Choosing Sides

Meet Abu Mujhid:

"Wait fifteen minutes," Abu Mujhid says after looking at his watch. Sipping a 7-UP soda after having broken his Ramadan fast just after nightfall in mid-November, Abu Mujhid -- not his real name -- has just been challenged by a reporter to prove he commands a resistance cell that performs violent attacks on American troops occupying his home town of Baghdad.

Yup, according to UPI, the individual calmly sipping the un-cola with ace reporter P. Mitchell Prothero is a "top member of an anti-U.S. Iraqi guerrilla group"

Sixteen minutes after Abu Mujhid told UPI to wait, four mortar rounds fired from a southwestern Baghdad neighborhood about 3 miles away flew overhead, landing in the compound of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.

"God willing we hit something this time," he says, wryly smiling. "Our mortars are very inaccurate. We cannot wait to aim them, so we use timers.

Bet the farm: He said "Allah" but the UPI "translated". Also note the mortar timing was off by a minute. Let's read more from our intrepid freedom fighter:

"Saddam, I liked him. He was a strong leader," he says.

"But I was in the Baath Party and I knew that his men, mostly even Saddam's sons, were corrupt. They stole and stole from the Iraqi people.

For a minute I'll pretend a this former Baathist has repented from his sins and now wants a free Iraq, and ask why he's turned against the Americans, who want the same thing:

"They promised to liberate us from occupation, they promised us rights and liberty and my colleagues and I waited to make our decision on whether to fight until we saw how they would act."

But for Abu Mujhid and his men these things never materialized.

Ahhhh, he got tired of waiting. After all those years of Saddam's rule I guess he's used to things being done quickly. Now nearly 40 weeks after the invasion he's not satisfied with the rate of change.

"They should have come and just given us food and some security," he said. "Even today I feel like I cannot drive my car at night because of Ali Baba (the Baghdad slang for criminals)."

"It was then I realized that they had come as occupiers and not as liberators," he says. "And my colleagues and I then voted to fight. So we began to meet and plan. We met with others and have tried to buy weapons. None of us are afraid to die, but it is hard. We are just men, workers, not soldiers."

So, given the opportunity to fight back, instead of confronting that criminal element he attacks the US for supposedly allowing the criminal element to thrive.

Sorry, no ring of truth there. Abu is a man with an agenda. And he is certainly not concerned with security in Baghdad, of that we can be sure.

And what about Saddam? Isn't he concerned about working for Saddam?

"We are told that Saddam might be at the top of the organization," he says. "I don't know if I believe that but my colleague has seen Saddam," he said. "He comes to tell my colleagues to continue to fight. But we look at him as a strong leader. But we don't want him back."

But when asked if he thinks Saddam leads the resistance, he laughs.

"I think Saddam is too busy hiding," he says. "I think that the leaders above me are former generals who want to replace Saddam when the Americans leave."

"We actually took a vote at a meeting last week," he says, laughing. "If the Americans leave and Saddam comes back, we will fight him too. Maybe if he were elected we'd allow it. But no one in Iraq wants Saddam back. He turned into a thief and a murderer who made too many mistakes. We don't want Saddam, but American cannot occupy us any longer."

Well, maybe if Saddam comes back he'll be even angrier and you'll be first into the shredder, Abu-al-Einstein. But you've really been for him all along, haven't you? Something tells me you'd be first in line to kiss the soles of his shoes if he sat once more upon his golden throne.

Speaking of golden thrones, who's financing your group, Abu?

"We have to find ways to get our own money to buy weapons," he says. "The Baath Party members at the top were rich, but I don't think many of them help us fight. They don't send us money or weapons."

"I have friends and colleagues who fight with the Army of Mohammed (a cell based in the Western Iraqi city of Fallujah) and they have more money for anti-aircraft weapons and explosives. Sometimes they help us, but mostly we are left to our own," he says.

But one source of support has been foreigners from other Arab countries.

In earlier interviews, Abu Mujahid acknowledged that both Syrian intelligence and al-Qaida members were operating in Iraq against the U.S.-led coalition forces but denied he received direct assistance from them. But in later interviews, he said he received support from some people he suspects have ties with terrorist organizations.

"In my neighborhood, we have many students from Yemen, Syria and Jordan," he says. "Several of them give us money to buy weapons and conduct operations."

When asked if he thought these students were members or supporters of al-Qaida, he smiles and shrugs.

"How does a student living in Iraq get money to give to me to buy RPG-7s (an anti-tank rocket common in the region)?" he asks. "They have to get their money somewhere. The Syrian ones I think they get money from their government, but we get some money from Yemenis and Saudis. I think they must belong to al-Qaida to have such money. But I don't ask such things. I don't like Osama bin Laden and don't want to fight jihad against America. The Iraqi people just want the Americans to leave our country."

He has, however, used the money to send men to Saudi Arabia to buy equipment.

Not sure what equipment he's buying, but as far as that whole "killing GI's thing" goes, Abu wants his allies in America to know it's nothing personal:

"But my colleagues and I don't hate the American people or even most of the soldiers," he says. "We just want them out of our land. If they promised to leave in one month and hold elections we would put down our arms. I don't want to kill anyone else. I don't want American to hate Iraq. I would wait to see if they left."

