NEWS: An Iraqi InterpreterÂ’s Story

POLITICS: An Iraqi Interpreter’s Story

“Please, sir, can you help me? I must work with Americans, because my psychology is demolished by Saddam Hussein. Not just me. All Iraqis. Psychological demolition.” – Iraqi woman to New Yorker reporter George Packer.


“The Hammer,” Titan Company Badge # S-10296

Iraqis who are not American citizens and who work as interpreters for the American military cover their faces when they work outside the wire. Mahdi Army militiamen and Al Qaeda terrorists accuse of them of collaboration with the enemy. They and their families are targeted for destruction.

Here is an interview with one such interpreter who works with the 82nd Airborne Division in Baghdad conducted by Michael Totten. The interpreter calls himself “Hammer.”

MJT: Why do you work with Americans?

Hammer: When I was 14 years old all I liked was American cars and American movies. America was my dream. It was a dream come true when the United States Army came to Iraq. It was a nightmare in 1991 when they left again.
Maybe someone will think IÂ’m lying, that IÂ’m just saying this. If my friends say something like Russian weapons are the best or German cars are the best I say, no, Americans are. Everyone who knows me knows this about me.
If anyone says Arabs will win against the U.S. they are wrong. The leaders donÂ’t want to be like Saddam. But if the US leaves Iraq it will be a big failure, especially for me. I donÂ’t want to see this. Never.

MJT: Do you like working with Americans?

Hammer: A lot. Especially when I go outside the wire. I feel like a stranger here. When I go back inside IÂ’m home. I have no friends outside, only family. When I go home I stay in my house. I donÂ’t go out on the streets.

MJT: Why donÂ’t you have any friends?

Hammer: I donÂ’t feel like I belong to this society. They think like each other, but they donÂ’t think like me. I canÂ’t continue with them.
I like to know something about everything, to learn as much as I can. In Iraq if you know too much they will laugh and call you a liar.
When I was 20 I liked American music. They donÂ’t like it. (Laughs.)
I donÂ’t like Saddam. I hate his family.

MJT: Why do you have to cover your face?

Hammer: To protect my family. My family lives in Iraq. If they go to the U.S. I wonÂ’t have to do it. But I donÂ’t want anyone to know me, to follow me and see where I live and kill my wife and son.

MJT: How did you feel when the U.S. invaded Iraq?

Hammer: Happy. It was like I was living in a jail and somebody set me free. I donÂ’t want Saddam ruling me. Never. I was just waiting and waiting for this moment.

MJT: What do you think about the possibility of Americans leaving?

Hammer: It is like bad dream. Very bad dream. A nightmare. Worse than that. Like sending me back to jail. Like they set me free for four years then sent me back to jail or gave me a death sentence.

MJT: Tell us about living under Saddam Hussein.

Hammer: It was crazy life, like feeling safe inside a jail. If they sent you to an actual jail nothing changed. They arrested everyone, literally everyone, for no reason and sent them to jail for two weeks just so they could see the jail.
I went there three times. The first time because I worked for a movie company. They sent all of us to jail. It had nothing to do with me.
I was given a three year sentence. My family has money, so I paid the judge 50,000 dollars. I gave it directly to the judge, plus four new tires for his car and a satellite TV. He gave me a three month sentence instead of a three year sentence. He scratched “3 years” off my sentence and wrote “3 months” in by hand.
They sent me to Abu Ghraib. I saw so many things. If you want me to talk about that I would need a whole newspaper.

MJT: Tell us a little about Abu Ghraib.

