The Galli Report

MAHMUDIYAH, Iraq — She was taller than the other women. She adjusted her headpiece as an eagle might spread its wings: proud and powerful. Soon she and I would become bitter enemies; but I didn’t know that when I snapped her picture. I had a lot to learn in the next few minutes about Iraq, about the war, and about myself.

By the time I met the woman in black I had been in Iraq about five weeks. Although I had not been a working news reporter for 35 years, I had come to Iraq as an unsupported freelance journalist embedded with teams of Civil Affairs soldiers in Mosul, Baqubah and Mahmudiyah.

Americans don’t know much about the Army’s Civil Affairs mission. If Americans want to achieve success in the wars they fight, and choose their wars wisely, they probably ought to learn.

I learned about Civil Affairs in 1970-71 while serving as a Vietnamese interpreter in our first “hearts and minds” war. The experience was unforgettable. Decades later, watching the war in Iraq erupt, deteriorate and founder, I was horrified. Didn’t anybody remember anything we learned in Vietnam?

I decided to see for myself. It took 14 months to revive my journalist credentials and arrange the trip. In late June I was a portly, gray-hair, bearded geezer in a small “Cat A” team at Forward Operating Base St. Michael in Mahmudiyah.

This was “reconstruction” at the retail level. The Civil Affairs team went outside the wire almost every day. They had personality and verve and a not-quite-reckless confidence in the way they hustled from mission to mission, as if the war might actually be won today, and if they did their jobs well enough they might be home by suppertime. Their opinions about the war diverged as radically in Iraq as they did at home, but not their feelings about each other.

Often they were led by “Master Pax,” a career infantry Master Sergeant who had been unexpectedly assigned to the Civil Affairs mission. The Army had exhausted its supply of CA specialists, so he became one of many fill-ins.

“We kill people and break things,” Master Pax explained about the infantry. In previous fights, he could look upon a dead enemy and feel a sense of satisfaction for a job well done. In Civil Affairs he had discovered a different kind of satisfaction: a job well done that might help people live better lives.

With no prior experience, and minimal training, Master Pax found himself in Mahmudiyah striving to understand local planting and harvesting cycles; and why grain supply to the flour mill has been erratic; and what metal products a small factory could produce. His team tried to convince an Iraqi businessman to re-open a biscuit factory: America would stake him to hire more workers.

The team set up medical clinics that treated hundreds of people; the Americans were trying to re-open a shot-up gas station – in a country floating on an ocean of oil; and they were building a soccer stadium – without knowing if the remorseless Shia militia would allow the unrepentant Sunni to enter the stadium, and leave it alive.

According to its Public Affairs office, the Army has 4,600 Civil Affairs soldiers, more than 95% of them Reservists. That means there are about 230 full-time Civil Affairs soldiers to handle our world-wide needs, not only in Iraq. Just like the shooting war, “the battle to win the hearts and minds of the people” is under-staffed and over-stressed.

Some soldiers working temporarily in Civil Affairs have spent their whole careers training for another specialty – such as artillery – and now they are investing millions of American dollars into factories and water systems, building restaurants, and teaching Iraqis how to run a municipal government.

The Civil Affairs mission is the best expression of our noblest intentions in Iraq; and the shortage of experienced CA troops is evidence of how unprepared we were – and still are – for the war we were so eager to fight.
Humanitarian Assistance

Humanitarian Assistance

Near the end of my stay in Mahmudiyah, I joined the Civil Affairs team on a “humanitarian assistance drop” in a village called Al Murtada. It was a jumble of mud-brick huts, scattered on arid hardpack ground covered with refuse. Down the center of the village ran a polluted junk-filled creek, used as a source of drinking water and a sewer.

The heavily-armed Americans rolled into Al Murtada in five Humvees, hauling a fabric-covered trailer into which the soldiers had loaded boxes of food and plastic water bottles.

I decided to record the event. My little recorder was made for dictation, not for this; but I turned it on anyway and let the tiny lapel microphone capture whatever it might.

At 01:10 (one minute, ten seconds) I said “How you doing” to some villagers as I approached the crowd forming around the trailer. On missions like this in Vietnam I would have been the interpreter; but I was a pure observer in Iraq and had not learned a single word of Arabic.

At 01:35 I began to take photos of the crowd. Meanwhile, the Humvee turret gunners scanned their sectors, and several soldiers established perimeter security. The Americans at the trailer appeared to be hard pressed to hold back the crowd, so I pushed through and planted myself at Sgt. Binko’s left flank. I faced the crowd and joined the Army again.

At 02:50 Master Pax – through his interpreter – told the crowd that they should form two lines, one of men and one of women. Crowd noise on the recording was becoming louder and more animated. At about this time, I took the photograph of the tall Iraqi woman adjusting her headpiece.

