Lt. Lotfi Ali, right, helps carry away a tank shell that insurgents had set up to use a bomb in Baghdad.
Lieutenant Mahdi, front, and Lt. Hazim Khadem broke into a car in Baghdad to see if it held explosives.
Posted on 01/14/2004 9:14:53 PM PST by saquin
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 12 — The four police officers were squeezed into a small pickup truck, screaming down the highway from Baghdad at 90 miles an hour toward a bomb sighting, and they were happy.
They thrive on busy days, and today, the third call of the morning for the Baghdad police bomb squad had come in minutes before, at 11:20, with the usual sketchy information: possible explosives on the road south to Salman Pak.
For every bomb that kills Iraqis and coalition soldiers, many more are defused every day by the ordnance experts of the Baghdad police. The squad existed under the old government but was far less active. Since August, a steady trickle of calls about bomb sightings has become a torrent.
On this morning, Majid Mahdi and Hazim Khadem, both lieutenants in the squad, had already taken down an array of rockets aimed at a police station near Haifa Street. Then they defused what was left of a set of 11 rockets aimed at an American Army base. (Six rockets had been fired, but no soldiers were hurt.)
Lieutenant Mahdi, his feet resting on an AK-47 on the floor of the pickup, lighted a Gauloise cigarette.
Lt. Lotfi Ali, who drives as though he has seen "The French Connection" too many times, turned off the siren, tuned in to Arabic pop and sang along. In one smooth gesture, he took out his Glock pistol and began shifting gears with it in his hand. "Thieves," he said, pointing with the gun out the window. "Fedayeen."
The pickup stopped at a threadbare little roadblock the local police had made of motor oil jugs and soda cans. The bomb was 150 yards up the road, the police said.
Lieutenant Khadem stepped out of the car, dressed only in street clothes, and told himself what he always does as he jogged forward: "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet."
As the American-led coalition begins turning over self-rule and security to Iraqis, some, like those in the Baghdad bomb squad, are already shouldering the burden.
"It's a war," Lieutenant Mahdi said. "It's not a war for the Americans. It's a war for us."
Lt. Col. Mustafa al-Wahab estimated that among the 30 or so calls a day the squad receives, half turn out to be roadside bombs or rockets aimed at some target. In the last nine months, the 11 ordnance experts in the squad have probably defused an average of 40 to 50 bombs per man, Colonel Wahab said.
Car bombs are the most feared. A deep anxiety about them has gripped Baghdad. On a window near the entrance to the squad's offices in the center of the city, someone has taped a diagram in English of vehicles that can be used for car bombs, how much explosive each can hold and the lethal zone around the blast.
Any car parked for an extended period is suspect.
One recent evening, Lieutenants Mahdi and Khadem received a call about a car that had sat all day at a central market. It turned out to be a battered white Volkswagen Passat. The two officers, quickly attracting a group of onlookers, smashed a side window, and opened the doors and the hatchback. They looked under the hood. No bomb. It was all over in less than five minutes.
The Americans, in the Iraqis' place, would have cordoned off the site by several hundred yards, sent for their ordnance team, which in turn would have dispatched a robot equipped with cameras to check the vehicle. If something had been found, an ordnance expert in full body armor would have gone in to defuse the bomb, very slowly.
Sometimes when the Americans arrive first, the Iraqis have a hard time getting through the cordon because they walk around in street clothes, carrying little more than identification and wire cutters.
"Sometimes I don't blame the Americans," said Brig. Gen. Munaam Said Abdul-Qadr, the head of the squad. "They say, `You are heroes, but at the same time, you are crazy.' "
Col. Ismael Ayash of the squad thinks his men are cavalier about wearing body armor because, in part, it takes so long to put it on and take it off, and they have so many calls to respond to. But the Iraqis especially want the robots that the Americans use, as well as better training, neither of which has been forthcoming, they said.
Requests for advanced training and equipment have been "supported by the M.P. chain of command and coalition E.O.D.," said Capt. Kelly Traynham of the 143rd Military Police Detachment, Montana National Guard, referring to the explosives ordnance disposal unit. "But I also know it takes time to get the latest and greatest equipment and training."
It will clearly take time, too, for squad members to adjust to new differences in pay and status. Lieutenant Mahdi, 35, has a new wife and a baby on the way. His squad was among the elite in the old government and were paid much more than other police units. Now, he grumbled, he makes about $150 a month, about the same as a security guard. But he said he had done this kind of work for 16 years and could not imagine chasing criminals.
A few weeks ago, he said, he was at a bomb site when a colleague's arm was blown off. It was the squad's first casualty since the end of major fighting. He answered another call just afterward. "I was thinking, `I could lose an arm or leg, or I could die,' " he said, "But it's my job. This is my life."
Surviving each day is its own gift. So are the big finds, like the squad's discovery near the Doura power station: an ambulance carrying more than 3,000 pounds of explosives. He and the others were recently told that the Americans might present commendations to them at a ceremony soon.
Since the war, the lieutenant says, he has come to expect a different kind of bomb in each part of the city. The Aadhimiya quarter, home to many supporters of the old government, is a trove of roadside bombs. On the west bank of the Tigris, the bombs are made from old munitions. On the east bank, vessels are filled with explosives and metal.
For the most part, the bombs are triggered by simple household items: timers from washing machines, remote controls from doorbells, and receivers from parts of car alarms.
"Of course, I feel a rivalry with the bomb-makers," Lieutenant Mahdi said. "Once I find and defuse one bomb, the next time they will hide it by paving it over. Or they will use walkie-talkies so that they can explode a bomb on us."
Lieutenant Khadem, too, discussed strategy, saying that when he or one of his comrades approaches a bomb, everything else falls by the wayside: the Americans, the fear, one's own family.
Near Salman Pak, he ran down the highway, grabbing his wire cutters from his kit. He and two others came upon some bushes leaning against a fallen tree trunk. Blue and white wires peeked out from under the bushes. In three breaths, the men moved the bushes and Lieutenant Khadem clipped the blue wire, tearing off the link to any remote control. The wires were attached to two huge artillery shells. The men heaved them into the bed of the truck and returned to Baghdad, playing pop music again, dancing in their seats and waving their hands.
Back at the station, General Abdul-Qadr was worried. He had talked to the Americans about removing the two and a half tons of munitions the Iraqis have accumulated in a storehouse just behind his office, but no one has come. "If there is any bit of friction in that room . . . ," the general said, his voice trailing off.
He also had some news for Lieutenant Mahdi. That medal ceremony he had been waiting for? The bomb squad would not be included in it.
Lieutenant Mahdi, front, and Lt. Hazim Khadem broke into a car in Baghdad to see if it held explosives.
Good for them.
I liked this part too-
"...told himself what he always does as he jogged forward: "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet."
Maybe there are a few "Religion of Peace" types out there after all.
American* EOD guys, ping!
* For the benefit of the NY Times reporters, who may not have thought to ask.
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