Hammer: On the bus to the jail I didn’t have handcuffs. I asked why. The guard said “Look behind you.”
The first guy behind me got a 600 year sentence.
The next guy got six hanging sentences.
The third guy was sentenced to be thrown blindfolded out of a second story window. Twice.
Another guy f*cked his mother and sisters three times. He was freed on SaddamÂ’s birthday.
Another guy had his hand cut off.
There was this last guy. He went to the market with his wife. She waited in the car when he went to buy something. When he came back to the car his wife was screaming. Two guys were in the car with her. One held her arms and the other was raping her. He grabbed his AK-47 and chased them away. They ran to their car and he shot them. Their car blew up. They were mukhabarat [SaddamÂ’s secret police]. He got a death sentence. On his second day in Abu Ghraib they killed him and sent the mother- and sister-f*cker free for the fourth time.
The guards who ran Abu Ghraib sold hallucinogenic drugs to prisoners for money. They forced me to take them.
You need protection in there. You find someone and give him drugs and cigarettes. You pay off the guards to just punch you in the face or move you to a different cell instead of kill you.
I was freed 26 days after I arrived, on SaddamÂ’s birthday before I finished the three months.
I canÂ’t live with this nightmare anymore.

MJT: WhatÂ’s it like out there now for the average Iraqi?

Hammer: If you give average Iraqis electricity right now it will be enough. This is the most important thing. Give them power for seven days in a row and there will be no fights.
After the US came and Saddam fell they earned 3 dollars a month. Now they earn between 100 and 700 dollars a month.
Giving them electricity would reduce violence. If you donÂ’t believe me, ask yourself what would happen to this Army base if the power was cut off forever and the soldiers had to spend the rest of their lives in Iraq. Do you think these soldiers would still behave normally?
Iraqis are paid to set up IEDs. They do it so they can buy gas for their generator and cool off their house or leave the country. Their hands do this, not their minds.
TV is the most interesting thing to Iraqis. They learn everything from the TV. Right now they only have one hour of electricity every day. Do you know what they watch? Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera pushes them to fight. If they got TV the whole day they would watch many things. Their minds would be influenced by something other than terrorist propaganda.
Right now they have no electricity. They have no dreams. Nothing. And Saddam messed with their minds. For more than 30 years he poisoned their minds.
You canÂ’t understand Iraq because you canÂ’t get inside their mind. When you get inside their mindÂ…it is a crazy mind.

MJT: Why is Iraq such a mess? Is it the AmericansÂ’ fault?

Hammer: No. You canÂ’t blame it on the Americans. Iraqis are number one at fault for this mess. They are greedy and will do anything for money. They are like people who were in jail for 30 years, were suddenly set free, were given money, then had their money taken away. What will they do next? They will kill for money. They are selfish.
They got selfish from Saddam. Iraqi people used to be different. I am the same person I always was, but most Iraqi people are different now. They feel that no one will help them so they help themselves.

MJT: Is there a solution to the problem in this country?

Hammer: Nuke Iraq.

MJT: Be serious.

Hammer: I am serious. If you screen all Iraqis, 5 million of them would be good people. Clear them out, then kill everyone else. Syria and Iran would surrender. [Laughs.]
Right now they see 100 corpses every day in the streets. ItÂ’s not okay to kill the bad people who do that?
Ok, if you want a serious solution try this:
Charge money to the families of insurgents. Fine them huge amounts of money if anyone in their family is captured or killed and identified as an insurgent. Make them pay. You can put it into law. Within one week they wonÂ’t do anything wrong because they want money. Their families will make them stop.
The militias pay them 100 dollars to set up IEDs. Fine them thousands of dollars if they are caught and their families will make them stop. Give them that law. Go ahead. Try it.

MJT: What will happen if the Americans leave next year?

Hammer: Rivers of blood everywhere. Syria and Iran will take pieces of Iraq. Anti-American governments will laugh. You will be a joke of a country that no one will take seriously.
I will kill myself if it happens. I am completely serious. The militias will hunt down and kill me and my family. I will beat them to it by killing myself.
I worked for the U.S. government for four years. Everyone who works as an interpreter for four years and gets a signature from a General or a Senator gets a Green Card. My hope is to get this somehow. I will do anything for this.
I am doing this for my son. Everything for my son. I donÂ’t want my son living here getting into religion and militias and Al Qaeda. I want my son to be free, to have a girlfriend, to get married, and to be a good citizen.

