NY Times, May 11, 2007
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., May 10 — The general who led a division in charge of the marines who killed 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha in 2005 testified Thursday that he was kept from weighing accusations that the killings were illegal because his subordinate officers withheld information for nearly three months.
The officer, Maj. Gen. Richard A. Huck, the Second Marine Division commander in Iraq at the time, testified in a military hearing here that he had learned that women and children had been killed within hours of the attack, on Nov. 19, 2005.
But he said he had believed that the deaths were the unfortunate but unavoidable result of combat with Sunni Arab insurgents.
General Huck said he had not learned until February 2006 about inquiries into the deaths by Time magazine because his own chief of staff and regimental commander kept him in the dark.
The chief of staff, Col. R. Gary Sokoloski, and the regimental commander, Col. Stephen W. Davis, had learned of the Time reporter’s questions in late January 2006, General Huck testified. But, he said, they and all the other officers in his chain of command failed to tell him.
“It had been alive for three weeks without my being aware of it,” General Huck said of Time’s inquiry.
General Huck testified on the third day of a hearing for one of four marine officers charged with dereliction of duty for failing to investigate properly the civilian killings. Three enlisted men are charged with their murders.
General Huck said he had first become aware of accusations that the civilians were unjustly killed when his superior, Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the day-to-day commander in Iraq at the time, sent him an e-mail message on Feb. 12 to ask what he knew about the reporter’s inquiry.
General Huck said he was “pretty irritated” with Colonel Sokoloski for not telling him earlier about the reporter’s questions. “What am I, the last guy to find out in this organization?” he said he had asked Colonel Sokoloski the morning after receiving the e-mail message.
General Huck said that until he received the message, he had never considered the killings a violation of any kind because they had occurred during a combat operation and it was not uncommon for civilians to die in such circumstances.
“In my mind’s eye, I saw insurgent fire, I saw Kilo Company fire,” General Huck testified, via video link from the Pentagon, where he is assistant deputy commandant for plans, policies and operations. “I could see how 15 neutrals in those circumstances could be killed.”
General Huck said he had made a list of all the officers and enlisted men who could have reported the Haditha killings as a possible law of war violation but did not. They ranged from senior officers to sergeants and radio operators who heard reports from the field that day.
Fielding questions from lawyers for Capt. Randy W. Stone, a battalion lawyer charged with failing to investigate the deaths, General Huck gave what seemed to be contradictory answers about whether he should have investigated the deaths, given what he knew at the time.
For instance, he said he had learned within hours of the episode that women and children had been killed, and acknowledged that his own rules required investigation when a “significant” number of civilians died in actions involving marines. But later he said he saw no reason to look into how a “big” number of civilians had died in Haditha.
General Huck pointed out that his superiors — including General Chiarelli and his predecessor, and Maj. Gen. Steve Johnson, the top Marine commander in Iraq at the time — had received many of the field reports about the Haditha civilian deaths that he had received, and that none had opened an inquiry until the Time reporter, Tim McGirk, started asking questions.
Statements from General Huck’s bosses in Iraq at the time seem to confirm his testimony.
General Johnson, for instance, told military investigators looking into how the chain of command had responded to the Haditha episode that he had been more concerned at the time about the enemy’s use of a lethal roadside bomb — known as an improvised explosive device, or I.E.D. — than about the civilians who died that day.
“In my way of thinking as the commander, at that point in our time in Iraq, 15 people killed as a result of an attack, in a built-up area that involved I.E.D.’s and a coordinated attack, I still think that probably my reaction was, ‘That’s too bad, but they got caught somehow,’ ” General Johnson told investigators in a sworn statement obtained by The New York Times from someone familiar with the case.
“Our thought process would have been that, ‘Hey, if the enemy hadn’t done it, those people wouldn’t have got killed.’ ”
But as Thursday’s other main witness testified, the reporter’s questions seemed to provoke far more disdain — for the reporter and for Haditha’s civilian leaders — than curiosity about whether the marines had done anything wrong that morning.
The day’s first witness, First Lt. Adam P. Mathes, the Company K executive officer at the time, said he and the battalion commander and the battalion executive officer had collectively dismissed Mr. McGirk’s questions because they had considered them “sensational” and politically motivated.
“The questions were questionable,” Lieutenant Mathes said, testifying by video link from Kuwait, where he is stationed. “It sounded like bad, negative spin. We tried to weed out the grievances that Mr. McGirk had against the Bush administration.”
He said Mr. McGirk had seemed to have an antiwar agenda. “This guy is looking for blood,” Lieutenant Mathis testified, “because blood leads headlines.”
Monday, May 14, 2007
Sergeant Urinated on Body in Haditha
NY Times, May 10, 2007
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., May 9 — A marine sergeant testified on Wednesday that he urinated on the bloody remains of one of five unarmed Iraqi men whom his squad leader had fatally shot in late 2005 moments after a roadside bomb had killed one of their comrades in Haditha.
The marine, Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz, said at a hearing here that he had urinated on the dead Iraqi’s head out of anger that Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, known as T.J. was killed by the bomb, planted by Sunni Arab insurgents in a region of Anbar Province that American forces were battling to control.
“I know it was a bad thing what I done, but I done it because I was angry T.J. was dead,” Sergeant Dela Cruz said in a monotone. Under oath and with a grant of immunity from the prosecution, he testified that his squad leader, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, had ordered the five unarmed Iraqis out of a car and fired six to eight rounds into them as they stood with their arms raised over their heads.
“I watched him shooting, sir, at the Iraqis,” Sergeant Dela Cruz said. He walked around the car to inspect the bodies, he said. “They were dead.” From 10 feet away, he said, he sprayed the bodies with automatic fire from his service rifle and then urinated on the bullet-ripped head of one man.
Sergeant Dela Cruz said that Staff Sergeant Wuterich had told the squad, “If anybody asks, they were running away, and the Iraqi Army shot them.”
Staff Sergeant Wuterich’s lawyers have said that he had fired on the five civilians after they ran from the car and defied his order to stop.
The Iraqis — four of military age and one a taxi driver — had driven up to where a Marine convoy was struck by the roadside bomb, drawing instant suspicion from Staff Sergeant Wuterich and his men, military investigators have said. But they were carrying no weapons when they were stopped, ordered out of the vehicle and fatally shot.
Marine prosecutors charged Staff Sergeant Wuterich, Sergeant Dela Cruz and two other marines in December with murder in the killings of a total of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005.
