Scions of the Surge

Mr. X began as a target of the Americans. In Bayaa, he was the local leader who seemed to command the most respect among the militiamen, a kind of Shiite Godfather. Delta Company soldiers raided Mr. X's house three times last July, and each time he was gone. But Delta did pick up Abdullah (not his real name), X's brother. Abdullah was sent off to cool his heels in jail for a while. Meanwhile, Sadr seemed to have a change of heart. After his Mahdi Army got into a fire fight with rival Shiites in the holy city of Najaf, the cleric ordered his militia to cease all military activities. He may have worried that he was being increasingly isolated, as the Americans made friends with his Sunni enemies. He certainly feared the bad publicity he was getting among ordinary Shiites. And in neighborhoods like Bayaa, so many Sunnis had been pushed out that there was less and less to fight over anyway. Wright then made a shrewd decision that was to have a big payoff.

The scene was carefully staged. Last October, Abdullah was brought, bound and blindfolded, into a quiet corner of Forward Operating Base Falcon, not far from the tent where Wright slept. There were no harsh lights or guards, just a couple of folding chairs outside. Wright wanted the session to come across not as an interrogation but as a meeting between equals. He told Abdullah to stand and carefully cut away his plastic handcuffs with scissors and lifted the blindfold. He could tell that Abdullah recognized him as the American officer who had arrested him three months before. The moment "very easily could have gone sour," Wright recalls. But the American captain did the unexpected: he apologized. He explained that detaining Abdullah had been a mistake. He said he wanted to work with him to calm Bayaa. Abdullah smiled. Wright allowed himself a small hope.

Sure enough, three days after Abdullah's release, Mr. X himself called Wright. The two leaders began to talk on the phone. Wright would listen to X's grievances, but he didn't ask for any information, at least at first. Then, a week after Wright began talking to X, the American was out on patrol when a covey of pigeons suddenly burst from a nearby building.

Mahdi Army fighters were suspected of using pigeons to secretly communicate about U.S. troop movements. During the edgy, early days of the American occupation, a commander might have just assumed that the house was a militia holdout. Troops would have poured through the door, weapons out, shouting orders, as women shrieked and the men scurried for cover. Anyone with a beard would have been pegged as a jihadi and rounded up, handcuffed, led off for questioning.

Wright moved more gingerly. He did stop the convoy and sent troops in to investigate. But he did not round up prisoners or make a show of force. As he was talking to the teenager who owned the pigeons, Wright got a call from Mr. X, demanding to know why the Americans were raiding the house. After a brief, tense exchange, Wright was able to explain the situation to X, who calmed down. The incident proved to Wright just how well- connected X was. "That's when I knew," says Wright. "When he called me when we were right there, still on the objective. He's kind of the Tony Soprano in this area."

X refused to meet Wright face to face. He couldn't let his relationship with the Americans be exposed. But, working through the ubiquitous translator Ali, X began to communicate with Wright every day, building trust. On one recent evening, Wright called up X to ask about reports that armed men were roaming through a prominent market in Bayaa. X made some calls and reported back that the tip was bogus. The next day X called Wright to let him know that a prayer tent for a Shiite religious ceremony had been set up on 20th Street in Bayaa. It would be best, suggested X, if U.S. patrols could avoid the area.