Category Archives: Iraq

Welcome back, habibi

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BAGHDAD — Ehlen w’sehlehn, as they say here. (“Wel­come.”) To which I should prob­a­bly reply, “Thanks… I think.” I’m back in Iraq’s cap­i­tal after two and a half months away, and in that time I faced upheavals in my per­sonal life, and three weeks in Beirut. The two are more or less unre­lated. But Bagh­dad is almost exactly the same as when I left, despite the fact that there’s been a mon­u­men­tal elec­tion here — the full import of which has yet to be felt.
Well, it’s not exactly the same. I’ve been back a day and I’ve already received an ear­ful on the high price of petrol: 250 dinars for a liter as opposed to 20 dinars it was in the sum­mer of 2003 and the 30 dinar or so it was when I left in mid-November. Fuel sub­si­dies are being lifted and peo­ple are feel­ing the squeeze.
If only there were fuel for the city’s power sta­tions. Elec­tric­ity is down to about two hours a day in Bagh­dad, doled out in fits and spurts of 15 mins or so at a time. Some­times, glo­ri­ously, we get a solid hour, but it’s rare. Gen­er­a­tors pick up the slack, and since you have ris­ing fuel costs, you start to see the dou­ble squeeze that poor Iraqis are feel­ing.
Add on to that inces­sant guerilla attacks on the country’s oil infra­struc­ture that has left exports _below pre-war levels_ and there’s no money com­ing into the gov­ern­ment. Insur­gents have hit upon pipeline sab­o­tage as a means to cut off Baghdad’s fund­ing, so no mat­ter what the com­po­si­tion of the gov­ern­ment — when it’s finally done — it won’t be able to do much. So the new gov­ern­ment, which is still being nego­ti­ated, will prob­a­bly be viewed with the same resent­ment as the cur­rent Jaa­fari gov­ern­ment does, except we’ll be stuck with these guys for four years now.
Speak­ing of the gov­ern­ment, word is that the United Iraqi Alliance list, dom­i­nated by Shi’ite reli­gious par­ties and thought to have the bless­ings of Grand Aya­tol­lah Ali al-Sistani, is dead­locked over who will be their can­di­date for the prime minister’s office. Ibrahim al-Jaafari, of the Da’wa Party, wants to keep the job, but cur­rent vice pres­i­dent Adel Abdul Mahdi (of the rival SCIRI party) is favored by oth­ers in the coali­tion. The Kurds are will­ing to sup­port who­ever will legal­ize their hold on Kirkuk.
The ques­tion is what will the Sunni groups do. Ally with the UIA in a national unity gov­ern­ment? Cleave to Iyad Allawi’s rump bloc in the hopes of cre­at­ing a viable oppo­si­tion? We’ll see.
The mood here among reporters, I think, is grim. Jill Carroll’s kid­nap­ping is still unre­solved, despite hope­ful rumors of her release soon. Those, so far, have gone unre­al­ized.
I arrived yes­ter­day and today did lit­tle other than get my bear­ings and plan some sto­ries with the other reporters. Tomor­row will be taken up with more logis­tics and media cre­den­tialling busi­ness. Wednes­day, I sit down in the Sad­dam Cir­cus, or should I say, “Trial.“
On the way in from the air­port yes­ter­day, I counted more mar­riage con­voys than I had in months (three.) Why? Because tomor­row is the start of the Islamic new year and the begin­ning of _Muharram ul Haram_, the month in which reli­gious Shi’ites refrain from mar­riage or other cel­e­bra­tions. (It must suck to have your birth­day this month.) So, every­one was try­ing to get their last-minute wed­ding plans in. In 10 days, we’ll be faced with Ashu­rah, the mark­ing of the mar­tyr­dom of Imam Hus­sein. Iraq’s Shi’ites in Najaf and, espe­cially, Kar­bala, mark it with bloody parades in which they beat, cut and fla­gel­late them­selves in a sign of grief for the death of Hus­sein. It’s going to be a tense month, for while fight­ing is gen­er­ally frowned upon dur­ing this month, Salafist/Wahabi Mus­lims con­sider the Umayyed Caliph Yazid, who sent the army that killed Hus­sein and his fol­low­ers, a right­eous fig­ure while Shi’ites nat­u­rally detest him. In other words, the poten­tial for vio­lence is high.
Yes, Bagh­dad is the same as always. As the tagline to “Jar­head” goes, “Wel­come to the Suck.”

