An Iraqi-Born Officer of the U.S. Army Helps Bridge Cultural Gaps

April 16, 2003

By BERNARD WEINRAUB

CORPS HEADQUARTERS, in northern Kuwait, April 14 — When Lt. Col. Frank J. Miskina speaks to intelligence and military officers about Iraqi prisoners of war, his words carry unusual resonance: the Baghdad-born officer served as an officer in the Iraqi Army in the 1970's.

Colonel Miskina serves in the 308th Civil Affairs Brigade, which coordinates between the Army and Iraqi municipal and civilian organizations restoring education, health care, utilities and food distribution. But his opinions and guidance are in wider demand in a military short of Arabic speakers and those with firsthand knowledge of Iraq, and in recent weeks he has worked with psychological operations and military intelligence.

His basic advice: be courteous.

"I tell them to say slonek, which means `how are you,' " said Colonel Miskina, who is 54 and from West Bloomfield, Mich. "I teach them gestures. I tell them when you are sitting with an Iraqi soldier or officer, treat them with dignity, treat them as one human being to another, don't treat them as an inferior, don't treat them as an interrogator talking to an Iraqi.

"You are in his country, and he sees you as an external force," Colonel Miskina said. "Offer him some water. Offer him some tea. Act like the American ambassador in Iraq. Behave yourself. Use common sense. You will get information."

He grew up in Baghdad, the son of a sergeant in the Royal Iraqi Air Force who retired as a warrant officer in 1962. The Baghdad he knew was a comfortable, middle-class world. He graduated from the University of Baghdad in 1973 with a degree in veterinary medicine and was drafted into the Iraqi Army for two years, 1973 to 1975.

As a lieutenant and a company commander, he was assigned to northern Iraqi cities like Kirkuk and Erbil, where units were locked in clashes with the Kurdish minority at the time.

It was during the government of Saddam Hussein's predecessor, Hassan al-Bakr. Even then, Colonel Miskina said, an atmosphere of fear permeated the military. He said phone conversations between officers were monitored for signs of dissidence.

"Iraq has been called the Republic of Fear for many years," he said. "People have been living in fear their whole lives. People fear their neighbors, their brothers, their friends. They don't know who the enemy is."

His civilian life in the 1970's, Colonel Miskina said, was one of privilege. His world was free-spirited and relatively secular. He sometimes flew to Athens to buy shoes and clothes. There were parties. Young women in Baghdad, he recalled, wore miniskirts and makeup.

"We did not care much about ethnicity or religion," he said, seated in the headquarters of his unit in the desert here. "There is a misconception about Iraqis. Iraqis like Americans. When I was a young boy I used to listen to Tom Jones. I used to dance and listen to Elvis. I can dance better than the average American. We were very Western. We always wanted to know more about your country than Americans wanted to know about Iraq."

After teaching veterinary medicine at the University of Baghdad, Colonel Miskina joined the Iraqi brain drain — as many as four million Iraqis with doctorates have become émigrés, he said — in 1977, because his fiancée (and now wife), Lamia, had moved with her family to West Bloomfield, which has a large community of Iraqi expatriates.

Colonel Miskina now owns three veterinary clinics in the Detroit area, which are operated by his wife while he serves on active duty. The couple have three children, Jessica, 18, George, 15, and John, 12.

He said his life in the United States was, in many ways, a fantasy come true. He sees his 18 years in the Army Reserves as a way of repaying a debt to the country.

"In Iraq I would be seen as a millionaire," he said. "I live in a nice house on the lake. I have a four-car garage. But believe it or not, I know only a few people in my neighborhood. On my right-hand side is a neighbor whose dad was born in Iraq. As soon as we moved in, he came over to introduce himself. He welcomed me to the neighborhood. It is a very Iraqi thing to do. On my left-hand side, I never met my neighbors. They are not Iraqi."

Colonel Miskina said he believed that numerous midlevel Iraqi civil servants, including members of the governing Baath Party, could serve as the basis for the infrastructure of a new government. "A lot of them will be good Iraqi citizens," he said.

On the other hand, he said, Iraqis will eventually start taking revenge on one another. "If you have blood on your hands, the neighborhood will know about it," he said. "They will weed them out."

Colonel Miskina plans to visit his old neighborhood in Baghdad and was looking forward to a reunion with several cousins to whom he has been sending money since the economic penalties and trade embargo imposed in 1990 by the United Nations after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

He said he was well suited to working with American officers engaged in interrogating Iraqi prisoners as well as those seeking to forge a new civilian government. "I have the benefit of the doubt," he said. "I have both cultures. I am the bridge between you and them."