 Into
Iraq - A Traveler's Journal - Part 2
Author: Daniel Smith
Posted: 11 August, 2004
July 2nd 2004
Another day in Kirkuk.
I go out in the morning to speak to people about their reactions
to Saddam's first television appearance since his dental exam. While
watching the broadcast, there was no sense of celebration, but a
silence that was hard to interpret. Saddam-era television was rife
with controlled propaganda, using his image repeated ad infinitum.
One man with a particularly good command of English tells me that,
with the sound edited, it's very much like that now, only from a
different source. It's better than Baathist propaganda, but most
mention that the United States is, of course, pulling the strings.
Most of the people I
speak to are Kurdish, and there is absolute unity on the issue of
his guilt. Everybody says he should be either killed or thrown in
prison for life. The gassing of Halabja is not forgotten, and Saddam's
response to this charge with, "I read about it in the newspaper."
brings unanimous bitterness. Five thousand Kurds died in eight minutes
and many want him to suffer, for this and countless other things.
Adnan, the owner of a restaurant, says that the trial is too good
for him.
I plan to go to Baghdad
today, but by the time I am ready to go, I realize that I don't
have time. It will be dark before I get there, and traveling at
night is not a good idea on the outskirts of the nation's capital,
or anywhere in the country for that matter. Though it takes four
hours to get to Baghdad by car, at least another hour must be allowed
to get to the part of Baghdad I am staying in. One business that
can be safely said to have boomed since the war, is the car industry.
The number of vehicles on Baghdad's streets has multiplied several
times in the past year, and traffic can be excruciatingly slow.
It would merely be a little inconvenient, except for the fact that
one can't speed away from gunmen or kidnappers in a traffic jam.
This could end up being extremely inconvenient.
I find a driver to meet me early the next morning, and hope I can
get him to accept the fare.
July 3rd 2004
En route to Baghdad, some cities are safer to drive through than
others. While the driver seems carefree for much of the drive, at
times he seems to be constantly looking around, and encourages me
to wear my hat, so as not to be too obviously a foreigner. The violence
these days isn't directed only towards foreigners though; it is
now often inflicted upon those who help them.
The scenery alternates
from brown rock and dirt, to lush green palm trees and houses, and
then back to brown rock and dirt. As we approach Baghdad, there
is a more modern, yet unmistakably Middle-Eastern feel to everything.
Minarets of Iraqi-style mosques shoot higher out of the ground and
are more numerous than before. Roads are better made and have more
lanes, but there are large holes to be swerved around from time
to time. This is recent damage from mortars or roadside bombs.
 Once
in the city, traffic is slow, and routes circuitous, with so many
streets closed or inaccessible. Though this is for security reasons,
having to zigzag around blocks to get from point A to point B hardly
feels secure. The only discernable rule of the road is 'whoever
gets there first, has the right of way', except for when armed traffic
guards yell and point.
I have trouble recognizing
a hotel that I stayed at last time I was in the city, and after
a while, I realize why: There are huge, grey cement barriers lined
up in front of it and so the entire first floor isn't visible from
the street any more. After I get out of the cab (and actually pay
for the ride) and enter, I find it's different on the inside too.
One year ago, the Hotel Burj Al-Hyaat was bustling with UN workers
and folks working for Bremmer, but now they're all gone. I don't
see another guest during my brief time there. However, there are
many armed teenage guards to speak to every time I enter or leave
the hotel, while I'm stepping through barriers, around razor wire,
and over tire spikes. These are the new jobs for Iraqi youths, and
they want me to take pictures of them posing with their guns whenever
I pass; that's one way I can say that Iraq is different from a year
ago; security is higher than ever, yet it's more chaotic.
I walk around the city
for a few hours, down block after block, where cars are repaired
and parts for them sold. Even in the shade, the temperature is almost
unbearable. If there's a breeze, it's hot. Stacks of tires block
the sidewalk and parts of the street, and everywhere are pools of
oil and the smell of gasoline. Little girls, wearing rags, approach
cars, which spew black exhaust into the air, and they beg for money.
I speak to several men who are working, and they all say the same
thing: Life in Baghdad is hard' very, very hard.
