THE NIGHT THE SOLDIERS CAME

The Washington Post's Jackie Spinner meets a calm and reasonable Baghdad resident who turned against the US after ... well, you'll find out soon enough. The sequence of extracts below is altered from the original to more closely describe events as they are alleged to have occurred:

By all accounts, Imaad, 32, was a typical, mild-mannered college graduate who spoke English well and had quietly supported the U.S. presence in Iraq -- until Jan. 5, the night the soldiers came.

The night they came -- for vengeance!

His story about that night, told days later in his small living room, is the story of how the U.S. military made an enemy of one man during a 20-minute encounter.

A 20-minute encounter -- with terror!

On the night of Jan. 5, Imaad and his mother, Um Imaad -- both of whom declined to give their full names for fear of retribution -- were watching a movie in the living room.

In the living room -- of impending bloodthirsty murderingness! (reader: quit it. tim: okay)

Imaad said they were startled by a loud banging at the door. He went quickly to open it. When he did, Imaad said, there were about a dozen U.S. soldiers standing with their guns pointed at his head.

Every single one of them?

Imaad and his mother said the soldiers rushed in, ordering them to sit together while they searched the house. "You look poor," Imaad recalled one of the soldiers saying. "Why?"

Seems an unusual thing for a soldier to say. Maybe he was a Sociology Commando.

Imaad answered in English: "I have not been able to find a job, although I'm a graduate of the College of Arts." His heart was pounding, Imaad said.

As well it might. For we are about to reach this story's moment of Hitchcockian ultra-horror:

The soldiers went to search his bedroom. He heard laughing, and then they called for him, he said. Imaad went to his room and saw that the soldiers had ...

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