Crimson and Clover
04-12-2003, 09:01 PM
April 12, 2003
By JOHN F. BURNS
BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 11 — When American tanks opened fire on a car
driving up Highway 1 on Baghdad's southern outskirts in the dusk of
Monday evening, it was only one of hundreds of such incidents in the
war in Iraq that changed the life of an Iraqi family in an instant.
But that moment also changed an American life, that of Cpl. Jeff
Mager, 22, of Chicago, a gunner on an Abrams tank that carries the
legend "Bush and Co." on its barrel.
Guarding an expressway overpass a few miles from Baghdad's
international airport, the tank crew was waiting tensely for an
Iraqi counterattack by massed suicide bombers promised by Saddam
Hussein's top officials after American troops seized the airport
last Friday.
Corporal Mager had fired some of the cannon shells that struck the
Toyota sedan and other vehicles running up a slipway toward the
overpass. He had seen the two men in the front seat of the silver
gray Camry die in an explosion of blood and steel. But until this
morning, he could not be sure who had been killed.
Then at about 10 a.m. today, Corporal Mager learned something about
what he and the other tank crews had done that many soldiers in
faraway wars, shooting at uncertain targets, remain blissfully
unaware of. He and the other tank gunners had killed two Iraqi
civilians, he was told, brothers who ran a family tannery that sold
half-finished leathers to luxury fashion houses in Italy.
He learned, too, that incidents like the one at the overpass, in
which hundreds of Iraqi civilians have been killed, however
inadvertently, have generated a wave of bitterness that is eroding
some of the gratitude that has swept Iraq for the American forces'
role in ending 24 years of grimly repressive government by Mr.
Hussein. How such confrontations are resolved is critical to how the
American presence in this country will be viewed.
On Wednesday, residents from the Saidiya neighborhood that straddles
the expressway where the shooting occurred came with shovels and
white flags to bury the two brothers hurriedly beside the wreck,
along with other Iraqis who were killed in nearby vehicles that were
also smashed by tank shells.
Today, as a group of men, mostly from the same neighborhood,
returned to retrieve the bodies from their makeshift grave, Corporal
Mager dismounted from his tank, and listened as a reporter told him
what he had learned, at least as the crowd recounted it: that the
victims were Wadhar Handi, 34, and Bashar Handi, 28, and that they
were driving to their family home in Harithiya, an upscale
neighborhood about three miles north of the overpass, when they were
hit by the tanks. The corporal was also told that one surviving
brother and a cousin of the two victims were among the men working
with the shovels, and that they, and many other men in the crowd,
were seething with anger at America.
What the Iraqis were saying was that actions like these were proof
of the "lies" told by President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair
of Britain, in saying they intended the war to bring freedom and
democracy to Iraq. Ordinary Iraqis, the Handi family and the people
in the Saidiya neighborhood among them, loathed Saddam Hussein and
wanted him overthrown, they said, but not by foreign troops that
shoot indiscriminately at civilians.
Ali Rashid Handi, 40, a surviving older brother standing atop the
grave, 40 paces from Corporal Mager, had pointed at his dead
brothers and said: "We wanted freedom, we wanted democracy, and this
is what we got. Is this what you Americans call freedom?"
Corporal Mager had pulled his helmet up to listen, and his face
tightened. He appeared to accept the recounting that the two men
killed were innocent. No Iraqi made any move to approach him, and
nobody shouted any abuse. The men at the grave went on digging,
their white flags blowing in the morning breeze.
Corporal Mager watched, and appeared lost in thought. Then he looked
up, with a sadness that was beyond affectation, and asked that a
message be passed to the Iraqis, a message for himself, and for
America. "Tell them the fact that I pulled the trigger that killed
some of these people makes me very unhappy," he said. "Tell them
that America did not want things to happen this way. Tell them that
I wish that Iraqis will live a better life."
Then he clambered back on the tank, and it drove away.
All across Baghdad, and all the way down the routes that American
troops took on their 350-mile drive north from Kuwait, there are
scenes similar to the one at the Saidiya overpass. On bridges, at
highway junctions, and other places where Americans braced for Iraqi
counterattacks, there are wrecks of civilian vehicles. In many of
these wrecks, the burned and bloodied corpses remain for days, even
a week or more.
