The Gun Part 7

Camps operated near Mazar-e-Sharif, Jalalabad, Khost, Kandahar, Kabul, and elsewhere. Different parties-some local, others from Central Asia, Kashmir, Africa, or Arabia-operated their own schools and taught their charges in a variety of languages, including Urdu, Uzbek, Tajik, Russian, Arabic, and Pashto.49 The schools shared more than ideology and common purpose. They began instruction with an inaugural lesson-how to use the The schools shared more than ideology and common purpose. They began instruction with an inaugural lesson-how to use the Avtomat Kalashnikova. Avtomat Kalashnikova. Notebooks of students who attended these courses, recovered across Afghanistan in 2001, underlined the preeminent place that Kalashnikov rifles had realized in introducing new jihadists to their holy war. The handwritten notebooks the students left behind showed that the recruits attended cla.s.ses covering the history and characteristics of the AKM and other Kalashnikov variants and received basic instruction in their use. Later lessons covered tactics, including the fundamentals of patrolling and ambushes, and immediate-action drills-the steps to be taken by small patrols upon making contact with a foe. The instruction was of mediocre quality. Some of it contained errors or unrealistic descriptions of the weapons' qualities. (A cla.s.s given to Asadullah, a recruit in the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which became an al Qaeda affiliate in the late 1990s, included charts claiming that an AKM had a one-thousand-meter range.) But the instruction was earnest, consistent, and meticulous, suggesting that whoever had organized it had given it considerable thought. The Kalashnikov was viewed by the jihad's trainers as a fighter's first tool. Notebooks of students who attended these courses, recovered across Afghanistan in 2001, underlined the preeminent place that Kalashnikov rifles had realized in introducing new jihadists to their holy war. The handwritten notebooks the students left behind showed that the recruits attended cla.s.ses covering the history and characteristics of the AKM and other Kalashnikov variants and received basic instruction in their use. Later lessons covered tactics, including the fundamentals of patrolling and ambushes, and immediate-action drills-the steps to be taken by small patrols upon making contact with a foe. The instruction was of mediocre quality. Some of it contained errors or unrealistic descriptions of the weapons' qualities. (A cla.s.s given to Asadullah, a recruit in the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which became an al Qaeda affiliate in the late 1990s, included charts claiming that an AKM had a one-thousand-meter range.) But the instruction was earnest, consistent, and meticulous, suggesting that whoever had organized it had given it considerable thought. The Kalashnikov was viewed by the jihad's trainers as a fighter's first tool.

Its prominence was demonstrated by a simple fact: The extent of Kalashnikov proliferation by the late 1990s was such that the only question for a fighter seeking to obtain one was price. The price of a Kalashnikov is often misunderstood, and in many conversations subject to distortion. One common view has long held, and falsely, that in many regions of the world an AK-47 can be purchased for the cost of a chicken or a sack of grain. Kofi A. Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations from 1997 through 2006, repeated these lines, and added that an AK-47 "can be bought for as little as $15."50 Such prices may have existed in one place or another for a very brief time. But loudness and repet.i.tion are not truth, and these statements, echoed by journalists and arms-control advocates over the years, are best viewed with skepticism. The more realistic retail price range for a single automatic Kalashnikov in much of the developing world, depending on many factors (the rifle's exact type, nation of manufacture, and condition, the local laws and security conditions at the time and point of sale, the experience of the purchaser) is on the order of several hundred dollars. In some conflicts, a thousand dollars is not rare. Such prices may have existed in one place or another for a very brief time. But loudness and repet.i.tion are not truth, and these statements, echoed by journalists and arms-control advocates over the years, are best viewed with skepticism. The more realistic retail price range for a single automatic Kalashnikov in much of the developing world, depending on many factors (the rifle's exact type, nation of manufacture, and condition, the local laws and security conditions at the time and point of sale, the experience of the purchaser) is on the order of several hundred dollars. In some conflicts, a thousand dollars is not rare.

Prices climb when and where Kalashnikovs are difficult to obtain. In nations capable of enforcing the laws they pa.s.s, strict gun control can send prices soaring. In the United States, a well-used fully automatic Chinese Type 56 Kalashnikov, in 2005, could cost $10,000;51 the price is higher as of this writing. But the United States is its own case, and prices there are not indicative of prices in regions where the Kalashnikov line is readily available or widely used. Other examples are more germane. In eastern Uganda in the late 1980s, after more than fifteen years of local Kalashnikov proliferation, an AK-47 could be bought for about $200, or traded for three or four cattle the price is higher as of this writing. But the United States is its own case, and prices there are not indicative of prices in regions where the Kalashnikov line is readily available or widely used. Other examples are more germane. In eastern Uganda in the late 1980s, after more than fifteen years of local Kalashnikov proliferation, an AK-47 could be bought for about $200, or traded for three or four cattle52-a good bit more than a chicken. In the arms bazaars along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, prices for a Kalashnikov ranged from $1,500 to $3,500 during the early years of the 1980s, when demand for weapons for the war against the Soviet army outstripped supply. By the late 1980s, as other governments s.h.i.+pped hundreds of thousands of rifles to the war, Kalashnikov prices had dropped. They reached roughly $700 by the time the Soviet army withdrew. Prices then sank further, dipping nearly to $300 by 2000, before climbing again with the onset of new war.53 In Iraq, Kalashnikovs could be purchased in early to mid-2003 for $150 or less, the soft retail prices reflecting an abundance of weapons available as the Baathist state security structures disbanded and weapons flooded markets, as well as the brief sense of optimism immediately after Saddam Hussein was toppled. In Iraq, Kalashnikovs could be purchased in early to mid-2003 for $150 or less, the soft retail prices reflecting an abundance of weapons available as the Baathist state security structures disbanded and weapons flooded markets, as well as the brief sense of optimism immediately after Saddam Hussein was toppled.54 As the insurgency grew and sectarian violence spread, and as new forms of demand pressured supply-including an influx of contractors seeking a.s.sault rifles for security duties-Kalashnikov prices moved up. By 2005, an AKM clone with a fixed stock cost roughly $450. By 2006, these same rifles cost $650 to $800, with higher prices being paid for Kalashnikovs with folding stocks, which can be more readily concealed and are easier to fire from within a car. In the end, a Kalashnikov on the retail market, which often means on the gray or black market, is like a handmade carpet in a shop. It is worth what a seller can convince a buyer to pay for it. Many factors determine price, and an astute buyer and informed seller can haggle over the details of a gun-not just condition, but Romanian versus Hungarian, Chinese versus Russian, under-folding versus a side-folding collapsible stock-the way collectors might debate the relative merits of a Turkmen, Azeri, or Persian tribal rug. As the insurgency grew and sectarian violence spread, and as new forms of demand pressured supply-including an influx of contractors seeking a.s.sault rifles for security duties-Kalashnikov prices moved up. By 2005, an AKM clone with a fixed stock cost roughly $450. By 2006, these same rifles cost $650 to $800, with higher prices being paid for Kalashnikovs with folding stocks, which can be more readily concealed and are easier to fire from within a car. In the end, a Kalashnikov on the retail market, which often means on the gray or black market, is like a handmade carpet in a shop. It is worth what a seller can convince a buyer to pay for it. Many factors determine price, and an astute buyer and informed seller can haggle over the details of a gun-not just condition, but Romanian versus Hungarian, Chinese versus Russian, under-folding versus a side-folding collapsible stock-the way collectors might debate the relative merits of a Turkmen, Azeri, or Persian tribal rug.

