June 2006

At the end of the conversation - in which the informant gave long and often contradictory accounts about local insurgent cells - Green asked the officer if everything he'd told him was true. ''Maybe true, maybe false,'' the officer said, giggling. In the Humvee outside, Green was asked how much he trusted the informant.

''Who knows what his motivation is,'' he said. ''But a lot of his information has been good in the past.'' The next day, Green went to see another Iraqi.

He waited until after dark so the neighbors wouldn't see the long line of Humvees pull up in front of Abu Haider's house. Sometime after 11 p.m.

, Abu Haider walked in wearing a gray dishdasha, a traditional Arab tunic, and smoking Davidoff cigarettes. A gold watch hung loosely on his left wrist. Abu Haider, who asked that his full name not be used, is a Shiite businessman and power broker who's received hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts from the U.

S. military during the past three years. He's also one of Green's main informants and often a conduit to others.

He lives in a compound of nice homes. A large man given to sweeping hand gestures and the influence of sizable amounts of alcohol, Abu Haider punctuates his conversation with statements such as, ''Listen to me, Captain Green, I have worked with the coalition forces for three years and I have never told them a lie.''
Green was there because he needed witnesses.

His men had detained an insurgent named Bashir and had compiled a collection of sworn statements about his connection with kidnappings and killings. But only one of the statements tied him directly to an attack - a roadside bomb - against U.S.

soldiers. Unless Green could come up with another statement or two linking Bashir to attacks against Americans, he'd have to turn him over to the Iraqi police, who've been known to release suspected insurgents for money. Green explained the situation to Abu Haider.

''I know many people who can give you sworn statements about people putting bombs on the road,'' Abu Haider said. Green moved to the edge of the sofa and said to his translator, ''He says he has some witnesses. Do they know anything about Captain Weikel?

'' Abu Haider smiled. ''I can give you the names of three people who lay bombs,'' Abu Haider said. ''On the same road where Captain Weikel died.

'' ''What are their names?'' Green asked. ''I don't know,'' Abu Haider said.

About half an hour later, a collection of local politicians and businessmen invited by Abu Haider walked into the living room. Green said hello, then made his pitch: ''In order to get Bashir in Abu Ghraib (prison) for a very, very long time, I need one more witness who has seen him put in an IED (roadside bomb) and attack coalition or Iraqi forces.'' Several of the men promised to produce witnesses within the week.

At least one of the three Iraqis had promised to become an informant. Now they were all dead. Green got the orders from brigade headquarters: Go find the bodies and then find out who killed them.

1st Lt. Garrett Cathcart, 24, of Indianapolis, explained: The men had been detained by another company. One had agreed to become an informer in exchange for their release.

They'd been shot in a taxi either by insurgents because they were traitors or by Shiite militiamen because they were Sunnis.
Green and his men drove to an apartment complex - home to a mixture of Sunnis and Shiites - where the men had slept the night before. ''The Shiite guys for the most part aren't going to inform on other Shiites.

They're going to inform on Sunni neighbors,'' said Green, who added that the same holds true for Sunnis. ''So you've got to play both sides.'' A funeral was being held for the taxi driver.

His car was there: bullet holes through the windshield, doors and seats. Blood was smeared all over. The family said an Iraqi police lieutenant had come by that morning.

He seemed to be working very hard to solve the case, they said. Green headed to the Taji police station. He wanted to speak with the lieutenant, 1st Lt.

Nadhum Ajeed. The police had bad news: On his way back from investigating the informants' murders, Ajeed had been shot to death. Green asked to see Ajeed's file on the informants.

It'd been sent to Baghdad. Well, Green said, where are the photographs of the dead informants? 1st Lt.

Ayad Ahmed told Green that there were no photographs. ''Where the . .

. are the pictures, man?'' Green said.

''You guys always take pictures.'' Ahmed said that, on second thought, the pictures were with another officer, but he lived far away. ''I think you're lying to me.

I think you have the pictures here,'' Green said. Green asked Ahmed if he found it strange that the lieutenant investigating the deaths had been killed. ''These killings are a coincidence,'' Ahmed said.

Green went to a smaller office across the hall, where a group of Iraqi officers was packed around a desk. A large photograph of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr hung on the wall behind them. On the facing wall, a smaller one showed Sadr at Mecca.

They said the officer who could answer Green's questions about the deaths was on the way. A few minutes later, the officer walked in, saw Green and smiled. ''Oh man, you've got to be .

. . kidding me,'' Green said.

Green's men had arrested the Iraqi police officer recently for setting up a checkpoint and robbing truck drivers. The officer said he had no information about the killings.
The next day, Green checked back with police.

There were still no pictures. ''They're being really weird about it,'' Green said. ''Maybe they killed those guys - I don't know.

'' Green's mood was low. When Green's soldiers brought in the informant who lived near the bridge where Weikel was killed, the man turned out not to know much. Or at least he wasn't willing to say much.

''We didn't get what we thought we would,'' Green said. ''We're sort of back to square one.'' There was one bright note: Abu Haider, the informant, had delivered.

An eyewitness came forward to say that he'd seen Bashir placing bombs targeting U.S. That, for Green, was something to hold on to.

[Except the witness, of course, may have been lying.