In many cases, there may never be any certainty about the identity
or intentions of those who have been killed. On the Jumhuriya bridge
across the Tigris River in central Baghdad three vehicles in a
tangled wreckage were white Nissan pickup trucks of the type used by
the paramilitary forces that inflicted most of the damage on
American troops as they fought their way to Baghdad. In addition,
militiamen from the governing Baath Party, as well as tribal gunmen
and other irregulars, have mostly worn civilian clothes.
But they were deadly, suddenly brandishing Kalashnikov rifles and
shoulder-launched rockets and other weapons. And if the threat they
posed had not been enough to make American troops suspicious of any
civilian vehicle approaching them, suicide bombers were.
In an incident on the first weekend of the war, two weeks ago, a
suicide bomber who arrived in a taxi killed four American soldiers
at a checkpoint outside the holy city of Najaf. Similar incidents
followed, including one in central Baghdad on Thursday evening. Most
Iraqis understood, by word of mouth or listening to Mr. Hussein's
defense chiefs saying that they had 6,000 more suicide bombers ready
to attack, that no civilian approaching an American checkpoint could
be entirely safe.
On the expressway at Saidiya, several of the vehicles that were hit
by the American tanks were white pickup trucks. While it may never
be known whether the two Handi brothers had failed to heed a signal
from American forces to turn back or stop, it was certain that the
car they drove was a sports model.
Beside their temporary grave today, Ali Rashid Handi, 40, described
the family's farm in the Doura district south of Baghdad, their
comfortable home in the city, and their frequent trips to Europe and
the United States, privileges denied to any Iraqi suspected of
harboring disloyal thoughts about Mr. Hussein.
As the men with the shovels uncovered the body of Bashar Handi, a
huge barrel of man, his surviving brother described Mr. Handi's trip
only days before the war began to strike new deals in Milan, the
Italian fashion city where the family business did its most
profitable trade. Something in the moment — the memory of those fine
journeys, and the reality at hand, of the huge body appearing shovel
by shovel — was suddenly overwhelming.
Ali Rashid Handi turned away, sobbing into the white cloth that he,
like others at the grave, held over their faces to ward off the
stench and the flies.
The older of the two victims, Wadhar Handi, left a widow, a woman he
married only 45 days ago, Ali Rashid Handi said, and she was already
pregnant. But he said she would not learn of her husband's death for
days, possibly weeks, since she had left Baghdad when the war
started for the safety of a family home in western Iraq.
The bombing, the surviving brother said, could also explain why the
dead men drove up Highway 1, 60 hours after it became a shooting
gallery on Saturday morning, when American troops at the airport
first ventured toward the city and littered the highway with the
wrecks of Iraqi vehicles. "No information," he replied. "No
telephones."
He might have added that Iraqi radio and television broadcasts were
telling people in Baghdad that the Americans had not reached the
inner city, that they had been driven from the airport, and that
they were in isolated pockets and being "slaughtered" by Iraqi
troops.
But none of these considerations appeared to count for much with the
men around the temporary grave.
Abdul Malik, a 36-year-old antiques merchant who is cousin of the
dead brothers, drew murmurs of assent from the crowd when he said
that America had come to Iraq not to liberate Iraqis from Saddam
Hussein, but for oil.
"The cause is not Saddam, the cause is oil," he said. To press home
his point, he contended that American troops who have taken control
of much of the city have made no attempt to protect any government
building from looters except the Ministry of Oil. "They won't let
the looters go anywhere near it."
Only a few miles away, looters clambering over the rubble of the
Sajida Palace, named for Saddam Hussein's wife, met every Western
reporter who passed them with handshakes, claps on the back, and
shouts of `America good!" "Bush good!" and "Down Saddam."
Anecdotally, at least, this has seemed to be the opinion of the
overwhelming majority of people in Baghdad since Mr. Hussein's power
collapsed. But along Highway 1, in the presence of innocent deaths,
not a voice in dozens spoke up for America, at least on the issue of
the war.
But if they did not believe that America had come to Iraq to free
Iraqis, the men were asked, did they at least accept the objective
of overthrowing Mr. Hussein? For moments, there was silence. Then
one man at the back raised his hand.
"Yes," he said, "I am in favor of overthrowing Saddam." A moment
later, another man raised his hand, and then another, and another,
until eventually all the men's hands were raised. Their confidence
rising, the men then started to shout the chorus heard in so many
other places in the city. "Down Saddam!" they cried. "Down Saddam!"
