Today, as the team grieved over the loss of Ahmed at the hands of terrorist murderers, more details emerged as to the exact circumstances of his death. Even AP picked up the story as part of a general Iraq update.

As you can read in the story, Ahmed (I can’t help but think of him as ‘Hamoodi’) was the son of the chief judge of Iraq’s Supreme Juridical Council. His father’s entire family has been under threat for a while, so it was a matter of time until something like this was attempted.

According to our sources, police believe he was kidnapped sometime Friday along with his two body guards, tortured, murdered, and dumped in a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad. The article has a few inaccuracies, but gets most of the details right.

The entire team is devastated by Hamoodi’s brutal murder. The three day long Islamic mourning ritual will be held somewhere we ex-pats are not permitted to go, so the best we can do is our own memorial ceremony to be held tomorrow. I’ll then fly out to Amman the next day, inshallah.

This is the first serious loss I’ve experienced since my grandfather died over a decade ago. I imagine it will gradually get better, but I don’t want it to; Hamoodi deserves more than a day or two of grieving before his life and death becomes but a memory. I suppose that’s a textbook response to a death such as this, but in this instance it would appear I’m pretty normal.

We’re supposed to talk to the Embassy shrink tomorrow afternoon, which will be nothing more than a box-checking exercise. I suppose there’s a purpose to be served by counselling people on a loss, but I don’t think it’s relevant in my case. I don’t want to feel better or cope with the loss, and I don’t need a psychiatrist to talk to, but I’ll go through the motions.

Not surprisingly, I find myself wondering, now that Hamoodi has been killed indirectly as a result of our presence in Iraq, whether the Iraqi people would be better off under the brutal tyranny of Saddam. I am forced to conclude that day-to-day life for the average Iraqi under Saddam circa 1990 (before the devastating sanctions) and even circa 2000 (after the devastating sanctions) was better than it is now. The same humiliating subjugation and and oppression applied centrally by Saddam is now applied organically by the virulent insurgency and criminal gangs; the main difference is Saddam could keep the lights on.

However, I still believe that, as a result of our invasion, Iraq has the potential—however fading—of overcoming its enormous challenges and emerging as a free and peaceful country. If we pull out now, there can be no doubt Iraq will descend into sectarian chaos, and many more like Hamoodi will die. If we stay and try to keep the devastating, stupendously stupid fuckups to a minimum, many more like Hamoodi will die too, but there’s a chance their children will live to see a free and peaceful Iraq.

For better or worse, I know I’m not done here yet…