At 04:25 American soldiers can be heard shouting “Get back…get back” to the crowd. Instead of forming two lines, the Iraqis had remained in a compressed, bustling semi-circle around the back of the trailer. The Americans stood in a tenuous arc in front of them, and put down some orange traffic cones to establish a border.

By 05:00 the Americans were nearly constantly chanting “Back, stay back” and warning the crowd (with raised voices and weapons) not to press past the traffic cones.

At 08:20 Master Pax was screaming “Go back!” with increased urgency.

At 08:30 one of the Americans lamented that “Iraqis have no sense of lines.”

At 09:45 an American frustrated by people breaking through the cordon insisted: “No, they gotta get behind the cones! This is my show, and they gotta get behind the cones, because if we let them do it again it’s going to be chaos and I can’t control the…” His prophesy was lost in the shouting.

At 12:00 Master Pax shouted “Don’t push! Don’t push like that!” The crowd kept pressing forward. The women on the inner edge did not have the strength to hold back, even if they wanted to.

At 13:10 an American told a woman pressing in on us to “Go around” and pointed to the imprecise spot where we wished that a line had formed, but never would. Eventually, all of us were pointing to the phantom line, and ordering women to take their places in it. That was the pre-determined policy for this mission in Iraq.

At 13:50, there was nervous comedy. A lucky man on the other side of the trailer was let in to get a box of food and water; but one of his sandals fell off. He dove into a snarl of legs and was almost trampled. It was ridiculous: the whole adult population of the town surging inward, and this skinny fellow pushing back to save his floppy shoe.

At 14:35 a man squeezed next to me and said, in broken English, that he was a teacher. Gesturing at the churning crowd, I replied: “This is…unfortunate.”

At 18:50 an American yelled with greater vehemence: “Back! Everybody back! Back! Everybody back!”

At 19:15 my microphone captured the voice of the tall woman whose picture I had taken about 16 minutes before. Her voice was shrill and clear. “You gotta get in line,” I told her. That was the order of the day, and I was sticking to it.

At 19:50 a soldier near me shouted “Get back…Do not touch!” The women had begun poking us on the arms and tugging at our uniforms. I wondered what came next.

At 20:40 the soldier shouted: “Do not touch. Do not touch!”

At 21:10 an American shouted “You gotta get in line” again, and then he lied. “There’s enough for everybody,” he said.

By 21:50 the tall woman whose picture I had taken was venting her full fury on me. Her voice had become a derisive bark directed at me personally. She occasionally jabbed me sharply so I would look into her eyes as she berated me. There was no “please” in her at all.

At 22:35 I told a woman offering prayer gestures to me: “No. It’s not going to happen. You have to be in line.” Another frustrated American shouted “Nothing is coming out this side.” Then I told a woman near me: “It’s not my fault.” I pointed toward the center of the mob. “They’re in line,” I lied, “they’re going to get it.” Where I pointed there was no line; just a mob at the front of which some lucky woman was arbitrarily allowed to pass through.

At 23:50 a soldier yelled “Hey! Master P, they’re getting too close!” Another soldier shouted “Don’t keep pushing! I will defend myself!”

By 24:00 the tall woman whose picture I had taken was unleashing a torrent of angry language at me. I didn’t understand a word she said, and didn’t need to. She was loud, indignant, and furious. She obviously hated me.

At 25:00 three young Iraqi men linked their arms and formed a human fence in front of the mob. An American said to the interpreter: “Tell these three guys they will be taken care of as long as they let no one through.” The men smiled, dug in their heels, and began pressing back into the crowd. The women at the front were now being crushed from both directions.

At 25:10 I muttered to no one in particular: “This is how to win those hearts and minds.”

At 25:50 a soldier started screaming “NO! NO! NO! NO!” I told the man next to me: “I think they ought to close this down. It’s starting to turn into a mob.” I was wrong. It had been a mob almost from the start. It was just an angrier mob than it had been fifteen minutes before.

At 26:20 I told a woman: “No, you have to do what the others are doing.” I meant the women who were theoretically forming that phantom line. In fact, this woman was doing what all the others were doing: clamoring and pushing.

At 26:30 I tried to help a woman who had been shoved out of position by her neighbors. She showed me her eye that someone had smashed. “I know,” I said, looking as sympathetic as I could, “I know, I know, I know.” The situation was too much of a mess to help her.

At 27:35 I finally lost patience with the tall woman whose photo I had taken. She had never let up on me, and I was sick of being chastised. I pointed my finger at her. “You,” I said firmly, “go.” I pointed to the back of the crowd. She glared and snapped at me angrily. “You…go!” I said again, my finger jabbing at her and pointing to the back. She was still defiant. I screamed at her one last time: “You…” my finger almost bashed her nose… “GO!” That did it. Her rage dissolved into submission. If we were fighting a battle, I won it. She seemed to shrink an inch or two, then retreated slowly through the crowd. I never saw her again.

