Army’s Only Muslim Cleric Says Lack Of Respect Has Cost US Lives

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...

Army’s Only Muslim Cleric Says Lack Of Respect Has Cost US Lives
Toby Harnden in Hawija
February 13, 2005

The US Army’s only Muslim chaplain in Iraq has described his struggle to "educate" soldiers to respect Muslims and how he helped free an innocent Iraqi from American custody after he had been framed by the coalition’s Kurdish allies.

Captain Abdullah Hulwe, a Syrian-born Sunni who also said that his wife had experienced discrimination at military bases in America, told The Telegraph that US troops had made many mistakes and were only slowly learning how to put things right.

"We go and take a hill," he said in his first full interview since he arrived in Iraq a year ago. "We’re not trained to be nice."

The army’s failure to shift from its war-fighting mentality had led to American deaths, he said. "The better you act, the safer this area will be. If nothing else you’ll not give a reason for someone who is neutral to go and join the insurgents."

As he sat in a hut surrounded by sandbags in a ramshackle base on the outskirts of Hawija, Capt Hulwe, 42, who joined the US Army as a mechanic, condemned what he saw as unnecessarily heavy-handed tactics by some American troops.

His remarks will make uncomfortable reading in the Pentagon. "You don’t force people off the road when you are driving," he said. "If you’re saying you’re a guest you have to behave like a guest. There is no need to cuss people out. We’ve never had any problem with women so we should not search and harass them.

"If a man is head of house you don’t let him lose face in front of his family. There is no need for swearing and hollering and frightening the children."

One of his main roles was to "educate" his flock, which he said extended to all soldiers and not just the handful of Muslims at the base. When he arrived in Iraq as chaplain to the US Army’s 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry, Capt Hulwe was angered to find that many Iraqis were arrested simply on the say-so of one person, who might well have a personal grudge to settle or a political axe to grind.

His Muslim faith and native Arabic meant that he was viewed by some local imams as an honest broker, though one who worked with him was murdered as a result. He was even invited to preach in some mosques.

One of his most satisfying moments, however, was being able to free a young man who had been wrongfully imprisoned by US forces. "The Kurds had arrested him and got a confession saying he was a Saudi working for al-Qaeda," Capt Hulwe said. "In fact, it turned out he was an Iraqi and his father had been murdered by Saddam Hussein’s regime."

After checking paperwork supplied by the family, the chaplain persuaded military lawyers that he should be freed.

After this incident he pressed for arrest procedures to be changed. "Just because one source says this guy’s bad, we used to arrest a guy," he said. "Now it has to be two different sources."

He said his own family had been mistreated after the September 11 attacks. His wife, who wears a traditional Muslim hijab, was searched every time she entered the base in Texas where he was stationed. "The soldier stopping her said he was only searching every 15th car," Capt Hulwe said. "I said, ’That’s baloney. Are you telling me my wife is unlucky every time?’ "

Capt Hulwe, who is being posted back to the US with his battalion this month, is uncertain of long-term success in Iraq. "When we came a year ago it was maybe minus 17 degrees and now it’s minus five. Is it a bit less cold? Yes. But it’s going to take a long time to achieve a warm embrace."