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But interviews with numerous Iraqis appear to confirm Dulaimi's view that accumulated individual humiliations over several months, rather than the recent Abu Ghraib publicity, have been a major cause of growing antipathy toward the occupation.
Jabar Jawal's case is typical. On June 18, a U.S. soldier helping to supervise the distribution of cooking gasoline was assassinated by a gunman who shot him in the back of the head at point-blank range. Within minutes, U.S. troops hunting the killer were swarming the nearby neighborhood where Jawal, a day laborer, lived.
Soldiers stormed through the dirt streets, kicking open doors.
Jawal and his extended family of 12 was home when the soldiers arrived. They ordered the women brought outside and pulled apart the house, dumping the contents of drawers on the floor, forcing open a dowry chest and even slicing some pillows. "I have no idea what they are looking for," Jawal screamed in Arabic as the soldiers left his house. He looked down at his elderly mother who was shaking and set his jaw in fury. "My mother is disabled, why did they make me take her out of the house?"
After a fruitless search, the soldiers learned from compatriots that the assailant had fled in a different direction. The soldiers rushed away without a word of apology or explanation.
The recurrence of such episodes was amplified by a report from the International Committee of the Red Cross this year that documented a wide range of humiliation and abuse by U.S. forces. The report noted that "ill-treatment during capture was frequent" and that it often included "pushing people around, insulting, taking aim with rifles, punching and kicking and striking with rifles." The report also noted that, by U.S. officials' own admission, between 70% and 90% of tens of thousands of detentions turned out to be erroneous.