.Ramadi With a Swagger
RAMADI — “Let’s go,” the chief of police, Maj. Gen. Tariq al-Youssef, said when I expressed a wish to look around Ramadi. I did not express it to him, mind you. I was speaking to my colleague, having finished our interview.
The general, though, is a man who clearly takes charge, and in short order he pulled on his leather coat, arranged his black beret, and led us into the streets of a city once engulfed in a raging insurgency against the Americans.
General Youssef is a tall, dapper man, his moustache neatly trimmed in what I think of as the High Iraqi style. He has been the police chief in Anbar province for the last year, presiding over the uneasy calm that followed the Awakening, a movement of tribal leaders who turned on Al Qaeda and other extremists.
He used to work in the border police, on the Jordanian frontier, but he is close to the Awakening tribes and so returned here to his home, a cause of suspicion among other political parties and blocs in Anbar, including the Iraqi Islamic Party, which has been in power since 2005.
The striking thing to a correspondent newly arrived in Iraq is how easy it has become to move about, even openly, in places that had once been unsafe even with a military escort. The drive to Ramadi from Baghdad takes an hour and a half now. The highway west of the capital is punctuated by concrete checkpoints, both an inconvenience and a reassurance that security has returned. Some of the checkpoints are brightly painted, some decorated with bright plastic flowers.
Still, a foreigner does not wander about wantonly in Ramadi, and we departed his headquarters accompanied by a platoon of heavily armed officers. This moving scrum felt conspicuous, drawing stares from people making their way through the riotous bustle of traffic, pedestrian and vehicular. (In Iraq the line between the two is largely indiscernible.)
The general, though, wanted to assure me that it was safe, as any police chief would in his realm. He noted more than once that he was out in the street with no armored vest and no weapon except for the sliver-tipped baton called a swagger stick, appropriately so in his case.
We didn’t go far – just down one of Ramadi’s main shopping streets, strewn with litter but lively. The side streets have rivulets of waste water, but new signs hang over storefronts that were shuttered by fear only months ago. It is hardly ideal to interview anyone while being shepherded by an armed force, especially with the local police chief, whose mere presence can intimidate.
We ducked into a shoe store, owned by the family of Abdul Fattah, who is 23. As General Youssef picked up and caressed an outlandish, bright red women’s boot, Mr. Fattah explained that the shop reopened three months ago. His family had closed it when war raged in Ramadi’s streets, still piled with rubble in places. The store is now stocked to the ceiling. “We can start thinking about other concerns,” the young man said.
Business is not bad. The tenor of the election campaign – which has exposed deep political rifts here in Anbar – scared him but he said he now felt comfortable, even though the election’s results are being disputed. He felt so comfortable, in fact, that he explained that he had voted for the Iraqi Islamic Party, which has been calling for General Youssef’s dismissal.
That the young man could declare his political preference without fear of the police chief’s disapproval is, for Iraq, a measure of progress. The general wandered back out to the street, snatching handfuls of popcorn from a street vendor.
“We have good people here,” the general said. “People feel safe.”
Baghdad Bureau
The general, though, is a man who clearly takes charge, and in short order he pulled on his leather coat, arranged his black beret, and led us into the streets of a city once engulfed in a raging insurgency against the Americans.
General Youssef is a tall, dapper man, his moustache neatly trimmed in what I think of as the High Iraqi style. He has been the police chief in Anbar province for the last year, presiding over the uneasy calm that followed the Awakening, a movement of tribal leaders who turned on Al Qaeda and other extremists.
He used to work in the border police, on the Jordanian frontier, but he is close to the Awakening tribes and so returned here to his home, a cause of suspicion among other political parties and blocs in Anbar, including the Iraqi Islamic Party, which has been in power since 2005.
The striking thing to a correspondent newly arrived in Iraq is how easy it has become to move about, even openly, in places that had once been unsafe even with a military escort. The drive to Ramadi from Baghdad takes an hour and a half now. The highway west of the capital is punctuated by concrete checkpoints, both an inconvenience and a reassurance that security has returned. Some of the checkpoints are brightly painted, some decorated with bright plastic flowers.
Still, a foreigner does not wander about wantonly in Ramadi, and we departed his headquarters accompanied by a platoon of heavily armed officers. This moving scrum felt conspicuous, drawing stares from people making their way through the riotous bustle of traffic, pedestrian and vehicular. (In Iraq the line between the two is largely indiscernible.)
The general, though, wanted to assure me that it was safe, as any police chief would in his realm. He noted more than once that he was out in the street with no armored vest and no weapon except for the sliver-tipped baton called a swagger stick, appropriately so in his case.
We didn’t go far – just down one of Ramadi’s main shopping streets, strewn with litter but lively. The side streets have rivulets of waste water, but new signs hang over storefronts that were shuttered by fear only months ago. It is hardly ideal to interview anyone while being shepherded by an armed force, especially with the local police chief, whose mere presence can intimidate.
We ducked into a shoe store, owned by the family of Abdul Fattah, who is 23. As General Youssef picked up and caressed an outlandish, bright red women’s boot, Mr. Fattah explained that the shop reopened three months ago. His family had closed it when war raged in Ramadi’s streets, still piled with rubble in places. The store is now stocked to the ceiling. “We can start thinking about other concerns,” the young man said.
Business is not bad. The tenor of the election campaign – which has exposed deep political rifts here in Anbar – scared him but he said he now felt comfortable, even though the election’s results are being disputed. He felt so comfortable, in fact, that he explained that he had voted for the Iraqi Islamic Party, which has been calling for General Youssef’s dismissal.
That the young man could declare his political preference without fear of the police chief’s disapproval is, for Iraq, a measure of progress. The general wandered back out to the street, snatching handfuls of popcorn from a street vendor.
“We have good people here,” the general said. “People feel safe.”
Baghdad Bureau
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