Backstabbing for Beginners: Read online

  This was classic Saddam Hussein School of Management. The trio of embassy staff formed what the Iraqis called a “payment committee.” Such committees would be replicated in other countries as the Oil-for-Food program grew, including Greece, Egypt, Switzerland, Italy, Malaysia, Turkey, Austria, Yemen, and Syria. In France and other countries, further creative solutions would be found, but the Russian cash-transfer model had the clear advantage of staying out of the international banking system entirely, operating without a trace. Well, almost.

  After they counted the cash, the Iraqis on the payment committee would issue a receipt in three copies, which each of them would have to sign. The receipts would contain a serial number, the amount of the payment, the name of the company depositing the money, and the names of the Iraqis who had counted it. Sometimes the receipts even contained the names of the individuals bringing cash to the embassy. International investigators would eventually find some of these receipts.

  After the money was taken in, the Iraqi ambassador would sign and stamp each receipt. One copy would go to the company (which probably sent it straight to the shredder); one copy was placed with the cash in a safe, for future shipment to Iraq; and the last copy stayed in the embassy books.

  The Iraqi Embassy staff were then charged with transporting the money to Iraq in red canvas diplomatic bags that were immune from search by airport authorities. Each diplomatic bag could hold up to $1.5 million in $100 bills. The bags were numbered and sealed with wax before the trip. Problem was, flying into Iraq was illegal under the sanctions. But this didn’t stop one very entrepreneurial airline operator, A.V.M. Air, from scheduling regular Moscow-Baghdad flights, which operated from 1999 to 2003 with the full accord of the Russian government. The trick was to avoid flying through the U.S.-operated no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq. Flying in through Iran would usually do the trick. A.V.M. are the initials of the company’s owner (Al-Dzhilaui) and pilot (Vladimir Malyugin). It was basically a two-person shop, and one has to imagine that ticket prices on the A.V.M. flights were pretty steep—not only because the flights were illegal but also because a piloting error could cause the plane to get shot down by patrolling F-16 fighter jets. Bringing the cash into Iraq by road was not an option either; even under Saddam Hussein, the unruly tribes of western Iraq regularly ambushed travelers coming into the country from Jordan or Syria. Our own staff never took that road by night. In addition to running a profitable air route, the owners of A.V.M. Air eventually solicited an oil allocation from the Iraqis for themselves.

  Once the plane full of cash landed in Baghdad, the Iraqi diplomat who had been charged with transporting it usually began to sweat, and not just because of the temperature. Upon arrival, he would be met at the airport by one of Saddam’s henchmen and transported to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where the money was to be counted once again. The Iraqi diplomat had better pray that every bill was still in there, or he’d be in for a particularly unpleasant time. From the Ministry of Foreign Affairs they would call the embassy in Moscow and double-check that the sum matched the receipt that had been left behind. They would then draw up new receipts, just in case Saddam decided to throw an audit on his little business, and then the money would simply be deposited into Saddam’s bank to do with as he pleased, just as in the old days, when there were no sanctions on Iraq.

  At the time of our first trip to Iraq, in November 1997, there was still a cap on how much oil Iraq could sell. So in terms of volume, Saddam was not yet receiving as much cash in kickbacks as he might have before the Gulf War. Iraq was allowed to sell only $2.2 billion worth of oil every six months, or $4.4 billion per year. But in light of the conditions we had seen on the ground, and UNICEF’s alarming studies on child mortality rates due to continuing problems with water and sanitation, food transportation, and other basic services that Iraqi civilians depended on to survive, Pasha and I were becoming convinced that the solution was to expand our operation. What we didn’t understand then, because we did not know for sure why the Russian ambassador in Baghdad was smiling at us like a hungry wolf, was that lifting the cap on Iraq’s oil sales was basically equivalent to lifting the sanctions on Saddam. For every Russian contract that went through our complex system of bureaucratic controls, red bags filled with cash flew directly into Saddam’s pockets.

  From Russia With Love,

  Vladimir & Friends.

  CHAPTER 9

  Never Say Kurdistan!

