The Iraqi Kidnapping Machine

A harrowing account of a great evil still churning in Iraq:

About a month ago Hassem called one morning and told me his father had been kidnapped and was probably going to be killed. Strangely (or incredibly), this was the second time his father had been kidnapped during my five months in Baghdad. The first time it was "by mistake" by Iraqi Army troops on the lookout for Al Zawahari followers. That time he was held for about a week and then released, very frightened, but in relatively good condition.

Hassem said that on this occasion a group of about 10 Iraqi soldiers came to his father's very well-guarded small factory and introduced themselves to the security detachment: "Brothers put away your weapons..." they said. They then asked for the owner and when Hassem's father walked in, they jumped him, beat him savagely, tied him up, and threw him in the back of their pick-up truck. On their way out, they collected a safe containing $40,000 and put that in the truck too.

Obviously the "Iraqi soldiers" were not Iraqi soldiers. It was subsequently learned that they were actually some elite gunmen from Al Zarqawi's very well run organization of kidnappers. They run an extremely lucrative kidnap business and, from the ransoms they collect, are able to fund much of the terrorist activity in Iraq.

Hassem spent the next three weeks chasing down phony ransom calls. He spent most nights making fruitless trips to pick up false ransom notes. What Hassem did learn, however, was that the kidnappers and the police were working hand in glove with one another. When the real kidnappers started calling almost every day, they warned Hassem that the police would be watching his every move, and sure enough, the following day a police SUV would be parked in front of his house.

About ten days into the ordeal, the real kidnappers made phone contact with Hassem and told him that unless he came up with $500,000, his two young sons would also be kidnapped and killed. Hassem was beside himself and didn't know where to turn next, primarily because in this Kafkaesque world he had no idea whom he could trust.

Winnowing out the corrupt from the Iraqi government will not be easy. There has been no de-Ba'athification effort akin to the denazification effort in Germany after WWII. Tribunals have been slow and legalistic, where the simple expedient of beating Saddam Hussein to death and hanging his body in the public square would have a far more salutatory effect on the restive populace. As a result, horrors like this continue, driving the very Iraqis desperately needed to rebuild the nation out of it.