April 2003 Archives

NEW YORK -- After a week back, I've managed to get some sleep in, say "hey" to a few friends, put up some picture pages (part one and part two) and try to take stock of the aftermath of this war. This is difficult, however, as the urban environment of New York City is so alien to the experiences of the past month that it might as well be a different planet. It doesn't help that I'm still stepping gingerly around the East Village (residual fear of landmines), looking for sniper positions on the skyscrapers and marveling that people aren't all carrying AK-47s.

But that's nothing compared to what the Iraqi people have had to go through, and what they're facing. To a certain degree, the same goes for the people of America who, it may be, were lied to about the reasons for this war.

In northern Iraq, a military chemical-analysis team said today that a cache of barrels and two mobile laboratories found near the village of Bayji were most likely not used for chemical warfare purposes, countering earlier reports from an Army officer at the site.

For New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, this is no biggie. "We do not need to find any weapons of mass destruction to justify this war," he wrote this weekend. "That skull, and the thousands more that will be unearthed, are enough for me." He was referring to a graphic and affecting photo the Times ran on its front page on Friday. This is the same man who wrote on Feb. 19:

I am also very troubled by the way Bush officials have tried to justify this war on the grounds that Saddam is allied with Osama bin Laden or will be soon. There is simply no proof of that, and every time I hear them repeat it I think of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. You don't take the country to war on the wings of a lie. (Emphasis added.)

Friedman wasn't talking so much about WMD in that earlier column, but the point remains the same. In matters of starting wars, you better have the moral high ground, and you don't get there by climbing a ladder of falsehoods.

For people wholly supportive of the war, however, the tonic of triumphalism is sweet indeed. Many are now saying "I told you so" to those of us who opposed it. A reader -- I can't find the email now -- asked some months ago if I would change my mind on the war if it was proven that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction. I answered that no, I wouldn't, since I didn't -- and don't -- believe that the war was about WMD or an evil tyrant but about realpolitik plans for projecting American power into the Middle East. My response to this reader is to flip the question: "Do you still think this war was necessary since it may very well turn out that there are no WMD to be found?"

(Mind you, I'm sure the U.S. will find some cache of chemicals or a few warheads, but President Bush repeatedly invoked a clear and present danger to the survival of the United States as a justification for war. A few dozen litres of mustard gas or even VX does not strike me as justification for shredding the U.N. Charter, demolishing NATO, harming further the United States' image abroad and increasing the risk of terrorism at home.)

Still, some very real good occurred from the toppling of Saddam. There is no doubt the future of Iraq will be much, much brighter without him. The war was prosecuted fairly well with relatively low civilian casualties, there was no urban warfare and at least some Iraqis in the Arab parts of the country cheered the U.S's entry into Baghdad. (The Kurds were, naturally, ecstatic, but the warm welcome I received should not be taken as indicative of the mood of the country as a whole. Many, many Arabs are angry over what happened to their country and the Kurds are ready to bolt from Iraq if they get the chance.) But the aftermath of the war could be more damaging to American interests and the Iraqi people. U.S. soldiers today fired into a crowd of civilian protesters at Falluhaj, about 30 miles west of Baghdad. The director of the local hospital said 13 people were killed and 75 injured. This is the third such incident such as this, with the other two occurring in Mosul.

Trigger-happy troops, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's cavalier attitude toward the rape of a nation's cultural history -- with journalists and soldiers taking part -- as well as disturbing but totally unconfirmed stories I was told by troops about atrocities committed by U.S. forces against prisoners all point to one thing: the need for a skeptical and close examination of America's role in a post-war Iraq.

This examination is not going to come from the networks, obviously. CNN's news head Eason Jordan, already facing criticism for the arguably morally bankrupt policy of not reporting Saddam's thuggery in exchange for 12 years of access, revealed to Howard Kurtz on "Reliable Sources" last week that the retired military personnel used on air were all approved by the Pentagon! (L.A. Times, registration req.) "I went to the Pentagon myself several times before the war started and met with important people there and said, for instance, at CNN, 'Here are the generals we're thinking of retaining to advise us on the air and off about the war,'" he said. "And we got a big thumbs-up on all of them. That was important." Cozy arrangement, there.

By and large, the television reports were uniformly awful, in my opinion, with a rah-rah patriotism that television excels at. Print reporters were better, however, with critical reports and unfiltered quotes from troops, including New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins quoting a sergeant as saying he shot an Iraqi woman because "the chick got in the way."

This criticism is not to take away from the courage of the reporters in the field. I was a chicken and mainly stayed away from the rough stuff so I don't include myself in that previous sentence. Twelve journalists died in this war, out of about 1,500 covering it. None of those 12 people had to be there; they chose to be there. Their motivations, I'm sure, ranged from the noble dedication to the story and the people of Iraq to the base lust for glory and a collection of war stories. Most likely it was a combination of both. I am including myself here and speaking from personal experience.

So what comes next? For Iraq, no one knows. President Bush says the U.S. will install democracy but that doesn't include a Shi'a-led Islamic state -- a wise choice, even if it does leave the United States open to hypocrisy. We'll see to what degree democracy really does come to the new Iraq. But I know this: The American people, in whose name this war was waged, need to hold this administration's feet to the fire. It's obviously too late to stop this war, but we as a democratic nation still have a responsibility to make the aftermath as beneficial to the Iraqi people as possible now that it's over. That means that corporate cronyism that seems to be the preferred method for awarding lucrative rebuilding contracts needs to be protested -- loudly. Any backsliding on democratic actions or a disconnect between administration actions and rhetoric have to be combatted as vigorously possible.

The anti-war crowd would be criminally irresponsible if it just washes its hands of the matter and considers the battle to halt military action in Iraq a failed cause and moves onto the next cause celebre. And if the pro-war people think they now have a right to say, "We told you this war would go well," they damn well also have a responsibility to hold the people they supported to their word. It's time for them, the "winners" in the "Should we go to war or shouldn't we?" debate, to put up or shut up.

I personally don't plan on sitting back and letting things just happen, on letting Iraq slip from the consciousness of an easily distracted people. I'm working on a book proposal examining the three acts of this drama -- build up, the war itself and its aftermath. I'll be returning to Iraq as soon as possible to research the rebuilding and to explore those disturbing stories I heard. Most important, I'll be keeping the voices of the Iraqi people front and center, something the mainstream media tend not to do.

Some statistics on B2I Number of donors: 316
Total amount raised: $13,834.16
Largest donation: $2,500 (anonymous)
Smallest donation: $1
Average donation: $43.78
Median donation: $20
Total number of unique visitors since Jan. 16, 2003: 462,036
Peak day: March 27, 2003 with 23,328 unique visitors
Number of countries represented: 140, including almost every country in the Middle East. Who's reading?
B2I has been accessed by every branch of the U.S. military as well as Central Command, Pacific Command, Southern Command and European Command. It was also accessed from the CIA, the House of Representatives, NASA and the United States Supreme Court. It has been mentioned in the Boston Globe, Jim Lehrer's NewsHour, Time Out New York, Reuters, NPR, CNN and many other media outlets.

NEW YORK -- Greetings all. I've returned to New York safely after a jolting car ride across Iraq and Jordan and an uneventful -- if long -- plane ride from Amman to NYC. This is just a short note, as people had asked to be notified. I will post a longer epilogue in the very near future as well as a previously unpublished feature.

Thanks again to everyone who read. I'll be back soon.

BAGHDAD -- This is the farewell note, both to Iraq and to you, the readers. Tomorrow I will drive to the Jordanian border through Baghdad and thence to Amman.

The war here is winding down, and the long, laborious process of rebuilding has started. Much of the activity in Baghdad involves the U.S. command looking for qualified people to help get the city back on its feet. Water and power still have to be restored. A state economy now lacks the state, so people have no jobs; no one is there to pay them. Kurds, Arabs and Turkomen in Kirkuk are a hair's breadth away from Yugoslavia-style ethnic clashes. Mosul is still savage, with little order. One reporter who returned from there yesterday described it to me as "like Mogadishu" with the city divvied up into territories for armed gangs and almost no civil authority. There are fewer than 300 American troops for a city of two million peoplel. This has gone almost completely unreported from what the journos in Arbil are hearing from editors back home. No one seems to care about Mosul, they say.

