Suicide bomber

It’s not that I didn’t see any death last time around. It’s just that I didn’t see so much of it, and it wasn’t so overwhelming. The death here is awful. It's horrible and inhuman. Bodies aren't even bodies anymore. Which is why it’s so easy not to see them.

It didn’t hit me until much later that theseare scenes that soldiers (and certainly Iraqis) see too often. It isn’t only the killing that stays with them afterwards (as I've been examining. so many of them tell me they don’t know if they’ve killed people, don’t know where the bullets landed when they sprayed), it’s the images of death. The kind of death that lets you believe there aren’t families attached to these bits of flesh. There aren’t mothers and fathers wondering where there loved ones are or if they’ll be home for dinner. It’s another suicide bombing, just like the day before and the day before that. Just like the one that might go off tomorrow. One day sooner to going home.

This day there were just over a dozen bodies, maybe more it's hard to tell. Then I hear about a hundred dead on the same day and I am so relieved I was not there. Again, bits of human beings who may never even be claimed because they are not recognizable. They will be among the "disappeared" of Iraq, never counted because Americans don't do those counts and Iraqis have lost count. The first suicide was difficult and then the next I was on automatic and I knew it was time to go.

It was the smell. I couldn’t get it off of my clothes, out of my hair, or away from that space below my nose that is known to turn odor to memories. I stood under the shower for more than an hour but immediately sensed it again once the water was off. Burnt flesh. Too many people. Kids. One barely breathing when we arrived and I wanted so badly for him to be dead so he wouldn’t suffer any more. Shreds of skin and hair, clothes and metal and melting plastic. It’s just like a movie, people had told me, and it’s true. Just like a horror flick but this time no one stands up, dusts himself off and prepares for the next scene.

Just moments before this we were seated around an Iraqi feast, offered by farmers from Amarra: rice, soup, dates and homemade yoghurt. We left when someone called over the radio that an IP vehicle was on fire in the street at one of the pilgrimage entry points. They said there were casualties. So we went.

The worst part is that in many ways I was unmoved. I took photos, my hands shaking only a bit in the beginning. I wondered what kind of photo it would be: prurient interest or a story to tell. Some images are too gruesome even to look at, to know how flesh is so empty once soul is gone. Would I want anyone else to see the images I now have in my head? But I couldn’t stop, as if to show how horrible it really could be, and also how normal.

I hear later there were police officers crying and beating themselves with their rifles (I missed the shot). And a man burned from head to toe who was still alive when medics arrived. I was on the other side of the street trying to figure out if the boy in the major’s arms would survive. Or how long it would be before someone would tell me to leave. Could I really be standing in the middle of all this and no one is noticing? Someone quickly hands me a loaded pistol as he bends to check if someone is alive. I hold it in my left hand and my camera in my right wondering which deserves more attention. I contemplate where to put the gun – think about my pants pocket or tucked into my waistband. I laugh for a moment at the thought of me shooting myself in the leg, laugh only because everything is too absurd. I run back to an American soldier and hand him the gun – “take it, I can’t hold this,” I tell him, and he will tease me about it later.

One Iraqi man led me to the worst of sights, and then to another to make sure I recorded the damage. “It’s my son,” he says pointing to a scrambled pile of metal and blood that once was a school bus. Too many feet to tell which son he was talking about. And then he was gone, a mirage disappearing into the smoke-filled street. I remember there were Iraqi dinar on the ground and for one dissociative moment - just a fleeting moment - I forgot why it was there and wondered if I should pick it up and put it in my pocket. Did others have the same lapse as they pushed aside a dismembered head to steal bus fare while police secured the scene? My black boots with deep grooves were thick and sticky. I swore that day to throw them away, that cleaning would not get rid of the mess or the memory. (which I still can’t get myself to do. This will be a story in itself). In time most of the recognizable bodies were covered and then removed, so it became more like a normal car crash except for the head that still lay in the middle of the street (why the fuck couldn’t they take away the head?) and the woman who was next to it on her back with her hands and feet splayed. At least her face was covered. And the pair of feet next to her that wore those damn tennis shoes. Don’t even know if it was a suicide bomber but they wear tennis shoes, not sandals like the others, to run fast, the soldiers tell me. Looking at the photos later – there is one that still makes me close my eyes -- I see the body of the American soldier crumpled on the street. I don’t even remember seeing him really, except maybe his soft, young face from close up, before they lifted him into a blue bag and carefully carried him away. But there he was, America’s finest, another casualty of this stupid war. And the translator who was with him. Her body was already gone by the time we arrived. (Later I will embrace her close friend as she weeps uncontrollably. This, I think is the hardest part. It isn’t blood and soulless bodies, but those who are left behind who are the most difficult to document. So we stand in a dark hallway and she cries and I tell her she will be all right and try to allay her fears that the Americans will not abandon her, all the while hoping I am not telling a lie. I just don’t know.)

