Roleplaying flavour and guide to Iraq in 2011

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

I don't think I ever tried an Iraqi energy drink.

I don't think that they were Iraqi made. One was an Egyptian brand, and I think there was another from Malaysia. They sold them in one of the shops on the FOB, in Camp Ramadi. I don't recall if there were any in the shops at TQ; as it was only a curiosity to me, I don't need a nicotine habit.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Of course. Chai means tea. It, or a very similar word, means the same in several languages.

This is why I get weirded out when I hear Americans talking about ''chai tea" (referring to the milky tea some Indians like to drink)

That's ''tea-tea", which makes no sense.

I knew that the British and Indians call it 'chai', but I didn't know that it was also the Arabic word for tea. Thought it was an Urdu word which was common in all the other Indian languages, but it turns out it's probably originally a Sinitic word that spread through Turkic languages before ever making it to India.

The more you know.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I knew that the British and Indians call it 'chai', but I didn't know that it was also the Arabic word for tea. Thought it was an Urdu word which was common in all the other Indian languages, but it turns out it's probably originally a Sinitic word that spread through Turkic languages before ever making it to India.

The more you know.

It is also very similar to the Japanese o-cha (o being reportedly one of the more archaic/less known honourable prefixes), and chá in at least one Chinese dialect. Also chay (чай) in Ukrainian and Russian (but not Belarusian!), chäy (чәй) in Tatar, and many other variations.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I knew that the British and Indians call it 'chai', but I didn't know that it was also the Arabic word for tea. Thought it was an Urdu word which was common in all the other Indian languages, but it turns out it's probably originally a Sinitic word that spread through Turkic languages before ever making it to India.

The more you know.

It's also the Russian word for tea, presumably imported.

[Icelander]

The Provincial Chief of Police in Dhi Qar is Maj. General Sabah al-Fatlawi. Formerly the Director for Middle Euphrates Provices Affairs in the Ministry of the Interior, al-Fatlawi was appointed to his current position in 2008, against the wishes of many local factions, primarily the Iran-backed Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI). His assumption of the office took place amidst stormy political maneuvering, but his curbing of sectarian police abuses and irregularities in police organisation was praised by outside observers.

Al-Fatlawi is regarded as a strong supporter of Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa party and State of Law Coalition. He comes from Babil province and arrived with bodyguards from the elite Scorpion Brigade/Force/Commando Unit/Hillah SWAT (2nd Co, 3rd Btn, Babil Emergence Response Brigade), as well as several trusted officers. Many members of his personal bodyguard, as well as several officers of the TSU, continue to wear a Scorpion badge on their uniforms.

Al-Fatlawi has reformed the TSU battalion in Dhi Qar completely, assigning it to the Ministry of Interior by making it part of the Iraqi Federal Police and reportedly put a complete stop to the unit's human right abuses. On the other hand, by wielding a big broom and prefering his own people that he brought with him, al-Fatlawi has managed to anger a lot of senior people, especially those with ties to Iran or ISCI.

The new Provincial Police Chief in Dhi Qar is not just an al-Maliki man, he is also the brother of one of the most popular and powerful female politicians in Iraq, Hanan Faeed Mohsin Fatlawi, an MP for the State of Law Coalition. Hanan Fatlawi is a medical doctor who was elected to Parliament in 2010. At the time of play, the end of 2011, she has gained a lot of influence and is seen as a close supporter of Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki.

Sabah al-Fatlawi is authoritarian, strong-willed and decisive. He is also abrasive and confrontational, likely to be on bad terms with the Governor and Provincial Council and prone to hacking his way through political disputes by wielding his Ministry of Interior backing like a Sword +5 of Gordian Knot Slicing.

He was a Baath member in his youth, but is very sensitive to any mentions of that fact. Apparently, he held some sort of security force command under Saddaam, but the fact that he has apparently been a trusted member of the Dawa Party from the early days of the Iraqi Republic suggests that he may have lost his power under Saddam and even been imprisoned. Unless I find something against it in public data, I think I shall have him demoted sometime in 1987-1992 and imprisoned at some point between 1992-2000, for 'politicial unreliability' (being Shi'a).

His dislike of any Iranian influence in Iraqi politics and daily life suggests that he may have fought in the Iraq-Iran war. Given his association with special operations and the Interior Ministry during his later career, it is not unreasonable to assume some light infantry, commando, secret police or other such duties. Whatever it was, it did not provide a barrier to becoming trusted by al-Dawa immediately upon the invasion and very likely before that.