"They [the Americans] have given up on Mosul," said one reporter, who asked to remain anonymous. "It's terrifying." He could have been talking about his editors, too.

At the same time, other cities are calming down -- at least during the day. Kirkuk sports traffic lights that work, cops in the street and a bustling street merchant community. At night, however, there is still shooting and thuggery.

All of this will settle down eventually -- or explode into civil war -- but the question is how long will it take? I think the violence will continue at a low throttle for months, but even that would be a welcome contrast to 35 years of Ba'ath Party systematic terror and three wars since 1980.

Whether Iraqis gets the government they deserve, however, is a different story. Their neighbors don't wish to see a new American client state in their midst and can be expected to meddle most mischievously. Also, the fractured nature of Iraqi society, thanks the Ba'ath Party's repression and playing one group off another will take a long time to heal. Free-wheeling democracy is not in the cards for quite a while, if ever, thanks to the majority Shia population and the ethnic divisions in the north. If elections were to be held in the next few months (not likely) they would probably bring to power a government friendly to Iran and hostile to the United States and everyone else in the region. The Kurds would walk out and demand de facto -- or even de jure -- independence. The United States can not allow this.

Still, many Iraqis are optimistic about the future. "We are happy," said Hoshang Sadraddin, 22, a Kurd in Arbil. "We want a democratic government, a future. And for all the people in Iraq to live in peace."

"I look for a better life in the future," said Jasim Khidhir, 18. "I look forward to success in life, getting an education, that is my dream."

And in Baghdad, an Arab who wouldn't give his name smiled at me and said in halting English that he was happy that democracy had come to Iraq. The sentiment was genuine, if a little premature.

We'll see. The Kurds I've talked want the United States to stay "forever" as Assan Ahmen Awla, 30, a taxi driver, told me. America is seen as the Kurds' insurance against control by Baghdad and Arab violence. The marchers in Baghdad demanding a quick end to American occupation, he said, were incited by Ahmed Chalabi and the INC to stir up trouble against the Americans, so they will leave and the INC can seize complete control. Chalabi, obviously, isn't popular up here. Neither are Arabs in general.

"I think forever I will chose American troops to keep us away from the Arabs," said Taha Muhammed Hassan, 30, a fruit vendor. "We know what the Arabs will do if they have control."

Sentiments like these, as well as threats against Kurds in Tikrit, Baghdad and the southern part of the country are ominous signs, both for a coherent country and a democratic future. Delshad wrote me to tell me his thoughts:

"The heavy heritage of more than three decades of dictatorship and oppression will need many, many years to be overcome and Iraqis to get a better understanding of what is liberation and its limits. And if the Americans keep in their current role [of] being only observers standing aside then things can't get better!!"

Others suggest democracy isn't that big a deal to them, that jobs are a priority rather than self-government. "We choose jobs, not democracy," said Hemin Sultan, 28, a translator.

Given that much of the country is working at subsistence levels, even in the relatively prosperous cities of Iraqi Kurdistan, his opinions are understandable. But I worry that unless the Iraqis demand democracy for themselves the United States won't give it to them... I believe the White House would prefer a docile Iraq to one that can say no to American interests. But of course, I'm constitutionally inclined to oppose the idea of an American empire based on commercial ties, so I do hope the Iraqis realize that real democracy -- unruly, nettlesome and untidy -- is in their long-term best interests.

But while the Iraqis have just started a long journey into the future, the Back-to-Iraq.com journey is coming to an end. B2I has succeeded beyond what I expected or envisioned when I began writing it in September 2002. Through the months, the site has managed to provoke, entertain and -- hopefully -- enlighten people. It's garnered some attention and people have said it's a new form of journalism and that it's history making.

I don't know if it's all that, but I'm certainly flattered by the compliments and the accolades. This was journalism without a net (although it was on the Net.) I've stumbled a few times, almost losing my balance, but looking back over the site, I hope it was good enough.

Now I'm going home. The stories that I'd like to do require money and time that I simply no longer have. The looming ethnic conflict in northern Iraq, the role of the Turks, the treatment of women, the fate of the political prisoners and the new government's faltering first steps are all stories that I would love to pursue, with the style and techniques I've developed on the site. I'd also wanted to find Salam Pax.

As for the future of B2I, I'm working on that. The site and listserv will remain up for as long as the server has power, but I'm still undecided on what to do next to push forward the concept of independent, reader-funded journalism. I will use the site and the premium email list to announce anything new, so stop in every now and then to say hello.

I do plan on returning to Iraq in a few months to check in on how things are going. Those dispatches will also be published here and on the listserv. Donors who have donated will continue get premium content and photos whenever the site is active.

A note about donations: I am no longer actively soliciting them. The mission is over -- for now. Save your cash or donate it to other indy journalists. It's important to develop this genre of journalism, and reader contributions are key. We all proved that this kind of endeavor is possible. I may be the first, but I sincerely hope I'm not the last. I believe other independent journalists will soon strike out and cover major events alongside the major media. I hope they break more stories than I did, and challenge their mainstream colleagues to keep up.

A few of those mainstreamers here -- most enthusiastically from Fox News, oddly enough -- think the ideals that B2I brings to the table are grand and think something like this site could be the future of the craft. They bemoan the top-down editorial control and like the idea of readers' input in deciding what to cover.

That can wait for a bit, however. For now, I must bid you farewell. I'm disappointed and sad to do so, as I feel like I'm leaving early. The reality of a limited budget is an inconvenient fact of life, however. I hope you all don't hold it against me.

It's been a truly fantastic journey and I am sincerely grateful to everyone who donated, read, sent in feedback, argued on the comment boards or wished me well. While truth may be the first casualty in war, I hope I was able to save a small shard of it. But it's hard to say. Many times since I've been here, listening to the claims of Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Turkomen or Assyrians, I've thought that there is no such thing as Truth, only myths that people tell their children to get them through to the next generation. History doesn't exist here, at least not in the American sense; the past is never really past and history isn't something that happened long ago; it's very much alive and kicking. In this ancient place, a land of empires, gods, gardens, wars, blood and beauty, at the heart of it, you will find only stories. I hope I've been able to bring a few of them home to you.

Sincerely,
Christopher

BAGHDAD — The streets of Baghdad are prickly with pointed questions, as residents pick at my sleeve and beg me for answers I cannot give.

“Why is there no water?”

“The river is too high and will soon flood. When will the Americans do something?”

“We need electricity and security, where is it?”

“Where are the prisoners?” asked a man who gave his name as Muhammed. “It’s a simple question. What is the answer?”

All of these are asked of me, as I pick my way through the crowd outside the Hotel Palestine in downtown Baghdad. Each time I am forced to give the same answer: “I don’t know. I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”

Two photographers, Jason and Juan Carlos, and I have driven down for the day. The drive in is pleasant, with the occasional T-72 Iraqi tank parked by the road, seemingly abandoned by the crews. Once we get to the outskirts of this sprawling city, however, the tanks and other military vehicles are bombed out and destroyed.

Baghdad itself, low-slung and dusty brown, is bustling with activity. A haze of dust clings to the ground, and mixes with the auto exhaust from the thousands of vehicles on the street. Icons of Saddam are mostly lacking; I’ll bet they have been removed by U.S. troops and Baghdadis. The few posters and murals that remain are largely untouched, though. Driving in, we can see the effects of the looting and the bombing damage. Buildings marked with the Ba’ath Party eight-point star show scorch marks or are partially collapsed. Much of the city seems intact, however. Even downtown, a target-rich environment, seems more or less intact. The “precision bombing” seems to have been more or less aptly named.

The occupation is not making many friends among the Iraqis, however. In marked contrast to the welcome and friendliness we always receive in the north and in Kirkuk, the looks here are guarded and even cold. We smile and wave at people in the cars next to us when the traffic grinds to a halt, but our fellow drivers look at us and don’t smile back.