MJT: How often do you get to see him?

Hammer: Two days a month. Sometimes two days every two months. I leave this base without my uniform and dress like them, wearing filthy jeans and a t-shirt, so they donÂ’t know I work here. Then drive to my house and hug my wife and son.

MJT: What does he want to do when he grows up?

Hammer: He wants to be an American soldier. He has his chair in his room with an American flag on it. Has a toy M-4. He has a little uniform that I got at the P/X.
When he sees Saddam he curses Saddam. I never told him to do that. He does this himself. When he holds his toy gun he says he will kill the insurgents. He wants to go to Disneyland. His hero is Arnold Schwarzenegger – not the Terminator, but Arnold Schwarzenegger. He has all his movies.
Bill Gates is my hero. [Laughs.]

MJT: Do you ever get death threats?

Hammer: Seven times. Once I had to sell my car because of it. Some come from Shia militias, others from Al Qaeda. I had two IEDs in front of my car and was shot at with an RPG when I was working in Kirkuk for Bechtel at an oil plant.

MJT: Why is there peace in Kurdistan but not in this part of Iraq?

Hammer: The Kurds got rid of Saddam earlier. They fought against Saddam just like the Shia fought against Saddam, but the Kurds won their war and the Shia lost. In 1991 the Americans were heroes to the Kurds, but they disappointed the Shia and left them to Saddam. They were not reliable. So the next time, in 2003, some Shia thought they should get help from Iran. They know Iran is not going anywhere. Iran is a more reliable ally than the Americans.
The Shia never forgot being abandoned by the Americans. They talk about this all the time, still. They know the U.S. will leave Iraq and they will face Al Qaeda alone.
Shia people here are very simple, very easy. They are easy to control. They donÂ’t need too many things. Just electricity, rights, a decent life, a good opportunity to get a job.

MJT: Would it be possible to flip the Shia supporters of Moqtada al Sadr into supporting Americans instead?

Hammer: Yeah, itÂ’s easy. Just give them those things. You will push away all the reasons for this trouble. 16 percent of the Shia support Moqtada al Sadr. They have no education. They donÂ’t know what to do. I know how these people think. Give them a good reason to join your side and they will do it.

MJT: What is the worst thing you have ever seen in this country.

Hammer: 60 guys from Al Qaeda kidnapped an interpreterÂ’s sister. She had a baby boy, six months old. They raped her, all 60 guys. Then they cut her to pieces and threw her in the river. They left the six month baby boy to sleep in her blood.
We found him on a big farm south of Baghdad. All that was left was his legs and his shoes. The dogs ate him.
I donÂ’t want this for my family.
These people are like animals who came from another planet.

MJT: What is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen in this country?

Hammer: In all my life? When I was seven years old I heard the sound of wild pigeons every morning. Then something happened and I never heard them again.
Then, on the morning of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, I heard the pigeons again.
Really, I am not joking. I can see you donÂ’t believe me, but I am not faking it.

MJT: What is the most important thing about Iraq that the Americans donÂ’t understand?

Hammer: DonÂ’t just open the jail after 25 years. Let people out step by step. Iraqis need rehab. Give them instant direct freedom and they are going to go crazy. ThatÂ’s what the U.S. did.

MJT: Will the Americans win this war?

Hammer: I hope itÂ’s going to happen. But itÂ’s not going to happen if the Americans keep doing what they are doing unless they are a lot more patient.

MJT: Anything you want to say that I didnÂ’t ask you about?

