Occupation Becomes Unpopular

A month ago US forces ringed the village with barbed wire. Visitors need permission to enter, and everybody is checked on arrival and departure. This has meant that the Sheik's large reception hall is mostly empty these days. "I have farms, and people would come to me with their problems or just to report. Now that is impossible." Sheik Mahmoud believes the U.S. forces did this to search for Saddam. But just days after the arrest, the ring is tighter than ever. "If Saddam Hussein had ever put barbed wire around this village, we would have fought him," the Sheik says angrily.

The Sheik says he is a monarchist, rather than a Baath member like Saddam Hussein. He emphasises his political differences with the arrested leader. In the early nineties he was forced out of his position, and Saddam appointed someone else head of the tribe, he says. "He is now dead. He was killed two months ago." The Sheik does not elaborate.
Despite such differences, he says no one from his own tribe would have betrayed Saddam. "In Iraq family ties are more important than political differences," he says. The Sheik points out that Saddam was caught in Durra village just south of Ouja. "We did not even know where he was."

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