There seems to be a constant demonstration going on in front of the press balcony of the hotel and as I pass, one man holds up a sign that reads, “The Americans are Lyers.” Another hands me a note in both Arabic and English that reads:

Letter to Conference, Baghdad.

Dear Leaders, USA and Iraq: We are Al Shaab Native Free Party. We wanted to [attend the] meeting in Iraq with the leaders USA and Iraq. Thanks, Best.

Saeed Alifaashmi Leader, Al Shaab Party 16/4/2003

It seems an opposition movement to the yet-to-be-installed interim government is already taking root.

The Marines here have a tough job. The populace is angry at the lack of services — no phone, water, electricity or work — and the troops are getting increasingly aggressive in the face of mounting public anger. Everyone is on a hair-trigger. The Palestine is an armed fortress, ringed by concertina wire, about 150 troops and a dozen LAVs or so. The Marines push the Iraqis back — not always gently — as they press forward to tell their stories to a trooper, the press … someone who might listen.

At one point, a group of Iraqis began shouting at the Americans guarding the press entry point to the Palestine. The Marines began shoving the Iraqis back as they chanted louder and louder in Arabic. Then, the crowd sat down on the sidewalk. “No Saddam! No Saddam!” they yelled out. They were protesting the use of Iraqi police officers and demanded the Marines provide security instead of the organs of the old regime.

“We want the Americans to cooperate with us,” said Muhammad Abdul-Rasul, 46, an interpreter. “We need work. Who is in charge?” He then demanded “Mr. Bush” to turn on the public services within 48 hours.

The city is awash with conspiracy theories, the preferred method of analysis in the Middle East.

Ehsan Abud denied that Iraqis were the ones responsible for the looting and instead it’s the Kuwaitis coming up to take revenge for the 1990 invasion. And Arabs, not Iraqi Arabs, went into the University of Mustemsrya in Baghdad and burned all the books. And America has trained 500 Iraqis and other Arabs in the United States, parachuted them into Baghdad (nee Saddam) International and turned them loose on the city to burn and pillage.

The Marines based around the hotel declined to comment on these accusations.

The Americans are “useless” because they have been here for 10 days and they have done nothing for the city, said Abud. He said security in some neighborhoods is provided by armed volunteers guarding the streets.

There’s no doubt Baghdad is wooly at night. Marines told me they “took a guy down” last night when he was attempting to break into a media truck. Iraqis tell of the pop-pop of automatic weapons fire from all directions when the sun goes down.

The Interior Ministry is also a favorite source of rumor. This was the dreaded nexus of Saddam Hussein’s security state, and many people think there are underground prisons where loved ones who disappeared 20 years ago suffer still.

“Why don’t they dig under the Security building?” asked Ali Abid Khafaji. “Americans are guarding it and not letting the prisoners out.”

Muhammad, the man who asked about the victims of Saddam’s regime, said thousands of people are waiting to hear about their relatives and friends. Where are they? They have disappeared. “We want to know where they are,” he said. “You are the media. You can tell the world. Please, help us.”

EN ROUTE TO BAGHDAD -- Someone asked me why should I question J.'s optimism and how many Iraqis kissing me would it take for me to be convinced. There's no question many, many Iraqis (especially the Kurds) are happy that Saddam is gone. But it's not so simple as that.

In Tikrit, and in other places such as Mosul, a lot of people aren't happy to see American forces -- and not just because those forces have failed to provide security. The situation in the cities is volatile, and ethnic hatreds could flare into civil war without too big of a push. Already, we've heard reports that Kurds have begun driving Arabs out of villages around Kirkuk, reclaiming their old lands. The recklessness of the PUK and the KDP in post-Saddam Iraq could bring Turkey into the mix when the United States draws down its forces. No one knows what's going to happen, and the initial giddy optimism I encountered is giving way to guarded anxiety about the future.

I don't believe the United States went to war to make the Iraqis happy. It didn't go to war to free them. The United States went to war for geopolitical self-interest (See "Why Iraq?" on B2I for a look at some of the reasons.) If the question is "Are the Iraqis happy that Saddam is gone?" the answer is undoubtedly yes -- most of them, anyway. But that opens up a host of other questions that will have to be answered in time. It is much, much too early to declare the peace won and the sacrifice in blood and treasure a worthy investment in Iraq's and the United States' futures.

The anti-war crowd (in which I usually include myself) has often underestimated or understated the genuine good that came out of this war, i.e., the removal of a tyrant. But the pro-war crowd has equally underestimated the dangers of the aftereffects of this war: instability in the region, alienation of allies, increased risk of terrorist attacks, etc. Yes, the Iraqis are free -- free to turn on their neighbors and kill them. Yes, the fear of visits from the Ba'ath Party has been removed, but now they fear armed gangs stealing their homes. This is still a nation in terror, and a stable, inclusive government is a long way off.

If the goal is establishing a representative democracy, powdered wigs and all, that's likely to fail. Iraq in 10 years will more likely resemble authoritarian Egypt than friendly, parliamentary Canada. Would that be better than Saddam? Of course, absolutely. Is that what the Iraqis expect and deserve? Emphatically no. Would such an outcome make the region more stable and the United States safer? No one knows, and anyone -- including me -- who says they do is speaking from beliefs and assumptions rather than a possession of data.

I'm en route to Baghdad today (Thursday) and will file back what the situation is there.

Technical Note
Due to a snafu with the sendmail program on my server, two dispatches may have been missed. I believe it's been resolved now. I apologize for the inconvenience.

INSIDE SADDAM HUSSEIN'S PRESIDENTIAL COMPOUND IN TIKRIT, Iraq -- The road into Tikrit today is tense, but passable. Arab clans are setting up checkpoints to make sure that Kurds dressed as peshmergas aren't entering the city to loot. At one checkpoint, Jason, a photographer buddy from Los Angeles I'm traveling with, backed up a little quickly and we got a warning shot. Nothing serious. Once they realized we were press the gunmen smiled and let us through.

Inside Tikrit, at the roundabout where we came under fire yesterday, a group of Arab men were guarding the way. They were angry about possible looting and they were determined to see that what happened in Baghdad, Kirkuk and Mosul didn't happen here.

Zaid Ibrahim, a man at the scene, was barefoot. He said not five minutes before, a group of Kurds had stolen his car and even his shoes.

"Tell Jalal [Talabani] these are not peshmergas," said his friend, Adil Ahmed. "They are thieves. If they come here to steal, we will kill them." Then he smiled warmly, shook my hand and bid me welcome.

Once the Arabs realized we hadn't come to steal their stuff, they were quite friendly. They were so friendly, in fact, that they brought me over to show me the bodies of two dead peshmergas. (WARNING: Graphic image.) They lay in a ditch where they had died. They would have looked almost peaceful except for the gaping bullet wounds and the blood.

In the distance, past the bodies, a factory of some kind burned fiercely, sending black smoke high into the sky, while the sun tried to creep through the blackness, giving the scene a post-Apocalyptic feel. Bits of glass, dust and metal crunched under our feet as we walked.

While Jason and I were shooting pictures in this Mad Max landscape, the crowd scattered, leaving us alone with the dead peshmergas. The silence was the worst. The city is deserted, and there was no sound of life. Suddenly, we heard a thump-thump and two Apaches Cobras and a Blackhawk Bell Huey chopper began to circle low over us. Jason and I held out our arms and our cameras to show the pilots and gunners we were unarmed journalists. They circled us about seven times or so, getting lower each time. We could feel the rumbling of the choppers' engines vibrate inside our chests. They were warning us to get the hell out of there and finally, we got the message and split.

Once inside the city, we crossed the Tigris over a bomb-damaged bridge on which Marines in humvees squatted and kept the locals behind a line of concertina wire. We got into the media line and passed through while city residents, waiting to return to their homes after they had fled the American bombardment, looked on plaintively. Later in the afternoon, after the media had passed, the marines would open up the bridge and let people through to return to their homes.

After that, we drove through the mostly empty streets. The few locals we saw on the street were friendly, and waved and said hello, but we'd been advised by other journalists to be careful. Finally, we drove up to the palaces. It's a surreal feeling to merrily tool around the sprawling Tikrit presidential compound of Saddam Hussein. We've explored two small homes that have been picked over by looters or the former residents. Broken glass was all that remained in the first building, but the second was less ransacked.

