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Authors: Wendell Steavenson
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blood-grimaced faces loomed destroyed in his dreams.
Chapter 5
YES, BUT
D R. HASSAN HAD REPEATED THE MANTRA THAT reassured many of his generation: âWhat could I do?â Certain questions or memories might induce a gut twinge, but the gall of participation was generally well insulated from accountability, wrapped in layers of âWhat could I do?â âBut I helped people, many people!â and âI suffered also, you knowâ; and the ultimate trumping: âYou cannot understand what it is like to live under such a regime!â
It was impossible to argue with these justifications. In Saddamâs Iraq the inculcation of fear and the (threat of) violence was very real. A misstep could kill you, imprison your wife, take your sonâs university place and your daughterâs marriage prospects away.
I met many, many Iraqis: army officers, doctors, university professors, translators, businessmen. I studied each face, listened to each story, weighed the balance of their pauses and sighs. I was mindful that my most important question, the question I had wanted to put to Dr. Hassan in Abu Dhabi, âDidnât you know? WHY?â was never answered. Each had their own permutation of indignation, explanation, rationalization. It seemed easy enough to blame Saddam, mad monster, instead of admitting that it took thousands of individuals to enforce his will;but I knew their remonstrations were valid. It was true what they said: I could not understand what it was like to live under such a regime. I could not judge them.
I met General Raad Hamdani in Amman in the summer of 2007. He had commanded the Second Republican Guard Corps until the fall of Baghdad in 2003. Hamdani was well read and intelligent and in conversations that ranged long over ten days of interviews, I discovered a variation on the default position of blame-shift: that of equivocation.
Hamdani was short and bullet shaped, with sloping shoulders and grappling arms that curved around a tough compact body. His big domed head was shaved, he wore a trim dark beard and his eyes stared out under a smooth ominous eyebrowless brow and bored intensely dark. He had been a tankist and looked like a ball bearingâuntil he put on a delicate pair of rimless spectacles and his arms uncurled and his mouth smiled and his eyes twinkled and he began to talk and quote Churchill and Sun Tzu and Montgomery. His mind was nimble and thoughtful; he analyzed. He would think through one of my probes into morality or psychology and answer, âYes,â¦but.â He employed this âYes,â¦butâ so frequently that when he used it, I would raise my eyebrows and smile at the old chestnut and he would smile back; it had become his catchphrase.
Hamdani owed his bookshelf and independence of thought to the example of his father. (âAn Eastern state of mind has a limited knowledge,â he told me, explaining, by contrast, the background and intellect of many of his generation of officers: âThe status of learning was low, the level of thought was not high, we were an educated generation, but half our fathers were illiterate.â) Hamdaniâs father had been a headmaster in Baghdad, but, in the turmoil and dizzy years of the sixties, was demoted by the Communists and then the Nationalists andthen the Baathies until he was just an ordinary teacher. In 1969 he retired and recused himself from the politicization of the classroom. It was the same year Hamdani found it necessary to join the Baath Party in order to continue his studies and commission at the Military Academy. His father counseled him on the choice that wasnât much of a choice. He told him he understood that his membership was important for his careerâalthough he had wanted him to become an engineer like his older brotherâbut that he should reflect carefully on the ideology put before him and think for himself about the content of party pamphlets and meetings.
Chapter 5
YES, BUT
D R. HASSAN HAD REPEATED THE MANTRA THAT reassured many of his generation: âWhat could I do?â Certain questions or memories might induce a gut twinge, but the gall of participation was generally well insulated from accountability, wrapped in layers of âWhat could I do?â âBut I helped people, many people!â and âI suffered also, you knowâ; and the ultimate trumping: âYou cannot understand what it is like to live under such a regime!â
It was impossible to argue with these justifications. In Saddamâs Iraq the inculcation of fear and the (threat of) violence was very real. A misstep could kill you, imprison your wife, take your sonâs university place and your daughterâs marriage prospects away.
I met many, many Iraqis: army officers, doctors, university professors, translators, businessmen. I studied each face, listened to each story, weighed the balance of their pauses and sighs. I was mindful that my most important question, the question I had wanted to put to Dr. Hassan in Abu Dhabi, âDidnât you know? WHY?â was never answered. Each had their own permutation of indignation, explanation, rationalization. It seemed easy enough to blame Saddam, mad monster, instead of admitting that it took thousands of individuals to enforce his will;but I knew their remonstrations were valid. It was true what they said: I could not understand what it was like to live under such a regime. I could not judge them.
I met General Raad Hamdani in Amman in the summer of 2007. He had commanded the Second Republican Guard Corps until the fall of Baghdad in 2003. Hamdani was well read and intelligent and in conversations that ranged long over ten days of interviews, I discovered a variation on the default position of blame-shift: that of equivocation.
Hamdani was short and bullet shaped, with sloping shoulders and grappling arms that curved around a tough compact body. His big domed head was shaved, he wore a trim dark beard and his eyes stared out under a smooth ominous eyebrowless brow and bored intensely dark. He had been a tankist and looked like a ball bearingâuntil he put on a delicate pair of rimless spectacles and his arms uncurled and his mouth smiled and his eyes twinkled and he began to talk and quote Churchill and Sun Tzu and Montgomery. His mind was nimble and thoughtful; he analyzed. He would think through one of my probes into morality or psychology and answer, âYes,â¦but.â He employed this âYes,â¦butâ so frequently that when he used it, I would raise my eyebrows and smile at the old chestnut and he would smile back; it had become his catchphrase.
Hamdani owed his bookshelf and independence of thought to the example of his father. (âAn Eastern state of mind has a limited knowledge,â he told me, explaining, by contrast, the background and intellect of many of his generation of officers: âThe status of learning was low, the level of thought was not high, we were an educated generation, but half our fathers were illiterate.â) Hamdaniâs father had been a headmaster in Baghdad, but, in the turmoil and dizzy years of the sixties, was demoted by the Communists and then the Nationalists andthen the Baathies until he was just an ordinary teacher. In 1969 he retired and recused himself from the politicization of the classroom. It was the same year Hamdani found it necessary to join the Baath Party in order to continue his studies and commission at the Military Academy. His father counseled him on the choice that wasnât much of a choice. He told him he understood that his membership was important for his careerâalthough he had wanted him to become an engineer like his older brotherâbut that he should reflect carefully on the ideology put before him and think for himself about the content of party pamphlets and meetings.
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