Not just cash and barter have been used to acquire rifles; extortion has proven an effective means. In Chechnya, insurgents often gain rifles and ammunition through novel agreements. A local fighting cell will use middlemen to negotiate with Russian or pro-Russian Chechen units for truces. In exchange for not attacking a certain Russian position for a prescribed length of time, the insurgents exact a tax paid in armament-a rifle, a can of ammunition, perhaps a sack of grenades. Sometimes to close deals, they sweeten agreements by delivering vodka regularly to a government checkpoint or position. In this way, Russian units have arranged quiet tours.55 Such arrangements are mercurial, and similar pressures can be applied in the other direction and serve as a mechanism for disarmament. Russian units, when seeking to capture weapons, have set up roadblocks and impounded Chechen civilians' cars and trucks. For each vehicle to be released, the soldiers tell the evicted drivers, the price is one Kalashnikov rifle, to be obtained as the vehicle's owners see fit. Such arrangements are mercurial, and similar pressures can be applied in the other direction and serve as a mechanism for disarmament. Russian units, when seeking to capture weapons, have set up roadblocks and impounded Chechen civilians' cars and trucks. For each vehicle to be released, the soldiers tell the evicted drivers, the price is one Kalashnikov rifle, to be obtained as the vehicle's owners see fit.56 In such situations, a rifle becomes very expensive-worth as much as a family's automobile. In such situations, a rifle becomes very expensive-worth as much as a family's automobile.

Prices can be set in yet other ways, including special cases that have little to do with needing a weapon for war, as when a weapon's novelty or symbolism creates prestige. Prestige within Kalashnikov culture, like prestige surrounding other product lines with large followings, almost invariably drives up price. Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, who headed the Afghan bureau of the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service, claimed that the CIA paid $5,000 for the first AK-74-the new Soviet a.s.sault rifle that fired the smaller cartridge-captured in Afghanistan in the 1980s.57 At other times a weapon can a.s.sume an aura, and aura similarly affects price. Weapons even resembling the smallest Kalashnikovs of all, the AKSU-74, a short-barreled, collapsible-stock design that American gun enthusiasts call the At other times a weapon can a.s.sume an aura, and aura similarly affects price. Weapons even resembling the smallest Kalashnikovs of all, the AKSU-74, a short-barreled, collapsible-stock design that American gun enthusiasts call the Krinkov Krinkov and that Osama bin Laden has been photographed with, could cost more than $2,000 during the most violent period of the most recent war in Iraq. and that Osama bin Laden has been photographed with, could cost more than $2,000 during the most violent period of the most recent war in Iraq.58 This weapon had by then picked up a regional nickname that gave it jihadist cachet: "the Osama." Bin Laden's selection of this design (it is less than twenty inches long and weighs not quite six pounds) was on technical merits a strange endors.e.m.e.nt. An AKSU-74 is inaccurate and fires rounds with less muzzle velocity than an AK-74, making it potentially less useful and lethal than many available choices. But people who regard themselves as warriors inhabit worlds in which symbols matter. And in the particular history of bin Laden's martial surroundings-western Pakistan and Afghanistan of the last three decades-a short-barreled Kalashnikov emanated a trophy's distinction. Relatively new, the AKSU-74 had been carried in the Soviet-Afghan War by specialized soldiers, including helicopter and armor crews, for whom a smaller weapon was useful in the tight confines of their transit. For an Afghan fighter, possession of one of these rifles signified bravery and action. It implied that the holder had partic.i.p.ated in destroying an armored vehicle or aircraft; the rifle was akin to a scalp. By choosing it, bin Laden silently signaled to his followers: This weapon had by then picked up a regional nickname that gave it jihadist cachet: "the Osama." Bin Laden's selection of this design (it is less than twenty inches long and weighs not quite six pounds) was on technical merits a strange endors.e.m.e.nt. An AKSU-74 is inaccurate and fires rounds with less muzzle velocity than an AK-74, making it potentially less useful and lethal than many available choices. But people who regard themselves as warriors inhabit worlds in which symbols matter. And in the particular history of bin Laden's martial surroundings-western Pakistan and Afghanistan of the last three decades-a short-barreled Kalashnikov emanated a trophy's distinction. Relatively new, the AKSU-74 had been carried in the Soviet-Afghan War by specialized soldiers, including helicopter and armor crews, for whom a smaller weapon was useful in the tight confines of their transit. For an Afghan fighter, possession of one of these rifles signified bravery and action. It implied that the holder had partic.i.p.ated in destroying an armored vehicle or aircraft; the rifle was akin to a scalp. By choosing it, bin Laden silently signaled to his followers: I am authentic, I am authentic, even if his actual combat experience was not what his prop suggested. even if his actual combat experience was not what his prop suggested.

Symbolic power has been harnessed by owners of a.s.sault rifles since a.s.sault rifles became available. After Salvador Allende rose to the presidency of Chile in 1970, becoming the Western Hemisphere's first elected socialist head of state, Fidel Castro presented him with a folding-stock Kalashnikov bearing an inscription on a golden plate: "To my good friend Salvador from Fidel, who by different means tries to achieve the same goals."59 The rifle served as 1970s leftist bling, though a golden plate was more Saddam Hussein than Karl Marx. Like so many other men with a Kalashnikov, like Jozsef Tibor Fejes with his captured AK-47 in Budapest, Allende could not resist a pose. He was photographed at least once playing with his keepsake rifle, looking down the barrel while pointing it into the air. If the most widely circulated accounts are to be believed, Castro's gift had a role in the final palace act, in which Allende, besieged in September 1973 during a CIA-backed coup, sat on a couch, placed his Kalashnikov between his knees, aligned the muzzle beneath his chin, and fired. The rifle served as 1970s leftist bling, though a golden plate was more Saddam Hussein than Karl Marx. Like so many other men with a Kalashnikov, like Jozsef Tibor Fejes with his captured AK-47 in Budapest, Allende could not resist a pose. He was photographed at least once playing with his keepsake rifle, looking down the barrel while pointing it into the air. If the most widely circulated accounts are to be believed, Castro's gift had a role in the final palace act, in which Allende, besieged in September 1973 during a CIA-backed coup, sat on a couch, placed his Kalashnikov between his knees, aligned the muzzle beneath his chin, and fired.60 (Allende would not be the last head of state to die by Kalashnikov fire; the list would grow.) (Allende would not be the last head of state to die by Kalashnikov fire; the list would grow.) The darker symbolism eluded those who maintained the celebration. Mozambique chose in 1983 to allow a Kalashnikov to adorn its national flag. At roughly the same time, Hezbollah formed in Lebanon, and its yellow flag bore the image of an a.s.sault rifle with features resembling those of a Kalashnikov.ix Other groups have made the selection explicit. The Kalashnikov decorates the crest of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the South Asian Islamic terrorist group, and appears on flags and murals used by the New People's Army in the Philippines and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. In Iraq after the American invasion, the rifle became part of the murals and flags of Jaish al-Islami, the 1920 Revolutionary Brigades, the Mujahideen Shura Council, Jaish al-Taifa al-Mansoura, and the Salafist Group for Call and Combat. Other groups have made the selection explicit. The Kalashnikov decorates the crest of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the South Asian Islamic terrorist group, and appears on flags and murals used by the New People's Army in the Philippines and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. In Iraq after the American invasion, the rifle became part of the murals and flags of Jaish al-Islami, the 1920 Revolutionary Brigades, the Mujahideen Shura Council, Jaish al-Taifa al-Mansoura, and the Salafist Group for Call and Combat.