Returning to Iraq

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BEIRUT — I have been on a long break, the longest since I moved to Bagh­dad in May 2004, but it is soon to end. I will be return­ing to Iraq at the end of this week, looks like, assum­ing my pass­port issues get resolved here at the embassy. (It’s noth­ing seri­ous, just wait­ing on extra pages and a sec­ondary pass­port.)
With the kid­nap­ping of my friend, Jill Car­roll, and the loom­ing year, I can’t say that return­ing fills me with any­thing approach­ing joy. It’s not that I’m more afraid because of Jill — I’m used to the kid­nap­ping threat now — but I’m faced with the prospect of lock­ing myself up in a com­pound or embed­ding, nei­ther of which is a par­tic­u­larly pleas­ant work­ing envi­ron­ment. It’s grim in the Hamra com­pound these days, from what I hear from my remain­ing friends.
And also, I won­der just how many more times I can go through see­ing a friend on TV sur­rounded by gun­men. Of course, that doesn’t even begin to com­pare to what Jill’s fam­ily is going through. It’s just that I’ve seen it so often: “James Brandon”:http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/2004/08/james_brandon_r.php, Michah Garen, “John Martinkus”:http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/2004/10/my_friend_the_k.php, “Marla Ruzicka”:http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/2005/04/our_heart_and_c.php and “Rory Carroll”:http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/2005/10/rory_carroll_is.php (no rela­tion), just to name a few of the 36 jour­nal­ists kid­napped I know per­son­ally. More than 60 jour­nal­ists have been killed, includ­ing Enzo Bal­doni and “Steven Vincent”:http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/2005/08/steven_vincent.php. Iraq is a damn dan­ger­ous place.
Any­way, I’ll be back later this week and more reg­u­lar blog updates should com­mence shortly after. I also have fig­ured out how to do a radio show using iChat and Garage Band, so A., my office man­ager and I will be tak­ing ques­tions, once I get the final logis­tics set­tled. These “mor­tar side-chats” will then become reg­u­lar pod­casts, _inshallah_.

The Hamra’s Been Hit

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BEIRUT — I’ve heard from friends that my hotel com­pound in Bagh­dad has been hit by two car bombs in an almost iden­ti­cal attack as the one that hit the “Pales­tine Hotel com­plex on Oct. 24″:http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/2005/10/three_car_bombs.php. The first car bomb “vapor­ized” the blast walls on the back cor­ner, but left so large a crater that the sec­ond bomb couldn’t get through. The dam­age was thus mod­er­ated.
That’s of lit­tle solace to the fam­i­lies of the six Iraqis who died. One of them may have been a guard for the com­pound, and the rest seem to be Iraqis who lived in an apart­ment build­ing on the out­side of the wall. Casu­alty reports are still a lit­tle fuzzy, how­ever. One of my friends told me that the foot of one of the bombers landed at the front steps of the hotel.
This will send shock­waves through the journo-tribe in Bagh­dad. I would not be sur­prised to see sev­eral orga­ni­za­tions decid­ing that Bagh­dad is no longer safe enough to work and pull out. Or they may move to the Green Zone, join­ing _Newsweek_ and the _Wall Street Journal_.
This is exactly “what I feared would happen”:http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/2005/10/a_thousand_deat.php, fol­low­ing the Pales­tine attacks.
*UPDATE 10:41 AM NOV 19:* Here are links to some of the sto­ries from my friends:
* “Blast Also Shat­tered Illusions”:http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-hamra19nov19,1,177409.story?coll=la-iraq-complete _The Los Ange­les Times_
* “Reporter Cried, Feared She’d Die”:http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/world/13209166.htm From my friend Leila, who speaks of the fear that Iraqis feel every day has come to our com­pound now.
* “Woken By Yet Another Blast”:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/19/wirq119.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/11/19/ixnewstop.html
* “Noth­ing Can Pre­pare You”:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0„7374 – 1878427,00.html From friend Cather­ine Philip, who also men­tions the cost borne by inno­cent Iraqis.
There is already some move­ment among the reporters to raise money for the fam­i­lies who were affected.

