Liberating Iraq

Umm Qasr, Iraq

THE WHEELS of the four Humvees in our convoy had not stopped turning when Ali al-Ethari jumped out of the back of the second vehicle and sprinted toward the front of the Port Authority building here in Umm Qasr, Iraq. The 15 others in the convoy--11 American soldiers, two Iraqi Americans, and two reporters--knew where he was headed.

Tributes to Saddam Hussein appear everywhere in this southern port town. A smiling, avuncular Saddam hovers over a corner market on a plastic plug-in sign, like the ones that advertise cheap beer in bars throughout America. A few feet later, Saddam the conqueror, wearing a black-brimmed hat and a Western suit, fires a rifle one-handed in a portrait inside one of the U.N. compounds here. Further on, in the middle of the road, a billboard-sized tile edifice depicts a menacing military Saddam, in green fatigues and a black beret, firing a pistol toward the sky. On the flip side, for vehicles traveling in the other direction, is a grinning Saddam in a white naval uniform with gold trim. Each of these monuments had been defaced--one with red X's over the dictator's mug, another with red paint splashed across his face, others simply torn apart. Only the one in front of the port authority building was still untouched.

Of the anti-Saddam Iraqis I've met over the past several weeks, Ali al-Ethari is the quietest. In that time, we've spoken twice, and on those occasions, only briefly. In group settings, too, he lets others do the talking.

He said nothing before bailing out of the moving vehicle. As Ali ran towards the unmolested canvas, the other two Free Iraqi Forces soldiers called out.

"Wait for us," said Ali al-Mohamidawi, with a chuckle. "We'll help you." Al-Ethari ignored them, unhitched the long knife on his belt, and began shredding the 15-foot painting. By the time the other two Iraqis joined him, most of the work was done. Several American soldiers from the convoy team joined the Iraqis in front of the few remaining scraps of canvas. They laughed about their friend's uncharacteristic outburst. But when al-Ethari turned around, he wasn't laughing.

The other Iraqis understood, withdrew their playful smiles and, for a moment, said nothing. Everyone has a mission. This was part of Ali al-Ethari's.

Al-Ethari is a member of the Free Iraqi Forces, a program that brings together Iraqi exiles with American soldiers to liberate Iraq. The Pentagon began seeking volunteers for the FIF as early as last August, working through opposition groups and running radio ads in areas with a heavy concentration of Iraqi Americans. The program is not nearly as large as originally conceived--there will be fewer than 100 soldiers who wear the Free Iraqi Forces uniform. The orders for the air base in Taszar, Hungary, where these troops were trained, called for accommodations for 3,000 men. The need for extraordinarily careful vetting, coupled with the slow churning of the vast Pentagon bureaucracy, limited participation. But the numbers reflect no lack of enthusiasm. Thousands of Iraqis in the United States applied to join the FIF--some were rejected, others were bogged down in process and simply never made it to review.

That's a shame. The Iraqis who made it back to their native land are spread throughout the country--from Umm Qasr, to Najaf, to An Nasiriyah--and are contributing to the war effort in valuable ways: reassuring a panicked population in the south that food and water are on the way; helping compile a "blacklist" of Baath party members and Saddam sympathizers who will be prosecuted after the war; describing the underground bunkers that protect the regime; educating military police in the ways of Islam to help them better handle prisoners of war; giving the precise location and capacity of a water plant near Basra. Two Free Iraqis Forces soldiers identified a tattoo on the arm of a captured Iraqi as the mark of the fedayeen--Saddam's death squad irregulars. Another was speaking to a relative on the street in Umm Qasr when two would-be suicide bombers heard him describing his duties in Arabic and, comforted by the presence of a fellow Iraqi, surrendered. The list goes on.

The stories of these Iraqis--each of whom fled Saddam's regime, many with a bounty on their head--are extraordinary. Anyone who wonders what Iraqis think of the war of liberation need only listen to these men.