Making Haditha safe from car-bombs

[Soldier4Christ]

Making Haditha safe from car-bombs 
How U.S. Marines license vehicles in Iraqi-style DMV operation

It's Tuesday morning, and the 5th battalion 10th Marines out of Camp Lejeune, N.C., are up early and won't be returning to their 'racks until very late.

By 0700 (7 a.m.), Iraqis have begun to form lines in the waiting area just in front of the Civilian Military Operational Center, or CMOC, set smack dab in the center of downtown Haditha, directly across the street from the mayor's office.

The Marines had pinned tarps from the rooftop to the gates, so the growing line would have a bit of comfort. As the temperatures rise, a Marine hands out bottled water. Between the dirt-filled Hesco barriers and the C-wire (concertina wire, a modernized and much more effective version of barbed wire), the outside waiting space offers few places to sit. Iraqi women are led to the front of the line so they won't have to wait among the men.

Those who have come are mostly men, and they are mostly there for something regarding their automobile.

Car bombs are a major concern in Haditha. But since the 5/10 Marines began to register vehicles and issue a type of driver's permission, the little town with the big dam has settled down.

Chief Warrant Officer Harold Kiser led me to a series of drawers filled with thick folders of paperwork. There was information on the description of automobiles, proof of ownership and, most important, the permission to drive in town.

It works like this: If you intended to drive in the area, you had to obtain permission, which just meant getting an ID card. But unlike American licenses, these were not cards with a simple photo on the front and a mailing address. These were high-grade biometric cards: eye scan, fingerprints and a series of failsafes to prevent counterfeits.

There were also a few other features not typical of American identification, like tribe affiliation.

The Saddam era jinsia (Iraqi ID) was a problem, as those cards were easy to falsify. And though there are constant attempts to create fake biometric cards, the Marines seem to be one step ahead of the ID game.

Once a resident obtains an ID card, he also receives a letter that allows him to drive his specific vehicle for up to 10 days. On that temporary letter is a list of his passengers (I have yet to see a female behind the wheel), and if any of them are over the age of 16, they should also posses a biometric ID card.

If all went well, after the first week the Iraqi would return for a second and third letter. If there was no incident, the final step was getting a numbered sticker allowing the driver to drive in the area.

If this all sounds like an enormous amount of bureaucracy – and it is – I spoke to some Iraqis who told me the Saddam system was far tougher.

"You didn't always know what you had to do to get paperwork. The Marines make it clear," said one Haditha resident through a translator. He was waiting for his card while the Marine gave him directions for the eye scan – in Arabic.

The end goal was to get all persons over a certain age photographed, but the big exceptions to the rule of mandatory IDs were the women, who because of watchful relatives shy away from being photographed.

The long female traditional garb presents a security threat in a country where suicide bombers have either posed as women or have actually been of the fairer sex.

The lionesses, a nickname given to female Marines specially trained to search female Iraqis, are an example of how the military has adapted to the situation on the ground.

Female Muslim Iraqis are a bit of a mystery, especially outside the major cities. Once they reach puberty, they are confined to the home where they live in entirely separate quarters. Completely garbed from head to toe, one soldier said "T and A" in Iraq means teeth and ankles, the only thing an outsider may see, if he cared to look.

Once the lionesses have isolated the women from their male family members, Iraqi women have proven to be a rich source of information. Tired of male-dominated violence, the women have tipped off the military about potential attacks and have even helped to locate insurgents.

On top of all their other duties, the 5/10 Marines have organized outreach programs for female and child healthcare.

cont'd

[Soldier4Christ]

Despite having few bodies, the 5/10 Marines were self-sufficient and very tenacious. I've met the Marines of this civil affairs unit throughout Anbar province. They were the glue between the military and the civilian population and crucial to the Anbar success story.

Even if keeping records on all the vehicles circulating in town seems like a consuming and tedious process, it has literally saved lives.

"We've had wanted terrorist suspects literally come in hoping to get new IDs," Kiser said. As an artillery officer, Kiser's idea of deployment had more to do with bursting shells than running what is essentially, among so many other things, the Haditha Department of Motor Vehicles, but the Arizona native who now considers Tennessee his home is multi-talented.

When Kiser is not busy dealing with confiscated car keys and fake jinsia IDs, he attends meetings with the town council or reviews contracts for public works. His nickname, MacGyver, means he is the go-to man for everything from plumbing to electricity. On his off hours, Kiser was helping to work on the office wiring.

With hundreds of thousands of Iraqis leaving some areas for others, the population of Haditha has been on the rise. A recent report put the number of "internal refugees" as high as 2.5 million – nearly 1 out of 10 Iraqis leaving homes to relocate. Haditha, with its dam that supplies much of the electricity to the Anbar province and sections of Baghdad, has been experiencing a new type of boom.

"Iraqis are welcome to live and stay in Haditha," said the mayor, "just as long as you have no evil intentions."

The population increase has meant an increase in requests for vehicle registrations. At the end of the line, Marine Sgt. Jeremiah Saunders issued what every Haditha motorist desired – the sticker that allowed a vehicle to circulate freely.

This meant a lot of work for the 5/10 Marines, the least of which was regulating the flow of traffic near the base parking lot.

"Sometimes, they'll run out of gas while they're here, so you'll see them push the car off the lot," Saunders told me.

Due to ankle surgery and the scheduling of his former units, Saunders had never before deployed to Iraq.

"When I heard there was a possibility, I didn't care, I just wanted to go," he said, leaving his normal job in supply and attaching to the 5/10 civil affairs unit for a year tour. Since then, his duties in Haditha and the surrounding area have involved everything from issuing the official vehicle window sticker to transporting billions of Iraqi dinar for the neighboring bank.

"I'll probably get a degree in business at some point," the 29-year-old said.

But how many young, aspiring business-major students can say they have approved contracts for municipal electricians?

"We used to do the vehicle registration five days a week, now we pretty much limit it to one big day," said Sgt. Russell Mullis, who told me he "most definitely wanted to be here." It seems that every unit has its funny guy, and for the moment, Mullis filled that post with early-morning voice imitations of popular films characters.

Like his roommate, Sgt. Saunders, Mullis was not too picky about his assignment in Iraq. "Don't' care where or what, just as long as I'm going," he said.

Mullis told me about his recent "libo," or leave, when he got to go back to the States.

"The stewardess thanked me for serving and everyone at the gate started clapping when the Marines got off the plane," he said. His father, a Vietnam veteran, told him it was different for his buddies.

"When I got home on leave," Mullis said, "I didn't want to have a schedule and run around town, I just wanted to be on my Mom's couch."

I've heard other servicemen and women say the same thing about the time they get to visit home before returning to duty. Going home for a couple of weeks after being in Iraq can be overwhelming when everyone wants to ask questions and take up precious time.

During their leave away from Iraq, most troops just want to relax, to live by their own schedule. After all, the greatest thing American men and women in Iraq give up is freedom, the ability to decide on their own.

Mullis, a graduate of Ledford High School, was already considering how his tour to Iraq had changed him. He said he was learning how to play the bagpipe and wants a "digital desert kilt" to match the Marine uniform worn in Iraq.

"A lot of Marines have died to bring security to this area," said Chief Warrant Officer Kiser at the end of a long busy day, when we finally had a moment to talk. He had completed 16 projects with 10 more pending, and had to oversee millions of dollars for issues ranging from sanitation to the quality of city roads. I asked him what was his greatest obstacle.

"Getting my Marines home alive," he said, without a hint of hesitation.