Iraqis Tell of 11th-Hour Arrests and Torture
By DEXTER FILKINS
AGHDAD, Iraq, April 8 — Saddam Hussein's agents were working until the last moment.
This morning, as thousands of American troops moved deeper into Baghdad, some marines said they happened across a building where the men of the Iraqi border police had apparently been busy interrogating suspects. Beating them, said the captives. Gouging them with wires. Burning them with cigarettes.
By the time the American convoy arrived, the Iraqi agents had fled. The captives, some still shackled and blindfolded, were set free.
"The Americans saved me," said Hamid Neama, a laborer who lives in the Amin neighborhood in southeast Baghdad. He held out his hands, which were swollen like overripe fruit. "The police beat my hands, they beat me on my body."
Mr. Neama's account, confirmed by a senior Marine officer, was echoed by others in this predominantly Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad. Yet for all the thanks expressed to American troops and reporters for the campaign being waged against Saddam Hussein, many Iraqis say they are worried that America will see in their gratitude a blank check to remake their country.
That, the residents of this hardscrabble neighborhood said, could inspire a loathing for the Americans at least equal to that felt here for Mr. Hussein. Even the rescued Mr. Neama expressed some skepticism.
"Of course I'm grateful that the Americans saved me," Mr. Neama said. "But I'm only one of 28 million people in this country. We would not like it if the Americans try to stay here for long."
The people of Al Amin discussed the future of their neighborhood today as thousands of American marines took up positions less than 100 yards from their neighborhood's edge. The marines began preparing for a final push into the city center, a move that many here fear may lead to many civilian deaths.
Neighborhoods like Al Amin, which like much of eastern Baghdad is overwhelmingly Shiite, have long been said to be a focal point of Mr. Hussein's repression. He is a Sunni Muslim and has violently suppressed the Shiite majority, some 60 percent of Iraq's population.
A stop in any Shiite village in Iraq, over a glass of black, sugary tea, will more often than not bring forth tales of woe. In America's war against Mr. Hussein, the Shiites of Iraq would seem to be natural allies — even if made wary by the American failure to support the 1991 Shiite uprising in southern Iraq.
Mr. Neama, a day laborer, said he was standing in front of his brother-in-law's house this morning when two men in civilian clothes drove up and asked him to get in the car. Mr. Neama was then blindfolded, he said, and driven to a building about 10 minutes away.
There, he said, he was beaten and questioned about his connections to the Americans. Mr. Neama said he insisted that he had performed no special acts for the Americans — who, unknown to him, were then just a few minutes away.
"It didn't matter what I said to them, they accused me of cooperating with the Americans," Mr. Neama said.
Yet Mr. Neama was not convinced that the American invasion would turn out to be a good thing. "It could be good, if the Americans do not try to stay," he said.
At that point, an elderly man, Sultan Mahdi, stepped forward to declaim that such ambivalence was a copout.
"For 75 years I have been alive, and I'll say this," Mr. Mahdi said. "If the Iraqi people loved Saddam Hussein, the American military wouldn't be able to last one day in Iraq. Not one day. We would attack them."
"If Bush just wants to get rid of Saddam, that's fine," continued Mr. Mahdi. "But if he is going to try go alter our basic institutions, like our religion and traditions and culture, then he will have no support."
Mr. Mahdi said most Iraqis would welcome Americans in helping set up an Iraqi government that would spread around the country's vast oil wealth. But beyond such help, Mr. Mahdi said, the Iraqis were not interested.
"We want America to help us become a wealthy country," Mr. Mahdi said, and the crowd that gathered around him nodded assent. "There is no reason why we should not have the same standard of living as the rest of the gulf states."
As Mr. Mahdi spoke, marine troop carriers based in the next field over began leaving for an operation to clear a neighborhood in eastern Baghdad. Indeed, the marines seem to be preparing for a final push into the center of the city, possibly linking up with the United States Army, which has been battling its way in from the west. The plans are raising concerns here of large numbers of civilian casualties, which could undermine Iraqi support for the American action against Mr. Hussein's regime.
Here, the Marines seemed cognizant that they needed to minimize civilian casualties as much as possible, if only to maintain the support of people like those in Amin.
"We are going to be slow and methodical," Lt. Col. Pete Owen said. "If you are not, then things can get messy. There aren't that many bad guys left. We have to be careful we don't kill civilians when we are going after the bad guys."
After a long conversation with several Iraqis in Amin, one of the men brought out a platter of tea in glasses to share with a group of Western journalists.
As the tea was being passed around, another man, Salem Ali, walked up, telling a story nearly identical to Mr. Neama's. He, too, had been picked up today by Mr. Hussein's thugs, he said, and blindfolded, beaten and burned. He unbuttoned his shirt and displayed what appeared to be a cigarette burn in the middle of his chest.
Asked to express his views, though, he declined. Even with American troops inside Baghdad, he said he still was not safe.
"Even if the Americans win, for two years, we will be fearing Saddam," he said.