Iraqis need refuge

George Packer,

The brother of my friend Osman was one of seven Sunni workers in a shop in a mixed neighborhood of western Baghdad who were rounded up at gunpoint recently by Mahdi Army militiamen and taken to the local Shia mosque. There, they were taunted about Saddam Hussein's death sentence, and then, one by one, shot in the head. Osman's brother was only grazed and survived. But, when the bodies were loaded into a pickup and brought to a nearby Iraqi Army checkpoint, a soldier in uniform noticed that he was still alive. "Let's see you stay alive now," the soldier said and shot him again, through the eye. Somehow Osman's brother survived the second bullet, too, though he lost his eye and his brain began to swell...

continua / continued