  “Our only true friends are the mountains.”

  KURDISH SAYING

  UN HEADQUARTERS, BAGHDAD, NOVEMBER 17, 1997

  “What do you mean there’s no fuel?” I asked, exasperated. “We’re in Iraq! The world’s second-largest oil reserves! How can there be no fuel?”

  I was furious. Some idiot from UN logistics had just announced that we’d be unable to stop at a gas tank and refuel on our way from Baghdad to Iraqi Kurdistan. He said that the only way we could make the trip was if we carried huge plastic jerry cans of gas inside the cars with us. The things leaked and had to be patched up with electrical tape. The cans emitted fumes even when the top was on. With Pasha and his cigars, we’d be lucky if we drove a mile before torching up.

  “Forget it,” I said. “I’m not having the fuel cans inside the car. Go back to the Iraqi government and tell them to find a solution. We’re going to Kurdistan, and we’ll need to refuel on the way. Surely they can arrange something!”

  “But—”

  “No buts! I don’t want to hear from you until you’ve got a solution!”

  The next morning, our convoy of about ten white SUVs departed as planned. I was sitting shotgun, with a jerry can of gas located between my legs. All I could do was enjoy the high from the fumes and pray that Pasha wouldn’t light a Cuban.

  Iraq had no fuel? I couldn’t get over it. I initially thought it was a ploy by the Iraqi government to prevent us from traveling to the Kurdish areas. The largest part of our UN operation was there, because in the autonomous Kurdish zones, we (not the Iraqi government) were responsible for buying humanitarian goods and distributing them to the people.

  Vice President Ramadan had asked us specifically not to visit the area. He didn’t want a high-level UN official to meet with the Kurdish rebels who ruled this mountainous patch, and I figured that since Pasha had failed to comply with this request, the Iraqis had come up with this fable about there being no fuel to prevent us from traveling. But in fact, we saw the empty gas stations for ourselves on our way up north. Normally there would be lines of cars leading up to the pumps, but people didn’t even bother. There wasn’t a drop of fuel to be had on the way. And yet we also saw many trucks driving by. Something didn’t add up.

  Our first glimpse of the Kurdish mountain range was magical. It appeared all of a sudden through the morning mist, a blurry lavender wall on the horizon that grew increasingly defined as we approached the crossing point into the no-man’s-land that separated Iraqi Kurdistan from the rest of the country.

  We stopped for a few minutes at the last checkpoint manned by the Iraqi army. While we waited there for the Iraqi guard to go over our diplomatic papers, I figured I would find a spot to relieve myself. I walked out into the field, on the side of the road, and was about to let nature take its course when a shout caused me to freeze.

  “Careful! The mines!”

  Stafford Clarry, an olive-skinned and blue-eyed American from Hawaii, had come to meet us at the border. He was Halliday’s deputy in the region, and he knew Kurdistan intimately. Some people even said he was a spy. But I was getting used to Anglo Saxons being called spies by now. I even considered myself a sort of spy—intent on helping the Danish guard facing the prospect of possible jail time in Iraq flee the country.

  Of course, my spying career would not be off to an especially glorious start if I pissed on a mine. It took extreme Zen concentration, but I was eventually able to turn around and retrace my steps. Very, very carefully. Iraqi Kurdistan was estimated to be one of the most heavi
ly mined areas of the world, on par with some areas of Afghanistan and Cambodia. By the time I got back to the car, the convoy was cleared for passage and ready to go. “Oh, well,” I said, getting back into the vehicle. “I’ll wait till we get to Kurdistan.”

  “Never say Kurdistan!” thundered Pasha, insisting to all present that we refer to the region only as the “three northern governorates” of Iraq. The region was not only a physical minefield; it was a political one as well.

  Dohuk, Erbil, and Sulaymaniyah were the three predominantly Kurdish governorates of northern Iraq that gained autonomy from Saddam Hussein in 1991 after a costly rebellion in which the Kurds lost thousands of men before the United States and Britain imposed a no-fly zone on the Iraqi army. Without air support, the Iraqi army was forced to withdraw to dug-in positions in the plains south of the mountain range.

