The Great American Family: A Story of Political Disenchantment

THE GREAT AMERICAN FAMILY

A Story of Political Disenchantment

Weam Namou

HERMiZ

PUBLiSHING

Copyright © 2016 by Weam Namou

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the author.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

2 0 1 6 9 0 6 4 6 9

Namou, Weam

The Great American Family

A Story of Political Disenchantment

(creative nonfiction )

ISBN 978-1-945371-90-5 (eBook)

First Edition

Published in the United States of America by:

Hermiz Publishing, Inc.

Sterling Heights, MI

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Dawn Hanna Case

Chapter 2: My Trip to Iraq

Chapter 3: The Genius Brother

Chapter 4: The American Flag is Left in Rest

Chapter 5: The Forgotten Sanctions

Chapter 6: What Real Crimes Look Like

Chapter 7: The Disfavors Handed to Us

Chapter 8: Take This Case at Your Own Risk

Chapter 9: Is it a Story or is it Espionage?

Chapter 10: Unusual Places to Visit in Baghdad

Chapter 11: An Alternative to the Iraq War

Chapter 12: Dawn Meets a Cool Man

Chapter 13: The Real Intentions of the War

Chapter 14: The Deterioration of a Family

Chapter 15: The Trial, the Verdict, the Sentencing

Chapter 16: CIA Operative’s Fascinating Views

Chapter 17: Prison Life

Chapter 18: A Possible Happy Ending

Chapter 19: The Joys of Activism

Chapter 20: Visiting Dawn in Prison

Chapter 21: Which Department to Call for Justice

Chapter 22: A Bodged Up Sentencing Guideline

Chapter 23: Double Standards

Other books by Hermiz Publishing, Inc.

To the families who have suffered unnecessarily by unjust laws

Introduction

In 2010, a family approached me to write a story about their daughter, Dawn Hanna. At the time, Dawn was serving a six-year prison sentence for conspiring to sell telecom equipment to Iraq during the sanctions. After her trial, her so-called co-conspirator revealed that he was a CIA operative and that Dawn, in fact, was innocent. He said that she did not know the equipment was going to Iraq because it was a top-secret operation intended to allow authorities to listen in on Saddam and his men. The court ignored this new information and forced Dawn to report to prison.

I initially did not want to write this story because it was political, and I was tired, often even afraid of, politics, especially when it dealt with Iraq. Yet I came from a country where creativity and responsibility oftentimes went hand-in-hand, from a society which dates back to Prophet Abraham’s traditional and tribal ways, where people do not act as individuals but as members of a larger group. The Dawn Hanna case had a humanitarian element that I could not ignore. It was about government abuse, the sanctions, and the post-9/11 sensationalism in the US against the Arab American community.

I was a child when my family and I fled Iraq over thirty years ago because of Iraq’s totalitarian government. Today, as a mother, I want my children to grow up in the great nation my family risked their lives to come to for freedom. I felt it was my responsibility to write this story because, among other things, I did not want my children to ever have to endure in the United States the same political climate my parents endured in Iraq.

Chapter 1: The Dawn Hanna Case

It was a warm afternoon in May of 2010, and the last thing I wanted to do was attend the lunch meeting Bonnie set up with a few Iraqi American businessmen regarding an Iraqi American project I was working on. The war with Iraq was in its seventh year. As an Iraqi American journalist, novelist, and amateur filmmaker, I mostly wrote about the Iraqi American experience, and frankly, I was tired of Iraq this and Iraq that. I wanted to pick up the subject of Iraq with my fingers and toss it with the rest of the laundry into the washing machine so that all the filth it had picked up in the twentieth century would be wrung out. The unsoiled and colorful threads of that land and culture would therefore reappear and glisten like a diamond under the sun, allowing me to write from a place of love, not sorrow.

Maybe, by some mysterious divine intervention, this meeting would be cancelled. Then I would be able to stay home with my children and finish cooking and doing housework while watching The Real Housewives of New Jersey, the reality show I tuned to the way men tuned to sports. Now that I was married and had an eleven-month-old son and a four-year-old daughter, I could barely travel to the produce market to buy lettuce and tomatoes, let alone sit at a lunch meeting with people who had not yet healed from the oppressions their birth country had bestowed upon them. As a result, they tended to discuss their stories as if they were sitting at a therapists’ office rather than focus on the work at hand.