July 4th 2004
In the late morning,
I walk in a different direction. It's so hot outside that my eyes
hurt and I have to avoid rolls of rusty razor wire, which always
seem to be underfoot. The constant, deafening roar of massive oily
generators, attached to almost every building, sounds like helicopters,
and then I see the real thing flying low overhead. When a convoy
of US troops drives by, all traffic has to stop, and the huge gun
barrels are often, insistently, pointed at them. Tension, fear and
fatigue seem to be on both sides of the gun.
Though opinions about
current events were somewhat predictable in most areas of northern
Iraq, this is not true of Baghdad, and people don't mince words.
They question me, too.
"What do you think
of Muqtada Al-Sadr?" asks Ahmed, a twenty-two year old Pharmacology
student at Baghdad University. He is a bright, personable young
man, who is immediately friendly toward me and has many hints for
keeping myself safe.
He speaks of the fiery
Shia cleric with pride. The first time most Americans heard Muqtada
Al-Sadr's name was this April, after the death of four American
contractors, and the later uprising in Falluja, where pictures of
Al-Sadr were held up by the crowds.
"He is our leader," says Ahmed. "He was not chosen
by the US to do what they want; he is for the people."
Ahmed lives in Sadr City,
which was known as Saddam City until after the war, when it was
renamed after Muqtada's father. It is a sprawling collection of
slums; the worst in Baghdad.
"We don't like the
US Army in our city, and we make it difficult for them."
This is true. Whenever
US troops or foreign contractors go to Sadr City, they are almost
invariably shot at by locals, and now seldom enter at all.
Ahmed is working outside
a government office at a little desk, to which people bring papers
for him to staple and notate. He stops often to make time to talk
to me, and occasionally gets yelled at by his bosses.
"The Mahdi Army
are good people and want peace. The Americans have killed many Iraqis
and that is why they fight them."
Though he is a Shia,
he says that his allegiance to Al-Sadr is not for religious reasons.
It is because Sadr has stood up against "the foreign occupiers".
He sees Saddam as a tyrant, and the US as the main force that put
that tyrant into power. Then they turned against him, when he wouldn't
do as they told him to do. It's a historic account, which is difficult
to argue with.
"The United States
didn't care about all the people dying for years when they were
friends with Saddam. Now they care so much that they want to liberate
us. It is only so they can put someone in power, who they like"
"Do you want to
go to Sadr City? He suddenly asks. I tell him that I do, and that
I was there a year ago, but wonder if I'd survive it now. He talks
with some friends about the possibility of me going there with him,
but they conclude that I would be mistaken for an intelligence agent,
and be killed. I ask him if bringing me in would be bad for him,
as well.
"Yes, problems for
me. I think maybe I would be killed, too."
When I ask about the
situation in Iraq now, as opposed to before the invasion, he laughs
and gestures around us, implying that I simply look at my surroundings
for the answer.
A middle-aged man who
has been silently listening chimes in, "Saddam was bad for
the people's rights, but good for security; the United States is
bad for the people's rights, and bad for security."
July 5th 2004
I am in a small section
of Baghdad where most foreigners stay, and security is much higher
than in the rest of the city. I'm feeling comfortable now. It's
hot and dangerous out on the street, but at least the taxi drivers
can be trusted not to make me feel uncomfortable.
The majority of those
staying at the Palestine Hotel, where I've just checked into, appear
to be journalists and businessmen. I meet many of the latter, who
are openly ecstatic about the amount of money to be made in Iraq.
Some of the less talkative of these are employees of the Halliburton
subsidiary, Kellog, Brown, and Root, or "KBR" as
it is commonly referred to.
I immediately think of
Mr. Abdula Ghalib Ali, who I met in the Kirkuk hospital. I decide
to try to talk to someone here at the company's Iraq headquarters
to inquire into his well-being. After all, he was an employee of
theirs, wounded on duty.
It is easy to find the
floors reserved for KBR, because they have extra private guards
blocking the hallway. When the elevator door opens on a KBR floor,
it is their job to make sure that nobody, who isn't an employee,
gets off.
I ask to speak to someone
who may be able to give me information about wounded employees,
and compensation offered to them. The guard doesn't seem to like
me. He tells me there's nobody to speak to, and to get back in the
elevator. I ask if I could speak to someone concerning KBR's policy,
concerning medical treatment of wounded employees. For example,
would a wounded American employee be sent to an Iraqi hospital for
substandard treatment, or is that just for Iraqi employees? No answer.
