F
Fred Bloggs
Guest
From Baghdad
A Wall Street Journal Reporter's E-Mail to Friends
by Farnaz Fassihi
Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under
virtual house arrest. Forget about the reasons that lured me to this
job: a chance to see the world, explore the exotic, meet new people in
far away lands, discover their ways and tell stories that could make a
difference.
Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those
reasons. I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and
a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and never walk in
the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in
restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for
stories, can't drive in any thing but a full armored car, can't go to
scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak
English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American,
can't linger at checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are
saying, doing, feeling. And can't and can't. There has been one too many
close calls, including a car bomb so near our house that it blew out all
the windows. So now my most pressing concern every day is not to write a
kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay
alive. In Baghdad I am a security personnel first, a reporter second.
It's hard to pinpoint when the 'turning point' exactly began. Was it
April when the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it
when Moqtada and Jish Mahdi declared war on the U.S. military? Was it
when Sadr City, home to ten percent of Iraq's population, became a
nightly battlefield for the Americans? Or was it when the insurgency
began spreading from isolated pockets in the Sunni triangle to include
most of Iraq? Despite President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq remains a
disaster. If under Saddam it was a 'potential' threat, under the
Americans it has been transformed to 'imminent and active threat,' a
foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to
come.
Iraqis like to call this mess 'the situation.' When asked 'how are
thing?' they reply: 'the situation is very bad."
What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn't
control most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each
day around the country killing and injuring scores of innocent people,
the country's roads are becoming impassable and littered by hundreds of
landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill American soldiers, there
are assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings. The situation,
basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war. In four days, 110
people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone. The numbers are
so shocking that the ministry of health -- which was attempting an
exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers -- has now
stopped disclosing them.
Insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a day.
A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr City yesterday. He said
young men were openly placing improvised explosive devices into the
ground. They melt a shallow hole into the asphalt, dig the explosive,
cover it with dirt and put an old tire or plastic can over it to signal
to the locals this is booby-trapped. He said on the main roads of Sadr
City, there were a dozen landmines per every ten yards. His car snaked
and swirled to avoid driving over them. Behind the walls sits an angry
Iraqi ready to detonate them as soon as an American convoy gets near.
This is in Shiite land, the population that was supposed to love America
for liberating Iraq.
For journalists the significant turning point came with the wave of
abduction and kidnappings. Only two weeks ago we felt safe around
Baghdad because foreigners were being abducted on the roads and highways
between towns. Then came a frantic phone call from a journalist female
friend at 11 p.m. telling me two Italian women had been abducted from
their homes in broad daylight. Then the two Americans, who got beheaded
this week and the Brit, were abducted from their homes in a residential
neighborhood. They were supplying the entire block with round the clock
electricity from their generator to win friends. The abductors grabbed
one of them at 6 a.m. when he came out to switch on the generator; his
beheaded body was thrown back near the neighborhoods.
The insurgency, we are told, is rampant with no signs of calming down.
If any thing, it is growing stronger, organized and more sophisticated
every day. The various elements within it-baathists, criminals,
nationalists and Al Qaeda-are cooperating and coordinating.
I went to an emergency meeting for foreign correspondents with the
military and embassy to discuss the kidnappings. We were somberly told
our fate would largely depend on where we were in the kidnapping chain
once it was determined we were missing. Here is how it goes: criminal
gangs grab you and sell you up to Baathists in Fallujah, who will in
turn sell you to Al Qaeda. In turn, cash and weapons flow the other way
from Al Qaeda to the Baathisst to the criminals. My friend Georges, the
French journalist snatched on the road to Najaf, has been missing for a
month with no word on release or whether he is still alive.
America's last hope for a quick exit? The Iraqi police and National
Guard units we are spending billions of dollars to train. The cops are
being murdered by the dozens every day-over 700 to date -- and the
insurgents are infiltrating their ranks. The problem is so serious that
the U.S. military has allocated $6 million dollars to buy out 30,000
cops they just trained to get rid of them quietly.
