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Saturday, Jul 11, 2009
Right after the fall of Baghdad, hundreds of desperate disbanded troops asked me -- a middle-aged journalist -- to give them jobs. That's when I knew everything was going terribly wrong.
Nov 23, 2004 | When people ask me what went so wrong in Iraq, as they frequently do after learning that I reported from there early in the war, I offer a glib reply: "Let me tell you about the day I almost led the Iraqi army." Then I commence my very strange story, one that never fails to amuse, bewilder and ultimately dishearten anyone who has ever wondered why combat that was supposed to end on May 1, 2003 -- you know, "Mission Accomplished" -- still rages with no end in sight.
After a 375-mile taxi ride from Basra, Iraq, I found myself in Baghdad on May 1, squinting in the bright morning sunshine, when I noticed that my war correspondent credential had also expired, as if everything would be over by Pentagon fiat the same moment a flight-suited President Bush touched down on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. But within days I was writing about the frustration of our thinly spread troops, who felt helpless to prevent rapes, kidnappings, looting and gunplay in the streets. Not only was the social order fraying rapidly, but Iraqis complained vociferously about the lack of relief supplies, electricity and clean water.
In several hospitals, sobbing mothers presented their dying children to me, blaming America for empty promises. The kids were dehydrated from easily treatable diarrhea brought on by contaminated water. But medical supplies, rationed Soviet style during Saddam's time, had run out; there wasn't even propane gas to boil water for drinking.
One of the first things you learn upon visiting an Arab home is the enormous value placed upon hospitality. Yet we invaded a sovereign country, but didn't bother to bring gifts. If we could pull off the Berlin airlift, I wondered, why couldn't we get 1,000 electrical generators and 100 water trucks into Baghdad? No official I talked to offered a good explanation.
Despite the euphoria in the White House over Iraq's liberation, on the ground I kept hearing this refrain: "It was better under Saddam." Given my opinion of the dictator, that was shocking to hear -- but I had lessons to learn about Arab pride and Iraqi culture. "Many young people I know cried when his statue fell," a student in her mid-20s told me as we talked by candlelight inside her apartment. (She was afraid to venture outside for fear of rape.) "He was Baba Saddam -- Father Saddam -- and he was all we ever knew."
Because U.S. postwar planning was so meager, Iraqis who wanted to help the Americans often found nowhere to turn. The coalition haughtily -- and foolishly -- ensconced itself on Saddam's old palace grounds (it's now called the Green Zone), where few Baghdadis would ever willingly tread, and fewer still wished to brave checkpoint after checkpoint to enter. Filling crucial civilian-military assistance and liaison roles were Special Operations reservists, some thrown into the chaos with little or no expertise in their assignments. I recall meeting an aircraft specialist in civilian life who was suddenly, according to the logic of the U.S. Army, supposed to run a water-purification plant.
In those confused days, I met a thin, mustachioed former Baghdad cop who'd been leading pro-democracy marches near the Palestine Hotel. A Shiite who had run afoul of Saddam's intelligence forces (and bore torture wounds as a result), Lt. Sabih Azzawi told me he had tried four times, without success, to convey intelligence about the whereabouts of the still at large Iraqi dictator. Azzawi, who maintained many connections among police and military officers, wanted to help U.S. troops secure the peace and invited me to meet a group of Iraqis of the same mind.
On May 8, I joined him at a looted officers club downtown, where disbanded Republican Guard and regular Iraqi army troops had been gathering for days, lured by rumors that the U.S. government wanted to put them back to work. That morning I slung my U.S. House and Senate press badge around my neck -- big mistake. Thinking I'd come to offer jobs, pensions and back wages, upward of 200 angry soldiers, bellowing that they'd been duped and betrayed by President Bush, besieged me and my translator.
"If the American government will not solve our problems, the Iraqi army will fight, and we don't care if half of them die," shouted a squat, bald colonel named Salem Yassin. "We cannot wait for a long time. We can all organize again -- as suicide attackers or whatever." Bara Kamel, who had built guided missiles for Saddam, warned in response, "You will create terrorists." Over and over, the officers encircled me, backed me up (sometimes menacingly) and made these points: "This isn't the result we deserve! We walked away and didn't fight as you asked! We followed your orders!"
Hotheads in the mob called for an immediate march on the occupation headquarters. Lt. Azzawi, whom they picked as their leader, climbed atop a crate to calm the crowd. He insisted I join him. My translator, Naseer Nouri, a burly ex-Iraqi Airways flight engineer, could barely hear me above the bellowing officers, but he shot me a glance suggesting I should take the offer. I had no military experience, no idea what to say, but somehow it made sense to be in an elevated position with Azzawi. So I climbed on my soapbox and repeated the few Arabic words I knew: "Sahafa Amirikya." American reporter. "Jareeda." Newspaper. Just here to get a story!
But the call came back: "We need orders!" Which, of course, is what all good soldiers crave.
"Should we march, Mr. Richard?" Azzawi asked me. Here was a dilemma I'd never faced before and certainly never would again. I'd earned a measure of respect from the men, if only because I was polite enough to hear and write down their grievances. (And bear in mind, they had no idea what a free press was -- many probably thought I was taking their names for the rumored jobs list.)
Certainly I couldn't give orders, not to this ex-enemy army or any other. But I could provide a bit of basic P.R. advice. "Do you have protest signs?" I asked Azzawi. "Do you have a petition? You need a plan. If you just show up, the Americans will have no idea what you want. If you march unannounced, you might end up getting shot."
I advised him and his followers to postpone the march for a few days, prepare some signs in English, and alert the Arab TV networks of their goals and demands. Just make sure everyone referred to it as a "peaceful march," I said. Maybe I had crossed some sort of line, but I looked at it this way: Ostensibly, my country had invaded their country to give them democracy. I was just teaching the Iraqis a lesson in how to petition and peaceably assemble.
After the crowd dispersed, my translator flashed a huge grin. "Mr. Richard," he said, "today you commanded the Iraqi army!"
"Naseer," I told him, "please do me a favor. Never tell anybody about this."
