News Article

By: DOUGLAS WATSON/Managing Editor
Source: The Greeneville Sun
06-03-2005

Dr. Graham Leonard, an Arabic-speaking educator from Kingsport who spent five weeks in Iraq earlier this year with the 2nd Squadron of 278th Regimental Combat Team, on Tuesday had high praise for "The Tennessee Peacemakers," as the unit is called.

However, Leonard, who spent most of his teaching career in the Middle East, told the Rotarians he is not optimistic about the prospects for establishing a genuine democracy in that conflict-ridden country.

Noting that Iraq is scheduled to have an election on Dec. 8, Leonard forecast, "Whoever wins that election, his first job will be to get rid of the opposition," as has been the tradition of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East.

"By this time next year, there will be no opposition," Leonard predicted for Iraq. He said he expects the election’s losers either to fall in line in support of the winner, be exiled, killed or otherwise publicly silenced.

Speaking from his extensive background of living in the Arab world and studying its history, Leonard said that in the Middle East, "an army is something (used by the country’s leader) to control the people."

Leonard, a remarkably fit 79-year-old, is a native Tennessean, but has spent 57 years studying the Arabs, Arabic and Islam. For 35 years he lived in the Middle East, much of that time in Ramallah, the Palestinian city in the West Bank between Israel and Jordan.

Assisted Guardsmen

Leonard ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for Congress last fall against U.S. Rep. Bill Jenkins, R-1st, of Hawkins County.

But he also volunteered to talk to National Guardsmen about the people and culture of Iraq, where they would soon be stationed.

When the 2/278th Regimental Combat Team went last year to Camp Shelby in Mississippi to train for their Middle East mission, officers of the unit asked Leonard if he would later join the 2/278 in Iraq.

The unit includes many National Guardsmen from Greeneville-based Troop G. Leonard said he was able to do so as an "embedded journalist," representing the Daily Star, an English language daily in Beirut, Lebanon’s capital. He also submitted several articles published in The Greeneville Sun and elsewhere.

Leonard linked up with the 2/278th by flying in late February to Jordan, then joining in a taxi convoy with members of group called "Christian Peacemakers" for the long ride across the desert to Baghdad, Iraq’s strife-torn capital.

From March 5 to April 8, Leonard was "embedded" with the 2/278th at Forward Operating Base Bernstein near Tuz, in northern Iraq.

When he departed Iraq, Leonard did so by taking a taxi across the border, then going through Syria to Jordan.

Relations With Iraqis

Leonard said that in working informally as an interpreter and cultural advisor with 2/278th’s troops, he noticed that East Tennesseans, like many Arabs, "are very good at recognizing the character" of strangers, even when they don’t speak their language. Nevertheless, he said, "The biggest problem we’ve got out there (in Iraq) is a shortage of interpreters."

Language is a big challenge for the 2/278th troops in the Tuz area, where four languages are widely spoken by those of the various groups: Arabic, Kurdish, Turkmen and English.

Leonard said the 2/278th had 45 Iraqis who had been hired as interpreters by a private U.S. contractor, but only two of those Iraqis had been to the United States. The interpreters generally had a poor command of English, he said, and the unit had only one American soldier who spoke Arabic, though not well.

'The Enemy Are All Sunnis'

Leonard said of those carrying out the bombing attacks, "the enemy are all Sunnis," referring to the smallest of the three main ethnic groups, but the one whose leaders have ruled Iraq for centuries.

He said those attacking U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies working for the country’s new government, are "Sunnis fighting desperately" not to lose control of the country to their Shiite and Kurdish rivals.

Leonard said the Sunnis, who were treated the best by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, a Sunni himself, fear that in the government that will be elected next December, they will lose power to the Shiite Moslems.

The Shiites, he said, constitute 62 percent of Iraq’s population and are especially dominant in southern Iraq. The Shiites were severely persecuted over many years by Saddam’s regime.

Leonard said the Kurds, who are Moslems but not Arabs, are Iraq's third major ethnic group. They mainly reside in northern Iraq, but there are also Kurds in adjoining Turkey, Syria and Iran, their region being called Kurdistan.

The Kurds have long sought to have their own, independent country, but the governments of Iraq and the neighboring countries have effectively blocked that aspiration.

Nevertheless, Leonard said, the Kurds in northern Iraq in recent years have been living semi-autonomously from the rest of Iraq, largely protected by U.S. military flights over their region that discouraged attacks on them by Saddam’s forces.

He said, "The Kurds love us," meaning Americans.

Leonard added that the Kurds also continue to receive undercover military assistance from the government of Israel, which long has had hostile relations with Iraq, Iran and Syria.

Israel's government, it has been reported, figures that any help it can give the Kurds hinders its enemies.

Bombs, Not Bullets

Leonard told the Rotarians that the troops of the 2/278th "are not being shot at. They are being bombed" by the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) planted mainly in roads by the enemy.

He said that of the "several hundred" Iraqis apprehended by the 2/278th’s soldiers for their involvement in such roadside bombings, most had "$200 to $300" in their pockets or hidden in their homes.