The tastes of the residents tended toward Louis XIV kitsch, with ornate and brocaded chairs and sofas. While I was in the second palace, I bumped into a couple of kids looting. We all started, jumpy and edgy in these empty cathedrals to Saddam's power. When they saw I meant no harm, they smiled, said "Hello!" and went on their way. I didn't try to stop them. One of them was munching on Sumer crackers lifted from the kitchen. Outside we could see the detritus of the U.S. military: wrappers from MREs.

One of the major palaces on the grounds was heavily damaged in bombing. The upstairs was demolished by several bombs and had collapsed into the lower floors. But we encountered incongruities in the destruction. A mosaic running up the wall of a demolished, curving marble staircase seemed untouched. A wall ornamented with polished cedar and inlaid mother of pearl panels was untouched while on the other side of the wall the room was reduced to ash and rubble.

This palace was abandoned before the war even started. There wasn't a trace of furniture in the rooms that were mostly undamaged -- no tracks in the dust left by dragged furniture, either.

We've hooked up for the night with the Marines' 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, based in front of the bombed palace. I let them call home on my satellite phone and they hooked us up with a case of MREs, a couple of blankets and some water. They were hungry for news from the United States, since they're just as cut off as the people of Kirkuk were before the peshmergas entered that city. They don't know anything about what's going on except that Tikrit is mostly secured, except for some minor looting in the south part of the city, which is still being bombed. At the moment, as if to emphasize the point, a huge boom filled the air. We try to fill them in on the news as best as possible, but they want to know about Syria. So do I.

Cpl. Bryon M. Hightower offered us an AK-47 but I refused. I did let him give me a knife, since he was concerned that Jason and I had no protection. We're going to camp out here tonight, either in one of these abandoned palaces or tucked up behind their trucks and sleep in the back of the pickup that Jason rented. For tonight, we're unofficially embedded with the the 1st LAR. It's probably one of the safest places in the country at the moment.

Note
Isaac Taylor wrote in to say the missile we saw was an SA-2, a surface-to-air missile, not a surface-to-surface missile as I mistakenly thought. Thanks for the correction, Isaac!

JUST INSIDE TIKRIT, Iraq -- We've stopped, about 6.5 km outside the city center. In front of us, about a kilometer up, is a group of Arabs who have been shooting at people. They're worried about Kurdish looters. Surrounding us are a mass of press SUVs. Someone has sent an Arab cameraman up to negotiate passage through. So now we're waiting.

I lost J. earlier today. He took off with Freydoon to the Syrian river crossing to head back home to America. He's been a good friend and his inveterate optimism has been a welcome tonic to my usual cynicism. His military training also came in handy. He truly believes in the United States as a force for Good in the world, and who am I to criticize him for that? I wish him well...

TIKRIT, Iraq -- We made it inside the city limits, about 5 km from the city center, before we got shot at.

We had decided to get an early start and headed out to Kirkuk and then to Tikrit. Along the way, we agreed to meet in Kirkuk to form a convoy of other journalists. While we were waiting for the other guys -- mostly Italians and Germans -- to show up, we talked with some of the Kirkukis.

The appearance of calm is deceptive, they said. During the day, the police keep a semblance of order, but at night, roving gangs with guns have been terrorizing people in their homes. The people we talked to also said they had had no water for four days.

"Why doesn't America do something?" asked Salima Abdul-Kadir Abdula, a nurse at the hospital in town. She can't drive to work because she's afraid of carjackings.

More ominously for the future, perhaps, was Sham Sideem Hassan, 45, a charismatic teacher who was working the crowd that had gathered.

"These Arabs here, they are Saddamists!" he yelled. "They have to go! They cannot stay! Kirkuk is Kurdish and Turkomen. Get those Arabs out!"

The last line was the money line, causing the crowd to burst into applause. Another man tugged my sleeve, pointed to Hassan and said, "This is good, this is good!"

Figures vary, but there may be as many as 100,000 Arab families who were trucked up to Kirkuk under the Ba'athist regime's policy of Arabization since 1977. It's unclear how widespread Hassan's ideas are, but they don't bode well for the future.

After we finally hooked up with our convoy, we set out. They all had combat vests and four-wheel drive vehicles. But we soldiered on, even when they stupidly stopped at a crossroads about 10 km from the city limits.

"We heard something about this crossroad," said their translator as he stepped out of the car. There was no cover anywhere and we were easy targets.

"Why the hell are we stopping?" J. asked and Freydoon gunned the engine.

The route to Tikrit is ugly and tiresome. Not quite desert and not quite fertile, dust rises at the slightest breeze and gets everywhere. The hills are jagged and dimpled with craters, some outlined in scorch marks. The land is blasted away in many places. Even in April, standing in the sunlight for a few moments was uncomfortably warm.

The road was thankfully spotted with peshmergas, but their presence was light, so we were wary. Along the way, we passed an overturned mobile missile launcher with the missile still attached. To my and J.'s untrained eyes, it looked like a surface-to-surface missile.

Entering the city was tense. We had no idea who was friendly and who wasn't. The peshmergas told us that Arabs were shooting at any Kurds they saw. The streets on the outskirts were mostly deserted. The few men who were on the street carried Kalishnikovs.

Our convoy stopped on the outskirts so some PUK peshmergas could stage a little media event. A large billboard of Saddam in Bedouin dress greeted visitors. They doused it with gasoline and set it on fire, posing in front of the burning portrait for our troupe's cameras.

While we were standing around admiring the flames, a man in a dark car, coming from the direction of Haweja Uja, Saddam's birthplace, pulled up. He watched the billboard burn silently and then waved at me. I was about 20 meters away. I waved back warily. Then he beckoned me closer.

No way. I shook my head at him and called out to J., Freydoon and Sabah, our translator. "Let's go."

Smoke from the direction of Haweja was a black smudge in the sky. We could see, off in the distance over Tikrit, an American helicopter gunship buzzing low over the rooftops. Every few seconds a muted BOOM rolled over us. Reports from our short-wave BBC pickup said U.S. troops were meeting little resistance.

We moved further into the city along a four-lane highway with a median. Two of the other SUVs were in front of us. Suddenly another SUV pulled in front of our train and stopped. The man in the passenger side draped a white flag out the window at arm's length. Another dark car pulled up on his side blocking the way. Something smelled really bad about this situation.

"Back up, back up!" we demanded of Freydoon, and he pulled back far enough to spin the wheel and force us through a gap in the median. We heard shouting behind us and then the sharp crack of gunfire. We all ducked and Freydoon floored it north out of town. I don't know what happened to the Germans and Italians and I'm worried.

We drove back to the ruined missile launcher before I made the call to try again. But on the way back in, we saw many, many cars streaming from the direction of Tikrit, including a number of media cars. Several drivers motioned for us to turn around and by the third time, I was sufficiently freaked out to pay them some heed. We turned around and caught up with a truck full of men. As we sped along the highway, they told us the Arabs had started shooting at everyone in sight, and that Tikrit was not safe.

I decided we should head back to Kirkuk to work out our next move.

IRAQI HIGHWAY 2 TO KIRKUK, Iraq -- While en route to take another stab at Tikrit, I thought I'd answer a couple of questions.

Syria may or may not be the next target, I don't know. No one here knows anything as that decision will be made in Washington. I'll ask around, however, but I doubt anyone will be able to tell me about it.

Someone in the comments asked about an action photo. I'm not fond of having my picture taken, but I'll see if J. can whip something up.

Opie asked when I was coming back. My return ticket was for April 24, but that's scotched at the moment for two reason. One, Swiss Air has gone out of business. Two, I can't go back through Turkey, since I've heard from a buddy in the Newsweek bureau in Istanbul that B2I has come to the attention of the authorities. And since I smuggled myself across the border and I have no exit stamp on my Turkish visa, I would be arrested when I come back. Probably I'd be fined and released after a few hours. Maybe not, however. I don't feel like chancing it, so I'm looking for an alternative exit strategy. Jordan or Kuwait, perhaps. Besides, I've never been to either country. And in my more optimistic moments, I think, "There's always Baghdad International."