If I had any brains, I would’ve canceled the meeting myself instead of waiting for God to do it, then put on my gym shoes and take a long walk down my usual path, where I’d eventually reach a house with two baby pear trees standing side by side, like sisters. One had green pears and the other had red pears. The trees were always abundant and close to the sidewalk, welcoming a stranger’s hand. On these walks, I usually plucked a red pear, rubbed it with my hands, and ate it. A few feet from the house with the pear trees was a high-fenced house. Branches filled with baby green plums fell over the fence, like the hair of Rapunzel. I sometimes plucked a few of those as well.

Between putting on my makeup and getting dressed for the lunch meeting, I handed my daughter a bowl of cereal, refilled my son’s sippy cup with milk, and made sure the rice on the stove did not burn and the pot of green beans did not over boil. I imagined the meeting getting canceled even as I pulled out of the driveway and headed to Sahara restaurant, an Iraqi restaurant a few miles south of my house.

The others were already there. One of the men at the meeting happened to be my brother’s long-time friend, Steve, who I walked down the aisle with at my brother’s wedding twenty years ago. There were two other men I had never met, a Louie and his business partner. And there was Bonnie, the woman who’d set up this meeting. All were Iraqi-born and had shortened or changed their name so Americans could easily pronounce it. When I first arrived to the United States, I’d tried on different names like Amanda, Amy, and Wendy, but none fit quite right, so I stuck with the one my parents gave me.

What a small world! Steve said. When Bonnie mentioned your name, I thought, ‘It has to be the same Weam I know.’ There are not that many people with that name.

Steve was the only one wearing a suit. The other two men were in casual pants and shirts. Bonnie, who claimed she was a model but had no portfolio, though she did look like a model, was in high heels and a stylish skirt. A designer handbag was on the floor beside her feet.

So Weam, I hear you’re a journalist and you write books, Steve said. What kind of books do you write?

I write true life stories about the Iraqi American experience.

That’s great. Few people here realize how rich Iraq’s history and people are.

Why don’t you write history books? Louie asked. Americans know nothing about us. Before the 2003 war, it’s like they had never heard of Iraq. Iraq is ancient Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization. It dates back over five thousand years.

Actually, over seven thousand years, I said. I shared with them the story of how, before 2003, people who asked me where I was from repeatedly confused Iraq with Iran, even after I corrected them.

When did you come to America? Steve asked.

In February 1981.

Just a few weeks before the end of the Iran hostage crisis, that’s why. If a country receives media coverage, people learn about it. Otherwise, forget it.

Iraq had coverage in 1991 when America bombed it for forty-three days in a row, I said.

The waitress delivered a combination platter of kabobs and shawarmas, the preferred route with large group parties at Middle Eastern restaurants. Like in biblical times, the tray of food is placed in the center for everyone to share. Jesus spoke of this when he said, One who dips his bread in the dish with me will betray me, and Prophet Muhammad encouraged it by saying, Eat together and not separately, for the blessing is associated with the company.

When the food made its debut, it allowed for the topic of politics to slip off the table as if it were a mere crumb. With Iraqis or Middle Easterners in general, conversations often gravitate to politics. None of us really like this subject, but we can’t help it. It is in our DNA. We were born in Iraq, a country habitually involved in war. Most of us came to the United States when Iraq and the United States were heavily courting. Many think they had even eloped. This secret marriage did not last, and before long, ended in divorce. The problem was that no matter how ugly their fights and divorce, their relationship was never really going to be over, given the bond they once had and the lifelong oil contracts they’d signed together. As their product, their children, we could not sever our political ties, which was the base of their marriage.

Weam, who was the most interesting person you’ve ever interviewed? Steve asked.

I had to think for a minute. I once visited Ray, the lord of the so-called ‘Chaldean mafia.’ He’s in a Detroit prison. We met two or three times, and you know what the first thing he said to me was? ‘We were not a mafia; we were just kids in pursuit of happiness. We were poor. Our families were poor. And we wanted to make money.’ He was, like, seventeen years old when he was indicted, and the government and media sensationalized his case by adding that word – mafia.

You visited Ray? Steve asked, pouring northern bean stew over his rice.