That, Leonard said, is a clear evidence that the bombers were being paid to carry out their attacks, probably by remnants of Saddam’s former regime who feel they have no future in a democratic Iraq and are using any means to try to derail it.

Leonard said many of the guardsmen from Greene County serving with the 2/278th are working as scouts, traveling in convoys of three HUMVEEs that are constantly patrolling the desert region's roads.

He praised the Tennesseans' keen eyes that frequently have enabled them to notice when roadside holes have recently been filled, possibly with a bomb.

'Our Soldiers Are Detectives'

Leonard said, "Our soldiers are being detectives," carefully noting any suspicious changes in their area.

He added that as a result of such cautious observations, "No explosions have occurred under U.S. vehicles in our area."

Leonard reported that the 2/278th’s soldiers generally work 12-hour daily shifts. In their patrolling, the guardsmen from Greene County have frequent contact with ordinary Iraqis.

"One half of our people are talking to Iraqis every day," he said. Leonard said a large part of his role while with the 2/278th was to help the American troops understand the culture of the Iraqis.

For example, he said, after U.S. officers met a local Iraqi commander, he talked privately with the American officers about the Iraqi, everyone having the same feeling that the Iraqi probably was corrupt.

Their suspicions were confirmed the next day when a young Iraqi man appeared at FOB Bernstein, saying he expected to be enrolled in an Iraqi security force since he had paid $200 to one of the local commander’s bodyguards.

While this was a clear case of corruption by American standards, Graham explained to the U.S. officers that the local Iraqi commander was expected to provide money for his underlings, and it was quite normal for him to take money in order to do so.

"Leadership in the Middle East means that you have got to be generous," he said, by sharing such payoffs with those working for you.

Liked By Most Iraqis

Leonard said he is especially proud of the 2/278th’s troops, who have lived up their nickname, "Tennessee Peacemakers."

Leonard said he had talked with an Iraqi in the Tuz area who told him the Tennesseans were the fourth U.S. unit to be deployed there. The Iraqi added, "These are the only ones that treated us like regular people," and "they are the only ones that prayed."

In contrast, Leonard said, when he was briefly with some other U.S. Army troops in Mosul, he was shocked to hear American soldiers informally saying of Iraqis, "Nuke them. Kill them."

Leonard said the 2/278th has been doing much needed reconstruction work, such as "rebuilding the toilets in all the schools in the area."

He said the Iraqi kids, with their big brown eyes and friendly smiles, are especially appealing. Unfortunately, he said, the patrolling U.S. troops generally cannot stop to meet the waving children.

Leonard urged anyone interested in helping Iraqis children not to send them candy, but to ship basic school supplies.

'Lessons Learned In Iraq'

Leonard had only a half-hour for his discussion, but at the end of his talk, he passed out a sheet listing "Lessons Learned In Iraq.” They include:

• "Iraq was already irreparably broken down even before the U.S. ‘coalition’ arrived;

• "Every part of Iraq has very different problems ..."

• "There is an inherent contradiction for occupation by an army of an alien culture (asked) to impose 'peace,' let alone inculcate concepts of government (like democracy) for which the Iraqi people have little precedence, nor even the basic psychology and education.

• "Democracy needs citizens educated to make individual critical judgments, which Iraq has not had for seven centuries, when Moslem discussion-based education was replaced by rote learning which enforces group identity...

"Rightly or wrongly, the U.S. invasion of Iraq, far more, the very flawed occupation, have made America (formerly too idealized!) hated throughout ... the Arab and Muslim worlds..." Plans To Return To Iraq

Leonard said that later this summer he plans to return to Iraq to be "embedded" again with the 2/278th.

He said that although the 2/278th is scheduled to leave Iraq in October, he suspects that the unit will be kept there until after Iraq's Dec. 8 election to help maintain security before and during the election.

Leonard also sounded a warning regarding the Tennessee guardsmen and reservists who will be returning home here.

He listed as the final lesson to be learned, "The significance of that work that the Tennessee Peacemakers (2/278th) are doing in Iraq and the bonding between these longtime friends in the Tennessee National Guard will make life back in Northeast Tennessee after October or December seem very meaningless unless we at home help them to build lives here with significant individual and community challenges." Besides the Rotarians who heard Leonard’s talk at First Presbyterian Church, two soldiers were present.

One was Sgt. Stephen Miller, who returned here in March after serving for a year in Iraq with Company C, the U.S. Army Reserve unit based in Greeneville.

The other soldier present was Staff Sgt. Tom Stephens with Troop G, the Greeneville-based unit of the National Guard. Stephens said that because of a medical problem, he was not previously sent to the Middle East with his unit, but is expecting to be deployed there soon.

Sun Photo by Anthony J. Snyder - Dr. Graham Leonard, a retired educator who spent much of his career in the Middle East and earlier this year was embedded for five weeks with the 2nd Squadron of 278th Regimental Combat Team, is shown speaking here to the Noon Rotary Club about Iraq. A map of the country is behind him.

Story Copyright to Greeneville Sun