 I
take a taxi to an infamous prison outside a town one hour west of
Baghdad called Abu Ghraib. It used to be infamous as Saddam's torture
prison, but its reputation has been redefined recently.
By the side of the highway
there are two entrances; one paved road that leads to heavily guarded
gates, and one dirt road that leads to a makeshift earthen parking
lot, for those who wish to visit their loved ones inside. The immense
facility itself isn't visible from the road; only barricades, sandbagged
sniper towers, and walls of more razor wire. A US sergeant tells
me that I can walk freely around the outside of the perimeter.
It is dry and windy,
and dirt blows into my eyes. The temperature is 120 degrees, and
since there are no structures outside the wire, there is no shade
from the unrelenting sun. About forty people wait, crouching or
standing. I'm told that family visitors have a minimum of a five-hour
wait to get inside, if they get in at all. There are several children
that are just simply hanging around, waiting for the guards to give
them candy.
 Two
women with covered heads approach me, holding snapshots of their
teenage sons. They want me to take photographs of the snapshots,
and tell the government that their sons are innocent.
Four men, wearing white
robes, then want me to look at notarized documents, written by the
National Alliance of Iraqi Clans and Tribes, and addressed to 'the
American General in Abu Ghraib'. They state that the research by
American forces about certain inmates is flawed, and that those
inmates should be set free.
 As
I get closer to the visitor entry point, a tall, quiet, slightly
disheveled man in his twenties, named Saddam Hussein ("Not
that Saddam Hussein.", he laughs) tells me he is there to visit
his brother.
"Many Iraqis in
Abu Ghraib are innocent, and shouldn't be here. They were captured
by Americans who can't tell the difference between one Iraqi and
another. A large percentage of them were just in the wrong place.
I personally know examples of this."
"What is your brother
accused of?", I ask, trying to be sensitive about the way I
word the question.
He laughs again, "Oh
him? He's guilty. He was selling more guns than he was allowed to
sell. When he gets out, I will make sure he won't do it again."
American soldiers permit
me to get close to the building, as long as I'm accompanied by one
of them. It is surprisingly calm on the inside of the wire. My escort
tells me about how sad it is when masses of poor Iraqis show up
every day to fight over garbage, when trucks bring it from inside
the prison, and dump it on the ground outside.
After returning to the
secured hotel area, a young national guardsman on duty strikes up
a conversation with me. His name is Patrick, and he sits atop an
armored vehicle behind a mounted gun. He's bored, so as a joke,
he has tree leaves attached to his helmet as extra camouflage. Most
of the US soldiers I've met are understated, if not stoic, but Patrick
is immediately talkative and somewhat manic.
"I joined up for
the college money. I didn't think I was going to see kids getting
blown up!"
Patrick got married two
days before he shipped out to Afghanistan for nine months. He's
been in Iraq for longer than that.
"When my mom calls
and asks me how I'm doing, what the fuck am I going to say? You
can't tell your mom that you just saw women and children's body
parts scattered on the street; that you just found a hand still
holding something in it. I say, 'I'm fine, mom.' My dad's deployed
too, and my sister just went to college, so she's alone now. She's
been a stay-at-home mom for twenty years, and now she's alone and
has to work at a fuckin' department store."
He speaks about the difficulty
many US solders have, re-acclimatizing to civilian life.
"They're giving
us antidepressants now, when we go on leave, so we don't go into
a deep depression. My brother-in-law is home for a while, but he
calls me every day. It's like he's still here. He's my wingman.
On patrol, it's his job to protect me. He has to call all the time
to make sure I'm okay."
He looks down, puts his
hand on his wrist, and says,"Shit,
my arm's shaking again." "When one of our guys, my friend,
died, the chaplain put it to us in a really good way. He said, "you
know, you'll never be able to talk to anyone about this, when you
get home. They just won't understand." That made a lot of sense.
Now I know why my uncle never told me one single story about 'Nam.
He'll probably be one of the only ones I can talk to, when I get
back."
Author: Daniel Smith
Contact: dwsmithemail@yahoo.com
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