As for reconstruction: firstly it's so unsafe for foreigners to operate
that almost all projects have come to a halt. After two years, of the
$18 billion Congress appropriated for Iraq reconstruction only about $1
billion or so has been spent and a chuck has now been reallocated for
improving security, a sign of just how bad things are going here.
Oil dreams? Insurgents disrupt oil flow routinely as a result of
sabotage and oil prices have hit record high of $49 a barrel. Who did
this war exactly benefit? Was it worth it? Are we safer because Saddam
is holed up and Al Qaeda is running around in Iraq?
Iraqis say that thanks to America they got freedom in exchange for
insecurity. Guess what? They say they'd take security over freedom any
day, even if it means having a dictator ruler.
I heard an educated Iraqi say today that if Saddam Hussein were allowed
to run for elections he would get the majority of the vote. This is
truly sad.
Then I went to see an Iraqi scholar this week to talk to him about
elections here. He has been trying to educate the public on the
importance of voting. He said, "President Bush wanted to turn Iraq into
a democracy that would be an example for the Middle East. Forget about
democracy, forget about being a model for the region, we have to salvage
Iraq before all is lost."
One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. For those of
us on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any thing could salvage it
from its violent downward spiral. The genie of terrorism, chaos and
mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result of American
mistakes and it can't be put back into a bottle.
The Iraqi government is talking about having elections in three months
while half of the country remains a 'no go zone'-out of the hands of the
government and the Americans and out of reach of journalists. In the
other half, the disenchanted population is too terrified to show up at
polling stations. The Sunnis have already said they'd boycott elections,
leaving the stage open for polarized government of Kurds and Shiites
that will not be deemed as legitimate and will most certainly lead to
civil war.
I asked a 28-year-old engineer if he and his family would participate in
the Iraqi elections since it was the first time Iraqis could to some
degree elect a leadership. His response summed it all: "Go and vote and
risk being blown into pieces or followed by the insurgents and murdered
for cooperating with the Americans? For what? To practice democracy? Are
you joking?"
Farnaz Fassihi, a Wall Street Journal reporter sent this report as an
e-mail to friends.
###
A Wall Street Journal Reporter's E-Mail to Friends
by Farnaz Fassihi
Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under
virtual house arrest. Forget about the reasons that lured me to this
job: a chance to see the world, explore the exotic, meet new people in
far away lands, discover their ways and tell stories that could make a
difference.
Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those
reasons. I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and
a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and never walk in
the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in
restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for
stories, can't drive in any thing but a full armored car, can't go to
scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak
English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American,
can't linger at checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are
saying, doing, feeling. And can't and can't. There has been one too many
close calls, including a car bomb so near our house that it blew out all
the windows. So now my most pressing concern every day is not to write a
kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay
alive. In Baghdad I am a security personnel first, a reporter second.
It's hard to pinpoint when the 'turning point' exactly began. Was it
April when the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it
when Moqtada and Jish Mahdi declared war on the U.S. military? Was it
when Sadr City, home to ten percent of Iraq's population, became a
nightly battlefield for the Americans? Or was it when the insurgency
began spreading from isolated pockets in the Sunni triangle to include
most of Iraq? Despite President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq remains a
disaster. If under Saddam it was a 'potential' threat, under the
Americans it has been transformed to 'imminent and active threat,' a
foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to
come.
Iraqis like to call this mess 'the situation.' When asked 'how are
thing?' they reply: 'the situation is very bad."
What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn't
control most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each
day around the country killing and injuring scores of innocent people,
the country's roads are becoming impassable and littered by hundreds of
landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill American soldiers, there
are assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings. The situation,
basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war. In four days, 110
people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone. The numbers are
so shocking that the ministry of health -- which was attempting an
exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers -- has now
stopped disclosing them.
Insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a day.
A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr City yesterday. He said
young men were openly placing improvised explosive devices into the
ground. They melt a shallow hole into the asphalt, dig the explosive,
cover it with dirt and put an old tire or plastic can over it to signal
to the locals this is booby-trapped. He said on the main roads of Sadr
City, there were a dozen landmines per every ten yards. His car snaked
and swirled to avoid driving over them. Behind the walls sits an angry
Iraqi ready to detonate them as soon as an American convoy gets near.
