Every Man in This Village Is a Liar_ An Education in War - Megan K. Stack [72]
—U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, June 6, 2002
I went to Yemen looking for a revelation. I wanted to know what got traded, and at what cost, between American and Yemeni intelligence. In the untamed mountains and deserts clinging to the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, I hoped to turn up stories of CIA renditions and the dirty work the cash-strapped government did for the United States.
I didn’t find those stories. Instead, in Sanaa, I found Faris. He loped through the hotel lobby, a glint in his eye, knowing everybody. A sharp little mustache peppered his lip, and white teeth flashed beneath changeless eyes. He was aide and friend to the president, the owner of an English-language newspaper, and the official who talked to CNN on the rare occasions when international curiosity about Yemen’s motives coincided with Yemen’s willingness to explain itself. Faris had gone to college in America’s Midwest, and I’d heard he was the key to getting anything out of the government. “Promised a lot, didn’t deliver that much. But he can be helpful, if he wants to be.” That was the note I’d gotten from a colleague. Upon hearing the name of a large American newspaper, Faris was most obsequious. Let’s talk about it, about what your stories are. I tell you what—you’ve never been here before. How about I pick you up, show you around, and you can tell me what you’re covering, what your objectives are. So you get a feel for Yemen.
“So much misinformation printed about Yemen in the American press,” he griped as his SUV groaned over the cobblestones. I stared out the window at crooked clusters of fairy-tale towers, stained glass ringed with gypsum, the cut of minarets against a darkening sky.
“It’s like they cannot mention Yemen without saying it’s the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden. Why? Okay, so some of his family lived here. Do you know what it’s like up there in the north? You can’t even see the border between Saudi Arabia and Yemen. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“I’d be interested to get up there,” I said.
“Oh no,” he barked. “You can’t go.”
“Why not? It’s impossible?”
“Well, not impossible,” he smiled a cat’s smile, eyes lingering on the road. “Not completely impossible. But, you know, you’re getting into the tribal areas—”
“And you don’t have control over the tribes.”
“We do have control. But these days we have this situation with the rebels up there. There’s a lot of fighting.”
“You mean Houthi.”
I’d been reading about the Houthi rebellion—at least, reading what few details managed to squeeze out of the government’s grasp. Hussein Houthi was a Zaydi Shiite cleric who’d led thousands of followers to wage a guerrilla war against the central government, angered by its ties to America and keen for Islamic rule. The government blamed the insurrection on “foreign sponsors,” whispering that the Houthi clan was backed by Iran. The fighting dragged on for months and the death toll swelled, but journalists couldn’t get to the Sa’ada region to investigate. In the reporter-saturated Middle East, here was a rare wilderness still hidden from cameras. Only sketchy rumors of war rumbled down from the hills.
“Yes,” Faris said tensely, all of that hiddenness blackening his voice. “The Houthi.”
“I don’t mind. I wanted to write a story about the Houthi rebellion, anyway.”
“We can’t guarantee your safety.”
“It’s not your responsibility.”
He puffed his cheeks and laughed nervously. “Okay. It’s impossible.”
“Are you telling me I can’t go?”
“I don’t put it like that.”
“What if I go on my own?”
“You’ll never get up there.”
“Why? Because I’ll get kidnapped?”
“There are checkpoints everywhere. You can’t even get very far out of Sanaa unless you’re on a tour bus with a special permit. We’re very careful with the tourists. But, no, the kidnappings aren’t really