Also, I just had another $3000 wired. A guy here in Arbil has a dollar account in Turkey. It's a bank-to-bank transfer, and he keeps 5% of the money and release the rest to me in cash. He's a human ATM machine. Deals like this is how cash gets into Iraqi Kurdistan. The upside is that since my return plans are now a bit up in the air, the money will allow me to stay a little longer, perhaps if I choose.

Lastly, there needs to be an exit strategy for B2I itself. I'm undecided on what to do, other than take a break after this war -- I've been doing the site solo for about 10 months now on an almost daily basis. I need a vacation. But after that? Personally, I'm going to have to go back to work and/or find another job. I'll definitely spin some of the stories on B2I into freelance articles or syndicate some of them. I've had some nibbles on book deals and I'll look into that, too.

But what happens to the site? I think we can declare this experiment in independent, reader-funded journalism a success. But where do we go from here? I'm open to suggestions, so please leave them in the comments section on this entry.

On to Tikrit.

KIRKUK, Iraq -- I'm standing about 50 km from Tikrit and nervous enough to feel like I've just swallowed molten lead. The road is as straight as an sniper shot. Behind me, about 10 km, stands the last PUK checkpoint after Kirkuk. The land is flat, and perhaps it's my imagination, but it appears stunted and less fertile than the hills and mountains to the north east. There is a light wind that smells faintly of burning oil. Every now and then a car passes our small encampment on the side of the road and its passengers peer at us intently. The ones coming from the direction of Tikrit don't smile. Before us lies the stronghold of Saddam Hussein, and I have to make a decision to press on or not.

J. and I left earlier this morning from Arbil thinking the war was done, more or less, after seeing the footage from CNN that things looked quiet. We left before we knew the truth. Correspondent Brent Sadler would come under fire from automatic weapons and flee the city under a hail of bullets.

Whenever we ask, peshmergas and other officials tell it is "very dangerous" to go to Tikrit, that despite the claims of CENTCOM, U.S. forces are nowhere to be seen. Fara'doon Abdul-Kadir, the newly appointed interim governor of Kirkuk, warns me that there are no peshmergas past the checkpoint -- we'll be on our own. We're in a taxi with blue "TV" taped to the side panels and windows. Freydoon, our loyal driver and now bodyguard, is packing a 9mm Browning Hi-Power that J. picked up at the weapons bazaar when I wasn't looking. It won't do much good, however, against the Kalishnikovs of the Fedayeen Saddam.

The fact of the matter is that Tikrit is "hot" as the journos here say. It is not "fine" as I thought it might be from CNN's early footage. A Kurdish journalist and his crew that I've become friendly with were chased by men in black in black sedans later in the afternoon when they got within a few kilometers of the entrance of the city. Fedayeen. From Mustafa's description of his pursuers, they sound like James Bond villains.

There is a rumor that Jalal Talabani, head of the PUK, sent in Said Jabadi, a former Ba'athist, to negotiate a surrender of the city. Twenty-five of the 28 clans have agreed to surrender their weapons, but only to allied forces. No peshmergas. The other three, including Saddam's clan, have said they will fight to the end. It seems, then, the American bombardment will continue.

The leadership is holed up there, some believe, and the U.S. doesn't want to take any chances on losing them. What happens in the next few days will be a sharp, short shock. Tikrit, I'm guessing, will be cut off from the outside world -- no one in, no one out. The question is whether to be inside or outside when that happens.

Ultimately, I decide to turn back. It's not worth it. We don't have eight cylinders under our hood, we don't have the protection, we don't have the backup and so far, we don't have a story. Yeah, it'd be cool to say I was in Tikrit before it was sacked, but I need to have a better story than what Tikritis think about the U.S. Marines and the demise of Saddam's regime.

Tomorrow, we'll try another probe, to see what we can see, but I've reserved the right to turn back at any time. See? I am a physical coward.

In other news
Kirkuk has been mostly brought under control, and Mosul is on its way. The road to Kirkuk is patrolled and managed by U.S. troops. No weapons go in, except for a few AK-47s carried by authorized peshmergas. Inside the city, which saw much less looting than Mosul, the process of cleanup has begun. Jarringly, police trucked in from Chamchamal and Suleimaniya are wearing Iraqi police uniforms, which look exactly like Iraqi Army uniforms. The whole time I was in Kirkuk, I thought we were surrounded by Iraqi troops that had decided to make themselves useful after surrendering.

Not the case, as it turns out. The Kurds are using the old uniforms of the Iraqis so as not to antagonize the Turks (or anyone else) into thinking that "Kurdish uniforms" were the mark of an independence bid. So the Kurds, who have suffered grievously under the regime, have donned the silver eagle, black beret and green fatigues of their enemy to keep Turkey and Iran happy. The new police force numbers 1,500 men, said Abdul-Kadir.

The interim government -- which as yet has no expiration date -- will be made up of a 21-member committee, with four members of each ethnic group: Kurds, Arabs, Turkomen and Assyrians, said Sadi Ahmed Pire, who is with the PUK international relations office and the chief PUK representative in Arbil. The last member will be Brig. General James Parker, commander of the northern forces. (*CORRECTION:* I incorrectly reported his name earlier. I apologize for the late correction.) The committee will advise Adbul-Kadir as he navigates the ethnic minefields of the region and attempts to answer questions such as what will happen to the Arab families who were moved, often against their will, into the homes of expelled Kurds? What happens if the Turks move in? Where will the Kurdish refugees, which some estimates put near 300,000, go?

These questions are as yet unanswered.

ARBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan -- Interviews with figures of authority (FOA) in this region follow a pretty standard pattern. You greet them, shake their hands and then you sit down. Then you explain what you'd like to talk about. What follows is a 15-20 minute statement by the FOA broken up by the translator who never works quite quickly enough for the statement-maker, so only about every other block of speech is fully translated.

After this statement, which is organized like a college term paper with points and sub-points and full of verbal subheadings like, "Concerning the Turkomen's position in Kirkuk....", then I can ask questions. Interruptions or questions are not tolerated in the opening statement ("let me finish, please," the FOA says when I attempt to get in a question.)

This happens every time, and yesterday's chat with Kanan Shakir Uzeyrag Ali, the head of the Turkomen Independent Movement, one of the three parties making up the Iraqi Turkomen Front, was no exception. The president of the Front, Sanan Ahmet Aga, was unavailable, despite my 11 a.m. appointment.

"Our God, Allah, can do things in seconds, but he chose to create the world in six days," said Salim Otrakchi, a political advisor to Aga. "If you have to wait a few hours to see the president, you must be patient."

Well, I got Ali instead, which was just as well, as he was the Turkomen representative at the Kirkuk meeting on Friday that also included U.S. Gen. Baker and representatives from the PUK and KDP. The topic was the governing of Kirkuk, which Ali said was a Turkomen city.

Sorting out the competing claims on Kirkuk and other cities in Iraq is difficult. There hasn't been an official Iraqi census since 1957 and population numbers have been manipulated over the years to suit the Ba'athish regime's purposes. Also, Kirkuk has been heavily Arabized, with Turkomen and Kurds expelled from the city and surrounding villages to make way for Arabs from the south. Because of such forced demographic changes and the age of the city, at the moment, no one can say -- honestly -- who has a greater historical claim on the city. How far back should the claims go? The only thing that is sure, concerning Kirkuk, is that its oil fields and refineries would be a plum to whichever ethnic group -- Arabs, Kurds or Turkomen -- that controlled it.

Throwing more gasoline on this oil fire is the threat of the Turks to invade if the Kurds do anything to alter the characteristics of the population of Kirkuk. That means if the Kurds allow the tens of thousands of families Arabized out of their homes since the 1920s -- and the Anfal campaign of 1987-88 in particular -- to return, Turkey will see that as the crossing of a red line and send in its approximately 15,000 troops massed on the border to the north.