Then suddenly every vehicle is a potential car bomb and the street is cleared. The US robot motors out to check on cars and one, then I think two, bombs are dismantled. But to me every vehicle will hold a bomb and I’d rather be in the middle of destruction than near destruction about to happen.

In a moment of comic relief I must use the restroom. A translator cannot believe when I ask him to help me find a loo. “Aren’t you afraid?” he asks. “Of a bathroom? When I’m standing in front of a bomb scene?” He decides to help me and asks a bystander if I may use the bathroom in his house. The Iraqi is gracious, as they are, and agrees right away. A US major screams that the place is not secure and when I emerge from the loo there are three soldiers in this poor man’s living room. I apologize, and leave.

I am completely calm as we walk back to the humvees and the soldiers joke about the uptight major and what’s for dinner. I almost want to join in but haven’t the stomach, watch instead as an exhausted Iraqi translator climbs into the humvee, takes off his helmet and stares into the seat in front of him.

The soldiers make fun of the frightened ING – call the Iraqi General “Puss in Boots” -- and I don’t care. I am enraged the Iraqis are hiding in nearby buildings as US soldiers secure the scene. I can’t imagine how they will secure their country if they are too afraid to be in the middle of what I have seen.

Two weeks later I am sitting in Sri Lanka watching an outdoor movie with three small children stuck to my sides and in my lap just wanting to be held. I remember sitting in front of a television in Iraq watching the Tsunami unfold on Fox (all they had). Soldiers on both sides on numerous days said how much they wished they could be there. “At least we’d feel like we’re doing something and helping people. No one wants us here,” they said to anyone who would listen. Indeed the Marines in Sri Lanka are considered heroes, miracle workers, for fixing the streets, the rail line, the water. I wish more soldiers could be here too, for healing. Or just to feel like they were being used for something good in the world. Or maybe just to feel like they weren’t being used.

So you want to freelance in Iraq?

I have decided that hands down the most difficult aspect of working in Iraq is finding a good and trusted driver and translator. The task is fraught with stress, complications, immense monetary negotiations and a great deal of language differences to boot. But the task is also the most essential because as journalists well know, you are only as good as your fixer.

This wasn’t an issue when I was with the military but it did become important once I made my way back to the “Red Zone” to my old haunt at the Al Dulaimi hotel in downtown Baghdad. I had the pick of hotel rooms, I was told. “This hotel is yours, Zayluh. You pay whatever you want.” (though in the end they charged me what they wanted – a fair price, I might add). I was hoping to have input about working conditions from Nadeem and also from Hussein, my two closest Iraqi friends from my prior visit. But Nadeem, I learn, has flown to Amman, on his way to be a big rock star in London. I love him for it. Hussein has not been heard from since he was kidnapped last January. I don’t dare contact his wife. So I must begin again with these precarious negotiations, but in a climate so drastically different from the last time.

Mohammed: I hear from another journalist that he used to translate for the Americans at Abu Ghraib and had to leave because his life was so threatened. It’s been a while now and the man needs work. I’m happy to oblige.