The Kalashnikov, while by far the most common choice for recent martial art, was not alone in conveying political ideas. Fighters often choose weapons that broadcast messages. Palestinian insurgents often preferred to carry an M-16 or their carbine descendant, the M-4-the weapons of the Israel Defense Forces. Possession of an American rifle signified either Israeli corruption or Palestinian battlefield success; in either case, grounds to boost a Palestinian fighter's morale.61 For these reasons, M-16s appear in the logo of Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigades and are sometimes superimposed on the emblem of Hamas, though the bulk of these organizations' fighters carry Kalashnikovs, which long ago entered the movements' symbols, lyrics, and slogans, too. One fedayeen song revered the "Klas.h.i.+n," local shorthand for the Kalashnikov line. For these reasons, M-16s appear in the logo of Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigades and are sometimes superimposed on the emblem of Hamas, though the bulk of these organizations' fighters carry Kalashnikovs, which long ago entered the movements' symbols, lyrics, and slogans, too. One fedayeen song revered the "Klas.h.i.+n," local shorthand for the Kalashnikov line.

Klas.h.i.+n makes the blood run out in torrents Haifa and Jaffa are calling us Commando, go ahead and do not worry Open fire and break the silence of the night.62 But other weapons manage to have their moment, even as a pointed counterpoint. In the Caucasus, Ruslan Kuchbarov, leader of the Chechen and Ingush terrorist gang that seized more than eleven hundred hostages at School No. 1 in Beslan in 2004, strutted through the school's corridors and surveyed his captives while swinging a VSS-a silenced sniper rifle almost exclusively used by Russian spetsnaz. spetsnaz.x His message was an underground staple. His message was an underground staple. Those men you sent to kill me? I've got their guns. Those men you sent to kill me? I've got their guns. President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, who cast himself as a post-Soviet Westernizer, initiated a program to replace his nation's stocks of Kalashnikovs with M-4s, choosing the rifle as if thumbing his nose at the Kremlin. The Kalashnikov, he said, was a symbol of communism, of centralization, of the Soviet Union, of the KGB-run government that rose on its remains, of an old and inhumane world he wanted Georgia to forget. President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, who cast himself as a post-Soviet Westernizer, initiated a program to replace his nation's stocks of Kalashnikovs with M-4s, choosing the rifle as if thumbing his nose at the Kremlin. The Kalashnikov, he said, was a symbol of communism, of centralization, of the Soviet Union, of the KGB-run government that rose on its remains, of an old and inhumane world he wanted Georgia to forget.63 "Goodbye old weapon!" he shouted to formations of his country's soldiers as he personally handed out an early s.h.i.+pment of M-4s. "Long live the new one!" "Goodbye old weapon!" he shouted to formations of his country's soldiers as he personally handed out an early s.h.i.+pment of M-4s. "Long live the new one!"64 Saakashvili was excitable, a president who knew more about symbols and speeches than about how wars were fought. On a Thursday night several months later, he ordered an attack on Russian-backed South Ossetia. His army was scattered by the weekend. It fled. The Russian soldiers who defeated them showed almost no interest in the M-4s the retreating Georgians abandoned, other than as trophies to be carried home. "Ours are better," one Russian soldier said, frowning over a captured American rifle in the briefly occupied city of Gori. Saakashvili was excitable, a president who knew more about symbols and speeches than about how wars were fought. On a Thursday night several months later, he ordered an attack on Russian-backed South Ossetia. His army was scattered by the weekend. It fled. The Russian soldiers who defeated them showed almost no interest in the M-4s the retreating Georgians abandoned, other than as trophies to be carried home. "Ours are better," one Russian soldier said, frowning over a captured American rifle in the briefly occupied city of Gori.xi65 For most of those who seek a.s.sault rifles, these seesawing meanings are unnecessary. A pedestrian AKM or knock-off will do. For these buyers one fact is irrefutable. The Kalashnikov, while more expensive than a chicken, has been an inexpensive choice. A record on the hard drive of a computer used by Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the Taliban, showed that in fall 2001, as the Taliban priced out the costs of arming two thousand fighters, it antic.i.p.ated spending about $202xii per Kalashnikov. per Kalashnikov.66 The comparisons on the ledger were useful-the rifle would cost twenty times as much as a uniform, and more than thirteen times as much as a pair of the shoes to be issued to each The comparisons on the ledger were useful-the rifle would cost twenty times as much as a uniform, and more than thirteen times as much as a pair of the shoes to be issued to each talib talib for the mullah's jihad. Another comparison was useful as well. Georgia, when it sought to replace M-4s lost in the war, accepted a price of $870 per weapon for thirteen thousand rifles for the mullah's jihad. Another comparison was useful as well. Georgia, when it sought to replace M-4s lost in the war, accepted a price of $870 per weapon for thirteen thousand rifles67-more than four times the price the Taliban was to pay for its primary arms. The United States military, by 2009, was paying roughly $1,100 for each M-4 issued to its soldiers, more than five times the cost per rifle borne by its enemies in Afghanistan, if the Taliban's sources remained the same.xiii68 The United States government recognized this difference early in its engagement with the nascent Afghan and Iraqi armed forces, to which it provided hundreds of thousands of small arms. Mullah Omar's prospective cost-$202 per Kalashnikov-was only slightly more than what the United States often paid on the way to becoming the world's largest publicly known purchaser of AKM knock-offs.