None of this matters to Ali, who portrays the Turkomen as an oppressed minority in the Kurdish area of Iraq, who can depend on no one but their Turkish brothers to the north.

Ali said the Turkomen felt betrayed by the United States when the PUK peshmergas flowed into the city on Thursday, liberating it from Saddam with little bloodshed. Before order was more or less restored by a combined Kurdish and American presence, there was widespread looting. Nothing like the savagery in Mosul, mind you, which happened because the main peshmerga forces were kept out of that city and the U.S. military felt securing the oil fields was more important than filling the power vacuum left by the Iraqi V Corps' vanishing act. There's a growing sense of resentment among all ethnic parties toward the U.S. because of this failure to provide basic security in the wake of Saddam's ouster.

But back to Kirkuk, Ali told me that Turkomen had been targeted for crimes and human rights violations.

"We have 200 documents that show Turkomen people were robbed," he said. "The people who have suffered the most are the Turkomen. Any time there is some situation, the victim was Turkomen."

I asked him how this compared to robbery reports by Kurds or Arabs or even Assyrians. He said he had no idea, as they went to their own people. How do you know there weren't 500 robberies of Kurdish people or 1,000 assaults on Assyrians, I asked. Is the violence against the Turkomen targeted or are they just getting caught up in the general chaos? "This point is clear," he added. "The Turkomen are not armed people. And the people stealing from them are armed people."

This claim of Turkomen pacifism is, frankly, hard to believe. Practically every man in this country owns some kind of firearm. Most men in the ITF office where I interviewed Ali carried a sidearm or a Kalishnikov.

Ali said the meeting Thursday was productive in that Gen. Baker asked the Turkomen to take part in the security of the city, but he said the Turkomen, who have an aversion to guns, remember, would not be able to help until security was guaranteed by -- surprise! -- the Turks.

"Our people are sitting in their homes and they are having their families taken captive and their furniture taken," he said. "How can he be a soldier? We are ready to help, but other military people are coming to capture us. We don't know who they are."

Hm. Anonymous thugs taking advantage of the chaos and terrorizing families I would buy. The implication that this is the Kurds' fault or that Kurds themselves are doing it is a little more problematic. The translator embellished her boss' words with the the lovely detail that the thugs wore the green and yellow ribbons of the PUK and KDP, respectively, but Ali corrected her and said that wasn't the case. So some Turkomen, at least, are willing to blame the Kurds.

The ITF demands these foreign militia and peshmergas removed from Kirkuk, Ali said, and it wants a shared administration of the city, including Turks, Kurds, Arabs and Assyrians. The idea, he said, is to have an administration based on proportional representation in Kirkuk.

And here we come to the crux of the matter. If the Turkomen can use the threat of Turkish intervention to pressure the Kurds into preventing the Kurdish refugees -- most of them currently living in squalor in camps such as Binislawa outside Arbil -- from returning to their old homes, Turkomen numbers won't be diluted and their power in Kirkuk's government -- and their share of the oil revenue -- will be that much greater.

To accomplish this, the Turkomen must claim oppression at the hands of the Kurds in the Kurdish enclave in the north.

"We have suffered under all people," Ali said. "The Turkomen suffered under the KDP, politically, security and culturally."

How so, I asked. In Iraqi Kurdistan, the Turkomen have a newspaper, a radio station, a television station (one of the biggest buildings in town with a huge satellite dish on the top) their own schools, the right to speak their language, three political parties and representation in the Kurdistan Regional Government's parliament. The Turkomen in Iraqi Kurdistan have more cultural and political rights than the Kurds do in Turkey. What more do you want, I asked.

"These rights are the original rights of all people," he said. "They are given from God. Other people don't grant these rights. Arabs and Kurds have not power to grant these rights. We get these rights from our activities. A constitution would be helpful."

I asked for specific examples of how their rights have been violated. The ITF has not been recognized, Ali said, and isn't official. (But the three Turkomen parties that make up the ITF each have parliamentary representation.) Their reporters for the various media can't leave the building and interview people on the street (Not true, I've watched Turkomen TV and they go out and interview people.) The Kurdish government officials won't talk to their reporters (Well, sometimes they won't talk to me; that's the breaks.)

Their chief of security, Amir Azad, was arrested two months ago, Ali said, and they only now were able to send him a lawyer. "We are ready to give you a dossier about it," he said.

"Great!" I said. "I'd like to see it."

Then some discussion in Turkomen followed. "Oh, we have filed it with Kofi Anan at the United Nations. You can read it there."

And then, after listing this litany of wrongs done to the Turkomen, Ali reversed himself.

"But we want to forget all and start a new page," he said. "We don't want to speak of past times."

As a representative of a people who have allegedly suffered so much from the Kurds, Ali seemed awfully quick to put all these years behind them. His stated desire to move on represents either a saint-like ability to forgive, or a recognition that Turkomen claims are exaggerated.

PS: While I was typing this, it appears Tikrit has fallen without a fight. We're heading there now.

ARBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan -- Sorry for the lack of updates yesterday. I was in interviews all day, and by the end of the day I could barely think straight, much less write. Plus, I needed a day off. However, I did get a good interview with the Iraqi Turkomen Front and will write up that account in the car.

Where are we going? Well, this morning, CNN International broadcast extraordinary footage from the outskirts of Tikrit, with no resistance, challenges or other military presence to the media presence. Along the side of the road, groups of fighting-age men walked, some with weapons, most without. None challenged the CNN crew.

Today, J. and I are heading to Kirkuk to get a read on the situation and possibly probe toward Tikrit. The northern route -- which we'll be taking -- is pretty heavily militarized but has been extensively hit by U.S. air strikes. It's also the region where Kevin Sites was captured briefly by Fedayeen Saddam. We'll have to look sharp to stay out of trouble if we do press on toward Saddam's stomping grounds. But I'll be honest: It may be too dicey and I may nix the plan if I'm not cool with it.

ARBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan -- Now that the war seems to be winding down, the long knives of ethnic politics are coming out. Glad to see no one is wasting any time!

In Kirkuk today, representatives from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the Iraqi Turkomen Front and the Americans are meeting to thrash out how the city and the region will be governed once the PUK completes the pullout of its peshmergas from the city. Units from the American 173rd Airborne will be taking over to provide order and discourage the kind of looting taking place in Mosul today.

The looting in Mosul seemed much worse than what happened yesterday in Kirkuk. I bumped into Philip Robertson, of Salon.com, who asked me if the Americans were moving into Mosul. I said I didn't know.

"Well, they better get there fast before they start shooting each other," he said.

The issue of security is a tricky one, as Turkey is using the issue of the safety of the Turkomen minority in each city to justify a military intervention in northern Iraq. So far, the Turks' response has been to send some "military observers" -- basically a bunch of officers, near as I can tell -- to Kirkuk, but they have thousands of heavily armed troops perched north of the border and just inside Iraq ready to swoop south. To the Kurds, this is just more of the Turks being the Turks.

"This is not the first time they have done this," said Anawar Omer, 32, a laborer I spoke with in Arbil's Shekhullah district, one of the major market areas. "They are the enemies of the Kurds and they want us to be nothing. Kirkuk is Kurdistan. It belongs to Kurds and it will always be that way."

"We will kill the Turks if they come inside," added Mahdi Kasab, a 30-year-old butcher standing nearby. "Each of us will kill six Turks if they come here."

But the bellicosity of the Kurdish masses aside, the politics are as dangerous as any of the hundreds of minefields dotting the region.

"Kirkuk is delicate," said Sadi Ahmed Pire, with the PUK international relations office and chief PUK representative in Arbil. "We have to be careful not to make any mistakes."

Which brings us back to this meeting, which I'm sure is a big headache for the Americans trying to bring this region to heel. The agenda is to bring order to Kirkuk -- setting up traffic police, a temporary mayor, curfews -- without compromising anyone's "interests."

But "everyone's" interests seem too contradictory to be reconciled. The Kurds claim Kirkuk as theirs, both for historical reasons -- the validity of which I'm not even going to try to untangle -- and economic reasons. The Kirkuk oil fields are some of the richest in Iraq, and if the Kurds were able to exploit them, their 12-year-old experiment in self-government in the north would start to look a whole lot more viable as an independent state.

