Omar hussein was driving with his girlfriend in Baghdad one evening this summer when a big SUV with tinted windows cut them off. Another vehicle with tinted windows, this one a pickup truck, pulled up behind them, and several men piled out wielding AK-47s. As Hussein stepped out of his car to face them, one of the gunmen yanked open the passenger-side door and began yelling questions at Hussein's girlfriend: "Why are you out so late? What are you two doing together?" Thinking fast, Hussein grabbed the apparent ringleader and asked angrily, "Why is your man insulting my wife?" The desperate bluff worked. The thugs backed off, warned Hussein to stay out of the neighborhood and left. "My girlfriend said she would never go out with me again," the 25-year-old car salesman recalls.
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