Baghdad’s Checkpoint Madness
An Iraqi government minister resigns after a scuffle with U.S. soldiers. It’s just another sign of rising tensions over counterinsurgency measures

Still, Iraqis are understandably frustrated. An angry Al-Janabi not only resigned from the government, but is now denouncing the American military as an anti-Iraqi occupation army. He is hardly a raving anti-American. An insider since the days of the former Coalition Provisional Authority and one of the country's most prominent Sunnis as leader of the huge Janabi tribe, he was given the minister of state portfolio in Allawi's government. For a while he served as justice minister. And he remains the campaign chairman for Allawi's slate in the elections, the Iraqi List.

On Jan. 12, Al-Janabi was on his way to a cabinet meeting when he came to checkpoint 18 of the Green Zone, one of several that Iraqi VIPs use to vary their routes as they try to avoid assassination. He says he properly identified himself as a minister and showed his ID badges, but got into a dispute with the soldiers at the checkpoint. A lieutenant called over to adjudicate decided, Al-Janabi says, to place him under arrest and bound his hands in plasticuffs. "My hands were tied in the way they do it to terrorists. The lieutenant, he knew who I was. We are all under threat, any minister, we live every hour under the threat of being assassinated, and this is how they treat us."

Al-Janabi refused to say what led to the incident. "I don't care what the circumstances are," he says. "I'm a minister of a state that is supposed to be sovereign under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1546 [which formally ended the occupation of Iraq and created the Iraqi Interim Government]. The forces of occupation have no respect for me."

The minister's experience is hardly an isolated incident—nor even the worst example of it. Hachim al-Hassani, another minister, of industry and minerals, who was a long-time exile in the United States, has suffered two humiliating incidents. While in the Governing Council, he was denied entry on his way to an important meeting (Iraqi government offices, especially at the cabinet level, are nearly all in the American-controlled Green Zone). When he protested, a soldier lost his temper and punched him in the face, according to Al-Janabi. Al-Hassani confirmed the story, saying, "Yes, I was punched by a soldier. I was very calm with him. I just kept talking to him. He kept punching me, and I kept talking to him. The situation was very dangerous. We handled it very wisely at that time. I kept thinking I still have major things to do for my country. I was thinking about the [Iraqi Islamic] party. I was thinking about my country. It could have been much worse."