"They made us suspicious of everyone around us," said al-Edreesy. "They made us think that if there were 24 million Iraqis, then there were 24 million informants."
Those accused of collaboration are now running scared.
"I am afraid for my life and for the lives of my children," said Colonel Raad al-Delemy, a former member of the criminal investigation police, who was shot four times while walking home in early June. Three officers from his unit have been killed.
Al-Delemy's unit was one of the few not immediately called back into service because of its alleged ties to the regime, though he insists he never informed on anyone or dealt with political prisoners. His family is hiding outside the capital, and he briefly emerged to get his back pay.
"Yes, we were linked with the regime, but we were low-level. The national intelligence services were much more important than us," he said.
Until a government is in place and institutions exist to deal with suspected informants, victims and their survivors face their own moral test. Many urge taking matters into their own hands.
On July 3, a weekly Shiite newspaper, Al-Ressala, published a fatwa, or religious edict, calling for informants and others who cooperated with the regime to be killed, have their limbs chopped off or be exiled.
"Shame in life and torture in the afterlife" for the collaborators, read the fatwa by Kadhim al-Haeri, an Iraqi Shiite cleric who lives in Iran.
Victims say many groups are willing to help them take revenge.
"Many organizations have made contact with us and asked us for the names of the informants so they can execute them," said Qasim Mejali Hashim, whose brothers Sabah and Bassem were hanged in 1997 after five childhood friends secretly taped them making anti-Saddam statements.
Hashim, surrounded by his dead brothers' wives and children, says he knows where the informants are, but refuses to reveal their names.
"I could kill them now, but I want them tried and found guilty in front of everyone," he said. "I want the entire community to see what they did. Then they can be executed."
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