The Capital Times: Muhammad Ameen and his six-month-old son Becker.

The Capital Times: "Rob Zaleski: Iraqi here: Get GIs out
He cites blunders, says that's best option
By Rob Zaleski
November 14, 2005

Muhammad Ameen and his six-month-old son Becker. (Photo by David Sandell/The Capital Times)
About Rob
Rob Zaleski is a 32-year veteran of the news business. His columns appear every Monday and Wednesday in the Communities section.

It could have worked.

That's the first thing Mohammed Ameen wanted me to know as we settled into our chairs at an east side cafe last week.

Had the U.S. military not made a monumental strategic blunder, it might well have succeeded in rebuilding war-torn Iraq and transforming it into a democracy, he says.

But because the U.S. military made no attempt to seal Iraq's borders for at least a year after the March 2003 invasion, it blew any chance it had of succeeding, says Ameen, a 52-year-old Kurdish Iraqi who owns Ameen's Persian Rugs on Sherman Avenue.

Indeed, there are so many insurgents in Iraq today and the situation's become so bleak that the Bush administration really has only one option at this point, Ameen says. It should heed the advice of U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., announce a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and start the process as soon as possible.

"I feel sad that this happened, real sad," says Ameen, who's lived in Madison since 2000 and has returned to Iraq eight times in the last two years to assist in the rebuilding effort.

It's especially sad because U.S. troops have actually accomplished quite a bit, says Ameen, whose family ran a lucrative carpet business in Baghdad that dates back to 1875. They've rebuilt schools and hospitals and apartment complexes. They've spent billions repairing roads and bridges and other infrastructure.

But along with its failure to seal the borders, the United States made two other critical mistakes, Ameen maintains. It didn't fully comprehend the impact of killing thousands of civilians. And it made little effort to win the trust and respect of the Iraqi people.

For example, unlike the British, very few U.S. troops in Iraq speak Arabic, Ameen points out. And two years after the invasion, they still don't understand the culture.

"You can't sit in a restaurant and stare at a married woman" as some U.S. troops do, he says.

Things have gotten so ugly, Ameen says, that even many Iraqis who celebrated when Saddam Hussein was overthrown are demanding that the Americans get out.

But wouldn't a U.S. withdrawal lead to civil war?

Possible, but not likely, says Ameen, who is Muslim and has a degree in political science from Mustansiriyah University in Baghdad.

"I think the Iraqis will actually hash this out amongst themselves," he says. "It will be much better than now, because the only thing happening now is that U.S. troops are getting killed."

Ameen says the situation began to deteriorate in the summer of 2004, when the first rash of car bombings and kidnappings occurred. And since it's widely known in Baghdad that he's an American - having left Iraq in 1975 - Ameen says he and his family were among those targeted. Even though, he adds bitterly, he personally helped hundreds of Iraqis find jobs over the last two years.

In June 2004 his 9-year-old nephew was abducted, he says. Three months after that, two of his nieces - 10-year-old twins - were kidnapped. And this June another nephew, 27, was abducted. All were eventually returned for ransoms, Ameen says. But his family was so rattled it has since fled to Jordan.

For Ameen, the most harrowing moment occurred in September 2004 when - while driving a U.S. military official through Baghdad - his vehicle was ambushed by a group of insurgents armed with AK-47s.

"We were in a big (Chevy) Suburban, and they destroyed it. I don't know how we got out alive," he says.

But not all the news was grim.

In the midst of the chaos, Ameen met an Iraqi woman named Eman Heyes and married her in Baghdad on July 31, 2004. (It was the third marriage for Ameen, who has a 24-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old granddaughter in Madison.)

Nine months later, Eman gave birth to a boy, whom they named Becker.

On Oct. 8, Ameen brought Eman, 35, and their 6-month-old son to Madison.

Several days later, Ameen - who owns a home near Warner Park - noticed his young bride standing in the yard watching the leaves fall.

When he asked her about it, she explained that from the time she was born, all she'd known was fear and war.

"She told me, 'All my life, this is how I imagined heaven would be. When the leaves fall, they don't make any noise - exactly the opposite of the bombs.'"

E-mail: rzaleski@madison.com

Published: 9:43 AM 11/14/05"
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