"There have been some that say 'hello' or 'peace be unto you' in Arabic to me," he says. "They give our children sweets and do their jobs with respect. One of these men I even see as my friend. So we were conducting an operation, about to shoot at a Humvee one night when I realized it was the nice soldier. I told my man not to shoot him.

Do you really think "Peace be unto you" in Arabic will save our soldiers from these guys? I think our best defense is a good offense, like Operation IRON HAMMER.

"We have lost more men to these strikes and in arrests," he says. "One of our men was waiting to ambush a U.S. Humvee, when he was arrested. He was carrying a heavy machine gun, which is forbidden."

But not to worry, poor Abu has to cash for things other then "equipment":

But the man -- a guerrilla -- has a permit from the coalition to carry an AK-47 but was caught with a heavy machine gun. Abu Mujahid says his men paid an Iraqi translator $600 to replace the heavy gun with an AK-47 so their colleague can go free. Abu Mujahid expected the man to be released the next day.

Six hundred is big bucks in Iraq. By way of comparison,
(Reg req, use greyhawk and mudville)

FALLUJAH, Iraq – Like many Iraqi government employees, police 1st Lt. Ahmed Qassem faces a tough choice as he starts every workday: Stay at home and dramatically increase his chances of staying alive, or go to work and collect a $65 monthly paycheck.

With great reluctance, he chooses the paycheck.

Nice that the reporter has insight into the man's state of mind. But could it be possible that not everyone in Iraq choses to hop down Abu Mujhid's bunny trail?

"This is our job, our duty. If I could make money doing something else, I would quit today," he said.

Frightening, since the "opposition" has money.

Lt. Qassem is among the thousands of Iraqis trained and employed by the Coalition Provisional Authority, or CPA, the U.S.-led government that has kept Iraq running since the fall of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in April.

Read this next bit carefully:

"In my opinion, the one who resists the occupiers is good. It is the thieves and looters who are bad. Our job is only to fight the thieves and looters," said Fallujah police Sgt. Fuad Naameh.

Both he and Lt. Qassem stand guard each day outside the dilapidated building housing Fallujah's governing council, a U.S.-appointed body whose leader resigned last month after receiving repeated death threats. Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad, is a hotbed of support for Mr. Hussein.

"We're not cooperating with the Americans," Lt. Qassem said. "Whenever they come here, we leave because we know they are going to be attacked. I'm not saying they are the enemy, but they are the occupiers."

At 65 bucks a month, these officers are willing to stop thieves and looters but not the Abu Mujhids. And "cooperating with the Americans" is becomming increasingly dangerous.

Sheik Ihsan Mudallat, a leading Sunni Muslim cleric in Fallujah and a vocal supporter of the insurgency, suggested that anyone who works with occupation forces understands the risks.

"We don't want this government in Fallujah. We want our own government, one that rules all of Iraq," he said. Asked whether he regarded Iraqis working for the coalition as legitimate targets, he responded with a shrug and a smile. "Ask them," he said.

The answer from one senior official:

Gen. Ahmad Qadhim, the senior deputy interior minister, said he resented the notion that cooperating with occupation authorities somehow branded him as a traitor. He proudly displays photos on his office wall of himself next to senior U.S. officials, including Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary who visited Iraq in October and narrowly escaped injury during a rocket attack on his hotel. "We work with the coalition forces, but we do not work for them," Gen. Qadhim said. "I work for my country." Nevertheless, he said he has been the subject of death threats from Mr. Hussein.

He quoted the latest taped message purportedly from Mr. Hussein, received on Nov. 27, as saying, "We must go to Gen. Ahmad, destroy all of his buildings and kill him directly."

"I have 12 bodyguards. Saddam has 12,000. ... Here is my message to Saddam: Go ahead. I'm not afraid," Gen. Qadhim said. "OK, kill me. I do this for my country."

Men of Qadhim's caliber deserve our support. Were we to follow the advice of so many of Abu Mujhid's employers' allies in America, we'd be gone, and Qadhim would be fed feet first into the shredder by Mujhid, while Saddam looked on drooling.

U.S. Army Col. Ralph Baker, of the 40th Engineer Battalion based in Baumholder, Germany, suggested that the U.S. presence gives many Iraqi civilians cause for concern as they carry out their work alongside their foreign counterparts.

During a meeting two weeks ago of a district advisory council in central Baghdad, Col. Baker announced that the U.S. government had agreed to abolish the CPA in June, handing over full governing authority to Iraqis.

The council chairman, Abdul Amir Suaidy, said he welcomed the help Col. Baker and his staff had provided in organizing the council and insisted he was not afraid to die working alongside the Americans. Unless Iraqis cooperate and get to work on the thousands of needed reconstruction projects, he said, Iraq will be easy prey for its enemies. "They are afraid of democracy in Iraq," he said of the insurgents. "So they try as much as possible to prevent this democratic experiment from succeeding. ... We are not afraid. We know we are right."

The sides are chosen, the lines are drawn...