He calls from the lobby and I go down to meet him, then bring him to my room as I don’t want people in the lobby to overhear my plans for the next two days. He reluctantly sits down and I tell him what I need: he will go to the Communist Headquarters the following morning and arrange an interview for me with a woman’s activist as soon as possible. His forehead becomes beaded with sweat and though it’s been freezing all day long I do notice he has on a thick sweater and jacket. Perhaps he’s overheating. He asks if I have an abaya and I say I do. I will cover my head with a hat and a scarf, and my body will be enveloped in the traditional black gown. I will change my shoes (as I’m currently wearing sneakers) and we will not be out long. “And you cannot smile,” he tells me. “Iraqi women do not smile.”
I smile and nod my head. “I know.”
“And you cannot talk too much.”
“Pardon me?”
“The Italian journalist was kidnapped from the mosque here, down the street. I heard that she talked a lot.”
Again, I need clarification.
“You mean the interview was too long? Or did she speak loudly? Or maybe she came too many times to interview. I did hear she had visited more than once.”
“Yes, you mustn’t talk too much.”
“We will be safe, I know,” I tell him.
“Inshallah, inshallah.”
He is assigned to go to the Women’s center in Iraq the next morning and arrange the interview for me for the following afternoon. It is a simple task, and one that does not include a Western girl sitting in the back of his car long. He seems hesitant, or perhaps he’s still nervous sitting in a room with a female and a closed door. I apologize again for this situation. I am extremely nervous about my safety, and want plans discussed in utmost privacy.
“Yes, yes,” he says he understands. “We will pray to God for safety.”

The next morning he does not show and by the afternoon there still is no word. I know he needed time to find the women’s center located on a small sidestreet near the Palestine Hotel with an entryway that is often obscured. But that morning there has been a car bomb at a busy intersection and I am beginning to worry. Initially I thought perhaps he was delayed by the traffic; then I wondered if he may have been among the wounded. I finally reach him by phone and he tells me he tried to call one of my friends in the morning to tell him he could not come, his car is broken. He did not think of calling my hotel.
“I’m just glad you’re safe. So how long until it is fixed?” I ask.
“Two maybe three weeks.”
“Oh.”
My Iraqi friend Sadiq is in my room and looks at me confused. “Three weeks? He can have two or three cars by then,” he jokes. We laugh, but it has nothing to do with mechanics or delays; it is clear that his reluctance is about fear and the dangers of working with, being seen with a western woman, regardless of how completely I cover my face and body. My eyes will give it away.
“It’s not about the car, Sadiq," I say after getting off the phone, but Sadiq knows.
However, my time here is getting short and if I don’t find someone who will work with me I won’t accomplish anything at all. I am a bit hamstrung because as a freelancer I cannot pay the enormous sums that outlets like NBC and Time are paying. I am willing to make the driver/translator the greatest part of my budget in Iraq – if I can only find someone I trust. I trusted Nadeem and Hussein intrinsically. These days I can’t find anyone.

I go next door to the Getty pad, a fully wired top-floor room in the Al Hamra hotel, and ask a photographer if he has any driver translator to recommend. One of the translators in the Getty pad says he has a friend who is good and who needs work, and who has worked with journalists before. He calls him immediately and then says he is coming downstairs to meet me. It’s all happening a bit quickly and I ask my friend Joe if he knows the man. Joe knows nothing. And to make matters worse, the man doing the recommending is new to Getty. Ugh. I want to take a leap of faith but when ransom for a western woman could fetch more money than months of work, “trust” takes on new meaning. Still, if I want to work in Iraq on my own, I have to move on this.

So I go downstairs and meet Adil. I like his face but am not yet willing to climb into a vehicle with him. We try a first assignment - the same one I had for Mohammed - to go to the Communist headquarters and arrange an interview with the female activist. He’s then to go by Yarmouk hospital and inquire about a female doctor there and arrange an interview with ehr. I interviewed the doctor last year and wrote as much on a small note that Adil was to hand to the doctors with my name and address.
Three hours pass and I finally receive a call that the doctor cannot be found, but the activist can meet when I’d like. The activist and I have a nice phone conversation and for this first day I feel satisfied enough with Adil’s work. We meet to discuss the next day’s plans and I tell him I would also like to go to Khadimiya, where the Shiites are having a pilgrimage.
“No, it’s far too dangerous for you. You must stay here in the Karada district. Believe me.”
As far as I’m concerned Khadimiya is one of the safer areas in Iraq as it’s full of Shias, and unless something tragic happens, like a car bomb, the people there are more accepting of westerners. But he will not go. I wonder if it’s because he’s Sunni. Plus, his English is not so good so he wants me to find another translator. He knows a good one, he says – they all seem to know someone – so he whips out his phone and dials a friend, then begins speaking quickly in Arabic. I say I would like to meet any translator before heading out, so he calls the translator who is Jordanian and has him speak to me, assuming that will be enough. Sure, he sounds fine on the phone, speaks English well enough, but it’s just not about skill at this point.