In those deals, brokers in Eastern Europe arranged purchases from stockpiles at bulk prices, often less than $100 per a.s.sault rifle. By one example, Romanian surplus was initially sold at $93 to $98 each for a fixed-stock rifle, or $115 for a rifle with a folding stock.69 These prices were roughly comparable to the price of an M-16 rifle-in 1966. These prices were roughly comparable to the price of an M-16 rifle-in 1966.70 The brokers then flipped the rifles at higher prices to the American companies awarded the Pentagon contracts, which in turn charged the Pentagon more-in the range of $150 to $165 a rifle, including air-freight delivery costs to Baghdad or Kabul. The rifles had typically been manufactured during the Warsaw Pact years and had sat unused in the decades since; they were considered new. Some vendors pa.s.sed off used rifles to the Pentagon by reconditioning them with new finishes and lacquers. Newly manufactured rifles would cost significantly more, because of the increased costs of labor, energy, and commodities required to make them. The point, well-known among purchasers, is this: Because of the glut of rifles from Cold Warera stockpiles, it costs very little to outfit fighters with Kalashnikovs. The expense is small enough that many governments hand them out to those who might serve their bidding, as Egypt and Libya and other Arab states did with the Palestinians, as the United States did in Afghanistan and Iraq, and as Sudan did to the Lord's Resistance Army, whose commanders fought for years without worrying about running short of guns, or seeking funds to buy more. At the bottom of the hierarchy, where the fighting and killing and many of the crimes take place, those involved were armed almost effortlessly, and free of the burden of attending to the details. "The thing you get for free," one amnestied LRA commander said, "you don't bother to ask the price." The brokers then flipped the rifles at higher prices to the American companies awarded the Pentagon contracts, which in turn charged the Pentagon more-in the range of $150 to $165 a rifle, including air-freight delivery costs to Baghdad or Kabul. The rifles had typically been manufactured during the Warsaw Pact years and had sat unused in the decades since; they were considered new. Some vendors pa.s.sed off used rifles to the Pentagon by reconditioning them with new finishes and lacquers. Newly manufactured rifles would cost significantly more, because of the increased costs of labor, energy, and commodities required to make them. The point, well-known among purchasers, is this: Because of the glut of rifles from Cold Warera stockpiles, it costs very little to outfit fighters with Kalashnikovs. The expense is small enough that many governments hand them out to those who might serve their bidding, as Egypt and Libya and other Arab states did with the Palestinians, as the United States did in Afghanistan and Iraq, and as Sudan did to the Lord's Resistance Army, whose commanders fought for years without worrying about running short of guns, or seeking funds to buy more. At the bottom of the hierarchy, where the fighting and killing and many of the crimes take place, those involved were armed almost effortlessly, and free of the burden of attending to the details. "The thing you get for free," one amnestied LRA commander said, "you don't bother to ask the price."71 Almost a century and a half after Dr. Richard J. Gatling developed a workable design for a rapid-fire arm, the armaments world had reached that stage. After decades of a.s.sault-rifle production in planned economies, eight-pound automatic rifles could be issued to child soldiers at no cost to their commanders, jihadist movements pitted against the world's most powerful and modern military force could arm fighters for about two hundred dollars a man, and the opening cla.s.s in terrorist training camps was an introduction to the AKM. Outside the West, the rifle was at the very center of war and preparations for it. By 2001, when Mullah Omar received his price list, the United Nations had attempted a rough tally of the human costs to those in places where the rifles are used most. It found that small arms had been the princ.i.p.al weapons in forty-six of the forty-nine major conflicts in the 1990s, in which 4 million people died, roughly 90 percent of them civilians.72 For most of these wars and most of these young conscripts, Kalashnikovs were the primary rifle. If the United Nations' numbers were accurate and hundreds of thousands of people were being killed by small arms each year-in wars, crimes, acts of state repression, or acts of terror-then it would never be possible to doc.u.ment, person by person, the Kalashnikov's role in what it all meant. Case studies would have to do, offering insights into the experiences of a victim here, or a victim there, serving as representatives of an enormous cla.s.s. Each war provides new casualties. Each day the tally climbs. But it is possible to slow down and to examine what the weapons can do to an individual victim, a man like Karzan Mahmoud. For most of these wars and most of these young conscripts, Kalashnikovs were the primary rifle. If the United Nations' numbers were accurate and hundreds of thousands of people were being killed by small arms each year-in wars, crimes, acts of state repression, or acts of terror-then it would never be possible to doc.u.ment, person by person, the Kalashnikov's role in what it all meant. Case studies would have to do, offering insights into the experiences of a victim here, or a victim there, serving as representatives of an enormous cla.s.s. Each war provides new casualties. Each day the tally climbs. But it is possible to slow down and to examine what the weapons can do to an individual victim, a man like Karzan Mahmoud.

Mahmoud was shot in spring 2002 in northern Iraq, a region that had been an all-but-forgotten seam in the wars in the Middle East. No one much noticed that day, though a new war was gathering. The American military had chased the Taliban from Kabul several months before, and President George W. Bush's administration had switched focus. The northern portion of Iraq, loosely protected by a no-fly zone, was a semiautonomous Kurdish enclave, a statelet within a state, where Was.h.i.+ngton was quietly renewing engagement with the Kurds, seeking allies for the war ahead. Ryan Crocker, an American diplomat, had come to Sulaimaniya, capital of the eastern portion of the Kurdish zone, to meet with the officials of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK, one of two princ.i.p.al Kurdish parties. The PUK ruled Iraq's northeast, mixing promises of democracy with old-time cronyism and centralized party power. It had descended from a guerrilla force-the peshmerga, peshmerga, those who face death-that waged mountain war against Saddam Hussein's Baathist Iraq. But the party's surviving military leaders were now older and mostly softer, interested in politics and business more than in fighting a lonely war. Its military formations were small, inadequately equipped, and unevenly led. And they had outright enemies-Hussein to the south and an Islamic fundamental movement in their midst. This was the territory in which Karzan Mahmoud operated, as a bodyguard, in a land of hidden danger and treachery. those who face death-that waged mountain war against Saddam Hussein's Baathist Iraq. But the party's surviving military leaders were now older and mostly softer, interested in politics and business more than in fighting a lonely war. Its military formations were small, inadequately equipped, and unevenly led. And they had outright enemies-Hussein to the south and an Islamic fundamental movement in their midst. This was the territory in which Karzan Mahmoud operated, as a bodyguard, in a land of hidden danger and treachery.

The three a.s.sa.s.sins arrived near the home of Prime Minister Barham Salih at 3:45 P.M. P.M. on April 2, wearing a mix of traditional on April 2, wearing a mix of traditional peshmerga peshmerga dress and modern camouflage uniforms. It was a chilly spring afternoon. A light rain shower was falling. The a.s.sa.s.sins had shaved their beards and looked neat, resembling officers from the local Ministry of the Interior. For their approach, they had bought a local white-and-orange Volks-wagen taxi so that they might blend in. The prime minister's residence, a two-story house, was located several lots from the corner, set back several yards from the road. As the taxi neared, Salih was finis.h.i.+ng a meeting with the city's director of intelligence and preparing to drive to meet Crocker. The security teams of both men waited outside. The taxi stopped at the corner. The a.s.sa.s.sins stepped out. They wore Kalashnikovs on slings. They moved casually toward the officials' bodyguards, who suffered the confidence of numbers. The guards, after all, were twelve. dress and modern camouflage uniforms. It was a chilly spring afternoon. A light rain shower was falling. The a.s.sa.s.sins had shaved their beards and looked neat, resembling officers from the local Ministry of the Interior. For their approach, they had bought a local white-and-orange Volks-wagen taxi so that they might blend in. The prime minister's residence, a two-story house, was located several lots from the corner, set back several yards from the road. As the taxi neared, Salih was finis.h.i.+ng a meeting with the city's director of intelligence and preparing to drive to meet Crocker. The security teams of both men waited outside. The taxi stopped at the corner. The a.s.sa.s.sins stepped out. They wore Kalashnikovs on slings. They moved casually toward the officials' bodyguards, who suffered the confidence of numbers. The guards, after all, were twelve.

