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Authors: Lewis Alsamari
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West.”
On other occasions, Taha would ask me in more detail about whom I knew in England, and about the lifestyle, and he would listen to my answers with what seemed to me to be great interest. I would be asked to translate songs and news programs, and I gradually became aware of the fact that I was turning into teacher’s pet. My interviews did not go unnoticed. My colleagues started to tease me—“Hey, don’t mess with him. He’s got special contacts now!”—and even the
arifs
started to treat me with less disdain, clearly unaware of the content of our conversations.
Some time after our first meeting, I was summoned to see Taha once more. He had in front of him a file that he casually flicked through. “I see you live in Al-Mansour,” he commented.
“Yes, sir.”
“How would you like the opportunity to be based back there?”
I felt a shudder of excitement. “I would like that very much, sir.”
“Excellent,” replied the officer. “Then you will be pleased to hear that I have arranged for you to transfer to the military intelligence compound. I’m sure they will find your skills to be of great use.”
Al-Mansour military intelligence compound was a stone’s throw from my grandparents’ house. The officer was offering me a ticket out of the unit I hated so much, straight into the arms of my family. It was very rare for a soldier to be transferred to intelligence—the privilege was almost unheard of for a lowly recruit like me. As a member of
Al-Istikhbarat,
the intelligence services, I would occasionally be allowed to wear civilian clothes and would start to earn a decent wage. If I worked hard, I could even become rich, driving expensive cars and brandishing exotic weapons just as I had seen important people in Baghdad do. I don’t deny that I had sometimes considered that path—in a society where power was everything, everybody dreamed of having a little. The only way you could ensure a high standard of living for yourself and your family was to become part of the system, a cog in the massive machine of terror that Saddam had constructed to keep himself in a position of omnipotence.
But I knew my success would come at a high price. No doubt they wanted me for my interpreting skills, so that I could listen in to Western messages intercepted via radar and satellite and translate them for my superiors. But inexorably I would be dragged into a den so deep I might never come out of it. Al-Mansour was a fearsome place, and those who worked there more fearsome still. As a member of military intelligence, it would not even be called into question that I would betray my friends, even my family if need be, for the greater good of the country and its glorious leader. The transfer was a prison sentence in itself, one that would last for the rest of my life as I was turned into the very symbol of everything I wanted to escape.
Indeed, escape would be farther from my reach than it had ever been. As it stood, the dangers involved were too terrible to think about; but if a member of the intelligence services was caught betraying his country, the consequences were unimaginable. If I was caught absconding from Al-Mansour, I would be tortured and killed, certainly, but the retribution would not stop there. Whether the authorities apprehended me or not, they would without question go after my family. My parents and grandparents would undergo horrific cruelty—they would perhaps even be murdered—and I could not be sure that my little brother and sister would not be brutalized in some way.
These were not idle fears: they were part and parcel of life in Iraq—accepted facts that touched every family across the land. I remembered talking to my friend Kamall one day. The heat of the summer was beginning to subside, and heavy clouds in the distance threatened one of the tumultuous deluges that sometimes fell upon Baghdad, turning its wide streets into rivers. Out of the blue, I decided to ask Kamall the question
On other occasions, Taha would ask me in more detail about whom I knew in England, and about the lifestyle, and he would listen to my answers with what seemed to me to be great interest. I would be asked to translate songs and news programs, and I gradually became aware of the fact that I was turning into teacher’s pet. My interviews did not go unnoticed. My colleagues started to tease me—“Hey, don’t mess with him. He’s got special contacts now!”—and even the
arifs
started to treat me with less disdain, clearly unaware of the content of our conversations.
Some time after our first meeting, I was summoned to see Taha once more. He had in front of him a file that he casually flicked through. “I see you live in Al-Mansour,” he commented.
“Yes, sir.”
“How would you like the opportunity to be based back there?”
I felt a shudder of excitement. “I would like that very much, sir.”
“Excellent,” replied the officer. “Then you will be pleased to hear that I have arranged for you to transfer to the military intelligence compound. I’m sure they will find your skills to be of great use.”
Al-Mansour military intelligence compound was a stone’s throw from my grandparents’ house. The officer was offering me a ticket out of the unit I hated so much, straight into the arms of my family. It was very rare for a soldier to be transferred to intelligence—the privilege was almost unheard of for a lowly recruit like me. As a member of
Al-Istikhbarat,
the intelligence services, I would occasionally be allowed to wear civilian clothes and would start to earn a decent wage. If I worked hard, I could even become rich, driving expensive cars and brandishing exotic weapons just as I had seen important people in Baghdad do. I don’t deny that I had sometimes considered that path—in a society where power was everything, everybody dreamed of having a little. The only way you could ensure a high standard of living for yourself and your family was to become part of the system, a cog in the massive machine of terror that Saddam had constructed to keep himself in a position of omnipotence.
But I knew my success would come at a high price. No doubt they wanted me for my interpreting skills, so that I could listen in to Western messages intercepted via radar and satellite and translate them for my superiors. But inexorably I would be dragged into a den so deep I might never come out of it. Al-Mansour was a fearsome place, and those who worked there more fearsome still. As a member of military intelligence, it would not even be called into question that I would betray my friends, even my family if need be, for the greater good of the country and its glorious leader. The transfer was a prison sentence in itself, one that would last for the rest of my life as I was turned into the very symbol of everything I wanted to escape.
Indeed, escape would be farther from my reach than it had ever been. As it stood, the dangers involved were too terrible to think about; but if a member of the intelligence services was caught betraying his country, the consequences were unimaginable. If I was caught absconding from Al-Mansour, I would be tortured and killed, certainly, but the retribution would not stop there. Whether the authorities apprehended me or not, they would without question go after my family. My parents and grandparents would undergo horrific cruelty—they would perhaps even be murdered—and I could not be sure that my little brother and sister would not be brutalized in some way.
These were not idle fears: they were part and parcel of life in Iraq—accepted facts that touched every family across the land. I remembered talking to my friend Kamall one day. The heat of the summer was beginning to subside, and heavy clouds in the distance threatened one of the tumultuous deluges that sometimes fell upon Baghdad, turning its wide streets into rivers. Out of the blue, I decided to ask Kamall the question
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