The Turks, however, see this as a direct threat to their security, both because the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) used northern Iraq as a base during its 15-year war with Turkey that left more than 30,000 civilians dead, and because Turkey fears an uppity Iraqi Kurdistan would encourage its own 12 million or so Kurds to rebel.

"We are concerned about the Turkish position," said Pire. "They have no right to have a doubt about the future of the area. I cannot explain why they have suspicions about a free life for the Iraqi people."

And the Turkomen? What's their angle? The Iraqi Turkomen Front and its president, Sanan Ahmet Aga, say they just want equal rights for their people, security and a seat at the political table. And the best way to get that, they feel, is to appeal to their ethnic brothers the Turks to cudgel the Kurds. This way, they can grab more political power than their numbers would normally allow. (Population numbers are pretty fuzzy, considering the last official Iraqi census was in 1957 and the Ba'athist regime routinely used fuzzy math for its own political agenda -- hm -- but I've heard estimates of the Turkomen population that range between 2 percent and 12 percent of Iraq's population -- 500,000 to 3 million people.)

Likewise, the Turks can use the image of the oppressed Turkomen, cowering behind their doors in the face of mortal threat from barbaric peshmergas and in need of Turkish protection, as a reason for them to maintain a military presence in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The Kurds, of course, are having none of that. "Turkey is a regional power and they have interests and they are misusing the issue [of the Turkomen] to express their interests," said Pire. "The Turks speak of the Turkomen. But what happened to the Turkomen in Kirkuk? They weren't targeted."

As near as I could observe, Pire's right on this one. The looting I witnessed yesterday in Kirkuk was pretty equal-opportunity. Homes weren't being looted; government buildings and shopping centers were. A couple of times I saw a kids carrying tables or other office furniture while sporting the crescent-moon-and-stars-on-blue flag of the Iraqi Turkomen Front. They didn't look too worried about their safety.

"Turkey," he said, "is poisoning the atmosphere with their behavior."

But to hear the Turkomen talk, perils lurk everywhere for them.

"We are in danger from the peshmergas," said Salim Otrakchi, a political advisor to Iraqi Turkomen Front president Aga. "Al Jazeera and Arabia TV show them taking all the money from the bank in Mosul."

The ITF wants the Turks to come in, for reasons detailed above, but worries that a small contingent of Turkish officers won't be enough.

"We are for any administration that keeps people safe," said Otrakchi. "But if the Americans can't do it, let another power do it. The Americans are not prepared for this kind of work."

He said the Turkomen were especially worried about Kirkuk because the PUK had promised it would not go into the city with its forces and it did anyway.

At this point, it's probably a good idea just to tell you that I don't believe what anyone is telling me at face value. The Kurds, deep in their hearts, really do want an independent Kurdistan and this talk of federalism is the practical side of Kurdish nationalism. If they thought they could get away with it, they would bolt Iraq and never look back, I think. The Turkomen don't really feel that threatened, but they see the Kurds with their new buddies, the Americans, and worry they'll be left out of any settlement and development plans in the north. So, they're trying to play the Turks off the Americans to keep the Kurds in check. And the Turks ... Well, actually, I believe them when they say they're worried about their security. They're a truly paranoid bunch.

I asked Otrakchi if the reason for Turkomen fears in Kirkuk and Mosul was the Kurds or the general disorder. Were Turkomen being targeted by anyone? Why were they deserving of special protection?

"Our people fear the power groups," he said. "And the peshmergas have the power. No other group has power. This power is not being used to keep people secure."

I said I saw many Kurds and Turkomen together in the park in Kirkuk pulling down the statue. And that I didn't think peshmergas were actually in Mosul, that reports have said they stopped just outside the city while the Iraqi defenders melted away. It was the lack of peshmergas -- or any other authority -- that led to the looting in Mosul turning savage, if the pictures are to be believed. Again, aren't the Kurds just as threatened by disorder and riots as Turkomen?

He asked me to make an appointment and talk to his president on Saturday morning. So I did. Maybe then I'll get a straight answer.

KIRKUK, Iraq -- Kirkuk seemed to take everyone by surprise. With the speed that the Kurds entered the city and the inefficiency of Iraqi resistance. Where are the all the troops? What's happened to the Republican Guard? At the moment, I have no answers to that other than the usual, "they gave up," line I get from Kurdish commanders.

At any rate, we've been told by the KDP and PUK that no journalists are allowed into Mosul or Kirkuk until order can be restored. (The looting wasn't that bad in Kirkuk...) The reason blocking media attenion is the Turks, who have said if peshmergas enter the cities that will be seen as a tripwire for an invasion. Thankfully, that doesn't seem to have happened yet because Secretary of U.S. State Colin Powell smoothed Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan's feathers for now by having U.S. troops take over from the PUK peshmergas in Kirkuk.

Be that as it may, today I'm staying in Arbil to get some reaction to yesterday's emotional events. I'm also going to dig a little deeper on the Turkish issue and talk to the Turkomen group here. I also have a couple of features to research. When I have more to post today (i.e., reaction to the Turks' threats) I will. In the meantime, I'll put up these photos I took yesterday in Kirkuk. Sorry I wasn't able to upload them in real time, but I was on the satellite phone and needed to wait to get back to a faster line.

The remnants of a Saddam mural outside the occupied Ba'ath Party HQ

Kirkukis deface one of the ubiquitous murals of Saddam

The crowd works at pulling down the statue. Note the make-shift American flag in the foreground.

Another shot of the flag-holder and the statue

More later. Perhaps tomorrow I'll be in Tikrit, insh'allah.

KIRKUK, Iraq -- This newly liberated city was a scene of joy and jubilation as the people took to the streets, letting out a collective breath they had been holding for 35 years.

It had been a mostly bloodless capture by the PUK and KDP peshmergas. It started this morning, and the Iraqi defenders just gave up or melted away, leaving the Kurdish fighters -- with U.S. support -- to walk practically unopposed into the city.

By the time I got there around 3 p.m., the looting had begun. A government shopping center was gutted and scorched from fire. Young men walked the sidewalks carrying ceiling fans, chairs and anything else they could pick up and carry off.

But in a pleasant surprise, on the way back to Arbil, the peshmergas had set up checkpoints and were relieving people of looted material. Freydoon and Delshad were both pleased to see this. I was too.

But it seemed the majority of the Kirkukis were in the city's central park where a large statue of Saddam Hussein stood. The scene yesterday in Baghdad was replayed as the crowd noosed the statue with steel cable and pulled it down. There were no American troops to help them this time, and that seemed to suit the Kurds just fine. I'm told the Arabs and the Turkomen of Kirkuk are less than pleased by the Kurds' ascendency, but I couldn't verify that. No one wanted to spoil the day with words of ethnic strife. That can wait.

After the statue was felled, the crowd torched a portrait of Saddam that adorned the main government building. Like the Iraqi regime under the firestorm of the last, lightening-quick three weeks, phoof! It was gone.

Majad, a friend of Delshad's shook my hand warmly and then whispered in my ear, "Saddam, goddammit!" Then he looked and me and grinned like a schoolboy who had just gotten away with something. Then he asked me if the war was over. I didn't understand his question, until Delshad told me that the Kirkukis didn't know about the situation in Baghdad. The paranoia of Saddam's regime was such that no one trusted the radio and they hadn't seen the images of the crowd pulling down the statue of Saddam in the capital because the Iraqis had banned satellite dishes. So isolated was Kirkuk that people begged to use my satellite phone so they could call the outside world. I accommodated as many as I could, but it wasn't enough.

Inside the government building, there was nothing but broken glass on the floor and a defaced mural of Saddam Hussein. Oh, and many, many milling peshmergas. This was their victory and they knew it. There is a light American presence here, outside the city, but inside, the peshmergas are the new sheriffs in town.

And none too soon. People were being executed as recently as yesterday, said Jalal Khoshna, a peshmerga commander who was born in Kirkuk.

"I feel like I am newly born!" he exulted.

