www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=72659
Farnaz Fassihi Subject: From Baghdad Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under virtual house arrest. Forget about the reasons that lured me to this job: a chance to see the world, explore the exotic, meet new people in far a way lands, discover their ways and tell stories that could make a differ ence. Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those re asons. I leave when I have a very good reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and never walk i n the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in restau rants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for storie s, can't drive in any thing but a full armored car, can't go to scenes o f breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are saying, doing, f eeling. There has been one too many close calls, in cluding a car bomb so near our house that it blew out all the windows. S o now my most pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass stor y but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive. In Bag hdad I am a security personnel first, a reporter second. It's hard to pinpoint when the 'turning point' exactly began. Was it Apr il when the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it when Moq tada and Jish Mahdi declared war on the US military? Was it when Sadr City, home to ten percent of Iraq's population, became a nightly bat tlefield for the Americans? Or was it when the insurgency began spreading from isolated pockets in the Sunni triangle to include most of Iraq? Despite President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster . If under Saddam it was a 'potential' threat, under the Americans it ha s been transformed to 'imminent and active threat,' a foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to co me. What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn't contro l most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each day arou nd the country killing and injuring scores of innocent people, the country's roads are becoming impassable and littered by hundreds of landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill American soldiers, there ar e assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings. The situation, basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war. In four days, 110 people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone. The numbers are so shocking tha t the ministry of health -- which was attempting an exercise of public t ransparency by releasing the numbers -- has now stopped disclosing them. A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr City yesterday. He said young men were openly placing improvised explosive devices into the ground. T hey melt a shallow hole into the asphalt, dig the explosive, cover it w ith dirt and put an old tire or plastic can over it to signal to the loc als this is booby-trapped. He said on the main roads of Sadr City, there were a dozen landmines per every ten yards. Behind the walls sits an angry Iraqi ready to detonate them as soon as an American convoy gets near. This is in Shiit e land, the population that was supposed to love America for liberating Iraq. For journalists the significant turning point came with the wave of abduc tion and kidnappings. Only two weeks ago we felt safe around Baghdad be cause foreigners were being abducted on the roads and highways between towns. Then came a frantic phone call from a journalist female friend at 11 pm telling me two Italian women had been abducted from their home s in broad daylight. Then the two Americans, who got beheaded this week and the Brit, were abducted from their homes in a residential neighborh ood. They were supplying the entire block with round the clock electrici ty from their generator to win friends. The abductors grabbed one of the m at 6 am when he came out to switch on the generator; I f any thing, it is growing stronger, organized and more sophisticated e very day. The various elements within it-baathists, criminals, nationali sts and Al Qaeda-are cooperating and coordinating. I went to an emergency meeting for foreign correspondents with the milit ary and embassy to discuss the kidnappings. We were somberly told our f ate would largely depend on where we were in the kidnapping chain once i t was determined we were missing. Here is how it goes: criminal gangs gr ab you and sell you up to Baathists in Fallujah, who will in turn sell y ou to Al Qaeda. In turn, cash and weapons flow the other way from Al Qa eda to the Baathisst to the criminals. My friend Georges, the French jou rnalist snatched on the road to Najaf, has been missing for a month with no word on release or whether he is still alive. The Iraqi police and National Guar d units we are spending billions of dollars to train. The cops are being murdered by the dozens every day-over 700 to date -- and the insurgents are infiltrating their ranks. The problem is so serious that the US mi litary has allocated $6 million dollars to buy out 30,000 cops they jus t trained to get rid of them quietly. As for reconstruction: firstly it's so unsafe for foreigners to operate t hat almost all projects have come to a halt. After two years, of the $18 billion Congress appropriated for Iraq reconstruction only about $1 billi on or so has been spent and a chuck has now been reallocated for improvi ng security, a sign of just how bad things are going here. Insurgents disrupt oil flow routinely as a result of sabotag e and oil prices have hit record high of $49 a barrel. Are we safer because Saddam is holed up and Al Qaeda is running around in Iraq? Iraqis say that thanks to America they got freedom in exchange for insecurity. They say they'd take security over freedom any da y, even if it means having a dictator ruler. I heard an educated Iraqi say today that if Saddam Hussein were allowed to run for elections he would get the majority of the vote. Then I went to see an Iraqi scholar this week to talk to him about elections here. He has been trying to educate the public on the importan ce of voting. He said, "President Bush wanted to turn Iraq into a democ racy that would be an example for the Middle East. Forget about democra cy, forget about being a model for the region, we have to salvage Iraq before all is lost." One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. For those of us on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any thing could salvage i t from its violent downward spiral. The genie of terrorism, chaos and ma yhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result of American mistak es and it can't be put back into a bottle. The Iraqi government is talking about having elections in three months while half of the country remains a 'no go zone'-out of the hands of the government and the Americans and out of reach of journalists. In the oth er half, the disenchanted population is too terrified to show up at pol ling stations. The Sunnis have already said they'd boycott elections, l eaving the stage open for polarized government of Kurds and Shiites tha t will not be deemed as legitimate and will most certainly lead to civi l war. I asked a 28-year-old engineer if he and his family would participate in the Iraqi elections since it was the first time Iraqis could to some deg ree elect a leadership. His response summed it all: "Go and vote and risk bei ng blown into pieces or followed by the insurgents and murdered for coop erating with the Americans?
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