Embedded in Anbar

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CAMP DELTA, al-Karma, Iraq — Must make this one short and sweet, as I’m run­ning of of bat­tery on my lap­top, but since Thurs­day evening, I’ve been embed­ded with the 2nd Bat­tal­ion, 2nd Marines of the II Marine Expe­di­tionary Force sur­round­ing the gar­risoned town of Fal­lu­jah. I’ve not yet had a chance to get into the city proper yet, as the 2 – 2 doesn’t oper­ate there (that’s the 2 – 6 and 2 – 7’s area of oper­a­tions) but al-Karmah is an inter­est­ing lit­tle town.
It’s just to the north of Fal­lu­jah and Camp Delta, home of Fox Com­pany, is nes­tled in between Fal­lu­jah and al-Karmah next to the old Oil-for-Food ware­house. (It’s now an alleged stag­ing area for the insur­gents in the area who reg­u­larly poke their heads up and take pot­shots at the Fox Com­pany.)
I just want to share some notes and obser­va­tions I’ve made over the last two days.
*Fri­day, Octo­ber 28, 2005*
For the short drive to Camp Delta just across a half-hearted stream from the town of al-Karma, the Marines of Fox Com­pany ride only at night. They do this to min­i­mize the IED threat, says Capt. Mike Estes, the com­pany com­man­der, which is still ever-present almost a year after U.S. troops attacked the rebel strong­hold of Fal­lu­jah and its sur­round­ing towns, such as al-Karmah. Dust and grit pep­per the googles of Fox Com­pany, because they ride in high-backed, up-armored lor­ries instead of humvees.
Ear­lier, Capt. Chad Wal­ton, a spokesman for the 2nd Marines at Camp Fal­lu­jah to the south, said that Fal­lu­jah was closed to the out­side world, with only res­i­dents allowed in after show­ing ID cards that proved their address. The Marines man five entry check­points to the city, turn­ing away any­one who can’t pro­vide the proper cre­den­tials or who­ever they deem sus­pi­cious.
“Obvi­ously, it’s not fool­proof,” says Wal­ton. “But it’s way bet­ter than it was.“
The Marines of Fox Com­pany agree; they talk of dri­ving through the old city with­out hav­ing a shot fired at them. But Fal­lu­jah is thor­oughly occu­pied. Iraqi police and Army take sec­ond stage to the Amer­i­cans, who aren’t shy about show­ing their pres­ence, in con­trast to Bagh­dad where U.S. patrols are almost scarce these days until you get near major instal­la­tions such as the air­port or the Green Zone. The Iraqis aren’t pre­pared to take over secu­rity oper­a­tions yet, and it will likely be years before they can. Is a thor­ough occu­pa­tion what it’s going to take to pacify the restive cities of the Sunni heart­land?
*Sat­ur­day, Octo­ber 29, 2005*
It’s still dark when the Marines of 3rd pla­toon, Fox Com­pany starts out. The idea is to get a jump on their quarry, the leader of a mor­tar team that has been pep­per­ing Fox Company’s base, Camp Delta just south of al-Karmah. The air is cool on the skin and the sun bright­ens the sky from the direc­tion of Bagh­dad. Ahead, date palms are black against the indigo sky, and lush green­ery of reeds, cot­ton­tails, rice, dates and olive trees line the dirt roads.
3rd Pla­toon takes it easy. The com­man­der, Lt. Anthony Carter of Endi­colt, N.Y., doesn’t believe in the brute force method of cordon-and-knock. It’s eas­ier — and more — effec­tive to take a more dis­creet and polite approach, he says. Whereas the U.S. Army excels are roar­ing up in humvees, sol­diers pil­ing out and putting on a show of force, Carter’s Marines instead walk up to the house where they believe Ali Muham­mad Saed, the mor­tar team leader, is liv­ing.
They’re in luck. He’s out front fid­dling with his orange-and-white taxi. He doesn’t seem sur­prised to see him and sits qui­etly while Carter orders all other military-age men in the imme­di­ate neigh­bor­hood to be rounded up and brought to Saed’s house. Soon enough, three men and two boys are brought over and they all squat on the porch of the house. It’s pos­si­bly the most peace­ful and respect­ful raid in Iraq’s his­tory.
“The days of just run­ning in the house are over,” Carter says. “If you flash-bang every house, you’re not mak­ing many friends.“
Saed’s cap­ture is a lucky break, and maybe it will help. Because these days, Fox Com­pany has been catch­ing hell from insur­gents who have been pushed out of the city of Fal­lu­jah and into the sur­round­ing coun­try­side since U.S. forces wrested the city from insur­gent con­trol last Novem­ber. While direct engage­ments are rare — the Marines always win and the insur­gents know it — IEDs and sui­cide car bombs are tak­ing a toll on Fox Com­pany. Since their deploy­ment in July, the 2 – 2 has had 12 Marines killed. Fox com­pany has nine guys out wounded and Carter’s 3rd Pla­toon has had 6 pur­ple hearts awarded — out of a force of 37 guys. Only one of 3rd Platoon’s awards came from being shot. The rest have come from IEDs and car bombs. So numer­ous are incom­ing mor­tar attacks on Camp Delta that body armor and hel­mets are required any­time a Marine goes out­side a build­ing.
“It’s not more vio­lent,” says Lance Cpl. Thomas Cum­mings, 21, of Hori­con, Wisc. “But what is vio­lent is more intense.“
This wasn’t sup­posed to hap­pen. As the polit­i­cal process moved for­ward, embassy offi­cials said all year, the vio­lence should decrease. There would be a cou­pling in increased Sunni par­tic­i­pa­tion and a decrease in vio­lence. But most of the injuries that have befallen 3rd Pla­toon, says Lt. Carter, have occurred since the Oct. 15 ref­er­en­dum.
Just two hours later, the nearby boom of an IED fol­lowed by the rat­tling of gun­fire were a late coda his remarks. An ambush, some­where. Some­one else was catch­ing it today.