The city had been one of the ones hardest hit by Saddam's program of "Arabization," which would displace Kurdish families and give their homes and property to Arab families settled from the south. There are up to 300,000 internally displaced people, as the United Nations clinically calls them. Many of them live in squalid refugee camps outside the Kurdish cities such as Arbil or Suleimaniya.

But in a vivid homecoming scene, Khoshna described how he returned to his family's old home in Kirkuk only to find an Arab family living there. He said they were afraid of him and his troops, but he reassured them they could live there until they found a new home. Then he would like his house back, please.

We're now on our way back to Arbil. I'm collecting my stuff and heading south toward Baghdad. I will post pictures very soon that can tell the rest of today's extraordinary story.

15 MINUTES OUTSIDE OF KIRKUK, Iraq -- The highway to Kirkuk is packed with thousands of civilian vehicles at mid-afternoon today, after news broke that peshmerga had entered this oil-rich city that Kurds have claimed as their own, despite the Turkomen, Arab and Assyrian residents.

The mood is World Cup crazy as people were hanging off trucks and speeding to the city. Armed men stood up in the back of pickup trucks waving the yellow or green flags of the KDP or the PUK, respectively. As we passed, they waved to me and honked, chanting, "America!" On the horizon, however, four thick, black plumes rise up. The faint smell of burning oil was in the air.

I met a B2I reader earlier, djoy, who now says I can use his real name: Delshad Fattah, 33, a former resident of Kirkuk. He came with me to Mosul and was now on the way to Kirkuk with me and Freydoon. I don't think he expected this when he agreed to meet me for tea at 10 a.m.

He said many of the people on the road were going to Kirkuk to loot, and shook his head in sadness. "This is what Saddam has done to my people. He has turned us all into thieves."

We hear news that there is an intifada in Kirkuk. Delshad is a little worried about the conflicts among the different groups now and wonders if we need a weapon.

Along the way, we stop at one of Saddam's old prisons on the road. A peshmerga tells us, when we ask if the road ahead is safe, that we should go ask his commanding officer based in the prison.

Of course there's no such officer but there are about 300 Iraqi soldiers there who have surrendered. They are happy to see me and the two peshmerga guards let me interview them.

They surrendered this morning around 9 a.m., said Motaz, 23. "We know that everything is over, so why fight?" he says. "The leadership is gone, so there is no need." He's a conscript and, like his buddies, glad to be done with the war. This group will be sent to Arbil for processing and then, the guards say, they will be sent home.

The Iraqis say they have been treated well, given good food, cigarettes and tea. They show no signs of mistreatment and even have a jocular relationship with the two guards. These guys have no fight left, if they had any to begin with.

One Iraqi prisoner, Hamid Abdulahussein Karin, tells me he has two brothers in the United States who fled after the first Gulf War. He knows nothing about them and asks me to publish his name in the hope that someone will be able to able. I promise him I will.

"They are too young for this," said Delshad. "They have seen nothing good in this life."

We're close to Kirkuk now, and the smoke is heavy on the horizon. I think it's a refinery, but I don't know. It could be fires in the city. We're going in, as the way seems safe.

AT THE KAZAR RIVER, Iraqi Kurdistan -- The bridge over this river to Mosul has been blown by the Iraqis last night as they retreated back toward Mosul. We're about a 15-20 minute car drive to Iraq's third largest city and a Sunni stronghold. Well, 15-20 minutes if the bridge weren't demolished.

In last night's destruction, the Iraqis also hit a civilian truck, killing the family inside. (See attached pictures.) Kawa Ramadan, a 22-year-old peshmerga, goes on to tell me that Kurdish troops are 10 km beyond this bridge and advancing on Mosul. But we're stuck.

As we're standing there. the contrails of a B-52 looms overhead. Kurdish radio has just announced that Kirkuk has fallen. Off we go.

TAQTAQ, Iraqi Kurdistan -- There is no fighting in Kirkuk tonight. But we still got more than we bargained for.

The evening began with word from Sabah, my translator, that the push for Kirkuk was underway. J. and I, along with his new buddies Rex, Juan Carlos and Jason, were ready to go, especially after Rex had heard of fighting near Chamchamal, close to Kirkuk.

A word about Rex. He's ex-Army Special Forces freelancing for -- no kidding -- Soldier of Fortune. I've never met anyone who read that magazine, much less anyone who writes for it. Rex looked the part, too, striding around the hotel lobby in desert camouflage pants and a flak jacket, hooah! Physically, he's an imposing guy, shaved head, strong jaw. He is Mr. Clean at War.

Once our party was assembled, we headed out to Taqtaq, a town about 35 km from Kirkuk where I had been earlier in the day. Brig. Gen. Rabar Said, the regional commander -- and the one who would know what was going on -- had invited me to stay the night but I had turned him down. Now, I wondered if he had been sending me code, offering me a front-row seat to some action. He was an old friend, after all.

Tearing through the darkened countryside of Kurdistan, we passed several checkpoints where bemused peshmergas told us all the same thing. No fighting in Kirkuk. All quiet. The general is in Taqtaq.

As we arrived at the command post at around 11 p.m., a group of peshmergas greeted us. No, there was nothing happening in the region tonight, they said, and in fact, Said had left the post. There was a party down in the town and he had gone to celebrate the fall of Baghdad. His staff had gone with him.

Hm, I thought. I doubt the Battle for Kirkuk is on when the general staff is partying in the village square. J. agreed. Rex, however, wanted to find the general. Fair enough, as I wanted to go to a party.

When we arrived the village square was packed. Young men or every appearance were dancing to recordings of Kurdish singers but Said was nowhere to be seen. As we got out of our cars, several young men began to approach us. They pressed close and I could smell the sweat on them. They noticed we were American and began shouting, "George Bush!" "I love George Bush!" "Thank you, America!" I began clapping to the music, and they started clapping and applauding. Soon their hands were lifting me and the rest of my party up on their shoulders, hoisting over the crowd. It was a scene of genuine jubilation, which I have never experienced first hand. They treated us like rock stars, grabbing for us. My kafiyah disappeared, only to show up in the hands of an young boy who looked around 10-years-old. He carefully placed it back around my neck.

I was lifted up again, amid cheers of "Amrika! Amrika!" "Thank you!" "We love you!" The raw emotion bubbling up from this mass of Kurdish Iraqis was overwhelming. For the first time in their lives, they no longer felt the threat of Saddam Hussein hovering over their heads on mountains just a few kilometers away. And they found Americans in their midst. Jubilation doesn't do it justice.

I was disoriented, turned around, I couldn't get them to put me down. People were slapping my back, shaking my hand. And they were everywhere, everyone yelling out "George Bush!" They began kissing me in thanks. I tried to get out of the crowd, and noticed J. and Rex still up on the shoulders of the youths. They were having a ball.

Sabah grabbed my hand and got me into Freydoon's taxi. He had to shove people out of the way. I just tried to catch my breath. Faces and hands pressed against the windows, still shouting thanks to me. I gave them a thumbs-up and smiled, as I had been doing the whole time.

I was uncomfortable being in that flesh-press, welcoming as it was. I felt like I had become the story and my presence made it impossible for me to report or take photographs. I was glad they were happy, though, and felt honored that they would share their emotions with me. But I was glad to be out of the mosh pit of love, and on our way back to Arbil.

Tonight was a night for celebration. Saddam's government seems to be kaput. I just wanted to get to bed.

ARBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan -- I returned from the front today south of Taqtaq near Chamchamal to a party. Arbil was celebrating from the images from Baghdad. Crowds have taken to the streets in the capital and were helping pull down statues of Saddam Hussein. I had the feeling that I was witnessing an event that would provoke the kind of emotion in Iraqis that the fall of the Berlin Wall did to the world in 1989.

"We are very happy for what is happening in Baghdad," said Salah Hussen, 36, as he watched al Jazeera among a crowd on the street. "We are sorry for the innocent people who are killed and we hope this is finished as soon as possible."

"But we don't hope for anything happy for Saddam," he added.

Interestingly, and this ties back to the Jornalists' Union's statement yesterday, but there is palpable anger at al Jazeera in Kurdish country, and the pre