Mahmoud was Salih's driver that day. Moments before, he had left his white Nissan Patrol, and was walking through the drizzle toward the taxi when it pulled up. He was wearing a blue suit and red tie. He had intended to visit a market at the corner, but the taxi diverted his attention. Mahmoud was twenty-four, a peshmerga peshmerga for six years. A polite man, he emanated decency, respect, and kindness of an order that could seem a fault. He approached the three men to tell them that they should move their car down the street. No one was allowed to park here. He was drilled in manners and protocol. It showed. for six years. A polite man, he emanated decency, respect, and kindness of an order that could seem a fault. He approached the three men to tell them that they should move their car down the street. No one was allowed to park here. He was drilled in manners and protocol. It showed.

"How can I help you?" he asked.

The lead man had a question. "Is Dr. Barham home?"

"Yes," Mahmoud answered. "What do you need?"

About fifteen feet separated the two men. The man stepped forward, swung his Kalashnikov up to level, and fired a burst at Mahmoud's face.

Mahmoud was small statured, the sort of athlete whom larger and more powerful men misjudge. He had spent five years in intensive tae kwon do training, which had left him limber and loose and equipped him with dodges that could look instinctive. He sensed the s.h.i.+ft-from routine traffic encounter to terrible danger-in the instant the a.s.sa.s.sin's face changed. The Kalashnikov muzzle rose. Mahmoud fell. He bent his knees, forcing his s.h.i.+ns forward toward the ground. As his lower body dipped in that direction, he pushed off the b.a.l.l.s of his feet and threw his shoulders in the other, backward, while raising his chin and arching his spine. His hands rose and extended, to protect his face. It was a blind rearward snap-dive, a desperate juke that risked slamming the back of his head onto asphalt. It saved him from the first blast. As Mahmoud arched while falling, his combined movements changed the angle his face presented as a target. Two bullets. .h.i.t him in the head. They did not strike squarely. Both grazed him, each slicing a groove from his lower forehead, by his eyebrows, to his hairline. Then came more. He had pushed his hands up into the s.p.a.ce between the muzzle and his face, directly into the path of a long automatic burst. Several bullets tore through Mahmoud's right elbow and forearm. At least two hit his left hand, shattering fine bones. An instant had pa.s.sed. Mahmoud slammed onto the street, his right arm useless, his left hand ruined, his brow about to pour blood. He was alive.

He heard gunshots. The three attackers were striding forward and firing. He was at their feet. Mahmoud had a thought: pistol. pistol. The bodyguards kept a pistol in the map pocket of the door of his vehicle, which was running, doors closed, about twenty feet away. He needed this gun. He could visualize the weapon-a 9-millimeter semiautomatic with its magazine and fourteen rounds inserted. If he could reach it he could fight. The a.s.sa.s.sins must have thought they had killed him, because they were firing toward other bodyguards. Adrenaline had put Mahmoud in an extreme state of alertness. Now it propelled his will. He rolled onto his side, spun from his young legs to his feet, and bounded in his suit toward his SUV. His shattered right arm dangled in its sleeve. His face was wet with blood. His revival must have startled the a.s.sa.s.sins: The dead man rose. He reached the car in several wild, zigzagging lunges, each turn meant to frustrate attempts to shoot him in the back. The bodyguards kept a pistol in the map pocket of the door of his vehicle, which was running, doors closed, about twenty feet away. He needed this gun. He could visualize the weapon-a 9-millimeter semiautomatic with its magazine and fourteen rounds inserted. If he could reach it he could fight. The a.s.sa.s.sins must have thought they had killed him, because they were firing toward other bodyguards. Adrenaline had put Mahmoud in an extreme state of alertness. Now it propelled his will. He rolled onto his side, spun from his young legs to his feet, and bounded in his suit toward his SUV. His shattered right arm dangled in its sleeve. His face was wet with blood. His revival must have startled the a.s.sa.s.sins: The dead man rose. He reached the car in several wild, zigzagging lunges, each turn meant to frustrate attempts to shoot him in the back.

One of the gunmen zeroed in on Mahmoud a second time. He fired a burst. As with Mahmoud's first dodge, the zigs and zags kept him alive. They were not enough to spare him. A round hit his lower left back. Mahmoud reached the Patrol nonetheless. He was a lean young man, a martial-arts expert rippling with adrenaline and purpose, fired by the cornered animal's will to live, but without working fingers or hands. He swung his right hand at the door. The pistol was right there. There. There. His hand had no grip. He could not make it lift the handle. Karzan Mahmoud had performed his last act in the service of Prime Minister Salih's security detail. The a.s.sa.s.sin fired again. The burst rode up Mahmoud's left leg, shattering the femur and the hip, reducing to fragments the main load-bearing bones and joint on his left side. His hand had no grip. He could not make it lift the handle. Karzan Mahmoud had performed his last act in the service of Prime Minister Salih's security detail. The a.s.sa.s.sin fired again. The burst rode up Mahmoud's left leg, shattering the femur and the hip, reducing to fragments the main load-bearing bones and joint on his left side.

The long arc of the history of automatic small arms was almost complete. From the days of Fieschi and Puckle, to the work of Gatling, Gardner, and n.o.bel, through the marvels of Maxim, who conceived the most important steps, rapid-fire infantry arms, at first a dream and then expensive, had become ordinary and available to almost anyone. At first, when few combatants had them, they were instruments of imperialism, state power, and army-meets-army international war. Now they empowered disorder and crime. In Iraqi Kurdistan, as in large tracts of the developing world, every party had a.s.sault rifles, and the a.s.sault rifles were almost all patterned on the original Kalashnikov. They had come here from many sources: from Iran, Romania, Russia, Egypt, Poland, the former Yugoslavia, and China. They had arrived to markets by many means: s.h.i.+pped across borders from outside, looted from state a.r.s.enals, handed out by neighboring governments hoping those who used them would frustrate Baathist rule. Some had been made in a factory that the Baathists had built for themselves. And now they were so locally abundant that buying one was only a matter of a young man's asking where to shop. Created in the race among nations to develop weapons that might ensure national security and improve soldiers' chances in war, they had been imitated, replicated, miniaturized, and fine-tuned, cycle after cycle, design by design, s.h.i.+pment by s.h.i.+pment, until something like parity among riflemen had been reached. Parity, it turned out, meant not just that any modern fighter could be well equipped. It meant that almost anyone could be shot. Parity looked like this: Karzan Mahmoud toppled and fell, landing in a puddle of cold standing water. There he lay, on his back, blinking up into raindrops peppering his face. He had no idea how many times he had been hit. His body was broken; his mind, for the moment, was strangely detached. His blood stained the puddle red. He thought he heard thunder.

