The price of one Iraqi life

(Sgt. Jonathan Fondow of 101st ABN (left), discusses damage claims with JAG officer- Maj. Harold Johnston of the 76th IBCT.)

LSA Anaconda-
A woman in a black dress and scarf sat across the desk from Sergeant Jonathan Fondow of the 101st Airborne. As he began to speak her face hardened.

“Please tell her we’re extremely sorry for her loss and we know no amount can replace her loss,” Fondow said through a translator.

The sergeant from Park Rapids, MN, investigates local Iraqi damage claims under the watch of the 101st Airborne- who control the bulk of combat and civilian affairs missions around LSA Anaconda.

“No oil fortune can replace it,” the woman said. “He was my oldest son.”

Master Sergeant Troy Baylis of the 101st ABN, began to count the money onto the desk. A thousand U.S. dollars in stacked $50 dollar bills. The woman took the money and shuffled out of the trailer office.
(MSG. Baylis counts U.S. dollars paid to the mother of a Sons of Iraq militia member, while she and Sgt. Fondow's translator- Jawad Alzayadi, look on.)

Sgt. Fondow's sincerity shows that he's conducted many painful resolutions like this one. Fondow said that the woman’s son had been a member of the Sons of Iraq (SOI)- local armed civilians formerly know as Concerned Local Citizens, whose salaries are paid by U.S. military.

According to Fondow, the woman’s son was manning a rooftop. U.S. Apache helicopters flew overhead and saw an armed man there. They tried to contact him via radio, but he didn't have one. They tried to tell him over loudspeakers to put his gun down. He did not. The Apaches fired.

Once the U.S. forces realized their mistake, they went to the dead man’s house to make a condolence payment. According to Sgt. Fondow, the man’s uncle and cousin convinced soldiers that they were responsible for supporting his orphaned children. They accepted the Army’s condolence payment and promptly disappeared.

On Thursday, the man's mother left the Civil Military Operations Center at LSA Anaconda with a thousand dollars, instead of the $2,500 typically paid for an accidental death.

A thousand dollars seems a paltry amount, but a third-country national employed on base might earn between $12 to $18 dollars a day, according to Sgt. Erin Murphy, a paralegal for the 316th ESB. A payment of $2,500 is equivalent to a year’s income, Murphy said.

Still, this amount sounds like a pathetic recompense for a human life, especially for an Iraqi who was allied with coalition forces. But through the fog of war, it’s sometimes extremely difficult for U.S. soldiers to identify who’s the enemy and who’s the ally, especially since SOI can usually only be identified from other locals, many who also carry AK-47s, by a reflective safety belt.

Another case that came before Sgt. Fondow on the same day, involved a group of locals who were shooting in the air, apparently not at U.S. helicopters, but the pilots thinking they were being attacked, fired back, injuring a local and destroying his car. These are the everyday realities.

Sgt. Fondow said that he normally makes two to three accidental death payments per month in this area.

During his last deployment near Kirkuk, Fondow said their office paid out $980,000, but the amount that actually went to damages, whether to property or casualties, was closer to $200,000.

(Capt. Dan Wackerhagen speaking with local Iraqis at an Iraqi Business Zone exposition held in a nearby village this week.)

Captain Dan Wackerhagen of the 101st ABN, said over a thousand Sons of Iraq man checkpoints on convoy routes around LSA. He said they are vetted by fingerprinting and eye scans to make sure they are not on wanted, or "black lists", but many soldiers believe that some SOI are former insurgents who have traded teams for more money.

According to Wackerhagen, the SOI is a temporary force and the long-term idea is to funnel them into Iraqi Police positions where they will be better paid and have more job stability. The challenge is local sheiks manange much of who is hired for the SOI, so there are concerns of favoritism and corruption. There are close to 7,000 SOI in Salah al Din province.