Get out of my house, shrieks the Iraqi woman

“What are you doing in my house?” screamed the furious Iraqi woman as she walked in on a group of American and Iraqi soldiers who were crashing around her living room after kicking down her front door.
“Get out, get out,” she shouted in broken English, shaking her fists in rage at the troops who had frozen as if caught in the act of doing something naughty.
Surveying the damage, the woman shrieked: “Are you happy now?”
American soldiers, and increasingly their Iraqi counterparts, have been conducting house-to-house searches since the invasion, checking neighbourhoods for weapons, insurgents, dead bodies and kidnap victims in a bid to quell the violence that has consumed Iraq.
Hoping to cause minimum inconvenience, the military has softened its approach, always knocking on the front door of a house and waiting to be shown in.
Many homes in dangerous areas, however, are empty after the occupants fled the escalating violence, leaving the soldiers with no option but to break open the front gate and bust down the front door, either with a boot or a crowbar.

Unfortunately on this occasion last Thursday during a search through Saydiyah, a flashpoint mixed Sunni and Shia neighbourhood in southern Baghdad, the owner of one rundown house that had appeared unoccupied showed up after her door had already been knocked in.

The woman, an English teacher who declined to give her name, had just returned with her elder daughter from spending the annual Muslim feast of Eid al-Atha with her husband and the rest of her children in a safer part of Baghdad. The majority of the family had left Saydiyah earlier in the year because of a rise in killings by al-Qaeda fighters and armed Shia gangs.
“Why did you break down my doors?” she demanded of the American soldiers who had stopped rummaging through the family’s belongings to explain themselves.
Lieutenant Ryan Harmon, aged 24, who was leading the patrol tried to reassure her that his men were just doing their job hunting for criminals and weapons caches.
“Yes your doors are broken and I am sorry, but up the road people are being killed,” he said, speaking through an interpreter. The previous day a similar patrol had found six dead bodies in a nearby street as well as a suicide vest, a kidnap victim and some bomb-making equipment.
“We are here to help. We are here to search for bad people,” said Lieutenant Harmon.
“The quicker people like you start to help us the better,” he said, adding: “We apologise and we will fix your door. You have my word. But you must try to help.”
As this exchange was going on, the 29-year-old daughter, a doctor at a university hospital in Baghdad, knelt in tears on the floor of her bedroom, which had been turned upside down.
“This is my work. I kept it here because I thought it would be safer than at the hospital,” she told me, staring in despair at an avalanche of documents and scattered files.
“Oh my god, oh my god,” she said, speaking in fairly fluent English, holding up three bottles of blood samples that were an important part of some research she was doing.
“I feel very angry. I want to kill everybody who did this. Feelings are not repaired by money.”
As I, who was embedded with the patrol, and the soldiers filed out of the front gate, which had not been broken, the teacher muttered in Arabic: “May God send all those people to hell.”

[Picture 1: Iraqi soldier takes the lead scrambling over the front gate of the teacher's house;
Picture 2: Iraqi soldiers try to kick open the front gate of a house in Saydiyah (this sequence of three pictures was taken from a search the previous day with a different platoon);
Picture 3: An Iraqi interpreter for the US forces helps with kicking down the gate;
Picture 4: Gate broken the troops enter the house;
Picture 5: The ransacked bedroom of the Iraqi doctor, her mother ranted at the US and Iraqi troops;
Picture 6: Two American soldiers break down a door inside a house in front of the family after the father of the household was unable to produce a key to open it (these two pictures was taken during a search the previous day to illustrate the wider process involved in searches when there is no other way to open a door or gate);
Picture 7: The soldiers continue to break through the door.]

Comments

[daphne sayed]

Couldn't the Amis be better at checking for no occupation and why upend all the Dr's files? I saw the Amis in action when they occupied West germany. Either they have no brains or share a collective cell.Incidents like this are outrageous.