Only a few seconds had pa.s.sed. He did not have much time. Over the decades the men and women who studied the effects of modern military rifle bullets on the so-called human frame had doc.u.mented the physical processes now playing out within Mahmoud. They knew the ways that different bullets fired at different ranges cut through human skin, human muscle, and all forms of human flesh. They understood how these bullets snap and shatter human bone, and how the knifelike shards of bullet jackets and ruptured bone intermingle and radiate outward, cutting more tissue as they scatter. Those scientists, and pseudoscientists, with their thawed human limbs and severed human heads filled with pseudo-brains, had doc.u.mented and described how the parts that make up a man can be made to break. Many of their tests had been on cadavers. Karzan Mahmoud was not a cadaver. Not yet. He panted, moaned, struggled for comprehension, blinked through blood and gritted teeth. What was he to do? His wounds outmatched him. If the puddle were a bathtub, he would drown. He had reached incapacitation, that hard-to-measure but you-know-it-when-you-see-it performance state that ballistics scientists had tried to ascertain and guarantee. Theory was theory. Laboratory work was laboratory work. Forensic autopsies were forensic autopsies. From these pursuits, the physical processes happening within Mahmoud-who was suffering from a form of violence common in our time-were almost precisely sketched in the books and the minds of those who knew what firearms do to men. Technical studies did not sketch this: what it looked and felt like when military rifle bullets smacked human life, when incapacitation meant not just preventing action but summoning death, when rifles and gunfights were stripped of engineering, politics, romance, or any whiff of fable.

Gatling spoke of sparing men the horrors of battle, so that their lives might be saved for their country. Was Mahmoud lucky that those two early shots had grazed his forehead and not blasted his cranium into chunks, as the experts knew they could? He remained alive, spared not because the machinery of war had made his services obsolete, but because an angle of impact, twice, had been oblique. He was a leaking mess of holes, many of them limned with bullet fragments and the broken bits of bones that had given him his shape. His blood was flowing out and time had become excruciating, if short. Was this better? Not youth, not will, not fitness, neither training nor hard-won knowledge could bring a man broken in this way back to what he had been, seconds before. Slogans and money meant nothing here and now. Even ideas were few. Karzan Mahmoud was not a cadaver. Not yet. He was a man who wanted to stand and feel the handle of a pistol wrapped within his shooting hand. He could not. Instead, he was fighting sleep.

And the gunfight raged. The three attackers were all firing. The battle flowed around him. Mahmoud wanted to partic.i.p.ate. But nothing worked. He felt cold.

"Yunis," he called to another driver. "I'm hurting."

"Yunis," he said. "Yunis?"

Time slowed for Mahmoud. For others, it raced. The street where Salih lived was an alley with the contours of a vertical-sided irrigation ca.n.a.l. In such a place, the members of a group could not readily disperse to fight, or even get out of one another's way. The guards returned fire. Mahmoud looked over and saw one of the attackers slumped on the ground nearby. A bodyguard had shot him. The man looked dead.

The two remaining attackers were charging, firing their Kalashnikovs on automatic as they came, sweeping the street with lead. Ramazan Hama-Raheem, one of the intelligence chief's guards, had been between the taxi and the gate. As Mahmoud was. .h.i.t, he spun to face the fight. He had an instant to react. He fired his Kalashnikov, and thought he hit one of them in the leg. As he fired he was struck. A bullet blew apart his right s.h.i.+n, another broke his right hip. He twisted, falling, and was raked by more. A burst hit him in the back. Another shredded his left thigh. One round hit his upper left arm. Another grazed the top of his skull. He landed on the ground with one working limb: his right arm. His a.s.sault rifle was useless to him now. He could not lift it. But with a right arm, he had a chance. He drew his Makarov semiautomatic pistol. He fired and fired, but he struggled for aim and after seven shots was out of ammunition. With only one working arm, he had no way to reload.

Another guard, Balan Faraj Karim, who had been inside a guard hut when the attack commenced, joined the fight. He had not seen the taxi arrive, or the three a.s.sa.s.sins advance. He stepped into a shootout midway through its course. There had been two groups of bodyguards on the street. The attackers had charged into their midst, splitting and confusing them. Karim scanned the bedlam. He had only seconds to figure it out. It was not clear who was who. He saw a man trotting in his direction-a stranger in peshmerga peshmerga dress. Karim decided: foe. He raised his weapon. The other man fired first, a long rippling burst. Karim felt the bullets splatter through him. They seemed to hit him everywhere. He collapsed. The man rushed by. dress. Karim decided: foe. He raised his weapon. The other man fired first, a long rippling burst. Karim felt the bullets splatter through him. They seemed to hit him everywhere. He collapsed. The man rushed by.

Gasping, Karim looked himself over. He had been shot in the stomach, the left shoulder, the right thigh, and multiple times in the left leg, including through the ankle and the calf. Another bullet had hit the back of his neck, probably as he spun and fell. It had pa.s.sed through meat without hitting spine. He was helpless; a heap. He could do little more than watch, at least until his own time ran out. He looked around. He saw the collapsed forms of other guards, and that of the prime minister's secretary, Amanj Khadir, who had also rushed outside and been shot. He watched another friend from the prime minister's security detail, Shwan Khzar, firing his a.s.sault rifle. But Khzar's Kalashnikov ran out of bullets. As he tried switching to a pistol, the man who had shot Karim opened fire with another burst. Khzar fell. The attacker limped down the street, away from the gate, stepped around a corner of a cinder-block wall, and was out of sight.

This surviving gunman, Qais Ibrahim Khadir, had decided to forgo entering the prime minister's compound. His two accomplices were dead. He was alone now; there seemed little chance to press further. He hobbled across a vacant lot. He had a few seconds to think. A bullet had pa.s.sed through his lower left leg, but missed bone. He could walk, and his uniform could help him. Pa.s.sersby might not suspect him of his crimes. He reached the road and hailed a taxi. When it pulled over, he stepped in and gave an address. Soon he was moving away from the mess of bodies he had left behind, enveloped by city traffic.

The survivors in front of Salih's house stirred. The prime minister had by luck been kept from harm. He had been seconds from stepping outside, but a telephone had rung. An aide called him back, and he had not entered the kill zone. At the sound of gunfire his aides rushed him deeper inside. On the asphalt, Balan Faraj Karim, immobilized by his wounds but one of the few men outside still conscious, scanned the street. He did not see the prime minister. This was the only good sign. His eyes settled on Mahmoud. Karim called to him.

"Karzan?" he said. "Karzan?"