  The Kurds are the largest nation of people without a state of their own. Up to twenty-five million Kurds are estimated to live in a swath of territory that stretches from Iran through northern Iraq and into Turkey and Syria. They stem from an ancient, non-Arabic tribe that predates Islam. Today, most of them are Sunni Muslims, but Christian, Bahai, and Zoroastrian minorities remain in the region as well. Most of the Jewish Kurds left in the 1950s and early ’60s. Some Kurds have light hair and blue eyes, which, historians speculate, could date back to the time when the Vikings descended on Baghdad. But opportunities for ethnic mixing were plentiful during the Crusades, and in recent centuries as well, given that the Silk Road, used by merchants from all over Europe and Asia, ran straight through the region.

  The fact that the Kurds’ homeland is mountainous and difficult of access has been both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it has afforded them occasional refuge from their enemies. On the other hand, it made their region a natural frontier between the Byzantine Empire to the east, the Persian empires to the west, the Russian Orthodox Empire to the north, and the Arab tribes to the south. The quasi-perpetual state of conflict among these empires meant that the Kurds almost never experienced a time when a proxy war wasn’t being fought in their backyard.

  In principle, the international community had promised the Kurds a state in the Treaty of Sèvres, signed after World War I. In carving up the Ottoman Empire, the Treaty of Sèvres recognized the Kurds’ right to statehood, but no Kurdish state was ever established. The first problem was that the Kurds themselves disagreed on how to delineate their territory. And a country called Kurdistan, which would cut into a large chunk of eastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, Syria, and, of course, Iraq, was not appealing to the Allies, who were establishing their own respective protectorates in these countries. For the sake of “stability,” every member of the international community had therefore agreed to act as if the Treaty of Sèvres had never been signed into international law. By 1923, Kemal Atatürk had led an uprising that reclaimed the entire Turkish peninsula and established the modern Republic of Turkey. The ensuing peace deal, the Treaty of Lausanne, superseded the Treaty of Sèvres and made no mention of a Kurdish nation or Kurdish rights. But the dream of a Kurdish nation remained in the hearts and minds of succeeding generations.

  “Welcome to Kurdistan” came the many greetings on the Kurdish side of the no-man’s-land. The guards were smiling at us. Didn’t they know they were supposed to say, “Welcome to the three northern governorates?”

  “You see?” said Pasha. “We can’t let them think they’re going to get independence. We work here on behalf of the government of Iraq.”

  True enough, it was theoretically our mandate to be operating the program in the north “on behalf of the government of Iraq,” but it seemed to me that if we were truly working on Saddam’s behalf, we would be in the business of gassing the Kurds, not helping them rebuild their homes. And so I said.

  I knew, by the silence in the car, that I had committed another faux pas. Pasha shook his head, incredulous yet wordless. The driver, an Iraqi intelligence agent, didn’t flinch. I must admit I had forgotten about him. It felt great to be out of Baghdad, away from all the oppressive pictures and statues of Saddam Hussein. Freedom may be a political concept, but it is first and foremost a feeling. A breath of fresh air. A smile on people’s faces. The absence of fear in their eyes. The difference between the north and the south was palpable.

  Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, which were enshrined in every UN resolution dealing with that country, were a concept, not a reality. Saddam was not in control of Iraqi Kurdistan, and he was unable to exercise many of the rights that normally come with sovereignty in the rest of his country. He couldn’t fly around in much of his own airspace, and he had no right either to export or import anything unless it was cleared by the UN. And yet every resolution the UN passed on Iraq insisted on pretending that the Kurds remained subjects of Saddam Hussein.

  The idea of Kurdish independence seemed an especially frightening prospect for much of the international community, principally because it would upset Turkey, a major NATO ally. So frightening was the prospect of a Kurdish state that the world stayed largely silent when Saddam gassed the Kurdish village of Halabja with a cocktail of sarin and VX gas in 1988. Few countries other than the United States have agreed to classify Saddam’s systematic massacre of an estimated 180,000 Kurds in the 1986-1988 campaign as a genocide. More were killed after the Gulf War, but even then the prospect of Kurdish autonomy within Iraq remained so taboo that the no-fly zone imposed by the United States and Britain to protect the Kurds against Saddam’s air force after the Gulf War was never approved by the UN Security Council and was thus considered “illegal” by the United Nations. So frightened were we of Kurdish claims to self-rule that we were not even allowed to call the region by its name.