Hammer: Because of the few bad Iraqis who work as interpreters for the U.S., no one trusts us. But if you give me a gun I will fight harder than the Americans. You can go home. I canÂ’t. I have to live in this country. If the Americans donÂ’t give a Green Card to me and my family, I have to stay in this prison.
At Camp Taji the First Cavalry Division thinks interpreters are the enemy. They decided that interpreters who arenÂ’t American citizens have to take the American flag off their uniforms before they are allowed to enter the dining facility.
I cried that day.
I wasnÂ’t supposed to, but I complained. I said ItÂ’s okay for me to die outside wearing the American flag, but I canÂ’t eat wearing the American flag with Americans? That was the worst day of my life with the American Army.
IÂ’ll tell you what I tell my family. If I die here, wrap me in the American flag when you bury me. I donÂ’t want to be wrapped in the flag of Iraq.

Hammer is looking for employment in and permanent relocation to the United States for himself, his wife, and his son. If you can sponsor him for a Green Card and help save his family, email him at superlink_par@yahoo.com and superlink_70@yahoo.com.

I hope this guy doesn't get fucked yet again. Seems like he's had his fill of fucking for this life.

Great job, Michael.

i feel sympathy for the guy, but he seems very much to be the nerd aching to sit at the popular table.

by "popular table" do you mean the one that doesn't get bombed?

He's risking not just his life, but the life of his family, when we withdrew from Vietnam -- not everyone we worked with made it over - but many more thousands did. Sweden is helping more Iraqis.

yeah, I'm thinking he's not so much the nerd as he is the poor kid from the other side of the tracks that gets beat up every night aching to have a proper chance at life. In a situation as dire as his it's no less unreasonable for him to dream of being an American, symbolic of success and wealth, than it would be for him to simply dream of being an Iraqi with half as much as he perceives Americans to have.

Well, after all the crap Hammer's been through I can understand why he's being such an ingratiating suck-up. American cars better than German, hah... ahem. In any case, you've got to take into account that he'll say whatever he thinks will improve his chances of getting his family out of there.

Reading this story made me realise something. The one thing I would like to see more than America pulling out of Iraq is watching America get it right. The latter option just never occurred to me until now because it has never seemed feasible.

Can we hear from an Iraqi who wants America out, next?

I don't think there are any. I think they all love us and want us to stay forever and ever.

I didn't hit my fucking head, did I?

You think he's the first guy to fall in love with a romanticized version of America?

He's actually risking more than the US troops over there right now. If a US soldier is killed over in Iraq his family isn't raped, cubed and thrown into a river.

You think America has problems right now in Iraq? Where would we be without the ability to communicate with Iraqis beyond the walls of our bases?

I admire this guy, and if anybody deserves refugee status back in the US - its interpreters like him. And I'm a guy who has wondered since about 9/13/01 why the leaders of America were talking Iraq instead of Afghanistan.

His story almost brings me to tears seriously. I feel for the guy. I hope he gets the chance to have a better life. Everyone deserves that chance.

The US and the British bombed the fuck out of Afghanistan on October 7th 2001 and many many times after that.

yep. lots of stories like this. but we didnt think this all the way through, like hammer said. it's how things go. a good portion of the society operates off of the principles of greed and revenge. they aren't exactly healthy principles in regards to nation building, or nation re-building. generals have gotten replaced for saying that. it just happens to be the truth. but solutions to the problems, well, those might be more difficult to come by than imagined.

is you suspicious of your interpreter? just curious. they all can't be of the same stock, but it makes me sick to think that what could become of them if their stories end badly.

My point was just to say that I understood a campaign in Afghanistan, but I never did understand the reason for Iraq. However, now that we're dug in over there we are morally obligated to do the right thing for the people that are doing right by us.

Yeah, I can see where providing more hours of television will enable Iraqis to dream:
-Jessica Simpson
-Malibu lifestyles
-NYC restaurants
-Clear waters and tall mountains just for the taking

I feel sorry for this guy because we are taking advantage of some nerd in love with America and asking him to risk his life; a life that appears to be completely different from most of the Iraqis he describes.