A note on Jaysh al-Muhammad

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In a post on alpha­bet city, Robert brings up the idea that Jaysh al-Muhammad, which was involved in the plan­ning of the Pales­tine Hotel attack on Mon­day, was founded by Sad­dam Hus­sein right before the war. He’s sorta right, but there are more details. As usual, it’s more com­pli­cated than just say­ing it’s a cre­ation of Sad­dam.
Just after the war, Sad­dam instructed his sub­or­di­nates to “rebuild your net­works.” These net­works became the core of the insur­gency that included Jaysh al-Muhammad. The major­ity of JAM’s mem­bers are for­mer mil­i­tary men who, by def­i­n­i­tion, were mem­bers of the Ba’ath Party, but that does not mean they sub­scribe fully to the Ba’athist ide­ol­ogy or that they fol­low Sad­dam. They are _generally_ more nation­al­is­tic than Ba’athist, but their ide­ol­ogy is a com­pli­cated mish­mash of Iraqi nation­al­ism and pan-Arabism. (The lat­ter is a plank of Ba’athist ide­ol­ogy, though.) The JAM also attracts money and sup­port from for­mer regime ele­ments and exiles in Syria and Jor­dan because of a) its rel­a­tive effec­tive­ness and b) its sur­face Ba’athist trap­pings.
How do the _jihadis_ such as Zar­qawi fit into this? While Zar­qawi was present in Iraq prior to the war, he was con­fined to the Kur­dish area in the north and was work­ing with Ansar al-Islam, a group mainly made up of Kur­dish salafists and some vet­er­ans of Afghanistan. It was only after the Ba’athist and nation­al­ist insur­gency began to make some gains that they were able to get into the fight. They estab­lished a great deal of momen­tum and have been rid­ing it ever since, strug­gling for con­trol of “the insur­gency” against the Ba’athists and nation­al­ists.
The weapons in this internecine strug­gle are money and appeals to reli­gion. While the Ba’athists can com­mand great sums of cash through old accounts in Syria, Jor­dan and else­where, the _jihadis_ can call on equal funds from the oil-rich sym­pa­thiz­ers in the Gulf states. (I’m talk­ing indi­vid­u­als, not nec­es­sar­ily gov­ern­ment sup­port — but I wouldn’t rule it out, either.)
The _jihadis_ gain influ­ence within the insur­gency by ini­tially pro­vid­ing money and materiel to smaller nation­al­ist groups, but then start lob­by­ing for their new-found ben­e­fi­cia­ries to start­ing being bet­ter Mus­lims. More help, more preach­ing fol­lows, and soon enough, a group of nation­al­ists have grown their beards, stopped drink­ing beer and smok­ing cig­a­rettes and start pray­ing five times a day. What they may have orig­i­nally seen as a strug­gle of national resis­tance has become jihad, with the orig­i­nal lead­ers of the nation­al­ist group either elim­i­nated or pushed aside in favor of more religious-minded men.
This fight over nationalism/secularism and jihad/fundamentalism is hap­pen­ing all over Iraq, not just in the insur­gency. It’s hap­pen­ing in the soci­ety at large and within the Iraqi gov­ern­ment. It’s also hap­pen­ing all over the Mus­lim world, and in many ways is the real war on “terror.”