Last month, in exchange for Sergeant Dela Cruz’s testimony against the other marines, prosecutors dropped all five counts of unpremeditated murder that he faced.
Four Marine officers are also charged in the case, accused of failing to properly investigate the civilian deaths. Wednesday’s proceedings was the second day of a hearing for one of those officers, Capt. Randy W. Stone, a military lawyer, to determine if enough evidence exists to refer the charges against him to court martial.
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., May 9 — A marine sergeant testified on Wednesday that he urinated on the bloody remains of one of five unarmed Iraqi men whom his squad leader had fatally shot in late 2005 moments after a roadside bomb had killed one of their comrades in Haditha.
The marine, Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz, said at a hearing here that he had urinated on the dead Iraqi’s head out of anger that Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, known as T.J. was killed by the bomb, planted by Sunni Arab insurgents in a region of Anbar Province that American forces were battling to control.
“I know it was a bad thing what I done, but I done it because I was angry T.J. was dead,” Sergeant Dela Cruz said in a monotone. Under oath and with a grant of immunity from the prosecution, he testified that his squad leader, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, had ordered the five unarmed Iraqis out of a car and fired six to eight rounds into them as they stood with their arms raised over their heads.
“I watched him shooting, sir, at the Iraqis,” Sergeant Dela Cruz said. He walked around the car to inspect the bodies, he said. “They were dead.” From 10 feet away, he said, he sprayed the bodies with automatic fire from his service rifle and then urinated on the bullet-ripped head of one man.
Sergeant Dela Cruz said that Staff Sergeant Wuterich had told the squad, “If anybody asks, they were running away, and the Iraqi Army shot them.”
Staff Sergeant Wuterich’s lawyers have said that he had fired on the five civilians after they ran from the car and defied his order to stop.
The Iraqis — four of military age and one a taxi driver — had driven up to where a Marine convoy was struck by the roadside bomb, drawing instant suspicion from Staff Sergeant Wuterich and his men, military investigators have said. But they were carrying no weapons when they were stopped, ordered out of the vehicle and fatally shot.
Marine prosecutors charged Staff Sergeant Wuterich, Sergeant Dela Cruz and two other marines in December with murder in the killings of a total of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005.
Last month, in exchange for Sergeant Dela Cruz’s testimony against the other marines, prosecutors dropped all five counts of unpremeditated murder that he faced.
Four Marine officers are also charged in the case, accused of failing to properly investigate the civilian deaths. Wednesday’s proceedings was the second day of a hearing for one of those officers, Capt. Randy W. Stone, a military lawyer, to determine if enough evidence exists to refer the charges against him to court martial.
Officer Says Civilian Toll in Haditha Was a Shock
NYT, May 5, 2005
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., May 8 — The only Marine Corps officer who was in Haditha, Iraq, when American troops killed 19 civilians in their homes in 2005 testified at a military hearing on Tuesday that he was “shocked” to find only unarmed people, including women and children, among the dead. But he said the marines had not violated any law of war.
The officer, First Lt. William T. Kallop, said that soon after the killings, he inspected one of the homes with a Marine corporal, Hector Salinas, and found women, children and older men who had been killed when marines threw a grenade into the room.
“What the hell happened, why aren’t there any insurgents here?” Lieutenant Kallop testified that he asked aloud. “I looked at Corporal Salinas, and he looked just as shocked as I did.”
Lieutenant Kallop, a platoon leader, was the first witness called by lawyers for Capt. Randy W. Stone, one of four Marine officers charged with dereliction of duty for failing to properly investigate the deaths of two dozen civilians in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005. The hearing, in a Marine Corps courtroom here, is meant to determine whether there is sufficient evidence against Captain Stone to refer the charges to a general court-martial.
As Captain Stone and his three lawyers sat quietly at the defense table, a Marine prosecutor spent most of the day cross-examining Lieutenant Kallop about the actions of Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, the Marine squad leader whom Lieutenant Kallop had ordered to “clear” an Iraqi home in Haditha after a roadside bomb had killed a Marine lance corporal earlier that morning. Sergeant Wuterich is charged with multiple counts of murder in connection with the killing of the civilians that day.
“Did he tell you that he had left two wounded children in that house?” the prosecutor, Lt. Col. Sean Sullivan, asked Lieutenant Kallop, referring to Sergeant Wuterich. “Did he tell you that he had killed a child? Did he tell you that there was a woman at the bottom of the stairs that they had killed?”
Lieutenant Kallop, who is not charged in the case and testified after being given immunity from prosecution, replied to each question with a firm “No, sir.”
“Did he say anything,” Colonel Sullivan later asked, “about the five children in the back bedroom being killed on the bed” in the second house?
Lieutenant Kallop again answered no.
A hearing for Sergeant Wuterich, who was not present, is more than a month away.
In addition to Captain Stone, the other Marine officers charged in the case are Capt. Lucas M. McConnell, the company commander; First Lt. Andrew A. Grayson, a Marine intelligence officer who inspected the scene of killings; and Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, the battalion commander, who sent an electronic slide show presentation of the killings to his superiors.
None of the four officers was present during the explosion of the roadside bomb and the subsequent civilian killings by marines.
Despite the number of civilians killed by marines that morning in Haditha — five men who ran from a car, and then another 19 people in their homes after Lieutenant Kallop arrived — he testified Tuesday that he believed his men had acted appropriately and according to their training.
He said Sergeant Wuterich had told him that they had killed people in one house after approaching a door to it and hearing the distinct metallic sound of an AK-47 being prepared to fire.
“I thought that was within the rules of engagement because the squad leader thought that he was about to kick in the door and walk into a machine gun,” Lieutenant Kallop said. “Corporal Salinas told me the same thing.”
Later he added, “I had no doubt in my mind that they were telling the truth.”
Moreover, Lieutenant Kallop, who arrived in the town after the roadside bomb had killed Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, said his platoon had been told that Haditha was “an insurgent-controlled-and-occupied city.”
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., May 8 — The only Marine Corps officer who was in Haditha, Iraq, when American troops killed 19 civilians in their homes in 2005 testified at a military hearing on Tuesday that he was “shocked” to find only unarmed people, including women and children, among the dead. But he said the marines had not violated any law of war.
The officer, First Lt. William T. Kallop, said that soon after the killings, he inspected one of the homes with a Marine corporal, Hector Salinas, and found women, children and older men who had been killed when marines threw a grenade into the room.
“What the hell happened, why aren’t there any insurgents here?” Lieutenant Kallop testified that he asked aloud. “I looked at Corporal Salinas, and he looked just as shocked as I did.”