This is in Shiite land, the population that was supposed to love America
for liberating Iraq.
For journalists the significant turning point came with the wave of
abduction and kidnappings. Only two weeks ago we felt safe around
Baghdad because foreigners were being abducted on the roads and highways
between towns. Then came a frantic phone call from a journalist female
friend at 11 p.m. telling me two Italian women had been abducted from
their homes in broad daylight. Then the two Americans, who got beheaded
this week and the Brit, were abducted from their homes in a residential
neighborhood. They were supplying the entire block with round the clock
electricity from their generator to win friends. The abductors grabbed
one of them at 6 a.m. when he came out to switch on the generator; his
beheaded body was thrown back near the neighborhoods.
The insurgency, we are told, is rampant with no signs of calming down.
If any thing, it is growing stronger, organized and more sophisticated
every day. The various elements within it-baathists, criminals,
nationalists and Al Qaeda-are cooperating and coordinating.
I went to an emergency meeting for foreign correspondents with the
military and embassy to discuss the kidnappings. We were somberly told
our fate would largely depend on where we were in the kidnapping chain
once it was determined we were missing. Here is how it goes: criminal
gangs grab you and sell you up to Baathists in Fallujah, who will in
turn sell you to Al Qaeda. In turn, cash and weapons flow the other way
from Al Qaeda to the Baathisst to the criminals. My friend Georges, the
French journalist snatched on the road to Najaf, has been missing for a
month with no word on release or whether he is still alive.
America's last hope for a quick exit? The Iraqi police and National
Guard units we are spending billions of dollars to train. The cops are
being murdered by the dozens every day-over 700 to date -- and the
insurgents are infiltrating their ranks. The problem is so serious that
the U.S. military has allocated $6 million dollars to buy out 30,000
cops they just trained to get rid of them quietly.
As for reconstruction: firstly it's so unsafe for foreigners to operate
that almost all projects have come to a halt. After two years, of the
$18 billion Congress appropriated for Iraq reconstruction only about $1
billion or so has been spent and a chuck has now been reallocated for
improving security, a sign of just how bad things are going here.
Oil dreams? Insurgents disrupt oil flow routinely as a result of
sabotage and oil prices have hit record high of $49 a barrel. Who did
this war exactly benefit? Was it worth it? Are we safer because Saddam
is holed up and Al Qaeda is running around in Iraq?
Iraqis say that thanks to America they got freedom in exchange for
insecurity. Guess what? They say they'd take security over freedom any
day, even if it means having a dictator ruler.
I heard an educated Iraqi say today that if Saddam Hussein were allowed
to run for elections he would get the majority of the vote. This is
truly sad.
Then I went to see an Iraqi scholar this week to talk to him about
elections here. He has been trying to educate the public on the
importance of voting. He said, "President Bush wanted to turn Iraq into
a democracy that would be an example for the Middle East. Forget about
democracy, forget about being a model for the region, we have to salvage
Iraq before all is lost."
One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. For those of
us on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any thing could salvage it
from its violent downward spiral. The genie of terrorism, chaos and
mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result of American
mistakes and it can't be put back into a bottle.
The Iraqi government is talking about having elections in three months
while half of the country remains a 'no go zone'-out of the hands of the
government and the Americans and out of reach of journalists. In the
other half, the disenchanted population is too terrified to show up at
polling stations. The Sunnis have already said they'd boycott elections,
leaving the stage open for polarized government of Kurds and Shiites
that will not be deemed as legitimate and will most certainly lead to
civil war.
I asked a 28-year-old engineer if he and his family would participate in
the Iraqi elections since it was the first time Iraqis could to some
degree elect a leadership. His response summed it all: "Go and vote and
risk being blown into pieces or followed by the insurgents and murdered
for cooperating with the Americans? For what? To practice democracy? Are
you joking?"
Farnaz Fassihi, a Wall Street Journal reporter sent this report as an
e-mail to friends.
###