BAGHDAD — A photographer and I recently embedded with an Army Special Forces unit that operates from a corner of Camp Victory, the United States military’s vast complex near the airport. Such embeds are extremely rare and this one took many months to secure — while the regular Army welcomes reporters with nearly unimpeded access, the Special Forces are leery of journalists. This was underscored by the long list of ground rules they require reporters to adhere to in order to protect operational secrecy.
One rule states, rather oddly, that photographers will not capture images of soldiers “with bearded faces.” Neither the public affairs officer, nor the cleanshaven Special Forces soldier standing by as we signed the document, could explain that one, except to speculate that it might be a remnant of the early days of the Afghanistan campaign, when commandos grew beards to fit in with the local population.
For the three days that the embed lasted, the soldiers kept a measured distance from their observers, always polite but guarded in their statements.
“We try to stay quiet professionals, low key,” said one Special Forces soldier, a chief warrant officer. (As part of the ground rules, the soldiers could be identified only by rank.)
Readily apparent were the stark differences in the culture the Green Berets have nurtured compared with the goofy bonhomie that pervades regular military units I have spent time with.
The soldiers here lived like vampires, sleeping all day and waking in the late afternoon. They wear civilian clothes until they gear up for missions at night, wearing the same black fatigues their Iraqi counterparts wear. Very few smoke, and they don’t salute their superiors. They aren’t required to wear hats outdoors.
Meanwhile, they carried on an easy camaraderie with the Iraqi unit that they train and plan and execute missions with. They don’t live together, but they do socialize in off hours. An American major said the Iraqis often stopped by their base to partake in soldierly customs: “lift weights; wear baseball caps; drink protein, Red Bulls.”
On an evening when there was no mission because many of the Iraqi soldiers were at a memorial service for a comrade killed in a car accident, a large group of Iraqis and Americans sat outside the barracks drinking tea and reflecting on the long war in which the American role is winding down.
These units have worked together since 2003, and so a certain anxiety about what comes next for Iraq — and for their relationships — hung over the conversation. In the early days, the Iraqis sometimes rode out on missions in commandeered bread trucks. Back then, classes of recruits would show up to training camp dressed in soccer uniforms because some political leaders had told them they would be trying out for the Iraqi national soccer team. (“They wanted to be on the Olympic soccer team and be a soldier,” recalled an American Special Forces sergeant.)
“Most of the people don’t want the Americans to leave,” said one Iraqi commander, offering his analysis of public opinion here.
His worry is that the country’s political class is keeping sectarianism alive, and using the regular Iraqi military to do so. “The average people can live together peacefully,” he said. The Iraqi Army, he said, “is not helping Iraq in the security situation.”
He had harsh words for Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric who has threatened renewed violence in the country if an element of American forces stays behind this year to keep training Iraqi security forces. He noted that Mr. Sadr had spent years in Iran, and used an expletive to describe the cleric’s role in Iraq.
He said Mr. Sadr’s Mahdi Army is “full of cowards” who “don’t have the guts to fight.”
There were lighter touches to the conversation, as one Iraqi soldier recalled learning American culture by watching the Oprah Winfrey Show with an American captain four years ago in Nasiriyah.
The next morning the Americans set up targets — one was a cardboard cutout of Saddam Hussein — for an indoor shooting exercise. “Identify the threat, and if he doesn’t have a weapon, we don’t shoot him,” one of the American advisers barked at the group of Iraqi soldiers. “Just like when we go on mission. If the guy doesn’t have a weapon, we don’t shoot him.”
That night, on a mission in a neighborhood not far from the airport, the Americans watched as the Iraqis secured and searched a building they believed to be a hide-out for two members of Al Qaeda in Iraq. No weapons were fired, and the bad guys nowhere to be found, just a big family woken up in the middle of the night.
The Americans will leave soon, but the fighting will continue.
“These people are fighting a war in their own country,” said one of the soon-to-depart Americans.
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