At 28:25 Master Pax was still shouting “Back, go back!” while the crowd pressed forward against the human fence that resisted it. Gradually, boxes of food and water were being given to lucky people who made it through.

At 30:00 soldiers all around were shouting “Back! Back! Way too close! Back!” A woman pleaded her special case to me – I forget why – and on the recording my weary voice repeats “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

At 30:40 the Americans gave up on the unruly women. “All the women can leave,” one of them shouted, “no women!” Gradually the mob of women who had assailed us for half an hour dispersed. The crisis was nearly over.

At 33:00 I griped to a soldier: “They call this humanitarian assistance? If we did this to sheep and goats we’d be shot…or at least arrested.” He nodded. “I wish there were a better way to do this,” he replied, “but there really isn’t.” I lamented that there were “no indigenous people who could control the mob.” Why did I assume that to be true? I don’t know.

Eventually the final boxes were given away and the mission wound down. The frustrated women abandoned the field, retreating back to their homes. A few men remained, along with dozens of the village’s children. They seemed lively and delighted and unaware of our anxious struggle.

Master Pax pulled out some treats, threw them into the air, and as they showered down a horde of kids and youngsters dove in to grab them. Within minutes, a bitter confrontation among adults had turned into a carnival for the children.

Later I realized that I had not taken any photographs during the worst of it. I have no pictures of the mob pressing in on us; no pictures of the young men forming their human fence to keep the women at bay.

When I saw American soldiers at the back of the trailer under siege, I abandoned the pretense of journalism and joined them. For a few minutes that day I reacted spontaneously, predictably – the way we always react when our team is under stress: the way warlords, kings and presidents always expect us to react, when they consider making war.

In Vietnam I had visited villages dozens of times, mingled with hundreds of native people in distress. I never needed to raise my voice to any of them; and none of them had ever raised a voice to me. The mission in Al Murtada changed all that. It was a different world I saw as the humanitarian assistance drop concluded, less than an hour after it began.

I had met an enemy, and I had defeated her. She had reason on her side, but I had beaten her anyway.

She was right to be angry. She saw the absurdity. Our strategy for doing good was premised on two orderly lines. If all the women had joined their line, women at the back would have gotten nothing. They knew that. Some women were so close they could almost reach into the trailer and grab a box without our help. We could have dispensed boxes at lightning speed just by handing some to the first row of the semicircle. Instead, we inspired the women to compete with each other for position in a line that never formed.

We imagined the mission through resolutely American eyes. We enter movies, buy our coffee and check our luggage from front to back, not from side to side. We needed to see those lines; the women needed only the food and water.

As a loyal American. I submitted to discipline instead of common sense. I played my part as all the other Americans did, for the sole and sufficient reason that they were all playing the same part and needed me to play it with them.

And there you have it. You can’t miss it. The allegory gods have gift-wrapped it for you, and shined a spotlight on it. The whole story of the war in Iraq reduced to a 55-minute mission to bring food and water to the thirsty and hungry people of a squalid little village called Al Murtada.

At 39:55 I hear my voice saying: “I’m getting out of here…I’m moseying along.” What I had done and what I had become was beginning to sink in.

I met a young woman who drove one of the Humvees that day. “How’s your side of town doing?” I asked her. “Oh, it’s something you couldn’t print,” she replied, “it’s been busy.”

While we were talking, one of the lucky boys who got some clean water took a few gulps and – without offering any to his thirsty friends – sprinkled the remainder on the ground; then tossed the empty bottle on the ground as well.

Eventually I shuffled back to my Humvee, climbed inside, and shut the door.

At 52:20 I can be heard sighing wearily: “I’ve had enough… I’m sure there are sixty or seventy good shots out there, but I’ve had enough.”

I told some soldiers later that I could not believe we made more friends than enemies. Lucky villagers who got a box of supplies must have regretted the envy of their neighbors. Villagers with nothing must have felt misled and cheated.

It could have been done better. Experienced Civil Affairs soldiers probably knew how to do it better. As with other lessons we have learned, their wisdom was not passed down to those who needed it. Regardless, some folks in Washington would say the mission to Al Murtada was a success. Some folks in Washington are exactly that easy to please.

To the villagers who lived through it, our charity was certainly tainted. Some of them got food to last a day, and all of them got discontent to last a lifetime.

As for the Americans on the ground that day, we held together and stayed true to each other and to the mission that was assigned. It didn’t matter that our means were insufficient and our methods were unsound. We had good intentions, and that – as it usually does – blinded us to the damage we might be causing.

As for me… I will remember the humanitarian assistance drop in Al Murtada. That was the day a wonderful group of brave and squandered Americans tried to win the hearts and minds of some Iraqi people, and in the process I temporarily lost mine.
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This story is part of a series featuring the Army’s Civil Affairs mission in Iraq.

Richard Galli served as an interpreter in an Army Civil Affairs unit in Vietnam (1970-71). He spent six weeks in Iraq as an embedded freelance journalist.