By JOHN F. BURNS
BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 11 — When American tanks opened fire on a car
driving up Highway 1 on Baghdad's southern outskirts in the dusk of
Monday evening, it was only one of hundreds of such incidents in the
war in Iraq that changed the life of an Iraqi family in an instant.
But that moment also changed an American life, that of Cpl. Jeff
Mager, 22, of Chicago, a gunner on an Abrams tank that carries the
legend "Bush and Co." on its barrel.
Guarding an expressway overpass a few miles from Baghdad's
international airport, the tank crew was waiting tensely for an
Iraqi counterattack by massed suicide bombers promised by Saddam
Hussein's top officials after American troops seized the airport
last Friday.
Corporal Mager had fired some of the cannon shells that struck the
Toyota sedan and other vehicles running up a slipway toward the
overpass. He had seen the two men in the front seat of the silver
gray Camry die in an explosion of blood and steel. But until this
morning, he could not be sure who had been killed.
Then at about 10 a.m. today, Corporal Mager learned something about
what he and the other tank crews had done that many soldiers in
faraway wars, shooting at uncertain targets, remain blissfully
unaware of. He and the other tank gunners had killed two Iraqi
civilians, he was told, brothers who ran a family tannery that sold
half-finished leathers to luxury fashion houses in Italy.
He learned, too, that incidents like the one at the overpass, in
which hundreds of Iraqi civilians have been killed, however
inadvertently, have generated a wave of bitterness that is eroding
some of the gratitude that has swept Iraq for the American forces'
role in ending 24 years of grimly repressive government by Mr.
Hussein. How such confrontations are resolved is critical to how the
American presence in this country will be viewed.
On Wednesday, residents from the Saidiya neighborhood that straddles
the expressway where the shooting occurred came with shovels and
white flags to bury the two brothers hurriedly beside the wreck,
along with other Iraqis who were killed in nearby vehicles that were
also smashed by tank shells.
Today, as a group of men, mostly from the same neighborhood,
returned to retrieve the bodies from their makeshift grave, Corporal
Mager dismounted from his tank, and listened as a reporter told him
what he had learned, at least as the crowd recounted it: that the
victims were Wadhar Handi, 34, and Bashar Handi, 28, and that they
were driving to their family home in Harithiya, an upscale
neighborhood about three miles north of the overpass, when they were
hit by the tanks. The corporal was also told that one surviving
brother and a cousin of the two victims were among the men working
with the shovels, and that they, and many other men in the crowd,
were seething with anger at America.
What the Iraqis were saying was that actions like these were proof
of the "lies" told by President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair
of Britain, in saying they intended the war to bring freedom and
democracy to Iraq. Ordinary Iraqis, the Handi family and the people
in the Saidiya neighborhood among them, loathed Saddam Hussein and
wanted him overthrown, they said, but not by foreign troops that
shoot indiscriminately at civilians.
Ali Rashid Handi, 40, a surviving older brother standing atop the
grave, 40 paces from Corporal Mager, had pointed at his dead
brothers and said: "We wanted freedom, we wanted democracy, and this
is what we got. Is this what you Americans call freedom?"
Corporal Mager had pulled his helmet up to listen, and his face
tightened. He appeared to accept the recounting that the two men
killed were innocent. No Iraqi made any move to approach him, and
nobody shouted any abuse. The men at the grave went on digging,
their white flags blowing in the morning breeze.
Corporal Mager watched, and appeared lost in thought. Then he looked
up, with a sadness that was beyond affectation, and asked that a
message be passed to the Iraqis, a message for himself, and for
America. "Tell them the fact that I pulled the trigger that killed
some of these people makes me very unhappy," he said. "Tell them
that America did not want things to happen this way. Tell them that
I wish that Iraqis will live a better life."
Then he clambered back on the tank, and it drove away.
All across Baghdad, and all the way down the routes that American
troops took on their 350-mile drive north from Kuwait, there are
scenes similar to the one at the Saidiya overpass. On bridges, at
highway junctions, and other places where Americans braced for Iraqi
counterattacks, there are wrecks of civilian vehicles. In many of
these wrecks, the burned and bloodied corpses remain for days, even
a week or more.