Lieutenant Kallop, a platoon leader, was the first witness called by lawyers for Capt. Randy W. Stone, one of four Marine officers charged with dereliction of duty for failing to properly investigate the deaths of two dozen civilians in Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005. The hearing, in a Marine Corps courtroom here, is meant to determine whether there is sufficient evidence against Captain Stone to refer the charges to a general court-martial.
As Captain Stone and his three lawyers sat quietly at the defense table, a Marine prosecutor spent most of the day cross-examining Lieutenant Kallop about the actions of Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, the Marine squad leader whom Lieutenant Kallop had ordered to “clear” an Iraqi home in Haditha after a roadside bomb had killed a Marine lance corporal earlier that morning. Sergeant Wuterich is charged with multiple counts of murder in connection with the killing of the civilians that day.
“Did he tell you that he had left two wounded children in that house?” the prosecutor, Lt. Col. Sean Sullivan, asked Lieutenant Kallop, referring to Sergeant Wuterich. “Did he tell you that he had killed a child? Did he tell you that there was a woman at the bottom of the stairs that they had killed?”
Lieutenant Kallop, who is not charged in the case and testified after being given immunity from prosecution, replied to each question with a firm “No, sir.”
“Did he say anything,” Colonel Sullivan later asked, “about the five children in the back bedroom being killed on the bed” in the second house?
Lieutenant Kallop again answered no.
A hearing for Sergeant Wuterich, who was not present, is more than a month away.
In addition to Captain Stone, the other Marine officers charged in the case are Capt. Lucas M. McConnell, the company commander; First Lt. Andrew A. Grayson, a Marine intelligence officer who inspected the scene of killings; and Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, the battalion commander, who sent an electronic slide show presentation of the killings to his superiors.
None of the four officers was present during the explosion of the roadside bomb and the subsequent civilian killings by marines.
Despite the number of civilians killed by marines that morning in Haditha — five men who ran from a car, and then another 19 people in their homes after Lieutenant Kallop arrived — he testified Tuesday that he believed his men had acted appropriately and according to their training.
He said Sergeant Wuterich had told him that they had killed people in one house after approaching a door to it and hearing the distinct metallic sound of an AK-47 being prepared to fire.
“I thought that was within the rules of engagement because the squad leader thought that he was about to kick in the door and walk into a machine gun,” Lieutenant Kallop said. “Corporal Salinas told me the same thing.”
Later he added, “I had no doubt in my mind that they were telling the truth.”
Moreover, Lieutenant Kallop, who arrived in the town after the roadside bomb had killed Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, said his platoon had been told that Haditha was “an insurgent-controlled-and-occupied city.”
Photo, Associated Press: Capt. Randy Stone, charged with failing to properly investigate the deaths of 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq, arrived at his hearing Tuesday.
Monday, May 7, 2007
Not All Troops Would Report Abuse, Study Says
WASHINGTON, May 4 (Reuters) — Only 40 percent of American marines and 55 percent of soldiers in Iraq say they would report a fellow service member for killing or injuring an innocent Iraqi, a Pentagon study published Friday showed.
The study, which showed increasing rates of mental health problems for troops on extended or multiple deployments, also said well over one-third of soldiers and marines believed that torture should be allowed to gain information that could save the lives of American troops, or knowledge about insurgents.
Of the 1,320 soldiers and 447 marines who took part, about 10 percent said they had mistreated civilians through physical violence or damage to personal property.
The study was conducted by Army medical experts from Aug. 28 to Oct. 3 last year.
“Soldiers with high levels of anger, who had experienced high levels of combat or who screened positive for mental health symptoms, were nearly twice as likely to mistreat noncombatants,” the acting Army surgeon general, Maj. Gen. Gale S. Pollock, told reporters.
The findings are posted at www .armymedicine.army.mil.
The survey data came out a month after Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates extended tours for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan to up to 15 months, from 12. American forces in Iraq are being increased under a security plan ordered by President Bush.
The report, the fourth prepared by the Army’s Mental Health Advisory Team since the war in Iraq began in 2003, showed that mental health problems like acute stress, anxiety and depression rose among troops facing longer deployments or their second or third tour in Iraq.
Over all, about 20 percent of soldiers and 15 percent of marines showed symptoms of anxiety, depression or acute stress. The rate was at 30 percent among troops with high combat experience.
Among soldiers, 27 percent of those with more than one tour of duty tested positive for a mental health problem, versus 17 percent for soldiers on their first deployment.
The rate of anxiety, depression and acute stress stood at 22 percent among soldiers deployed for more than six months and at 15 percent for troops in Iraq for less than six months. Army experts recommended that the Pentagon extend the interval between deployments to 18 to 36 months so that troops could recover mentally.
Mr. Gates said last month that troops in the region could expect to spend 12 months at home between deployments.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Torture Works
New York Time, April 22, 2007
THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ; 3 Suspects Talk After Iraqi Soldiers Do Dirty Work
By ALISSA J. RUBIN; ASHLEY GILBERTSON CONTRIBUTED REPORTING.
Out here in what the soldiers call Baghdad's wild west, sometimes the choices are all bad.
In one of the new joint American-Iraqi security stations in the capital this month, in the volatile Ghazaliya neighborhood, Capt. Darren Fowler was heaping praise on his Iraqi counterparts for helping capture three insurgent suspects who had provided information he believed would save American lives.
''The detainee gave us names from the highest to the lowest,'' Captain Fowler told the Iraqi soldiers. ''He showed us their safe houses, where they store weapons and I.E.D.'s and where they keep kidnap victims, how they get weapons, where weapons come from, how they place I.E.D.'s, attack us and go away. Because you detained this guy this is the first intelligence linking everything together. Good job. Very good job.''
The Iraqi officers beamed. What the Americans did not know and what the Iraqis had not told them was that before handing over the detainees to the Americans, the Iraqi soldiers had beaten one of them in front of the other two, the Iraqis said. The stripes on the detainee's back, which appeared to be the product of a whipping with electrical cables, were later shown briefly to a photographer, who was not allowed to take a picture.
To the Iraqi soldiers, the treatment was normal and necessary. They were proud of their technique and proud to have helped the Americans.
''I prepared him for the Americans and let them take his confession,'' Capt. Bassim Hassan said through an interpreter. ''We know how to make them talk. We know their back streets. We beat them. I don't beat them that much, but enough so he feels the pain and it makes him desperate.''
As American and Iraqi troops set up these outposts in dangerous neighborhoods to take on the insurgents block by block, they find themselves continually facing lethal attacks. In practice, the Americans and Iraqis seem to have different answers about what tactics are acceptable in response.
