The War That Never Ends

In Southern Iraq, local tribal leaders have sorted out property disputes and murder cases for centuries without the help of police and courts. So when Sheik Mohammed al-Ebadi got a call from a British officer to help defuse a riot in Majar al-Kabir, northwest of Basra, he drove there, fast. As he approached the village, he saw British paratroopers engaged in a fierce fire fight with locals armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. The locals, enraged by reports of heavy-handed searches carried out by British troops, had attacked a patrol. When the fighting was done, four Iraqis had been killed and 17 wounded, including a 12-year-old boy. The British had said they needed al-Ebadi's help in rescuing six military policemen who were holed up in the local police station. By the time he got there, it was too late. The British MPs were dead. Some had been shot in the face; others had gunshot wounds stretching from their fingertips up their arms. "They were executed," al-Ebadi said.

It is a measure of the challenge in Iraq that the killings at Majar--the deadliest event involving coalition forces since the end of the war--probably had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein, his family, his supporters, former members of his army or militias, foreign terrorists or anyone else who might be included in that overused phrase "bad guys." Majar is in the homeland of the marsh Arabs, Shi'ite Muslims who, after years of oppression, hate Saddam passionately. That doesn't make them any less dangerous--especially since Iraq is one of the most heavily armed nations on Earth--when crossed. The British died, al-Ebadi thinks, in compliance with old local customs. British troops killed Iraqi civilians, so Iraqi civilians killed other British troops. "In a tribal society," says al-Ebadi, "justice is simple."

Bringing peace to a ravaged land is not. Before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, Lieut. General John Abizaid, who will soon take over from Army General Tommy Franks as head of the U.S. Central Command, said there is widespread local support for the coalition presence in Iraq. That support will grow, Abizaid said, "as we build governmental institutions that are good for the future of Iraq." But reaching such a happy consummation will not be easy. "If Jesus Christ or Muhammad or Yahweh decided to come back and make all the decisions, we'd have maybe a 65% chance of succeeding there," said Senator Joseph Biden last week, shortly after returning from Baghdad.