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 is a Wall Street Journal reporter)
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