Beatings like this, which are usually hard to verify but appear to be widespread given the fears about the Iraqi security forces frequently expressed by ordinary Iraqis, present the Americans with a largely undiscussed dilemma.
The beaten detainee, according to Captain Fowler, not only led the Americans to safe houses believed to be used by Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia but also confessed to laying and detonating roadside bombs along a section of road heavily traveled by American patrols. Just a month ago, four soldiers from Captain Fowler's regiment died on that road after the explosion of a large, deeply buried bomb, possibly made in the bomb factory that the Americans were able to dismantle because of the detainee's information, Captain Fowler said.
But beating is strictly forbidden by the United States Army's Field Manual, as well as American and Iraqi laws. When the Americans learned about the beating, they were quick to condemn it.
The use of torture by American soldiers and contractors at Abu Ghraib only compounded Iraqi hatred of Americans and further undermined American moral claims in Iraq. It also produced little valuable information. Most experts, including in the military, say they believe that coerced confessions are an unreliable way to learn about enemy operations because people being tortured will often say whatever they think it will take to stop the pain.
This joint security station in Ghazaliya opened on March 15, about a month after the latest increase in American troops began. The station, inhabited by about 70 soldiers of Company D of the Second Battalion, 12th Cavalry, and their Iraqi counterparts, is named for Specialist Robert Thrasher, a member of the unit killed by sniper fire on Feb. 11 when the company was scouting for a station site.
Thrasher, as the station is known, sits in the southern part of Ghazaliya, one of the roughest areas of western Baghdad. In the northern part, Shiite militias, led by the Mahdi Army, have been driving out Sunni Arabs through raids and assassinations. Sunnis have pushed Shiites out of the southern part.
Sewage pools in the streets. Water and electricity are almost nonexistent, and fewer than half the houses are occupied. The neighborhood graffiti broadcasts the presence of an active insurgency: ''Long live Abu Hamza al-Muhajar,'' reads one scrawl, referring to a local insurgent leader.
The outpost's location, along one of the main arms smuggling routes from Falluja, was chosen because it was next to a litter-filled lot that was a dumping ground for bodies. When they first arrived, the American soldiers found 30 bodies there, among them women and children.
Now it is rare to find more than one or two, said Captain Fowler, who keeps photos of every one on his computer as a reminder of how much worse it was before his company took up residence. He can also point to other signs of progress: children have begun to play outside again, and women walk to the market.
But the area remains far from calm. The radio in the joint operations room crackles all day long with reports of bomb explosions or newly sighted explosive devices that must be scouted by the soldiers. The distance to the next security station is barely half a mile, but it is so dangerous that the soldiers cannot walk there and do not like to drive more often than necessary.
Although one tenet of the Baghdad security plan is that soldiers should patrol on foot to get to know local residents, it was on just such a patrol that Specialist Thrasher died. Now, said Sgt. Trevis Good, 34, ''foot patrols don't exist; they are not something we do.'' The company's partner is the Third Battalion, Fourth Brigade, of the Iraqi Army's 10th Division. The soldiers come from Amara, the largest town in rural Maysan Province in the far south, a mostly peaceful area where in a year of active duty they never had an injury, much less a fatality.
In just three weeks in Ghazaliya, the battalion has lost two officers and a soldier; 16 troops have been wounded. A few hundred Iraqi soldiers live in three attached houses just over a brick wall from the Americans. The houses, beefed up only by sandbags, lie outside the station's fortified area. Visiting their quarters means crouching down and running behind vehicles until entering one of the houses.
The Iraqi soldiers have their own network of informants, and they picked up the detainee who was later beaten, Mustafa Subhi Jassam, after seeing him loitering around a main patrol route twice in the same day. The other two insurgent suspects were picked up separately.
After interrogating Mr. Jassam, a thin young man wearing a blue and red warm-up outfit, for much of the night, the Americans took him to point out one of the houses where the Qaeda militants made bombs. When the Americans arrived, a half-eaten lunch was on the table next to a couple of detonators and some blasting wire. The insurgents appeared to have been gnawing on chicken and flat bread while making fuses for I.E.D.'s, improvised explosive devices, the military's term for the roadside bombs found here.
On the table and in bags on the floor were mountains of soap, which can be used in homemade explosives. Blasting wire lay in coils. Buried in the garden were two large antiaircraft guns known as Duskas, three propane tanks, and an oxygen tank that was partly cut in preparation for being turned into a huge bomb, probably similar to the one that killed the four soldiers. On the roof a large pile of homemade explosives was drying in the sun.
The Iraqi soldiers were ecstatic. They had delivered. They snapped photos of each other in front of the cache with the blasting cords in their mouths, grinning. The Americans were nervous. ''One spark will blow this place up,'' said First Lt. Michael Obal as an Iraqi soldier flicked a lighted cigarette butt within inches of one cache of explosives. ''It's highly unstable TNT.''
Later, the Americans plotted into their computers the location of each of the Qaeda safe houses that Mr. Jassam had pointed out. ''He was singing like a songbird,'' said First Lt. Sean Henley, 24.
After the prisoner was returned to the Iraqis, Captain Fowler was asked whether the Americans realized that the information was given only after the Iraqis had beaten Mr. Jassam. ''They are not supposed to do that,'' he said. ''What I don't see, I don't know, and I can't stop. The detainees are deathly afraid of being sent to the Iraqi justice system, because this is the kind of thing they do. But this is their culture.''
Later, Captain Fowler said that he thought Mr. Jassam had talked because he hoped to be released. The captain wanted him let go so that he could act as an informant. The Iraqi soldiers vetoed the idea.
Mr. Jassam is now being held in an Iraqi government detention center, widely rumored to be places where suspected insurgents are abused.
Lieutenant Obal, the captain's deputy, was distraught at the thought that the detainee had been beaten. ''I don't think that's right,'' he said. ''We have intelligence teams, they have techniques for getting information, they don't do things like that. It's not civilization.''
About 30 yards away, on the other side of the wall, the Iraqi soldiers suggested that the Americans were being naïve. The insurgents are playing for keeps, they say, and force must be answered with force.
''If the Americans used this way, the way we use, nobody would shoot the Americans at all,'' Captain Hassan said. ''But they are easy with them, and they have made it easy for the terrorists.''
''I didn't beat them all, I beat Mustafa in front of the others. We tell him we're going to string him up.'' He demonstrated, his arms spread wide. ''And, I made the others see him,'' he said.