[jean jaures]

Although you seem like a nice young woman, I find your blog articles somewhat superficial and self serving. It's obvious you cannot report anything of substance for fear of, understandably, losing your life beyond the "green zone". But I'm sure readers are hungry to hear something deeper than getting a phone call from your friend at a Rugby Club, or whether there are real Pine trees in Baghdad for Christmas.

Mind you too that you're in a Muslim country, so why should Christmas be there celebrated like the west? So typical of the west, particularly the Brits and Americans who tend to equate those different from them as inferior. And you wonder
why the Iraqis abhor the U.S and the British?

[Ryan Harmon]

The pictures shown here do not match the story. The story the reporter is writing on invovles my platoon, too bad none of the pictures here are soldiers in my platoon. The pictures here were taken the day before my platoon entered the women's house at a location where extremely dangerous houses were. The reporter took pictures from a different house, one which was already runn ruffshod by AQI and JAM members using these houses to store weapons and bomb making material to kill and injure local Iraqis and security forces in the area. Yes, my platoon broke 3 doors of the women's house, but that was it. The rest of the house was left as is as we searched. The women was hysterical and demanded we pay her 1 million american dollars for her doors. I asked one million dinars to clarify, and she said no, one million american dollars. Lastly, the following day while this reporter was safely outside saydiyah, an Iraqi soldier was killed from a house borne explosive device along with two american soldiers recieivng concussions from the blast. 5 iraqis were found dead inside. And a women wants a million dollars for 3 wooden doors? She lacks perspective and an honest sense of what is truly going on in her city and with the iraqi people

[Adam Drew]

I have to disagree with both Daphne and Jean. Although I can understand the annoyance and possibly hate thrown at troops in these situations, both us at home and the people experiencing it must take into account the fact that these soldiers' actions are being done in order to save lives, and to bring a halt to terrible violence. Although it is understandable to be annoyed at the ransacking of your home, surely it can be tempered with the knowledge that similar actions throughout your area are serving the greater good.

As to the fact that people are complaining that this blog is useless in coming terms with the actual events that people are interested in back home, this is absurd. This entry for instance allows insight into relations between troops and locals and shows what they're doing on a micro scale rather than macro troop movements that are normally all we here.

I wish you the best with your work and thank you for your efforts so far.

[Geoff]

Seriously, citizens of Baghdad whose only semblance of security and freedom is explicitly due to American forces, no need to thank us...

[Deborah Haynes]

Dear Lt Harmon,

In response to your post, the first picture is of American soldiers in your platoon -- or at least the soldiers who were out with us that morning when I was with you. According to the order of pictures on my camera the gate that the Iraqi soldier who is with them is climbing over belongs to the house of the teacher. I clearly say that the next three pictures are of another gate in Saydiyah being knocked in. Finally the picture definitely is of the daughter of the teacher's bedroom. She showed it to me while you were talking to the teacher. She said she had left the room in good order to spend the Eid celebrations with the rest of her family and returned to find it the way it was.

Ultimately, I tried to give a balanced and accurate account of what I saw. I used the sequence of three photographs of a gate being knocked down to illustrate what is done when it is not possible to find a key to a locked gate and there is nobody at home.

Deborah

[Steve Kelly]

Jean Jaures,

There is a difference between blogging and reporting. You're getting the two mixed up.

Personally I really enjoy blogs like this one as they provide a more personal, behind the scenes, account of what it's like to work in Iraq. If this is too "superficial" for you go and read the Economist.

By the way, Iraq has a Christian minority and they celebrate Christmas much as we do in the dreaded West, with Christmas trees and decorations and services at Christian churches.

Using phrases like "nice young woman" is obviously an attempt at feigning superiority but only succeeds in making you look silly.

Hats off to anybody who takes on the enormous challenge of reporting from Iraq and carries it out honestly. It must be very tough but it's important and we need people out there telling the stories, even if ability to move about is limited.

Keep up the good work, Deborah. Take care and happy new year to you.