In many cases, there may never be any certainty about the identity
or intentions of those who have been killed. On the Jumhuriya bridge
across the Tigris River in central Baghdad three vehicles in a
tangled wreckage were white Nissan pickup trucks of the type used by
the paramilitary forces that inflicted most of the damage on
American troops as they fought their way to Baghdad. In addition,
militiamen from the governing Baath Party, as well as tribal gunmen
and other irregulars, have mostly worn civilian clothes.
But they were deadly, suddenly brandishing Kalashnikov rifles and
shoulder-launched rockets and other weapons. And if the threat they
posed had not been enough to make American troops suspicious of any
civilian vehicle approaching them, suicide bombers were.
In an incident on the first weekend of the war, two weeks ago, a
suicide bomber who arrived in a taxi killed four American soldiers
at a checkpoint outside the holy city of Najaf. Similar incidents
followed, including one in central Baghdad on Thursday evening. Most
Iraqis understood, by word of mouth or listening to Mr. Hussein's
defense chiefs saying that they had 6,000 more suicide bombers ready
to attack, that no civilian approaching an American checkpoint could
be entirely safe.
On the expressway at Saidiya, several of the vehicles that were hit
by the American tanks were white pickup trucks. While it may never
be known whether the two Handi brothers had failed to heed a signal
from American forces to turn back or stop, it was certain that the
car they drove was a sports model.
Beside their temporary grave today, Ali Rashid Handi, 40, described
the family's farm in the Doura district south of Baghdad, their
comfortable home in the city, and their frequent trips to Europe and
the United States, privileges denied to any Iraqi suspected of
harboring disloyal thoughts about Mr. Hussein.
As the men with the shovels uncovered the body of Bashar Handi, a
huge barrel of man, his surviving brother described Mr. Handi's trip
only days before the war began to strike new deals in Milan, the
Italian fashion city where the family business did its most
profitable trade. Something in the moment — the memory of those fine
journeys, and the reality at hand, of the huge body appearing shovel
by shovel — was suddenly overwhelming.
Ali Rashid Handi turned away, sobbing into the white cloth that he,
like others at the grave, held over their faces to ward off the
stench and the flies.
The older of the two victims, Wadhar Handi, left a widow, a woman he
married only 45 days ago, Ali Rashid Handi said, and she was already
pregnant. But he said she would not learn of her husband's death for
days, possibly weeks, since she had left Baghdad when the war
started for the safety of a family home in western Iraq.
The bombing, the surviving brother said, could also explain why the
dead men drove up Highway 1, 60 hours after it became a shooting
gallery on Saturday morning, when American troops at the airport
first ventured toward the city and littered the highway with the
wrecks of Iraqi vehicles. "No information," he replied. "No
telephones."
He might have added that Iraqi radio and television broadcasts were
telling people in Baghdad that the Americans had not reached the
inner city, that they had been driven from the airport, and that
they were in isolated pockets and being "slaughtered" by Iraqi
troops.
But none of these considerations appeared to count for much with the
men around the temporary grave.
Abdul Malik, a 36-year-old antiques merchant who is cousin of the
dead brothers, drew murmurs of assent from the crowd when he said
that America had come to Iraq not to liberate Iraqis from Saddam
Hussein, but for oil.
"The cause is not Saddam, the cause is oil," he said. To press home
his point, he contended that American troops who have taken control
of much of the city have made no attempt to protect any government
building from looters except the Ministry of Oil. "They won't let
the looters go anywhere near it."
Only a few miles away, looters clambering over the rubble of the
Sajida Palace, named for Saddam Hussein's wife, met every Western
reporter who passed them with handshakes, claps on the back, and
shouts of `America good!" "Bush good!" and "Down Saddam."
Anecdotally, at least, this has seemed to be the opinion of the
overwhelming majority of people in Baghdad since Mr. Hussein's power
collapsed. But along Highway 1, in the presence of innocent deaths,
not a voice in dozens spoke up for America, at least on the issue of
the war.
But if they did not believe that America had come to Iraq to free
Iraqis, the men were asked, did they at least accept the objective
of overthrowing Mr. Hussein? For moments, there was silence. Then
one man at the back raised his hand.
"Yes," he said, "I am in favor of overthrowing Saddam." A moment
later, another man raised his hand, and then another, and another,
until eventually all the men's hands were raised. Their confidence
rising, the men then started to shout the chorus heard in so many
other places in the city. "Down Saddam!" they cried. "Down Saddam!"