Captain Hassan and his colleagues said they knew the Iraqi Army had rules against beatings, but ''they tell us to do what we have to do,'' he said.
''For me it's a matter of conscience, not rules,'' he said.
Captain Fowler's proposal to release Mr. Jassam in the hope he would become an informant struck Captain Hassan as useless and quite possibly dangerous.
''It's kind of not a good idea,'' he said carefully, as if explaining something to a child. ''He'll never become an informant. Al Qaeda will know he's been captured. He'll go back to them and say, 'The Americans wanted me to be an informer, but I will be loyal to you.' He will be more afraid of Al Qaeda guys than of the Americans.''
But some detainees may have a simpler motivation: survival. The Iraqi soldiers say many of the insurgents are paid for their attacks, and they gain respect and protection from other militants.
Another officer in the Iraqi unit, Major Hussain, who would not give his full name, said the only way to lure such militants out of the insurgent life would be to offer them a comparable standard of living.
''Ziad, over there, wanted to come work with us,'' Major Hussain said, indicating one of the insurgent suspects, Ziad Sabah Jasim, who became cooperative after witnessing the beating of Mr. Jassam. ''He said, 'Just let me join you,' ''
''Most of them don't believe in this insurgency,'' he said. ''They are young people. They are having to stay home without employment. They want food. They want money. They want to be able to marry. But there are no jobs. If you offered them jobs, most of them would not be working with Al Qaeda.''
The American soldiers would agree, but they also are clear that the only way to bring jobs is first to make the neighborhood secure. ''You need a J.S.S. every kilometer or so,'' Captain Fowler said. For now, there are nowhere near that many security stations on Baghdad's west side. Islands in the Conflict.
This is the first of a series of articles examining the effects of the joint American and Iraqi security stations and troop increase in Baghdad.
THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ; 3 Suspects Talk After Iraqi Soldiers Do Dirty Work
By ALISSA J. RUBIN; ASHLEY GILBERTSON CONTRIBUTED REPORTING.
Out here in what the soldiers call Baghdad's wild west, sometimes the choices are all bad.
In one of the new joint American-Iraqi security stations in the capital this month, in the volatile Ghazaliya neighborhood, Capt. Darren Fowler was heaping praise on his Iraqi counterparts for helping capture three insurgent suspects who had provided information he believed would save American lives.
''The detainee gave us names from the highest to the lowest,'' Captain Fowler told the Iraqi soldiers. ''He showed us their safe houses, where they store weapons and I.E.D.'s and where they keep kidnap victims, how they get weapons, where weapons come from, how they place I.E.D.'s, attack us and go away. Because you detained this guy this is the first intelligence linking everything together. Good job. Very good job.''
The Iraqi officers beamed. What the Americans did not know and what the Iraqis had not told them was that before handing over the detainees to the Americans, the Iraqi soldiers had beaten one of them in front of the other two, the Iraqis said. The stripes on the detainee's back, which appeared to be the product of a whipping with electrical cables, were later shown briefly to a photographer, who was not allowed to take a picture.
To the Iraqi soldiers, the treatment was normal and necessary. They were proud of their technique and proud to have helped the Americans.
''I prepared him for the Americans and let them take his confession,'' Capt. Bassim Hassan said through an interpreter. ''We know how to make them talk. We know their back streets. We beat them. I don't beat them that much, but enough so he feels the pain and it makes him desperate.''
As American and Iraqi troops set up these outposts in dangerous neighborhoods to take on the insurgents block by block, they find themselves continually facing lethal attacks. In practice, the Americans and Iraqis seem to have different answers about what tactics are acceptable in response.
Beatings like this, which are usually hard to verify but appear to be widespread given the fears about the Iraqi security forces frequently expressed by ordinary Iraqis, present the Americans with a largely undiscussed dilemma.
The beaten detainee, according to Captain Fowler, not only led the Americans to safe houses believed to be used by Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia but also confessed to laying and detonating roadside bombs along a section of road heavily traveled by American patrols. Just a month ago, four soldiers from Captain Fowler's regiment died on that road after the explosion of a large, deeply buried bomb, possibly made in the bomb factory that the Americans were able to dismantle because of the detainee's information, Captain Fowler said.
But beating is strictly forbidden by the United States Army's Field Manual, as well as American and Iraqi laws. When the Americans learned about the beating, they were quick to condemn it.
The use of torture by American soldiers and contractors at Abu Ghraib only compounded Iraqi hatred of Americans and further undermined American moral claims in Iraq. It also produced little valuable information. Most experts, including in the military, say they believe that coerced confessions are an unreliable way to learn about enemy operations because people being tortured will often say whatever they think it will take to stop the pain.
This joint security station in Ghazaliya opened on March 15, about a month after the latest increase in American troops began. The station, inhabited by about 70 soldiers of Company D of the Second Battalion, 12th Cavalry, and their Iraqi counterparts, is named for Specialist Robert Thrasher, a member of the unit killed by sniper fire on Feb. 11 when the company was scouting for a station site.
Thrasher, as the station is known, sits in the southern part of Ghazaliya, one of the roughest areas of western Baghdad. In the northern part, Shiite militias, led by the Mahdi Army, have been driving out Sunni Arabs through raids and assassinations. Sunnis have pushed Shiites out of the southern part.
Sewage pools in the streets. Water and electricity are almost nonexistent, and fewer than half the houses are occupied. The neighborhood graffiti broadcasts the presence of an active insurgency: ''Long live Abu Hamza al-Muhajar,'' reads one scrawl, referring to a local insurgent leader.
The outpost's location, along one of the main arms smuggling routes from Falluja, was chosen because it was next to a litter-filled lot that was a dumping ground for bodies. When they first arrived, the American soldiers found 30 bodies there, among them women and children.
Now it is rare to find more than one or two, said Captain Fowler, who keeps photos of every one on his computer as a reminder of how much worse it was before his company took up residence. He can also point to other signs of progress: children have begun to play outside again, and women walk to the market.
But the area remains far from calm. The radio in the joint operations room crackles all day long with reports of bomb explosions or newly sighted explosive devices that must be scouted by the soldiers. The distance to the next security station is barely half a mile, but it is so dangerous that the soldiers cannot walk there and do not like to drive more often than necessary.
