THULUIYA, Iraq — Less than a year ago, Ismael Mohammed Juwara lived high in the food chain of President Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. He was a secret policeman feared and respected among his comrades and in his hometown, enjoying a cornucopia of privileges from the government.
Now, as he scrapes out a living by selling diesel fuel illegally, he is a pariah in the new Iraq. “We were on top of the system. We had dreams,” said Juwara, a former member of the Mukhabarat, the intelligence service that reported directly to the now-deposed president.
There is this, and yet some journalists wonder why the average American is coming to despise them. It’s a truly stunning example of scraping the bottom of the barrel when trying to generate sympathy for a set of people.