BLOOD MONEY

Situation: Early one Tuesday morning in Iraq, months of work gathering intelligence came to a head. With the help of a

valued informant and weeks of patrolling, my company knew the identities and whereabouts of seven members of an

improvised explosive device (IED) cell. This particular cell had contacts in Al Qaeda in Iraq and was conducting

increasingly effective attacks. We had patterned the cell to a high level of detail and determined that if we launched the

raid at 0800, my company and our partnered Iraqi company would find all members of the cell in their habitual locations.

The hit times were well synchronized and after eliminating their early warning, we descended on the subsequent four

objectives killing four members of the cell and capturing two. Among the captured was Abu Haithem (meaning father of

Haithem), roughly 50 years of age - the leader of the cell. Among the dead were two of Abu Haithem's sons, Haithem

and Jamil. Unfortunately, during the firefight on the main objective, Haithem's six year old daughter Raneen had run

across an open area in front of her father and was accidentally shot and killed by our fire.

After collecting the dead and the detainees, I stopped at the house of the local school's headmaster. He informed me

that there were no males left in Abu Haithem's family and that the family would struggle without their men. I then asked

if he would act as a go-between if I were to return to pay an obligatory consolation payment to the family because of

Raneen's death. He agreed and I told him that it would be at least 30 days before we returned because I knew that my

company's actions had inflicted significant trauma on the entire family.

Later I began to struggle with the notion of paying a consolation payment. Although I did not know of any other males in

Abu Haithem's extended family, I knew that the closest relative would have a culturally mandated dept of honor against

me and my company. In short, he would be compelled to at least attempt an attack against us in order to maintain the

family's honor. Although there were plenty of resources available from within the insurgency and from Al Qaeda in Iraq,

a $2500 consolation payment would make it much easier to buy good material and hire a trained team to execute a

potentially catastrophic attack against my company.