There was no answer. He knew that Mahmoud was dead.

Karzan Mahmoud was not dead. He was sliding back and forth between sleep and consciousness. Soon he was aware of being jostled. A white Land Cruiser was beside him. Hands lifted him and put him in the back. A shopkeeper's face was above Mahmoud, consoling.

"What happened?" Mahmoud asked. "Who shot us?"

The shopkeeper shushed him. "Don't talk," he said. "Don't talk. You're okay."

At the hospital, Mahmoud overheard that the prime minister's secretary had died. The staff cut away his blood-soaked suit and dress s.h.i.+rt. The doctors worked. Mahmoud was naked and sedated: the wrecked remains of a young man. He saw gloved hands pull fragments of bullet and bone from his arms. A policeman questioned him.

"What is your name?" he asked.

Mahmoud answered.

"What is your phone number?"

Mahmoud answered again, but now he had a headache. He was wheeled off for X-rays. Before surgery, he saw the prime minister at his side.

"You helped me," Salih said.

"You are okay?" Mahmoud asked.

"Yes."

"Be careful, Dr. Barham," he said. "Be careful."

The surgeons worked on Mahmoud, the first time, until 2:00 A.M. A.M. They tallied wounds from twenty-three bullets. None had hit his spine or vital organs. The bullet that entered his back had cut only muscle and flesh. The head grazes had not fractured his skull. Twenty-three bullets, the doctors said. While Mahmoud was asleep, and the anesthesia was wearing off, he heard his mother's voice. They tallied wounds from twenty-three bullets. None had hit his spine or vital organs. The bullet that entered his back had cut only muscle and flesh. The head grazes had not fractured his skull. Twenty-three bullets, the doctors said. While Mahmoud was asleep, and the anesthesia was wearing off, he heard his mother's voice.

"Karzan," she said.

He woke. The doctors, he learned through a haze, had quarreled over whether they should amputate his right arm and left leg. For now he retained them. He asked questions about the attack. No one wanted to answer. On the third day, he read a newspaper and learned that five of his friends had been killed. Three others, besides himself, had been crippled. Elsewhere in the hospital, Balan Faraj Karim woke to doctors who explained why they had amputated his left leg. He misunderstood. "No," he cried. "You do not need to cut my leg." He argued. "Send me somewhere," he said. "To Europe," he suggested. "A different doctor can keep my leg." But his leg was already gone.

The surviving attacker, Qais Ibrahim Khadir, did not make it far. He was captured while hiding in a house in the city. In the months that followed, Khadir occupied a solitary-confinement cell on the second floor of the city's jail, in conditions that might drive a sane man mad. His room was a concrete closet, chilly and unlit, accessible through a small steel door. There, before Kurdish security officials led him away and executed him, he sat in the darkness, his skin growing paler and his flesh growing softer, pa.s.sing hours praying to his understanding of his G.o.d. He expressed no regret. When the opportunity presented itself, he voiced satisfaction, even pleasure, at what he had done. Conversations with Khadir did not follow linear thought, and his ruminations were p.r.o.ne to militant tautology. Doe-eyed and eager for company, he talked openly, but kept his history neat and free of gray. He had been born in Erbil in the mid-1970s and claimed to have left Iraq for study in a religious school in Yemen. He was cagey on the question of whether he met jihadists while abroad. He denied that he had. He also punctuated the denials with laughter and self-satisfied smirks. "I am very clever," he was given to saying. This confirmed something self-evident: I lie. I lie.

Khadir's militancy had wide-reaching roots. He had lived for a while with the Workers' Party of Kurdistan, or PKK, on Mount Qandil, the high-elevation base in Iraq near the border with Iran. But he felt little affinity for the PKK's fighters, whom he considered apostates. By 2001 he had come down off the mountain and taken up with Taweed, an armed Islamic movement. In a series of mergers with other local Islamic groups, Taweed became part of Ansar al-Islam, the Supporters of Islam, a confederation of armed Islamic parties that was emerging as a regional threat and demanded that the region be ruled by its interpretation of shariah law. It declared jihad against the PUK.

By 2002, Ansar al-Islam was large enough to field a visible guerrilla force of at least several hundred fighters, to run at least two jihadist training camps, and to control territory and several villages along the Iranian border. Its turf was a mountainous region, not the date-palm Iraq of the lower Tigris and Euphrates, but a zone of rolling foothills set against snowcapped peaks. There its fighters occupied trenches remaining from the Iran-Iraq War, augmenting them with bunkers and road checkpoints to create a statelet within a statelet that it governed its own way. The group closed a girls' school, forbade shaving, and desecrated a Sufi cemetery and mosque. It was northern Iraq's neo-Taliban.

Qais Ibrahim Khadir had taken an oath only to Taweed. But as Taweed evolved he changed with it. He rejoiced at the attacks on the World Trade Center and admired Osama bin Laden. "What does al Qaeda mean?" he asked, rhetorically. He had his own answer. "Al Qaeda," he said, "is a state of mind." Sitting in handcuffs in a room near his cell, Khadir gave himself high grades. Action, in his view, equaled accomplishment. Though he had failed to kill Barham Salih, he considered the operation an achievement. "We succeeded," he said. "According to our beliefs, any operation we do is a success when you do it."

Outside the prison, his victims suffered. The mother of one victim had died upon hearing of her son's death; she collapsed with a heart attack. Ramazan Hama-Raheem was handicapped, barely able to walk. "Only I know my pain," he said. "If you look at me now-look-my face, it is beautiful and calm. But inside, pain." He entertained a dark fantasy, which became a regular vision: He was alone and holding a pistol to his head. His depression was almost total. He was too strong to kill himself, not strong enough not to consider it every day. "My life," he said, is "jail, and I can't get out." Balan Faraj Karim had no fantasy whatsoever, not even the despairing fantasy of relief through suicide. He found sanctuary in sleep, which provided him with a dream. In this dream, he said, "I am sleeping in a bed in an American hospital and they have just finished the surgery to my shoulder and two legs." But always he would wake and find himself as Khadir had made him-a one-legged, disfigured man, unemployed, stuck in Iraq. He had two young children. His wife would later tell him that she did not know, hour by hour, what to do: to take care of their children, or to take care of him. Karim pa.s.sed long days crying.

Karzan Mahmoud at first fared little better. He had lived to be rea.s.sembled, put back into the shape of a man with metal rods and screws. The shape of a man was not enough. Mahmoud had form, not function. His left leg and hip could barely support his weight, and his wounds, which had been soaked in a dirty puddle after he was shot, were contaminated. By late in 2002 his upper thigh was swollen, purple, and oozing; a deep and festering infection had settled in. His right arm did not bend. His left hand could not open and close. He was stooped and slowly weakening. His youth and the remains of his vigor kept him alive, though the infection and its fevers had such a hold on him that it seemed likely to finish his pain soon. Fortune and friends.h.i.+p intervened. Several months before he had been shot, Mahmoud had hired out as a driver for Kevin McKiernan, a reporter for ABC News. The two men became friends. McKiernan returned to Iraq in fall 2002. In the rush of work during the run-up to the American invasion, the two men met many times. Mahmoud brought McKiernan his medical records, and McKiernan taped the X-rays to a window, photographed them, and emailed them to a friend from high school, Dr. Michael Brabeck, who worked at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Brookline, Ma.s.sachusetts McKiernan and Brabeck, half a world apart, made Mahmoud their project.

