Free We Meant Well by Peter Van Buren

work will not get done.’ It was all about money.”
    In time-honored custom, the two sheiks sought reconciliation by turning to a powerful middleman to mediate, local Iraqi Army General Ali, who commanded an entire tank division and so qualified to host the meeting. A successful reconciliation allowed both sides to not have to seek revenge to restore honor, as tribal custom would have required. Reconciliation proved successful enough that these two men shook hands and embraced. The General suggested making Sheik Aman a kind of council member emeritus, preserving his pension while upholding Sheik Yasser’s position as the new chair. It seemed like a happy ending.
    However, Sheik Aman showed up at the very next meeting acting as chair, claiming that under democracy he had the support of the people (i.e., a bigger tribe). After a distant relative of Sheik Yasser’s was killed accidentally when a magnetic sticky bomb accidentally affixed to the underside of his personal car went off, Sheik Yasser realized the need for an extended visit with family members resident in Jordan. Democracy is messy, said Don Rumsfeld. My next trip to the council chambers revealed new pictures of Sheik Aman everywhere on the walls posing with previous US military units, as well as with General Ali and his full tank division. Members of Sheik Aman’s tribe searched everyone entering the chambers. Sheik Aman assured us the precaution was entirely for our security.
    The meeting began with reports about electricity, water, and trash removal. The lack of electricity impeded water delivery because pumps were not pumping. Fuel to power generators that supplied electricity to the water treatment facilities remained scarce. Whether or not fuel was siphoned off prior to delivery or after delivery, the lack of electricity crippled essential services. Irrigation canals that used to deliver water to treatment facilities now provided only intermittent service. Farms went without water because pumps lacked the several hours of uninterrupted electricity needed to enable them to push water the distance necessary. Funding for trash collection had been delayed several months and the garbage was piling up. Sheik Aman asked for comments. One of the council members started to speak but was cut off by the sheik, who stated that comments were being solicited from the public and not from members. There were no comments from the public because the public was neither aware of nor invited to the meeting.
    Other council members spoke to us about the lack of any investigation by security forces after a bomb blast knocked out the street wall of the council building earlier that week, not that anyone was blaming Sheik Aman, who had been curiously called away just before the blast. What the living council members and Sheik Aman could agree on was a general sense of unease. US financial support was fading for the smaller, local projects they fed upon. Government of Iraq funding for necessary capital improvements was nonexistent, and even funding for critical essential services was unreliable. Adding to this was the sheiks’ worry over their precarious position as unelected local officials appointed by the US forces—all a hearty recipe for desperation. The council might attempt to seize US government–funded project assets just to create income, we were told, nothing personal. The council worried that US disengagement coupled with the absence of central Iraqi government initiative would cause an already boiling pot to spill over. On that we could agree, and hands were shaken and kisses kissed to end another successful reconciliation. Everyone hoped to be around for the next one.

Milking the US Government
    Counterinsurgency theory said that it was desperation and poverty that drove people into the arms of al Qaeda. Young men, faced with no economic prospects, no way to marry and raise a family, would be easy to recruit as suicide bombers. What else did