  If Iraqi Kurdistan was to be called “the three northern governorates,” what were we to call the Kurds themselves? The “three-northern-governorakians”?

  If Saddam Hussein had failed to eradicate their identity, the notion that a bunch of perfume-wearing diplomats could tell the Kurds what they could or could not call themselves was laughable. If we had only accepted this simple reality, it could have been a love story between the UN and the Kurds. After all, the Oil-for-Food program was an economic boon for them. Thanks to the UN, they were finally getting a fair share of Iraq’s oil revenues to rebuild their villages and repair their infrastructure. So why did they grow to resent the UN so much? Why did they maneuver to keep the UN out of Iraq after the war? And why did they fan the flames of the scandal that would eventually bring us down?

  The Kurds bit the hand that had fed them not because they were ungrateful but because we behaved arrogantly toward them. We sought to keep them down. When they arrogated to themselves the titles of ministers, we would refuse to acknowledge them as such. They had established a beginning of democratic governance, but our own protocol (owing to our respect for that illusion we called Iraq’s sovereignty, by which we actually meant Saddam’s sovereignty) prevented us from acknowledging their titles. The Kurds exploited their first shot at autonomy by trying to prove to the world they could take care of themselves. Sure, they lacked a bit of elegance for us international sophisticates. But they were bubbling with energy. You could see it everywhere. They would engage us enthusiastically with their fancy business cards. “Hey, color copies, five Swiss dinars!”

  Swiss dinars? Yes, they had started printing their own money outside the country. They didn’t care much for seeing Saddam’s face on their bills. Who could blame them? They had set up their own TV stations, their own Internet links, and they were building the foundations of an independent future.

  I asked myself, what was so frightening about these people being free to rule themselves? They were not a threat and were still very much in the act of rekindling a sense of normalcy, which they hadn’t been able to enjoy for generations.

  Evidence of the Iraqi army’s destruction was everywhere. And the small village of Mamand, where we stopped on our second day, was a case in point. The UN w
as helping the villagers rebuild their homes after they had been destroyed seven times by Saddam’s forces.

  Seven times. And every time the Iraqi army had its back turned, survivors of the village returned on donkey back and started rebuilding. To avoid this (Saddam was trying to collectivize the Kurds) the Iraqi army would actually mine the villages after it razed every building to the ground. And the army would mine the surrounding fields, too, to ensure that farm boys would lose a leg, or worse, as soon as they started cultivating their ancestral land again. Kurdistan was teeming with people who had been disabled by mines; one of the UN’s most useful services to the Kurds involved demining, mine awareness campaigns, and the provision of prosthetic limbs to the injured.

  In the village of Mamand, an old tribal chief walked up to us to thank the UN for its help. But he hastened to add that they would be perfectly capable of rebuilding their village without us.

  We were a bit taken aback by this statement. But these guys had rebuilt their village seven times already. They did not need our charity. What they needed most from the international community was security. He repeated the word “security” more times than our interpreter cared to translate it. And all we could do was nod, knowing that the only thing guaranteeing this village’s security—the no-fly zone—was considered illegal by the UN.

  Just as it was considered illegal to depose Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War, so it was considered illegal to keep the Kurds autonomous from Saddam’s rule. Minds that could bend around such absurdities still prevailed in the UN Security Council and in the upper management of the UN Secretariat. But their rationale never prevailed upon the Kurds. The village elder we spoke to did not have a doctorate in international law, but he knew a thing or two about survival. And when his community had been the subject of massive human rights violations, there had been no international lawyers around to protect them. So none of us were about to lecture him with a “legal” explanation for why the UN was unable to offer protection to the Kurds, or even to offer legal backing to the no-fly zone.