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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
At the conference center, I met U.S. aid officials and explored the center's labyrinthine halls, which turned out to be home to all kinds of activity -- meetings, press conferences and people simply hanging out -- a mixture of U.S. military, Agency for International Development and State Department officials, private contractors and consultants, journalists, and Iraqis of all stripes. Even MCI has an office there as the company was contracted to supply the CPA with mobile phone service in Iraq.
A training session was underway for the future Iraqi Facilities Protection Service. Its forces will guard government offices, ministries and other buildings in Iraq, and they will carry arms. Their deployment, it is hoped, will dampen some of the security-related fears of many Baghdadis while freeing up U.S. forces for other duties.
I walked into a lecture hall where a U.S. soldier was onstage with an Iraqi translator, demonstrating different security principles to a crowd of about 50 Iraqi young men. The session proved fascinating and after introducing myself to the U.S. officer in charge -- Staff Sgt. Heydenberk -- I was invited to stay and observe the training.
The sessions last two full days and are followed by a graduation ceremony. U.S. officers and soldiers -- all remarkably young men -- lead the sessions with the help of Iraqi translators. Heydenberk said that he designed the course himself, which covers security procedures, defense, detecting suspicious behavior, ethics and human rights, and other subjects.
It wasn't clear to me what the Iraqi recruits learned from the training, but they certainly found it amusing. I found it to be both arrogant and naive. The U.S. instructors were fond of repeating phrases like "I know there is a lot of corruption in Iraq, but we can fix it together" and "Do not be late. Always be on time." At one point during the session covering gender relations, the U.S. soldier leading the class picked an Iraqi recruit from the audience to play the part of a woman in a role-playing exercise. Onstage, in front of his colleagues, the Iraqi man was asked to pretend to cry and be in need of help.
At the end of the skit the U.S. soldier says, "It doesn't matter if the female is ugly, pretty, tall or short. You must think of her as your mother or sister." Needless to say, for the Iraqi males the exercise was painfully awkward. At another point in the session, an African-American soldier talked about "blacks," "whites" and racism. On the day I happened to be in the audience, the Iraqi trainees, bemused, interrupted the instructor and asked the translator to explain to the American soldiers that "in Iraq, we do not have these problems." Throughout the two-day course the U.S. soldiers made the Iraqi recruits repeatedly yell the word "professional"-- in English and in a loud, booming military voice -- as if somehow this would transform the recruits into well-trained, competent security guards. If the CPA believes that this type of training will help address Iraq's security dilemma, that repeatedly yelling "professional" will help hold fear at bay in Baghdad, they are delusional -- and Iraq has a very serious problem.
After the day's session, I decided to walk around the city, get a meal, and go back to my hotel. At one point I passed about 150 demonstrators holding signs in both English and Arabic protesting unemployment. The demonstrators were positioned in front of a heavily guarded facility, most likely a government ministry, with U.S. soldiers standing watch.
After observing the protest, I took a cab to Saddoun Street, one of the city's major thoroughfares, where I had a mediocre meal of kebab, salad, rice and 7 Up for 6,750 dinars, the equivalent of three dollars and some change. I spent the rest of the afternoon looking in stores and speaking with merchants. And all along the way, I couldn't help but notice the profusion of goods for sale. Because of regular electricity outages and refrigerators that are rendered useless, ice merchants did a brisk business on the street, loading big cold bricks into the trunks of waiting cars. Elsewhere, there was an incredible variety and volume of consumer goods. In contrast to the days of sanctions under Saddam, there were refrigerators, toaster ovens, satellite dishes, television sets (with a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger prominently displayed on the box), microwaves, fans, washers and dryers, air conditioners, power generators, bicycles and even gas heaters on display in front of the stores, for those who could afford to pay.
The rest of my day and evening were uneventful: a walk to my hotel, sending and receiving e-mail at the Internet cafe, dessert at a local ice cream parlor, and then an evening beer by the hotel pool.
The next day, I got up early and went to the conference center for appointments and a second day of the U.S. military training session for the Facilities Protection Service. After eating lunch with the Iraqi recruits (we were treated to MREs -- meals ready to eat -- by the U.S. soldiers), I left the conference center to again walk on Saddoun Street, which had proved so rewarding the previous day. After just 24 hours in the country, I was growing accustomed to the security situation. I was moving around Baghdad without too much hassle and becoming comfortable there -- despite all of the talk of crime, violence and insecurity.
I had just purchased a cold drink from a street vendor and was making small talk when we heard a thunderous explosion. It sounded like several loud blasts in short succession. I didn't know whether it was an intense gunfight with heavy artillery or something else because the sound was not that of a single, continuous blast. People began rushing in the direction of where they believed the noise came from, an alley off Saddoun Street. Everyone was focused on the direction of the blast. People in nearby buildings looked out their windows and others got on their balconies to try to determine what had happened. For a moment, everything came to a stop and my heart was racing.