Any suggestions on plausible early history for him? More notes on personality?

[Icelander]

Adnan al-Asadi, known as Triple-A, is the de facto Minister of Interior. All I can find out about his past is that he is a long-time Dawa member and close ally of Nouri al-Maliki.

In 2004, al-Asadi was a Dawa party spokesman. He started in the Ministry of Interior before 2005 and by 2006 or so was Chief Undersecretary / Deputy Minister / Principal Secretary (depending on prefered nomenaclature) to the Minister of Interior. In 2009, he apparently held that position with the military rank of Major General.

He briefly left the Ministry of Interior to run for Parliament in 2010 and won a seat as MP, but resigned shortly after and became effectively the Shadow Minister of Interior, as the Ministry was held by Nouri al-Maliki himself.

I have no information on his history other than above and none about his personality. Will have to correct that, as he is relevant to the potential conspiracy that the PCs are ostensibly investigating.

Any suggestions?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Any suggestions?

As part of the Maliki government it's likely that he's a secular Shi'a and probably corrupt. At least if the fictionalized version of him is both these things, it will be believable.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

As part of the Maliki government it's likely that he's a secular Shi'a and probably corrupt. At least if the fictionalized version of him is both these things, it will be believable.

For a given value of corrupt, sure. Triple-A is not an ally of the PCs or the faction that has asked for their help, but he's not an enemy either.

I see him as advancing the interests of al-Maliki, i.e. avoiding if at all possible a situation where the Ministry of Interior has to intervene in Iraqi Police Service matter in the Dhi Qar Province and potentially arrest the Chief of Police and many of his senior people.

Given that Maj. Gen. Sabah al-Fatlawi was an al-Maliki appointment, made over the loud protests of several local factions*, it would be embarrassing in the extreme to have to arrest him for corruption. It would also be likely to lead to the appointment of a local police chief who was not necessarily as loyal to the al-Maliki regime.

On the other hand, the gigantic scale of the apparent corruption somewhere in Dhi Qar makes it impossible to ignore. Combined with several outbreaks of typhoid-like fevers, the failure of several promising government programs and a rise in not only the crime rate but also of nearly all forms of untimely death, it has led to widespread unhappiness and sullen unrest all over Dhi Qar.

There is also the unexplained wave of coincidental-but-too-convenient accidents, disease, suicide and random violence that appears to disproportionatately strike in connection to any suspects or witnesses to the aformentioned corruption.

The financial records don't suggest that the police are the source of any out-of-the-ordinary kleptocratic shenanigans**, but unless probability has taken time off, it is impossible that the police records that write-off suspicious death after suspicious death as not being foul play can be accurate.

Neither al-Maliki nor Triple-A have any illusions that they can (or should) protect the Dhi Qar Chief of Police if he turns out to be implicated in a corruption conspiracy that involves tens of millions of US dollars and upwards of one hundred murders, many of middling-to-high ranking bureaucrats.

The involvement of the PCs stems from a Brigadier General in the Ministry of Interior who has friends among the United States Forces - Iraq*** and is a long-time subordinate and friend of Major General Sabah al-Fatlawi. He is convinced that Maj. Gen. Sabah is not guilty of anything so sordid as killing to cover up larceny and wants to find evidence that Iran-backed interests are behind the conspiracy.

The people in United States Forces - Iraq who agree to send a few men on detached service to check this out are not entirely sure that any evidence of high-level Iran-backed conspiracies will be found. They also suspect that Maj. Gen. Sabah may have technically broken at least a small number of Iraqi laws as Chief of Police in Dhi Qar, but as it happens, they doubt very much that he is the villain of the piece and tend to believe that any lawbreaking on his part is done with the best of intentions and in circumstances where it is almost impossible to avoid.

At least three senior former Coalition generals know al-Fatlawi personally from their time in Iraq and have good relationships with him. US Army Maj. Gen. Jerry Cannon is almost as convinced that Maj. Gen. Sabah is incapable of carrying out organised mass murder merely to cover up clumsy peculations as his former second-in-command at the Iraqi MoI is. Lt. Gen. Frank Helmick doesn't go so far, but respects al-Fatlawi and doubts his guilt enough to send some people to poke around in Dhi Qar police records and report to him. Lt. Gen. Sir Barnabas William Benjamin White-Spunner KCB, CBE is also inclined to think Sabah al-Fatlawi is quite a decent chap.