Although one tenet of the Baghdad security plan is that soldiers should patrol on foot to get to know local residents, it was on just such a patrol that Specialist Thrasher died. Now, said Sgt. Trevis Good, 34, ''foot patrols don't exist; they are not something we do.'' The company's partner is the Third Battalion, Fourth Brigade, of the Iraqi Army's 10th Division. The soldiers come from Amara, the largest town in rural Maysan Province in the far south, a mostly peaceful area where in a year of active duty they never had an injury, much less a fatality.
In just three weeks in Ghazaliya, the battalion has lost two officers and a soldier; 16 troops have been wounded. A few hundred Iraqi soldiers live in three attached houses just over a brick wall from the Americans. The houses, beefed up only by sandbags, lie outside the station's fortified area. Visiting their quarters means crouching down and running behind vehicles until entering one of the houses.
The Iraqi soldiers have their own network of informants, and they picked up the detainee who was later beaten, Mustafa Subhi Jassam, after seeing him loitering around a main patrol route twice in the same day. The other two insurgent suspects were picked up separately.
After interrogating Mr. Jassam, a thin young man wearing a blue and red warm-up outfit, for much of the night, the Americans took him to point out one of the houses where the Qaeda militants made bombs. When the Americans arrived, a half-eaten lunch was on the table next to a couple of detonators and some blasting wire. The insurgents appeared to have been gnawing on chicken and flat bread while making fuses for I.E.D.'s, improvised explosive devices, the military's term for the roadside bombs found here.
On the table and in bags on the floor were mountains of soap, which can be used in homemade explosives. Blasting wire lay in coils. Buried in the garden were two large antiaircraft guns known as Duskas, three propane tanks, and an oxygen tank that was partly cut in preparation for being turned into a huge bomb, probably similar to the one that killed the four soldiers. On the roof a large pile of homemade explosives was drying in the sun.
The Iraqi soldiers were ecstatic. They had delivered. They snapped photos of each other in front of the cache with the blasting cords in their mouths, grinning. The Americans were nervous. ''One spark will blow this place up,'' said First Lt. Michael Obal as an Iraqi soldier flicked a lighted cigarette butt within inches of one cache of explosives. ''It's highly unstable TNT.''
Later, the Americans plotted into their computers the location of each of the Qaeda safe houses that Mr. Jassam had pointed out. ''He was singing like a songbird,'' said First Lt. Sean Henley, 24.
After the prisoner was returned to the Iraqis, Captain Fowler was asked whether the Americans realized that the information was given only after the Iraqis had beaten Mr. Jassam. ''They are not supposed to do that,'' he said. ''What I don't see, I don't know, and I can't stop. The detainees are deathly afraid of being sent to the Iraqi justice system, because this is the kind of thing they do. But this is their culture.''
Later, Captain Fowler said that he thought Mr. Jassam had talked because he hoped to be released. The captain wanted him let go so that he could act as an informant. The Iraqi soldiers vetoed the idea.
Mr. Jassam is now being held in an Iraqi government detention center, widely rumored to be places where suspected insurgents are abused.
Lieutenant Obal, the captain's deputy, was distraught at the thought that the detainee had been beaten. ''I don't think that's right,'' he said. ''We have intelligence teams, they have techniques for getting information, they don't do things like that. It's not civilization.''
About 30 yards away, on the other side of the wall, the Iraqi soldiers suggested that the Americans were being naïve. The insurgents are playing for keeps, they say, and force must be answered with force.
''If the Americans used this way, the way we use, nobody would shoot the Americans at all,'' Captain Hassan said. ''But they are easy with them, and they have made it easy for the terrorists.''
''I didn't beat them all, I beat Mustafa in front of the others. We tell him we're going to string him up.'' He demonstrated, his arms spread wide. ''And, I made the others see him,'' he said.
Captain Hassan and his colleagues said they knew the Iraqi Army had rules against beatings, but ''they tell us to do what we have to do,'' he said.
''For me it's a matter of conscience, not rules,'' he said.
Captain Fowler's proposal to release Mr. Jassam in the hope he would become an informant struck Captain Hassan as useless and quite possibly dangerous.
''It's kind of not a good idea,'' he said carefully, as if explaining something to a child. ''He'll never become an informant. Al Qaeda will know he's been captured. He'll go back to them and say, 'The Americans wanted me to be an informer, but I will be loyal to you.' He will be more afraid of Al Qaeda guys than of the Americans.''
But some detainees may have a simpler motivation: survival. The Iraqi soldiers say many of the insurgents are paid for their attacks, and they gain respect and protection from other militants.
Another officer in the Iraqi unit, Major Hussain, who would not give his full name, said the only way to lure such militants out of the insurgent life would be to offer them a comparable standard of living.
''Ziad, over there, wanted to come work with us,'' Major Hussain said, indicating one of the insurgent suspects, Ziad Sabah Jasim, who became cooperative after witnessing the beating of Mr. Jassam. ''He said, 'Just let me join you,' ''
''Most of them don't believe in this insurgency,'' he said. ''They are young people. They are having to stay home without employment. They want food. They want money. They want to be able to marry. But there are no jobs. If you offered them jobs, most of them would not be working with Al Qaeda.''
The American soldiers would agree, but they also are clear that the only way to bring jobs is first to make the neighborhood secure. ''You need a J.S.S. every kilometer or so,'' Captain Fowler said. For now, there are nowhere near that many security stations on Baghdad's west side. Islands in the Conflict.
This is the first of a series of articles examining the effects of the joint American and Iraqi security stations and troop increase in Baghdad.
Did we say "warrants"?
New York Times, May 2, 2007
May 2, 2007
Administration Pulls Back on Surveillance Agreement
By JAMES RISEN
WASHINGTON, May 1 — Senior Bush administration officials told Congress on Tuesday that they could not pledge that the administration would continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program, as it agreed to do in January.
Rather, they argued that the president had the constitutional authority to decide for himself whether to conduct surveillance without warrants.
As a result of the January agreement, the administration said that the National Security Agency’s domestic spying program has been brought under the legal structure laid out in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court-approved warrants for the wiretapping of American citizens and others inside the United States.
But on Tuesday, the senior officials, including Michael McConnell, the new director of national intelligence, said they believed that the president still had the authority under Article II of the Constitution to once again order the N.S.A. to conduct surveillance inside the country without warrants.
During a hearing Tuesday of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mr. McConnell was asked by Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, whether he could promise that the administration would no longer sidestep the court when seeking warrants.
“Sir, the president’s authority under Article II is in the Constitution,” Mr. McConnell said. “So if the president chose to exercise Article II authority, that would be the president’s call.”
The administration had earlier argued that both the president’s inherent executive powers under Article II of the Constitution, as well as the September 2001 Congressional authorization to use military force against Al Qaeda, provided him with the power to conduct surveillance without warrants.