Yes. I remembered Ray telling me about the one and only memory he had of his childhood in Iraq. He was a year and a half when his mother gave him a peach. When he ate it, juice dripped from his mouth. His mother became angry because it was Easter and he was dressed in his new clothes.

I heard he’s appealing, Steve said.

That’s what I heard too. I guess the prosecutors made a deal with this guy to testify against Ray. The guy who testified ended up getting probation and Ray got life in prison.

Well, the government has the right to make deals with witnesses.

They do, but the jury must know about it because it might change the weight of the witness statement. Prosecutors are supposed to share all evidence with the defense in order to have a fair trial.

Have you ever heard of Dawn Hanna? Louie asked with a particularly serious expression.

No, I haven’t, I said.

She was all over the news last year.

"I try to avoid the news. If it were up to me, I would have all the Arabic news channels that my husband watches removed from our satellite TV and replaced with the Real Housewives series, the Atlanta and the New Jersey Housewives being my two favorites."

They all laughed.

Yes, that is what I love – marriage and family, no matter how wacky and dysfunctional, as long as there is no killing involved.

You need to meet Dawn, Louie said. You really do. She’s an incredible person and has one hell of a story. I’ve known her and her family forever, and the two of you seem to have much in common. She’s about your age – in her late thirties – and has traveled the world and met with higher-ups like prime ministers and multi-millionaires. She’s smart, generous and… He became dismayed. …was very successful.

Is she Chaldean?

Her father is. He was born in Iraq. Her mother is American.

Where does she live?

She lived close by, in Rochester Hills. Now she’s in a federal prison in Kentucky.

For what?

She sold telecommunication equipment to someone who told her that the equipment was going to Turkey when really he was sending it to Iraq. This was before the 2003 war, when Iraq was under sanctions and it was illegal for Americans to do business with Iraq. After she was sentenced, she found out that the guy she was working with was actually a CIA agent. The CIA stuff was never mentioned during the trial.

How did she find out he was a CIA agent?

It’s a long and complicated story. You can talk to her over the phone.

I nodded, wondering how I could wiggle away from this request. Earlier today, as I pulled out of my driveway, I had taken a long look at my suburban home and decided that this was the last time I would attend a business meeting. I wanted to stay home, raise my young children, and write something that was big and important. I wanted my writing to have the same effect as a nurse, a doctor, an attorney or a police officer, professions that are not solely self-indulgent but save and change lives.

You can also request permission to visit her in prison, in Kentucky, he said. It’s only a seven-hour drive.

Only? I thought, pouring potato curry over the saffron rice. This guy was nuts! It was difficult enough finding someone to watch my children for a two-hour lunch meeting, let alone for a whole day’s trip. And of course, my husband would be entirely supportive of me going to some far away prison to visit a woman I’d never met before, a criminal at that.

Her family is looking for someone to write a book about her story, he said.

I almost choked on my coffee.

Are you okay? Bonnie asked.

Yes, I said, patting my lips with a napkin.

People often assume they have a story I should write, a bestseller and an Oscar winner. I do not try to explain that having a great story and writing a great story are two separate things, especially when you have small children wedging themselves between you and the computer while Barney’s songs or SpongeBob’s laughter and disputes over the crabby patty play loudly in the background.

Weam, Dawn was an all-American girl and she was railroaded, he said, evidently sensing my discomfort. As we continued with our lunch, he went on to tell me how Dawn’s mother raised her to have great American values. She put her in Girl Scout Brownies, and Dawn earned badges for a whole lot of activities. She played baseball, soccer, and ice skated. When Dawn was seventeen, she got a full-ride scholarship in the honors program at the University of Detroit Mercy, a private Catholic university. She decided to be a lawyer, and in just three years, she received an associate degree in paralegal studies and a bachelor’s degree in legal administration despite working full-time and traveling overseas through an international program. She studied at Oxford in England, at Beijing Institute of Technology in China, and also at Shanghai. She did her internship at the 52nd District Court in Rochester Hills, but after taking the LSAT, she changed her major and instead got a master’s degree in international business and marketing management. Man, Dawn had everything going for her, and then the government came along and messed her all up."

