Despite claims stability has been restored, Sahawa leaders who supported occupation still subject to assassination and attack
It is not just the American military who are leaving Baghdad this week. Sheikh Mustafa Kamal is also packing his bags. But his exit will not have the fanfare or media profile of that of the US military, which once upon a time had hailed him as the city's saviour.
Mustafa will be gone by Monday, just like the rump of the eight-year US presence in Iraq. He will leave for the Kurdish north, far from the al-Qaida groups who continue to hunt him, having finally conceded that life in their crosshairs is untenable.
American forces, meanwhile, will leave after a trooping of the colours, saying that stability has been restored after eight gruelling years. Iraq has readied itself this week for a moment big on symbolism, but, like so much of the war and subsequent occupation, what appears to be big in symbolism is subject to claims that it is lacking in substance.
Mustafa is a former general in Saddam's army who helped the US oust al-Qaida from the southern half of the capital. He believes that he and thousands like him are being left in the lurch by the Americans. He was a prominent leader of the Awakening Council, a group supported and funded by the US in early 2007 to turn on al-Qaida. The 2,000 men under his control, and the 130,000 nationwide who eventually formed a huge US-backed militia, were partly responsible for what is seen as one of the war's turning points. Without them, US officers and White House officials have conceded, Iraq would have slipped further into an abyss.
"The Sahawa members haven't got what they deserved," said Mustafa, using the Arabic term for the group, which also became known as the Sons of Iraq. "They deserve what they were promised, and [the US] did not deliver on their promise. They tell us there is an Iraqi government, and we understand that. But there are Sahawa members who cannot defend themselves."
In four years Mustafa has survived six explosions aimed at killing him. This year his personal guard has been literally cut down from 12 to seven, by five different attacks. His son has been poisoned, along with his animals and every carp in his fish farms. His wife and daughters never leave home, for fear of attack. In the past three years every one of Mustafa's senior colleagues in the surrounding area of Dora has been killed or wounded. Across Iraq, all Sahawa leaders have similar stories. What remains of the lauded band of rebels is being picked off by an enemy that is relentless and, according to men like Mustafa, undefeated.
"I wish I could put my head on a pillow and sleep comfortably," he said. "Is it better than before? Of course it isn't," he said, referring to life before the 2003 invasion. "Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with anyone, you just had to be careful not to go near his chair."
As America leaves Iraqis seem caught between pride and uncertainty, fear and hope. Many like Mustafa long for more certain times, tired of leaders who insist stability has been restored to a country that last month saw more than 350 violent incidents and has seen the deaths of many more than 100,000 civilians since 2003. In Baghdad on Wednesday there were three attacks: a suicide bombing, a bomb under a car, and an assassination. Over the past fortnight around 70 people, mostly Shia worshippers, have been killed.
"I don't fear al-Qaida as much as I fear the Iranian militias," Mustafa said, echoing a refrain in Baghdad. "The East [Iran] won't allow this country to stand up."
Restoring stability has largely been left to Iraqi forces over the past 2½ years. In mid-2009 an agreement between Baghdad and Washington meant US forces would no longer unilaterally leave their bases. Since then the US effort has focused on training and mentoring; preparing Iraqi troops for life without them. At the same time US diplomats have worked hard to assemble, and keep together, a government which is struggling to provide the basics: build institutions, dispense justice, and create a sense that Iraq is indeed sovereign. In a sign of just how fraught such work can be, the US embassy in the city's most secure area, the Green Zone, has been in lockdown over the past week, because of fears an Iranian-backed militia, Asa'ab al-Haq, intends to kidnap a US citizen to trade for the release of the final prisoner held by the US in Iraq, a senior member of the Lebanese Hezbollah, Ali Musa al-Daqduq. Two western officials on Wednesday acknowledged that, for such a threat to be considered serious, it means a potential infiltration of Iraqi security forces in its most secure precinct.
"When one master leaves, another will arrive; and that's happened over the past few years," said Ahmed Shatura, a shopkeeper in the Shuwala neighbourhood of Baghdad. "I am Shia, and so of course are the Iranians. But I say to you, firmly and truthfully, the Iranians have [only] entered what the Americans have abandoned."
In the Green Zone, accused by many Iraqis of being disconnected from the real world throughout the past eight years, there is less fear felt that Iran has a whip hand. "Do we think we have a great western-orientated democratic state in the making? No, certainly not," said one senior western diplomat. "But we're not living in an Iranian client state, and we are not about to become one. What happens now is kind of down to the Iraqis; and that is a good thing."
Back in Dora, Sheikh Mustafa is reluctant to talk about his imminent departure, which he does not want to be seen as retreat in the face of an enemy. He is more than willing, however, to talk about the steady demise of the Awakening Council project since the US handed control of it to the Iraqi government in early 2009. Since then prime minister Nour al-Maliki has been uneasy at best about co-operating with the project, which was supposed to find jobs for the members of Awakening Council in security forces or government enterprises. "Maliki thinks that the Sahawa are infiltrated by the very men they are chasing, by al-Qaida," said one of the prime minister's advisers. "And he is right. They have shown that many of them cannot be trusted."
Since Iraq took over salaries for Awakening Council members have often been delayed for several months. Much worse, though, is that families of those of its members killed in the line of duty rarely receive pensions. "It is almost impossible to get," said Mustafa. "I've lost 100 guys under my command, and none of their families has been paid."
Maliki said on Wednesday night that Iraq now had an army, one that was capable and able to "respond to any threat". "It doesn't mean it is going to be easy. But we are going to train, we are going to work. And we will protect Iraq."
On Baghdad's streets there are those who want to believe him, and celebrate the US departure. For many others, like Mustafa, the moment is full of uncertainty. "I am really very upset with the American government. What has it all meant? I don't know yet."