Mr. McConnell emphasized that all domestic electronic surveillance was now being conducted with court-approved warrants, and said that there were no plans “that we are formulating or thinking about currently” to resume domestic wiretapping without warrants.
“But I’d just highlight,” he said, “Article II is Article II, so in a different circumstance, I can’t speak for the president what he might decide.”
The exchange came as the administration is seeking new legislation to update the surveillance act to expand the government’s surveillance powers, in part to deal with vast changes in communications technology since 1978, when the measure was enacted.
The White House says that the outmoded rules embedded in the law mean that the government cannot eavesdrop on some telephone calls, e-mail and other communications that do not involve Americans or impinge on the privacy rights of people inside the United States.
While administration officials, citing national security concerns, have declined to discuss publicly what communications gaps they wish to plug, their proposed legislation seems designed to single out so-called “transit traffic,” purely international telephone calls and e-mail that go from one foreign country to another, but happen to be digitally routed through the United States telecommunications system.
The administration’s proposal would also provide legal immunity for telecommunications companies that cooperated with the National Security Agency’s surveillance program without warrants before it was brought under the surveillance act in January. It would also provide legal protections for government workers who took part in the N.S.A. program.
Several Democratic lawmakers expressed frustration on Tuesday that the administration had not provided documents related to the National Security Agency program, which the White House called the Terrorist Surveillance Program. They suggested that they would be reluctant to agree to a change in the surveillance law without more information from the White House.
“To this day, we have never been provided the presidential authorization that cleared that program to go or the attorney general-Department of Justice opinions that declared it to be lawful,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island. “Where’s the transparency as to the presidential authorizations for this closed program? That’s a pretty big ‘we’re not going to tell you’ in this new atmosphere of trust we’re trying to build.”
May 2, 2007
Administration Pulls Back on Surveillance Agreement
By JAMES RISEN
WASHINGTON, May 1 — Senior Bush administration officials told Congress on Tuesday that they could not pledge that the administration would continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program, as it agreed to do in January.
Rather, they argued that the president had the constitutional authority to decide for himself whether to conduct surveillance without warrants.
As a result of the January agreement, the administration said that the National Security Agency’s domestic spying program has been brought under the legal structure laid out in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court-approved warrants for the wiretapping of American citizens and others inside the United States.
But on Tuesday, the senior officials, including Michael McConnell, the new director of national intelligence, said they believed that the president still had the authority under Article II of the Constitution to once again order the N.S.A. to conduct surveillance inside the country without warrants.
During a hearing Tuesday of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mr. McConnell was asked by Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, whether he could promise that the administration would no longer sidestep the court when seeking warrants.
“Sir, the president’s authority under Article II is in the Constitution,” Mr. McConnell said. “So if the president chose to exercise Article II authority, that would be the president’s call.”
The administration had earlier argued that both the president’s inherent executive powers under Article II of the Constitution, as well as the September 2001 Congressional authorization to use military force against Al Qaeda, provided him with the power to conduct surveillance without warrants.
Mr. McConnell emphasized that all domestic electronic surveillance was now being conducted with court-approved warrants, and said that there were no plans “that we are formulating or thinking about currently” to resume domestic wiretapping without warrants.
“But I’d just highlight,” he said, “Article II is Article II, so in a different circumstance, I can’t speak for the president what he might decide.”
The exchange came as the administration is seeking new legislation to update the surveillance act to expand the government’s surveillance powers, in part to deal with vast changes in communications technology since 1978, when the measure was enacted.
The White House says that the outmoded rules embedded in the law mean that the government cannot eavesdrop on some telephone calls, e-mail and other communications that do not involve Americans or impinge on the privacy rights of people inside the United States.
While administration officials, citing national security concerns, have declined to discuss publicly what communications gaps they wish to plug, their proposed legislation seems designed to single out so-called “transit traffic,” purely international telephone calls and e-mail that go from one foreign country to another, but happen to be digitally routed through the United States telecommunications system.
The administration’s proposal would also provide legal immunity for telecommunications companies that cooperated with the National Security Agency’s surveillance program without warrants before it was brought under the surveillance act in January. It would also provide legal protections for government workers who took part in the N.S.A. program.
Several Democratic lawmakers expressed frustration on Tuesday that the administration had not provided documents related to the National Security Agency program, which the White House called the Terrorist Surveillance Program. They suggested that they would be reluctant to agree to a change in the surveillance law without more information from the White House.
“To this day, we have never been provided the presidential authorization that cleared that program to go or the attorney general-Department of Justice opinions that declared it to be lawful,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island. “Where’s the transparency as to the presidential authorizations for this closed program? That’s a pretty big ‘we’re not going to tell you’ in this new atmosphere of trust we’re trying to build.”
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
As Deportation Pace Rises, Illegal Immigrants Dig In
New York Times
May 1, 2007
By JULIA PRESTON
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The day after his wife was deported to their home country, Honduras, Lilo Mancía grieved as though she had died.
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The day after his wife was deported to their home country, Honduras, Lilo Mancía grieved as though she had died.
Neighbors arrived with doughnuts and juice for their two small children, while Mr. Mancía, an illegal immigrant like his wife, María Briselda Amaya, took telephone calls from relatives and tried not to break down.
“The first thing I thought of was the children,” Mr. Mancía, who is fighting his own deportation order, told the visitors gathered in his second floor walkup apartment in New Bedford a couple of weeks ago. “The future we imagined for them, it all collapsed.”
Last year on May 1, hoping to influence Congress to adopt legislation making illegal immigrants legal, hundreds of thousands of immigrants held marches and work stoppages across the country. This May 1 there will be another round of rallies and marches, but this time immigrants will also be protesting a surge in deportations.
The events are expected to be much smaller than a year ago, organizers said, as stepped-up enforcement by the authorities has made illegal immigrants wary of protesting in public and more doubtful that Congress will soon act to give them a chance at legalization.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, facing intense political pressure to toughen enforcement, removed 221,664 illegal immigrants from the country over the last year, an increase of more than 37,000 — about 20 percent — over the year before, according to the agency’s tally.
While President Bush and many Democrats have called for a path to legalize some 12 million illegal immigrants, a significant number of Republicans in Congress reject the plan because they view it as amnesty for lawbreakers. They advocate a broader campaign of deportations that would expel many illegal immigrants and, they say, drive millions more to give up and go home.