[Asim]

Lt Harmon:

Initiative is called for. Teacher makes a point.

Thanks.

[Jackie]

My husband is in picture number 6 the two guys breaking open the door.He's the one with the crow bar and the green backpack.What's wrong with you?I know the whole story behind this one.I used to be in the unit.I was actually the first female in the unit.

[Deborah Haynes]

Dear Jackie,

Thank you for your post as well. Again, I used the two photographs of the soldiers hacking through a door to illustrate the wider process of house searching. I do not say that the pictures were from the teachers house. I will re-edit the picture captions on the blog to make it completely clear the pictures from the teacher's house and the pictures from the general search. (The new text will be in brackets). In your husband's case, the owner of the house (or at least the man of the family we found living there) is standing to their right out of shot watching as the two soldiers break through his door (which opens out on to an indoor balcony)because he did not have a key on him. His wife and children are sitting downstairs.

Deborah

[Chris Williams]

Lt. Harmom,
Ignore the all the rif raf. You guys are doing a tough job in an even tougher environment. Anyone who says " we want you to get the bad guys to keep us safe but don't damage any property of hurt anyone's feelings" is nuts. I was a cop for over 7 years and I know what it is like to kick in a door not knowing who or what is on the other side. It makes me sick to know they are making you guys knock (ok bad guys we are out here and we are about to come in so get your guns ready). Don't worry about these political correct folks around the world. Keep up the good work and keep your heads down.

[Susan]

Geoff: The lives of Iraqis and their culture and their cities have been destroyed by the USuk invasion. Iraqi teenage girls who blog say that their country is no longer their country and that the lucky ones are the ones who are dead.

Now, would you thank anyone for doing that to your country?

[Susan]

Jackie - what did they accomplish by busting up that door?

nothing positive, as far as I can tell

[Susan]

Here is an Iraqi's report on the aftermath of a home "search"

http://last-of-iraqis.blogspot.com/2008/01/where-is-truth.html

By the way, if you read Iraqi bloggers these types of stories are not unusual, although the damage done in this home is more than typical.

[wildor vedrine]

i know that we are doing our jobs but remember those people know whats going on with there country they like it we cannot free a few and then say that we are helping them they dont need our help. thats the way they live they life we cannot come and go into these people last privite place of peace in the name of safe. they know what the deal is . why try to help people that hate us thats the real question. why are we there

[Chris, Vancouver]

Harmon, why don't you go back to the US where you belong

>She lacks perspective and an honest
>sense of what is truly going on in
>her city and with the iraqi people

It appears that the Iraqi people don't want you invaders. They were obviously more secure under Saddam than under you invaders. Go back to where you came from.

[john]

it's great that we can get first hand details of what really happened and what was really said/asked from one of the soldiers. Appreciating the dangers of being an embedded reporter it would be far better for them and surely their ownconsciences to report the whole story rather than the biased version which we read above.

[Pete Cavaciuti]

Susan, you posted "what did they accomplish by busting up that door?
nothing positive, as far as I can tell", it would have been a different story and you wouldnt have posted if there had been one or more teenage boys held captive prior to a possible horrible torture and excecution or a wepons cache behind the door. As they are not given a map of kidnappers hidey holes they have to check several properties for each "find".

[Chris Simeone]

LT,
I saw the same reporting errors when I was there for the invasion. The press contingent (Brian Williams) reported after the mission and none of the soldiers involved could believe the twisting of the real story in order to make it what they wanted. Until you are invloved and see this happen, you can never understand the manipulative power of the press. The viewpoint of Canadian Chris reflected by his previous post cannot be obtained by facts and experience but is a product of a couch potato being influenced by cable television.

