army they shouldn’t tell the Baathists, he told them do not take anyone from his house, just talk to them and try to persuade them to go back. Don’t take them to the prison. This is a good thing from Ibrahim, because they weren’t punished if they went back, only if the Baathis took them.”
Hussein said there is no electricity most of the time. About a month ago the supply was stopped almost completely. The outlying villages are given it for one hour a day and the city of Ramadi has a little more but not much. Wherever I went in Ramadi, in cafes, markets, to the medical clinic to look for Doctors Hamdi and Khattan, people were eager to talk. The fury is tangible here.
We were outside the army base to ask the commander for an explanation about the raid which killed Ibrahim and Sabah Odai and their cousin Mohammed when guns were pointed at us and we were surrounded by an incoming convoy of humvees. They were already “on lock down” when we got there, apparently having some warning of the attack on the other side of the palace which, a couple of minutes later, made the ground quake as I haven’t felt since the war and the appointment with Captain Galloway was postponed by implication.
In Ramadi, for the first time since I got back to Iraq, I was besieged by people saying they want Saddam back. The anger is tangible: not only the lack of electricity, petrol, water, jobs and so on, but the collective punishments, the deliberate cutting of supplies and services, raids and the continued presence of the US troops in the town, a couple of months after it was agreed that they’d withdraw to the edges.
Ismail Odai went to get the bodies of his brothers, Sabah and Ibrahim. The doctors wrote and signed death certificates saying the men died from fractures and body wounds. Both men were shot dead by the troops in a raid on November 20th. “There were American soldiers there with a Lebanese interpreter. They asked why is that man [Ismail] shouting?
‘The interpreter said, because they have written that the cause of death was fractures and wounds in the body. The Americans were on the head of the doctor when he wrote the death certificate. It was not wounds and fractures, it was assassination – they shot them on the ground, but the doctor refused to write that. There are bullets in the ground where they shot him. The doctor was sitting writing and the Americans were there standing over him.
“This was doctor Khattan Abed Hanish at Ramadi Hospital who signed the death certificate for Sabah. It was apparent that the doctor was under pressure from them. A different doctor, Dr Hamdi, signed the certificate for Ibrahim but he gave the same cause of death.”
We chased wild geese around the city and eventually failed to find either doctor but an Iraqi friend who works with foreign journalists explained that he has encountered Dr Hamdi before. He signed the death certificate for a Hungarian civilian worker killed recently. Three different causes of death were given in public statements by the US authorities, none of them mentioning shooting, though witnesses indicated that the man was shot by American troops. My friend stayed outside the hospital chatting while the reporters went inside and were told nothing. Away from the cameras the guards told him the man was bleeding from bullet wounds when he arrived.
Khalid was outside the house with Sabah, Ibrahim and their cousin Mohammed, waiting for futtoor, the meal which breaks the day’s fast during Ramadan. “American cars came on the road. Ibrahim’s mother asked what’s going on. He said it was only traffic control. We stayed outside the house, not thinking the troops were coming for us.
“The first car stopped beside the bush there and the others were standing on the road. The soldiers came from the road towards the house and they were running. They surrounded the house. We were outside the front of the house. The soldiers came and put ties on us and put us on the ground. The Americans entered the house through two doors – this is one and the other one is at the back.
“The women and children were in and outside the outdoor kitchen building when the Americans arrived. The soldiers entered through two doors and started shooting each other. The soldiers were terrified, between themselves, and reacted thinking each other were the enemy. They were firing as well from outside the house, through the windows. Three or four Americans were killed inside the house, killed by Americans. As revenge they came outside and shot us on the ground. They killed Ibrahim and Sabah and Mohammed and I was shot in the arm.”
He carefully removed the coat from around his shoulders and undid enough buttons to show us the wounds on his arm, dark scabs surrounded by yellowed bruising, a smallish, ragged entry wound and a larger exit wound. He’s no idea why they let him live. The house was devastated by continued attacks. Shell casings litter the ground outside. The US troops threw a grenade into a front room with no one inside. Ibrahim was a human rights lawyer and the papers for all his cases were taken from his car. One of the family’s Qurans was torn and thrown outside.
The rest of the family is now living in the medical aid building. Ibrahim’s wife is in mourning for three months and wouldn’t see us though her brother in law says she wants to send the information overseas for lawyers outside Iraq to take on the case. Ibrahim’s daughters were also indoors in mourning. His nine year old son Ibed stood outside among the adults in silence, the devastated, lonely, speechless, powerless rage in his eyes answering any question you might think of asking him. I’m not clear exactly where he was standing but his uncle says he saw his father shot.
“Bush is the head of the terrorists,” Ismail said. “The Americans came the next day and smashed the car. On the second day after, they came and said we are sorry, you are not the people we want, it’s a mistake. They were from the 8th Brigade – the commander was Isle.” (No one had any idea how the commander’s name was spelt, so that’s my guess).
A local police officer came with us from the outskirts of Ramadi to show us the way. He told us his full name but asked to be identified only as “Hussein”. He knew Ibrahim as a police cadet, an uncommonly honest man who refused to accept bribes. “He was very ambitious to be a lawyer, so he studied and got his degree and when he became a lawyer he started coming back to his friends who were still policemen, asking us to send him our cases in which the people in prison were illegally or dishonestly accused, in Saddam’s time.
“He graduated 2 years ago and started to work with those people accused by the others. He wouldn’t work for anyone who was trying to harm anyone else – it was the first time I’d ever seen a lawyer who wouldn’t accept bad things being done. Beside Ibrahim’s house, which you saw, near the medical aid place, there was an office of the Baathist party. When any soldier leaves his unit and goes absent without leave the Baathis used to come and take him from his house and send him back to his unit.
“This was near Ibrahim’s house and he told all the police that when people escaped from the army they shouldn’t tell the Baathists, he told them do not take anyone from his house, just talk to them and try to persuade them to go back. Don’t take them to the prison. This is a good thing from Ibrahim, because they weren’t punished if they went back, only if the Baathis took them.”
Hussein said there is no electricity most of the time. About a month ago the supply was stopped almost completely. The outlying villages are given it for one hour a day and the city of Ramadi has a little more but not much. Wherever I went in Ramadi, in cafes, markets, to the medical clinic to look for Doctors Hamdi and Khattan, people were eager to talk. The fury is tangible here.