Driver’s story offers insight on Iraq

Salam is free.

My Iraqi driver, unjustly imprisoned for nearly two years because he helped U.S. troops bust radical Shiite killers, has left jail. He was freed by an honest judge, but he immediately had to go into hiding.

Salam’s story offers disturbing insights into Iraq’s politics and likely future in the same week when the last U.S. combat brigade left the country. His experience lays bare the best of today’s Iraq — and the worst.

Despite continued terrorist bombings, Iraq is far more stable than during the horrid civil-war years of 2005 to 2007. Most Iraqis don’t expect a return to sectarian bloodshed; Iraq’s sect-based militias have dispersed, and its internal quarrels have shifted to the political arena.

But, five months after parliamentary elections, in which no party won a majority of seats, the political factions still can’t form a government. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite whose Rule of Law bloc was barely edged out by the Iraqiya coalition, refuses to relinquish his post. So far, his stubbornness has blocked any power-sharing arrangement.

Politics in Iraq is still seen as a zero-sum game: Once you lose power, you can no longer siphon off oil riches or be sure your enemies won’t throw you in jail.

“There is no program for managing the country and no trust,” said Ali Allawi, a former finance minister who left the country in frustration. “Maliki and his people absolutely don’t want to give up power,” and his (mostly Sunni) Iraqiya opponents are determined to retake power. In the meantime, Iraqis go without security, jobs, and basic services such as electricity — in 110-degree heat.

Many Iraqis with whom I’ve spoken fear Maliki wants to establish a dictatorship-light after the remaining 56,000 U.S. troops exit by the end of 2011. They say he rarely reaches out beyond a close circle of members of his Dawa party, who distrust other political factions. (This Shiite party’s conspiratorial worldview was shaped by decades in underground opposition to Saddam Hussein.)

Maliki has put a top Dawa aide in charge of Iraq’s key intelligence agency and other party members in senior military positions. Many Iraqis refer sarcastically to the “Arab Socialist Dawa Party,” a play on the name of Saddam’s Arab Socialist Baath Party.

Given Iraq’s dismal political past, other opposition groups aren’t necessarily more democratic. Certainly not the Iraqiya bloc, which contains many former Baathists, or the Shiite religious group of Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militia killed thousands of Sunnis during the civil war.

This brings me back to the sobering story of Salam. He was arrested in December 2008 because he had tipped U.S. troops about Mahdi Army militiamen who’d been killing Sunnis in his district. A secular Shiite, Salam had rallied Shiite and Sunni neighbors to keep his mixed neighborhood safe.

When U.S. troops pulled back from Baghdad, one Mahdi Army family sought revenge: It used personal connections with senior Shiite military and intelligence officers to get Salam arrested. An honest judge freed him after a year’s imprisonment, but men in Iraqi army cars immediately grabbed him. He was tortured at an army base and thrown back in jail.

This month, another honest, independent judge threw out the bogus charges. A senior army officer tried to get the verdict reversed, but the judge held firm. This took immense courage, since many Iraqi jurists have been killed in the last seven years.

However, Salam’s two sons — arrested on bogus charges brought by the same Mahdi Army family — remain in jail, although he hopes the courts will soon free them. And Salam himself is moving from house to house for fear of assassination by former Mahdi Army hit men, or by military officers who worry he will expose their crimes.

The good news is that there are honest judges who will stand up against pressure. This provides some hope that judicial institutions will improve, although thousands of Iraqis still languish in jail on fake charges.

But Salam’s story also illustrates the politicization of the military and intelligence services, where officers are often chosen by sect or political party. Such a military could splinter in the future, or be used to back a dictator as U.S. influence wanes.

Some Iraq experts, such as Daniel Serwer of the U.S. Institute of Peace, believe the United States must “figure out ways to guarantee a democratic system,” reassuring Iraqis a dictatorship won’t reemerge and convincing their politicians it’s safe to give up power. Indeed, the U.S. Embassy is trying, with expanded civilian staff, to strengthen Iraq’s political and judicial institutions.

But that isn’t likely to save Iraqis like Salam, caught between a suspicious government, vicious militia remnants, and corrupt military officials. He can live safely only when politicians like Maliki shift their focus from grasping power to helping their country.

“Only ordinary people support me,” Salam told me by phone last week, as he tried to figure out how to save himself and his family. More than seven years after we invaded Iraq, an Iraqi who helped U.S. troops and opposed sectarian killing still can’t live a peaceful life.

— Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial board member for the Philadephia Inquirer. trubin@phillynews.com