I'm not always in favor of what Michael writes, but he usually puts more effort into presenting his "Lifestyles of the Poor and Infamous."

WTF?

> If you give average Iraqis electricity right now it will be enough.
> This is the most important thing.
> Give them power for seven days in a row and there will be no fights.

You know... I think this is the truest thing anyone has said about the war. Why can't we do this? Why is the power situation so bad it's been removed from the daily public reports? This is how to "win the hearts and minds" people!

> Charge money to the families of insurgents.
> Fine them huge amounts of money if anyone in their family is captured or killed and identified as an insurgent

Damn. I do think this guy has it on the ball.

He wants to live life like a rockstar

nevermind

you misunderstand me.

I find it a little depressing how he has such a romanticized of the US.
But i was talking more to the point, that he keeps getting beat down, even by his "friends", and yet he still goes through it for something he will discover is not all he thought it would be.
He's been beaten up and disappointed by life so much, that the idea of him being disappointed again makes me cringe.
He felt so bad that the people in the mess hall rejected him, how is he going to feel when he gets to his promised land, and a whole neighbourhood rejects him?
It seems he's risking so much for people that (it seems) don't give a rat's arse about him.
That's what's striking me.

If his family were living in America, he won't need to cover his face at work to prevent their being murdered. What a nerd for wanting such a thing. What a nerd for coming across as being obsessed with a chance to live without that fear. Seriously, that's a total dork move.

If I had the means, I'd hire Hammer.

good interview. Hammer sounds like a lot of Iraqis in his hyperbole. It's not that they are lying straight out...they just embellish and try to be MORE sincere, if you can get what I'm saying.
but the core of what he is saying in a lot of cases sounds familiar...the distaste for the average Iraqi, the belief that if life would improve for Iraqis that they would put down the guns (most of them) and go back to normal life.

he reminds me of an interpreter we had in Al Anbar named Marcel. great guy. he went home on a three day pass. some guys showed up at his house and told him to come with them or they would come in and massacre him and his family. we found his body about a week later.
these guys really do work in extreme danger and threat to their families. I hope we don't screw them over.

first and for most i am a american soldier in the first cav div and and i love some iraqis but not all i feel for most of them but i think that is life u live and let die and i would more or less fight for my country and his so we all can be free from tragicy and all have the right to live under one flag or another but i do not want my freedoms taken away and yes interperters have the right to a green card after four year the thing is that u have to let ur family sit without u for a year i know that sucks cuz i have been away from mine almost a year now without seeing them and 2 weeks ain't shit when u have to come back here and smell them iraqis and the streets the trash the dirt in my eyes and the poor lil kids goin mister mister and bringing there hand up to there mouth like they want food it is sad i love kids but i can't show my heart here cuz i need my body and mind tough like rocks and he just needs to tought it out yes i get to go back home and eat good food like mickey d's and hooters and shit but if u reaally look at it atleast there not fucking just runing amuck like a bunch fucking animals but in some places they are animal and us fighters have to treat them like it u have to make them fear u and if they don't and they raise a gun toward u it ain't goin to be at a interperpter it is at my head and to me that is ground for 2 in the chest and 2 in the head fuck them and i see us leaving sad to say but the iraqi police and iraqi army needs to learn from us and kick ass and take names like us we have lost to many good soldiers over here

Interesting read. The more you hear about those types of experiences.. the more clear the picture of life under Saddam was really like.

However, if the US doesn't Succeed, then it will be a super fucked up mess.

And yes... the sudden departure from Vietnam left many people who aided the US fucked.... some took boats off the country and were later killed and sold off by pirates.

A lot of atrocities certainly happened under Hussein, but I have a hard time taking this guy seriously and don't find most of what he said to be credible. Hammer comes off as an arrogant teenager trying to make himself sound more important than he really is.

wow, I hope it works out for the guy and his family.

I would too if it got me a ticket out of that hell hole.