[Iraqi in Europe]

How sweet that the americans are trying to save us after they raped our country, raped our women, burned down our cities with their bombings, did one human rights violation after another, and now they are walking around trying to tell people that they are here to help them. Its much like the Gestapo knocking on your door in Paris in 1941, asking you to be a good citizen and help the police. The Iraqis do not want you americans there, get out of our country! The british left Basra and violence went down massivly, if you read statistics, the majority of Iraqis dont want you there, the majority of violent acts are comitted against american soldiers (in the same time hitting innocent civillians), I have lost 7 family members in the hands of the americans, 2 children in my famiyl died because of the sanctions!! 4 died in the bombings of Baghdad, and 1 went "missing" after Falluja! You swine, I hope you do burn in hell after you pay every iraqi 10 million dollars for every hair you dented on their head you rascist.. il hold my tounge now.

[Julia Iskandar]

Thank you, Deborah.
When read together with the numerous reports of US soldiers trashing Iraqi antiquities because they don't care about them and don't want to know about them, your report is even more important. Iraq, and the whole Middle East, is full of ordinary people just like us, whose prime concern is to make a living as decently as they can, and to protect their families from hostile intrusion. The US "default mode" of "we had to destroy the village to save it" is grossly misplaced most of the time. The lethal kindergarten of "bad guys (them) vs "good guys" (us) of wilful cultural ignorance doesn't work. It never does: It's an American fantasy made flesh. "What if strangers broke your own door down and trashed your house, just because they can? How would you feel? Most other people(s) are just like yourselves. Discuss."

[Colin]

Chris,

I'm interested to see your solution to the situation in Iraq? Do you honestly believe that the situation would improve if the coalition forces left?
I really do feel for the Iraq people and the suffering that their country is going through. I also believe that Deborah's blog is a great source of information. It gives a great personal insight into her experiences there.

Keep up the good work.

[Michael Gillespie]

Searching is one thing, ransacking is another. A search for weapons can be accomplished without careless, thoughtless destruction and without leaving the home owner's or occupant's belongings in such disorder.

The problem, though, is not search procedures. The problem is that the U.S. government had no right and no good reason to invade in Iraq in the first place. Illegal, immoral, unjust, unnecessary, and unwinnable preventive wars of choice cannot be successfully managed. Nor can unpopular military occupations. The only viable approach to solving the problem is for the U.S. government withdraw military and mercenary forces Iraq as soon as possible, while taking what steps it can to repair the enormous damage U.S. military intervention has caused there. Clearly, much of that damage cannot be undone. For instance, hundreds of thousands of innocent dead cannot be brought back to life. But to the extent that it is possible to assuage the justified anger of Iraqis, the U.S. government should attempt to do so.

[Taavi Tillmann]

Dear Mr. Williams,

"It makes me sick to know they are making you guys knock. Don't worry about these political correct folks around the world."

Innocent until proven guilty. Perhaps disbelief in this principle is the reason why you had to leave the force...

With respect,

[I am that I am]

Mr Policeman above wrote this:

" Lt. Harmom,
Ignore the all the rif raf. You guys are doing a tough job in an even tougher environment. Anyone who says " we want you to get the bad guys to keep us safe but don't damage any property of hurt anyone's feelings" is nuts. I was a cop for over 7 years and I know what it is like to kick in a door not knowing who or what is on the other side."

You sound real intelligent Mr. Policeman of only 7 years. Has it occurred to you that we are not at war? That only Congress can declare war? That this invasion is illegal, unconstitutional, and breaks international law? That our occupation is no better than what the Germans did in WWII?

Our family fought in the wars up to Vietnam. Our country's people are tired of tyranny at home and globally by our so called leadership. We have a country of traitors and global elitists.

And you kicked doors in? I hope you had a warrant and followed the law.

At this point and time, our leaders should be arrested and tried as war criminals. Pretty much all of them.

And for the soldiers... You are as guilty as the leadership for following the illegal orders.

Vote Ron Paul, not that we count, but at least we can make a statement.

The United States has gone to hell.
Yet our fearless, lawless, and disrespectful leader, who was never voted in to office in the first place, continues to ramble on about doing even more war crimes against humanity.

911 has questions to be answered as well. And the people DO want answers.

Me