By spring 2003, as the American war in Iraq began, Mahmoud was living in Dr. Brabeck's house in Ma.s.sachusetts and receiving pro bono care that few victims of Kalashnikov bullets receive. By the summer, three surgeries later, his right arm had been reset with a ninety-degree bend at the elbow. His left hand was functional. His infection was defeated and his femur partially repaired, enough so that he was on a trajectory to walk without a cane.73 His grimace subsided. His eyes brightened. By early in 2006, with Saddam Hussein ousted and the PUK's leader serving as Iraq's president, Mahmoud was working in Canada, at the Iraqi emba.s.sy in Ottawa. He was not, by any of the typical measures of mobility for a twenty-seven-year-old man, healthy and fit. He limped visibly, his right arm was almost useless, his right hand had little grip. And the former wiry bodyguard, adept at tae kwon do, was gaining weight, a consequence of his inability to exercise as he had before. But he was free from infection, able to dress and feed himself, and bathe, and shuffle up and down steps, and drive on the highway, and work at office tasks. He was blessed to be alive. He knew it. "My G.o.d helped me," he said one night in Ottawa. "I like my G.o.d." He had been helped, but not healed. He knew he never would be. And he found, when considering the rifle that had altered his body and diminished his life, that he wondered about Mikhail Kalashnikov, who lent his name to the weapon. He had a question for the man who proudly insisted he was the inventor of this device. "Why did you make this machine?" Mahmoud asked. "You don't like living people? You are smart. Why not make something to help people, not make them dead?" His grimace subsided. His eyes brightened. By early in 2006, with Saddam Hussein ousted and the PUK's leader serving as Iraq's president, Mahmoud was working in Canada, at the Iraqi emba.s.sy in Ottawa. He was not, by any of the typical measures of mobility for a twenty-seven-year-old man, healthy and fit. He limped visibly, his right arm was almost useless, his right hand had little grip. And the former wiry bodyguard, adept at tae kwon do, was gaining weight, a consequence of his inability to exercise as he had before. But he was free from infection, able to dress and feed himself, and bathe, and shuffle up and down steps, and drive on the highway, and work at office tasks. He was blessed to be alive. He knew it. "My G.o.d helped me," he said one night in Ottawa. "I like my G.o.d." He had been helped, but not healed. He knew he never would be. And he found, when considering the rifle that had altered his body and diminished his life, that he wondered about Mikhail Kalashnikov, who lent his name to the weapon. He had a question for the man who proudly insisted he was the inventor of this device. "Why did you make this machine?" Mahmoud asked. "You don't like living people? You are smart. Why not make something to help people, not make them dead?"

Mahmoud was sipping tea, pinching the small warm gla.s.s with a mangled hand, furrowing his bullet-scarred brow. "Are you not afraid to see the judge?"xiv74 Mikhail Kalashnikov, in winter, adapted yet again.

The collapse of the Soviet Union both harmed and benefited him, and his world changed repeatedly. Financially, the end of the Soviet Union upended Izhevsk and the firearms industry. Defense budgets dried up. a.s.sembly lines fell quiet, and many workers, their salaries unpaid, left in search of work. Much of the labor force that remained was furloughed, called to work when orders needed to be filled but often told to stay home. Conditions on production days were gritty; sections of the factories were lit only by skylights, many workers had no protective clothing, and the ventilation was so poor that the air on days when weapons were a.s.sembled had a yellowish, particle-laden cast.75 Russia sought customers for its weapons. But its introduction to free markets was jarring. With so many a.s.sault rifles stockpiled, and other manufacturers competing-a.r.s.enal in Bulgaria, Radom in Poland, Romtechnica in Romania, Norinco in China, F.E.G. in Hungary (now closed), Zastava in Serbia, and others-Izhmash and Izhmech, the paired companies in Izhevsk responsible for Kalashnikov production, struggled to make sales. Part of the problem was in management. The former communists who ran the companies knew much about their factories and almost nothing about marketing or service. They conducted business opaquely, and with patterns of patronage and nepotism not far beneath the varnish. But even sound managers might not have stopped the gun lines from stalling. Further Kalashnikov production fed a glut. The Russian arms-manufacturing sector was suffering from another of the varied ailments of the post-Soviet hangover. Several decades of ma.s.s production of the Kalashnikov line, which had once fit foreign-policy objectives and notions of national security, had destroyed business opportunities. Customers could always find other sellers. Those sellers undercut Russian prices.76 To keep workers employed and prevent the full erosion of the skill base, Izhmash produced a line of sporting rifles and shotguns, many of them using the underlying Kalashnikov design and some of them nodding to older gunsmithing traditions, with handsome wooden stocks and engraving. These were bourgeois guns. "We had to live on something," Kalashnikov said. "So we began to think about how to try, using our knowledge base and military-fighting designs, to create weapons for hunting."77 The line was a limited success. Markets for sporting arms were similarly crowded, and Izhmash competed against established brands. In 2009 the company, its finances and behavior largely impenetrable to outsiders, entered Russian bankruptcy proceedings. Its operations were limited and its prospects for large orders grim. It seemed unlikely to shut down entirely, though its security rested not in its performance as a private enterprise but in a political fact: For the Russian military, the plants that produced the rifles remained a strategic enterprise. Similar problems manifested themselves throughout the firearms sector. Another Russian Kalashnikov manufacturer, the Molot joint stock company in Kirov, which complemented the production at Izhevsk, was so cash-strapped that in late 2008 it stopped paying wages to many employees. By 2009 it compensated workers not with rubles, but with food. This was, literally, subsistence labor. The line was a limited success. Markets for sporting arms were similarly crowded, and Izhmash competed against established brands. In 2009 the company, its finances and behavior largely impenetrable to outsiders, entered Russian bankruptcy proceedings. Its operations were limited and its prospects for large orders grim. It seemed unlikely to shut down entirely, though its security rested not in its performance as a private enterprise but in a political fact: For the Russian military, the plants that produced the rifles remained a strategic enterprise. Similar problems manifested themselves throughout the firearms sector. Another Russian Kalashnikov manufacturer, the Molot joint stock company in Kirov, which complemented the production at Izhevsk, was so cash-strapped that in late 2008 it stopped paying wages to many employees. By 2009 it compensated workers not with rubles, but with food. This was, literally, subsistence labor.78 As the workers struggled, Mikhail Kalashnikov's stature spared him from both material suffering and idleness. He fared, if not well, at least better than many of his generation. Though there was little work, he retained the t.i.tle of chief desig