“If you do not trust me, I cannot work with you,” Adil tells me. I couldn’t agree more.
Iraqis are notorious liars and they see nothing wrong with lying to cover their lack of knowledge. I have had Iraqis lie directly to my face, even when confronted with the fact that I know they’re lying and have the proof in my hands. The other side is that they want to be trusted and if they are not it is considered a question of honor. On a day to day basis, people working in the Middle East have to take this cultural element with a grain of salt and factor it into any working condition. But when it comes to the kind of insanely dangerous working conditions in Iraq, the game becomes much more serious. So I decide to give it a bit more time.

The next day I decide to skip Khadimiya for the moment and start with something a bit less threatening. I’ll go to meet a good friend in his apartment on the other side of town and then we’ll return. Adil comes to my room and tells me I look “beautiful” all covered in black with only my eyes peering through (I’m sure he says that to all the journalists). But he’s still nervous.
“Why can’t I bring him here for the interview?” he asks when I explain the new plan. I appreciate his concern but his nervousness is making me nervous. I tell him the point is that I want to see my friend’s studio and film his newest artworks.
“Then we will need a second car. I’ll call my neighbor and he’ll follow us,” he says without pause. Now technically speaking a second car following us is a very wise idea, and I’m certainly not opposed in principal. But I’m just trying to get used to and trust one man, and we haven’t had much time together. He sees my hesitation
“Is it about cost? Only $15. I know him. He will just follow, wait and come back.”
Only $15? For Iraqis, that is more than most will make in any given day, but it is nothing for drivers working around the area. I immediately wonder if I’m being set up.

I’m also aware that I’m becoming totally paranoid and at some point you have to give it up or you will become paralyzed, which is pretty much the point I've reached. I wish someone would tell me that this person is ok, or that one, that climbing into a car with a stranger is something people do here to write stories. It is how we tell the story of Iraq.

“Please Ma’am. Let me bring him to you,” Adil pleads. Then I give up. At that moment I see his fear and I realize that we really must trust each other to go into the streets of Iraq. If he’s too afraid then I’ll be too afraid, and there’s no way we can do good work. Plus, we’re likely to get ourselves killed, which isn’t in my game plan at all. I realize that this time around it will take me longer to work in Iraq and longer to redevelop ties.
So I let the immediate need go. I stop trying to force things to come together and suddenly it becomes fun. I teach Adil to video and ask him to film my friend’s apartment, especially the Miro painting that was looted from Saddam’s art center then bought on the street for $100! Adil is worried about his skills and for a moment almost asks me to go with him. I can tease him now because I know he doesn’t want me in his car, plus I am enjoying teaching him how to film, and I don’t care if the product is perfect. It is a trust building exercise between us and for the moment it seems more important than anything else.

I spend only a few more days on my own (a total of ten days), conducting interviews around the Kerada area and only twice do a tour of the city in a beat up Toyota truck, sweating the entire time. I’m happy with the interviews I have – and in fact spend more time with individuals than I might have otherwise, but realize that I won’t get much more done given the circumstances. Plus, I have to return to base to attend a city council meeting.
Next door to the council house I have planned to meet a friend – the first person I interviewed last time I was in Iraq!!! I met him by chance while on patrol and have orchestrated a perfect rendezvous with the unknowing help of the military. And the council meetings are amazing: a mishmash of recycled complaints about sewer and garbage collection and why one of the council members hasn’t had his belongings returned after being mistakenly detained by US officials just before the election. Nearby is a center where Iraqis come to file complaints and apply for compensation for damage done or family members killed by US forces. (A story on this will completed soon). These are all operations I would not otherwise have access to and I am grateful. I tell Adil I will call him again when I am next in Iraq. Inshallah, misses. May God be with you, he says when I leave. And with you, Adil.