While President Bush and many Democrats have called for a path to legalize some 12 million illegal immigrants, a significant number of Republicans in Congress reject the plan because they view it as amnesty for lawbreakers. They advocate a broader campaign of deportations that would expel many illegal immigrants and, they say, drive millions more to give up and go home.
“We are not calling for I.C.E. to become the Gestapo knocking on doors in the middle of the night,” said Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations for NumbersUSA, a group in Washington that seeks to curb immigration. “But we have to increase the likelihood that if you are here illegally you will be caught.”
So far, many of the deportations have caused illegal families to hunker down and plot ways to avoid detection and resist deportation, not run voluntarily for the border, immigrant advocates said. In Massachusetts, immigration agents have been challenged by lawyers, labor unions and state officials who question their raid tactics and are fighting trench by legal trench to block deportations.
Mr. Mancía was amazed at the offers of help he received, including from the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, the state’s Department of Social Services and Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts.
Mr. Mancía has been given emergency aid to pay his bills while his deportation case proceeds, and Elizabeth Badger, a public service lawyer in Boston, was still fighting his wife’s deportation after she was on the ground in Honduras.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Mr. Mancía declared defiantly to a downstairs neighbor. “I’m going to stand my ground here until I win.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say their priority is to locate and deport fugitive immigrants with criminal records or convicts who are finishing prison sentences. Still, thousands of illegal immigrants like the Mancías with no criminal history have been caught in raids, the officials acknowledge.
Also new expedited procedures have allowed agents greater flexibility to deport illegal immigrants caught in border areas, bypassing court hearings. Many immigrants, when caught, agree to leave voluntarily because it means they are not barred from returning legally in the future.
Seen from the working class communities like New Bedford, the deportations are a blunt instrument. Frequently the deported immigrants were not alone in the United States, but came from families with a mix of legal and illegal members who were well settled in this country.
A growing number of deportee families have children who were born here and are United States citizens. (The Mancía’s younger son, Jeffrey, was born in Texas.) More than 3.1 million American children have at least one illegal immigrant parent, said Jeffrey S. Passel, a demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center.
Mr. Mancía and his wife were among 361 workers arrested on March 6 in an immigration raid at Michael Bianco Inc., a leather goods factory in this faded manufacturing town. She remained in detention while he was released to care for their boys, Jeffrey, 2, and Kevin, 5.
On April 18, Ms. Amaya was awakened at 4 a.m., driven by immigration agents to Kennedy Airport in New York and placed on a passenger flight to Honduras, Mr. Mancía said.
Telephoning her husband as soon as she could place an international call, she said little, only that she was disoriented and more afraid of her home country than an American jail. She has no house, property or job in Honduras.
“She has no words right now,” Mr. Mancía said, explaining why his wife refused to be interviewed by telephone.
Mr. Mancía has been left to fight off his own deportation and face a series of difficult choices.
He must decide, he said, whether to press his case in the United States or declare defeat and take the boys to rejoin their mother in Honduras. If forced to depart, he will weigh whether to leave his sons with friends in New Bedford to get a quality of schooling he believes they will not have in Honduras. Mr. Mancía said he and his wife had decided to leave their home in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, for their safety, because criminal gangs used the streets as a combat zone. Ms. Amaya’s sister was on a public bus returning from Christmas shopping on Dec. 23, 2004, when gang gunmen shot it up, killing her and 27 other passengers, he said.
He must decide, he said, whether to press his case in the United States or declare defeat and take the boys to rejoin their mother in Honduras. If forced to depart, he will weigh whether to leave his sons with friends in New Bedford to get a quality of schooling he believes they will not have in Honduras. Mr. Mancía said he and his wife had decided to leave their home in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, for their safety, because criminal gangs used the streets as a combat zone. Ms. Amaya’s sister was on a public bus returning from Christmas shopping on Dec. 23, 2004, when gang gunmen shot it up, killing her and 27 other passengers, he said.
"We walked over dead bodies in Honduras,” Mr. Mancía said. “The children see that and they don’t grow up well.”
He was the first to come to the United States, crossing at night at Laredo, Texas. In January 2005 Ms. Amaya took the same route, carrying Kevin, then a toddler. Caught by the Border Patrol, she applied for political asylum and was released temporarily. After Jeffrey was born in Houston, they came to New Bedford. Her asylum petition was eventually denied.
Stitching military backpacks in the Bianco factory at $7.00 an hour, the couple achieved stability that felt almost like prosperity. They bought a white aluminum kitchen set and a microwave oven. Kevin was content in kindergarten, reciting his ABC’s and chattering in English, which neither parent speaks.
Soon they had a family cluster in New Bedford, as three other relatives from Honduras, drawn by word of jobs at Bianco, came to work there as well.
“We knew it would be hard to get legal papers,” Mr. Mancía said. “Since so many people were in the same situation, we learned to live like the rest.”
After the March 6 raid, immigration lawyers appealed Ms. Amaya’s asylum case and she became optimistic. But she remained in immigration detention in the Bristol County jail, unable to receive visits from the children.
“He is refusing to eat and needs to be coaxed to take sustenance,” Arthur Dutra, a teacher at the John Hannigan School, wrote in a March 15 letter about Kevin’s condition. “He asks for his mother repeatedly.”
A nurse at the Greater New Bedford Community Health Center, Jacqueline Arieta, wrote in a separate letter that Jeffrey was having recurring earaches and losing his appetite due to “acute sadness.”
A gaunt man with a mild voice, Mr. Mancía said he did not mind cooking for the boys or washing their clothes at the Laundromat. He said he and his wife, balancing two factory jobs, had learned they both had to do housework.
The help he has received in fighting his deportation has allowed him to believe that he might avoid his wife’s fate, even though he has no papers, no job skill to offer other than hard work and very limited legal avenues to pursue. Although Jeffrey is an American citizen, he would not be able to petition for his parents to be admitted to the country legally until he was 21.
Mr. Mancía said he was preparing for any outcome, even the prospect of a separation from one or both sons so they could remain at least temporarily in the United States.
“My son is an American,” Mr. Mancía said “He needs to be educated in American schools, to speak English. He needs this country.”
Mr. Mancía said he was preparing for any outcome, even the prospect of a separation from one or both sons so they could remain at least temporarily in the United States.
“My son is an American,” Mr. Mancía said “He needs to be educated in American schools, to speak English. He needs this country.”
Ms. Jenks, of NumbersUSA , said the responsibility for the impact on children of the deportations rests with their parents.
“If parents are going to come here illegally, unfortunately the child faces the consequences as well,” she said.
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