Written, Silent Laws of War Entangle Virginia Native

Court-Martial Set to Begin This Week Over SUV Seizure in Iraq

In one version of the story, Sgt. 1st Class James Williams, a 17-year Army veteran, braves the narrow, hostile streets of Mosul, Iraq, in the early weeks of the war, charged with getting food for soldiers back on base.

Spotting a vehicle being driven aggressively, he and his men give chase. They catch up with the white Toyota Land Cruiser and remember their platoon leader's order to find a vehicle to replace the 20-year-old Army Humvees that have broken down and are useless for finding and destroying weapons.

"I don't care what you people have to do," Williams remembers his superior saying, according to court documents filed by his attorney. "Just get me a vehicle."

A crowd of 30 to 40 people is gathering, on doorsteps and rooftops. Williams realizes that there's no escape if things get ugly, and he orders his men out -- with the SUV.

In the prosecutors' version, Williams is an irreverent thug, someone who allowed his men to break rules in Iraq by drinking alcohol and keeping their own private guns, someone who pointed a weapon at an Iraqi civilian while stealing his vehicle.

"You can't win the hearts and minds of the people by taking their cars," said Col. Joseph Anderson, a brigade commander with Williams's 101st Airborne Division when it was in Iraq, according to an account of a military court hearing for Williams in the Clarksville, Tenn., Leaf-Chronicle.

Williams, 37, a married father of two who was born and raised in Virginia's rural Northern Neck, is scheduled to face a court-martial Tuesday on charges of armed robbery and dereliction of duty in connection with the seized SUV. He faces the possibility of 15 years in jail and the loss of his career and military benefits.

The case reveals a bit about the laws -- written and unwritten -- that govern day-to-day military life in Iraq, so-called rules of engagement that are typically classified and alien to civilians. These are rules such as the one -- described by both sides -- allowing Williams's unit to seize cars from civilians as long as they give the owner a receipt.

In this case, there were some power politics at play as well. The owner of the SUV turned out to be one of the most prominent sheiks in Mosul, a Sunni city filled with Saddam's former army officers -- people looking for hard proof that the Americans would make their lives better. So when Sheik Ahmed Watban Al-Faisal found out in April 2003 that the vehicle his son was driving had been stolen, he went to the Americans and was directed to Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, then commander of the 101st Airborne, one of the most powerful U.S. military commanders in Iraq.

From Mosul, the sheik said in an interview yesterday that the Humvees aggressively chased his son all the way to their home, where two dozen soldiers got out, forced the man to the ground and did something the Iraqis cannot forget -- put a boot on his head, the ultimate humiliation in Arab culture.

"This thing is so big," he said of the seizure, which is still a topic of conversation in the city. It "still hurts me deeply," he added.

The sheik -- whose brother has U.S. citizenship -- said that although he initially had been elated and optimistic at the Americans' arrival in Iraq, many people now have stories like his son's. Soldiers' behavior has improved, he said, but "it is too late."

The military later gave the sheik's family $30,000 in cash for the damaged vehicle.

"Taking civilian property in wartime is a very sensitive matter that may jeopardize the successful accomplishment of the overall mission," the public affairs office at Fort Campbell, Ky., said in a written response to questions about the case. The 101st Airborne is based at Fort Campbell.