Out of Iraq

I have finally left Iraq but have been delayed once again from writing as my lovely laptop computer has died. I’ve spent the past week trying to revive it -- and I can hear friends from the 10th MNT laughing as I write this -- but there is no help for Macintosh in the Middle East. So I have fled Istanbul where I landed after Iraq and am now in Sri Lanka where at least I am comforted by sun and warmth and even an internet café. I have a lot to download and will put my tales on the site as the days go on. There is a lot to say and a lot to digest. Iraq was a different experience for me this time around. It was more brutal and difficult in a profound way. It's hard to explain but the level of sadness and violence, the amount of death, paranoia and anger, hit me so hard it's taking me quite a while to get over it. So I will post as I go, probably out of order but all will come in due time. It’s good to be out and I will say again that I met so many wonderful people; I just wish it had been under different circumstances.

*

People ask me if there are stories that are not being told from Iraq, a great coverup of the atrocities done. And I have to say no, the stories have been and continue to be reported. There are no mysteries that I have uncovered, perhaps just the details of larger tales, which to some might certainly come as a surprise, but only if one hasn’t been paying attention. The real story is that no one cares.
Who hasn’t heard of total US isolationism in Iraq or widespread abuse by Halliburton? Inflation of prices and millions simply disappearing into the pockets of war profiteers. Who hasn’t read about the extraordinary military waste, about piles of American food, non-stop electricity, running water – anything and everything to keep soldiers as far away from the realities of a war. That in the face of Iraqis who still have intermittent electricity (6 non consecutive hours a day by last reports), poor sanitation in many areas, and streets too dangerous to walk. Or women who now have to cover their heads for fear of a fundamentalist wave, after 30 years of secular living. Who isn’t concerned about the extraordinary number of Iraqis killed that the US still refuses to count (“It would let the enemy know how successful he’s been” one Col. Told me), or the number of soldiers committing suicide, plagued by PTSD or becoming homeless once they return. These stories are out. I’ve read them – even written some – and I didn’t have to look very hard. But no one seems to care.
Everyone is concerned there are no “good” stories coming out of Iraq and that also is untrue. I’ve read (and also written some of these) plenty of warm and fuzzy accounts. But the overarching impression I was left with is that Iraq is more dangerous than before. More Iraqis are being killed and detained with little evidence. They are still without work, unless they are “lucky enough” to get a US job, which is often a death sentence in itself. Terrorists are being pulled to the region as a bee to honey, eager to kill Americans for their rites of passage. To those who argue they are in Iraq so “their kids don’t have to be,” I say that terrorists wouldn’t be here in these numbers were not for you – and they would not multiply were it not for the opportunities you are giving them. And if you left, I believe they would also leave for lack of a target rich environment. The thought that this war will “get rid of terrorism” is absurd. It is endless. Meanwhile, young soldiers are tired and angry and taking out their frustrations on people for whom they have little compassion, nor any desire for understanding. They just want to go home – alive, or more critical: sane. Of course there are exceptions. I met dozens of extraordinary soldiers at every level who truly believe in their mission (a fundamental problem as I see it) and are working tirelessly on micro level projects hoping to improve the lives of Iraqis in some small way. But if the fundamental premise is not working – if Iraqis still cannot live in peace then I don’t believe that all the clean sewers or hours of electricity in the world will solve things. It will help, to be sure, but it will not solve the problem of Iraq. What will? Training Iraqi police and army is a good start. It should be done quickly and the US should get out to be replaced by a multinational peacekeeping force. This is the way I see it and some Iraqis I spoke to were aghast. “The US cannot leave, not now. Only when there is peace and we are nowhere near that,” said one. All Iraqis want is a strong leader who will reinstall security and get rid of crime. They want someone who will kill a robber or murderer, put his head on a stick and let it rot in the middle of town to serve as an example for all to see. I was given this same scenario by several different people, all eager for a return to, well, “better times”. What they wanted was a return to dictatorship. To Saddam, but not Saddam. Just like Saddam. “Anyone who says we should have Democracy now is wrong,” said one Army General. “We must have order first, and then we can have freedom.” Imagine the irony of our legacy: We invaded a country that posed no threat to us, destroyed a secular and prosperous society, albeit run by a brutal dictator, created a state of such chaos and danger that people actually wished for the dictator’s return. In the meantime, we wait to see if the great democratic experiment will not result in a fundamentalist Shiite government where women are veiled, multiple marriages allowed and honor killings considered part of the culture. It would be funny if it weren’t so true.