Iraqi army fears insurgents outside walls of base By Andrew Hammond
Mon Aug 8, 5:40 AM ET
For the new Iraqi army being trained by American troops in the safe confines of Taji military base, it's a jungle out there.
So much so that they fear setting foot outside.
"We're all afraid. I can't go outside the base wearing these military clothes," says Sergeant Abbas, listing colleagues who have fallen victim to relentless insurgent attacks in the dusty towns and highways north of Baghdad.
"We all know soldiers who notice people photographing them with mobile phones and being followed," says the Shi'ite Muslim from Amara in relatively calm southern Iraq.
He does not give his full name for fear of reprisals.
Training the new Iraqi army is essential for U.S. plans to bring troops home over the next year. But for the moment the 15,000 Iraqis at Taji are glad they rarely have to venture outside in military attire.
"I can feel them following me and I'm scared of that," said Lieutenant Colonel Bassam Ismail, speaking of the guerrillas.
Taji, an old Iraqi military base just northwest of Baghdad, lies in the heartland of the Sunni-led insurgency against the new, Shi'ite-led Iraqi government and its U.S. backers.
In a country increasingly split along sectarian and ethnic lines, where the minority Sunni Arabs dominant under Saddam Hussein resent the ascendancy of Shi'ites and Kurds, the army is trying its best to stay above the fray, these soldiers say.
SACRIFICE
In an impromptu discussion about the state of the army most soldiers were reluctant to state their sectarian affiliation.
"I'm prepared to say 'I sacrifice my spirit and blood for you' to any leader, as long as the country works," said Ismail, citing the classic street slogan of the bygone Arab nationalist era, which was a favorite chant of Saddam's soldiers.
They criticized the decision to dissolve the old army, taken by the U.S. occupation authorities after they removed Saddam from power two years ago.
"There's no way to get the high-level officers back into the army now," said Ismail -- some are believed to be helping the insurgency, directed by Saddam's former Baathist supporters.
With the economy crippled by daily violence and political uncertainty, new recruits are happy to have a steady job.
"Most ordinary soldiers join just for the salary," one says.
"Don't say that, we should say that it's for the nation," Lieutenant Shihab Ahmed, a Kurd from Mosul, angrily interjects.
"We have Sunnis, Shi'ites, Kurds and we all work together. The only important thing is God, his Prophet and the way of his Prophet, isn't that so?"
Radical Sunni insurgents, who see themselves as upholding the Sunna, or 'the way of the Prophet', in the face of Shi'ite domination, think otherwise.
"I once received a letter from them saying I would die for being in this 'cowardly army'," Ahmed said. "But I wouldn't even call what they do terrorism, it's wrecking." |