He took a slice of pita bread and passed the basket to Bonnie. In return, Bonnie handed him the plate of pickled vegetables. They eyed each other. Bonnie was a flirtatious woman who used her sex appeal to get involved in other people’s deals. And she was, to put it kindly, not all there. She was often visited by the Virgin Mary, she told me, and she had close connections with Angelina Jolie and the whole government of Iraq.

They even tried to put her brother Darrin in prison, Louie said, but thank God, the jury found him innocent. Otherwise, that whole family would be wiped out by grief right now.

I was curious why her brother was found innocent. As if reading my thoughts, Louie said, Darrin is a genius!

I raised my eyebrows, beginning to question how genuine his descriptions were.

I’m not kidding. That’s his nickname. He turned toward Steve and pointed at me, laughing. She doesn’t believe me! He looked at me again. They call him a genius because he’s like a little Einstein. This guy started his own computer company when he was seventeen years old. He got millions of dollars to do science work, like finding safe places for people to go to before a hurricane hits.

The waitress brought us each a glass of cardamom tea.

What’s her last name again?

Hanna, but they’re known as the Shemami’s.

I frowned. The Shemami’s? Is she related to Raad Shemami?

That’s her uncle, her dad’s brother. You know him?

He chaperoned me to Iraq ten years ago, I said, thinking of the trip I’d made to Iraq, most of which I had since blocked out of my memory.

So Weam, can I set up a meeting with you and her family?

Yes, I said halfheartedly. I noticed Bonnie wink at Louie.

The image of Maysoon flashed before my eyes, and I thought, that’s who Bonnie reminds me of! Raad had also chaperoned Maysoon and her mother to Iraq during my trip.

Although Bonnie was much older and prettier than Maysoon, they had similar personalities. They said the wrong things at the wrong time, and no matter how much one tried to explain a situation to them, their perception of it was botched up. The difference was that, unlike Maysoon, Bonnie had no chaperone or mother to prevent her from utilizing her not-all-there self. Knowing this, I had warned Bonnie ahead of time not to say more than a few words at the meetings we attended together.

On my drive home, I kept thinking of my trip to Iraq. Those three and a half weeks had exhausted me physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, so much so that the day I returned home and went back to work, I had woken up in one of the aisles of the video store I managed. A customer was kneeling beside me. He asked, Are you okay?

Yes, I said, slowly getting up and looking around me in confusion.

Chapter 2: My Trip to Iraq

The van was pitch black inside, the windows covered by a thick substance that, given the time and place, could not be snow. We were traveling the desert en route to Baghdad in the middle of the night, in the month of April. I had lived in Michigan for twenty years and knew what snow was, and this was not it. This substance wasn’t the type to melt under the sun or be removed by windshield wipers, but rather, it resembled drapery, heaps of heavy drapery. It caused our van to go five miles an hour and our driver to see only an inch or two of the road ahead of him, even though he focused his stare out the windshield. Whatever this was, I had not seen it when it first accumulated because I had fallen asleep.

What is this? I asked our chaperone, Raad, who was in his sixties and now more visible as my eyes became accustomed to the darkness.

It’s a sandstorm. He grinned, as if his experiences with sandstorms were as natural as eating a cup of yogurt. Sandstorms are ten times worse than snowstorms. In a sandstorm, you can barely see, move, or breathe.

Why doesn’t the driver turn on the defrost button? asked Maysoon, another passenger who was heading to Baghdad. Not counting the driver, the van carried four passengers: Maysoon and I, born as Christians in Iraq, raised in the US; Maysoon’s mother, Victoria; and our chaperone, Raad, who frowned every time Maysoon opened her mouth.

Can’t we stop somewhere until the storm ends? I asked.

Turning his attention away from Maysoon without answering her question, Raad’s natural grin returned. Are you kidding? We’ll get robbed by bandits.

My heart pounded. We were in the middle of a forlorn highway, engulfed by a sandstorm, and even though the year was 2000, there were no mobile or pay phones to dial for help.

How much money are you carrying? Raad asked.

Three thousand dollars. I did not tell him it was in a pouch my oldest sister stitched to my bra because the women in the family agreed that Iraqi robbers would not stoop so low as to look there. It’s gift money. I only brought three hundred dollars for myself as spending money.

Three hundred dollars in Iraq during the UN-imposed sanctions was a whole lot of money. An entire family could live