Escaping a Painful Past To Find a Shaky Future

Assertions in the book were later questioned by a number of former U.N. weapons inspectors, Iraqi scientists and Iraqi military officers.

The author of the letter, determined to be al Zaidi's roommate in Arlington at the time, Khalid Houmadi, testified that al Zaidi's trip to the United States was financed by Hussein, but he admitted to regularly loaning al Zaidi money.

Churchill sided against al Zaidi. She said she thought his escape through Russia and Cuba was "suspicious," her written decision says. She dismissed the GWU doctor's exam and physical evidence of al Zaidi's torture, saying that it might "be consistent with other causes."

And she said Houmadi "cast considerable doubt upon the credibility of crucial aspects of [al Zaidi's] claim."

Al Zaidi went into a rage. Houmadi was just out to get him, he said. Before writing the letter, Houmadi had threatened to attack a man, and al Zaidi had said that he would report him.

Months later, Houmadi attacked the man. And, as promised, al Zaidi testified against him. Elliot Casey, an assistant commonwealth's attorney in Alexandria, wrote a letter to Churchill, saying that the court found al Zaidi's testimony "completely credible." Houmadi was sentenced to 10 months.

Karla Harr, an attorney for al Zaidi, appealed his case in 2002. It was denied in a one-sentence opinion by one judge, a product of the Department of Justice's new policy of "streamlining" asylum cases. Before, a three-judge panel had reviewed asylum appeals. Under streamlining, the amount of overturned decisions dropped from 25 percent to less than 5 percent, according to studies by the American Bar Association and the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.

"The complexity of the issues involved in this case demanded a three-panel review, " Harr said.

Al Zaidi was in the process of filing an appeal when he was detained in late 2005. In May 2006, in detention and on a one-month hunger strike, al Zaidi asked for his appeal to be dropped because he thought it would get him out. His attorney assured him that it wouldn't and that he would be released soon because of the rule that says that detainees who pose no threat can't be held for more than six months. But al Zaidi said he had to get out. He dropped his appeal.

"They punish me too much." He was released in June.

'I'm Really, Really Tired'

Al Zaidi sat in front of the TV in the spare townhouse. The announcer mentioned Nasiriyah, where he was born. "It's very beautiful there," he said absently.

He is officially under an order of supervision and is waiting for the U.S. government to send him back to Iraq. Once a month, he must check in with his supervisor at the Department of Homeland Security.

He goes to a Panera Bread restaurant where other Arabs and Iraqis hang out. He even sees Houmadi there from time to time. "He apologized to me," al Zaidi said, shrugging.

"I'm really, really tired," he said. And the nightmares come if he tries to sleep. He no longer prays. "It's like I can't find myself."

And so the dangling man with the story that was not believed went out for cigarettes.