‘Police and Thieves’ in Iraq
When we were little kids growing up in Iraq, the best game was "Police and Thieves."
To play the game, we would hold a lottery to divide ourselves into two groups. The losers would have to play the "thieves," and they would have to be ready to "die," in addition to a miserable day of teasing.
The lucky group was the policemen – they would be happy all day and would show off as if they had done something great.
Those who had some sense of honor would usually just quit, preferring not to play that day rather than submit to those rules.
In order to play the game, the two groups needed to be clearly divided: the police, who would well-armed with toy guns, and the thieves.
But what if you omit the word "and" from between the name of the game: "Police and Thieves?" You get one word for the new Iraq: "PoliceThieves."
Recently, while I was helping to report the Saddam trial for NBC, I was in a coffee shop, talking to other Iraqis about what they thought of the trial. I noticed a young man who was both hesitant and eager to approach me.
He finally came to me and said, "I'm Hussein Jaafar, an organ player, and this is our office," pointing to some shuttered doors. Jaafar was sad. He was looking for someone to talk to about his problems, so we sat together at a coffee shop located next to his office.
"I have a problem with the Ministry of Interior's Wolf Brigade [special police commandos]," said Jaafar.
I told him, "Your problem is with the police, and it's not my business."
"Yes, I know, but when the police become thieves and rob me, what can I do? Who will listen to me? Your door is the only one I could knock on," he said.
ID check gone wrong
At first, I thought he was mad or drunk. But the pain in his eyes and the fire in his speech made me listen to him as he began to tell his story.
"Last night, around 7:30 pm, my cousin and I were going back home after we spent a nice time in our local coffee shop, playing billiards," Jaafar explained, clearly with pain in every sentence.
Police at the checkpoint called to them, "Hey, guys, come here."
Jaafar and his cousin obeyed, expecting the police to check their IDs - a common practice now in Iraq.
"I was going to pick up my ID, but they were quicker than me. They threw us into the back of a pick-up truck, pushing my face onto the floor and pulling my hands up to my shoulders," said Jaafar. "I tried to ask them, ‘What's up?’"
"Don't talk. You will see what we're doing," the policemen said.
Then, according to Jaafar, the police drove him and his cousin around Baghdad and he could hear them talking to one another. "What do you think we should do to them? Make them disappear?" Another policeman said, "No, let's split them up and get rid of them separately."
After about one hour, the car stopped under a bridge. According to Jaafar, he and his cousin were taken out of the truck and realized they were in Al-Sanaq, a commercial district which was empty at the time because it was 9:00 pm, and there was a curfew.
"Come on, take out your money, cell phones, watches, whatever you have," the policemen said to Jaafar and his cousin.
"They took everything but our clothes," said Jaafar, adding that they were then left to walk almost three miles home.
'Who will protect us?'
"You see, I'm just a lost party today," said Jaafar, looking sadly at the closed doors of his office. His cell phone was his only link to getting work. He paused and sighed loudly, his mind clouded with questions, "Who will protect us? Who do we answer to? If the police acts like that, where can we go?"
My answer was silence.
I thought to myself that unfortunately this is the condition for many Iraqis, when their homes, cars, or belongings are searched by this particular security force, the Wolf Brigade. Before the war, many of the men in this force were in prisons like Abu Ghraib for committing crimes like murder, drug dealing, and robbery.
Now after the war, these same people are free and, because they are seen as heroes for surviving prison under the Saddam regime, they have been given priority when they apply for the new Ministry of Interior jobs.
"I will keep working and try to restore what I have lost," said Jaafar, trying to regain some hope. "But certainly those people will lose everything, and jail will be their end."
* The names of NBC local journalists in Baghdad are not being used in order to protect their identity and security.
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