http://www.sunspot.net/news/nationworld/bal-te.families13jul13,0,3181665.story?coll=bal-news-nation
He showed up at the eastern Baghdad police headquarters early one morning to apply for a position. Several hundred other unemployed men had arrived ahead of him. And they were furious.
Like Samir, they had paid 2,000 dinar, about $1.30, for a barely legible photocopy of a single-page letter, addressed to the general manager of Baghdad's eastern district police.
"Dear Sir," the letter began in Arabic. "Please give me permission to be hired as a policeman, noticing that I have a degree from ______ and was born on ______. The decision is up to you, sir." There was a place for the applicant's name and signature.
Jobless were tricked
American soldiers from the 204th Military Police Battalion were guarding the police headquarters. They said they couldn't accept the forms. No one was hiring, they said.
"They lied!" screamed a man in line. "They let us pay money. And we don't have any money. Now every time we come, they tell us to come tomorrow!"
The men pressed forward, shouted and threw rocks. The MPs confronted them with a 50-caliber machine gun and bayonets fixed on their rifles.
An officer with the 204th blamed Baghdad's police chief. "He promised to consider applications, and sold letters to these people," the officer said. "But the Iraqi police are not in a position to hire."
Bewildered, Samir retreated to a spot a block away.
The protesters, meanwhile, blocked a car carrying Iraqi police. Rocks flew, striking the rear windshield. Four Iraqi policeman scrambled out. One fired his pistol in the air.
A Humvee carrying U.S. soldiers tried to push through the crowd. Rocks flew again. About two dozen American MPs ran forward to rescue the vehicle. Iraqi police followed them, firing their guns in the air, like cowboys in a Hollywood western.
Finally, the Americans forced the crowd back. Retreating, the job applicants began chanting, calling for the return of Saddam Hussein.
............
On the banks of the Tigris, Ibrahim had been inviting U.S. officials into his home. He tried to persuade them to stop the de-Baathification drive and to worry more about the influence of Iran.
His attitude toward the Americans has changed. He can almost date it. On June 25, three gunmen in a truck confronted an engineer in charge of electricity distribution in northern Baghdad and shot her dead.
"Saddam used to use electricity to punish some areas and reward others," Ibrahim explained. "Everybody working in the electricity sector is a Saddam crony. It's not just the first-level people, but the second- and third- and so on, all the way down."
Dangers of talking
And now there were the rumors circulating among Iraq's intellectuals and well-to-do: Cooperate with the Americans and become a target of supporters of Hussein.
Ibrahim survived three decades of Hussein's rule, and as a soldier he was wounded by a sniper and by rocket fire. He lived through the bombing of Baghdad by the United States, twice. But he decided that talking with foreigners was a risk he was no longer willing to take.
"I don't want any contacts with Americans anymore," he said, anxiously. "They are watching people who meet with them."
And he closed the big steel gate to his family's home.