So five people with an intelligence or investigative background are sent as part of the Iraq Police Development Program to Dhi Qar, ostensibly to teach the local police to use a new criminal data base system which runs off their records program, but actually with a brief from US Military Intelligence to find out what is really going on with these suspicious deaths and related corruption cases, so a solution can be found in cooperation with the Iraqi MoI and the al-Maliki government.

Triple-A will want the same thing as the characters, but he'll be kept in the dark about their actual purpose, because the al-Maliki government has their own investigations going on and if what they find is embarrassing enough, they may relieve al-Fatlawi of his post even without finding any actual evidence against him.

*None of whom has a majority following in Dhi Qar or Nasiriyah, but who together make up much greater numbers than the al-Dawa loyalists there.
**There are shortfalls and irregularities in most departments in the province, often quite amateurishly concealed, but most of them are concentrated where there is a lot of cash flow. Several public works projects have failed for lack of money, although plenty was allocated, and the people responsible have mostly died of apparently unrelated causes before going to trial.
***As well as the now-departed MNF-I.

[Icelander]

The first NPC who is not an actual real figure from newsreports will be Brigadier General Abdul Taweed al-Jabouri, a Sunni from Babil province. He is the former deputy of Sabah al-Fatlawi as Director of Middle Euphrates Province Affairs at the Ministry of Interior and his successor in the role.

The increasing incorporation of Ministry of Interior Federal Police units into the command structure of Provincial Police Chiefs and/or MoD Operational Commands has reduced the importance of the position and Brigadier Abdul al-Jabouri has little actual power. He does have enough access to information to predict that PM al-Maliki will be forced to take action about the Dhi Qar province soon and when he does, that will most likely mean the disgrace and imprisonment of his former boss, al-Fatlawi.

Using contacts with the Americans, al-Jabouri sets up an informal investigation that aims to gather evidence that elements hostile to al-Fatlawi are responsible for the series of reverses in Dhi Qar. This will be the job of the PCs, because it turns out that al-Jabouri and al-Fatlawi made a lot of friends among people in the Multi-National Security Transition Command – Iraq (MNSTC-I) that went on to have quite a lot of pull.

Al-Jabouri is also able to schedule an exercise by a company of the Rapid Reaction Brigades from Hillah alongside a US SF ODA and some people from Military Intelligence and 1st SFOD-D. This is set close enough to Nasiriyah so that two SWAT teams under the command of a loyal friend from Hillah and staffed mostly by reliably non-sectarian Sunnis and a few Shi'tes with no conceivable connection to hostile militias can drive or chopper in if the situation warrants a quick and violent reponse.

On the other hand, the ideal solution in the eyes of al-Jabouri is for the American investigators to discover that al-Fatlawi is a victim of a conspiracy to discredit his command and having found sufficient evidence to allow him to take action, turn it over to him and let him use his TSU commandos and the local Rapid Reaction Force to arrest anyone responsible.

Al-Jabouri is a small and sleek man in his fifties, comfortably overweight and dressed in a fairly nice suit and wearing a lot of gold jewelry. He sweats excessively and smokes Marlboro cigarettes. His English is good and he has visited the United States twice, once even taking an anti-terrorism crisis managment course at the Department of Homeland Security.

He appears timid, comic and indecisive, but has spent the past seven years in a position where a number of armed groups have excellent reasons to assassinate him and has actually survived three seperate serious attempts to do so. He carries a pistol at all times and travels with a bodyguard of at least six heavily armed men of his extended family, who have been trained by Dyncorp and US SF.

[Icelander]

What is the culture like with regard to alcohol and drug use?

How widespread is drinking? How stigmatised is it among ordinary Iraqis?

Is alcohol sold in local stores? Subject to strict restrictions or relatively easily available? Is it expensive or cheap? Heavily taxed or subject to tariffs depending on where it comes from?

What kind of alcohol is mostly consumed/available?

Is there a significant black market aimed at avoiding restrictions, tariffs or taxes?

Does anyone have any idea what kind of alcohol is most subject to smuggling or black market sale? Where does it come from? Are black marketeers selling home-brewed beer or wine, pruno, white lighning or imported brand-name stuff?

What kind of drugs are used there? Are they common or rare? Stigmatised or or considered as normal as lighting up a joint in many places in America?*

*While at a wedding in Long Island, I went outside of the venue to the rose garden, where people were enjoying fresh air. I saw a priest in full regalia standing there talking with some young people. When I joined them, the priest handed me a joint.