From Baghdad: A Wall Street Journal Reporter's E-Mail to Friends

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From Baghdad

A Wall Street Journal Reporter's E-Mail to Friends

by Farnaz Fassihi*

 

Iraq is a " disaster " that has deteriorated " into a

raging barbaric guerilla war " that will haunt the

United States for decades.

 

 

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 away lands, discover their ways and tell stories that

could make a difference.

 

Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those

reasons. I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to

and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and never

walk in the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat

in restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look

for stories, can't drive in any thing but a full armored car, can't go

to scenes of 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, feeling. And can't and can't. There has been

one too many close calls, including a car bomb so near our house that

it blew out all the windows. So now my most pressing concern every day

is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure our

Iraqi employees stay alive. In Baghdad I am a security personnel

first, a reporter second.

 

It's hard to pinpoint when the 'turning point' exactly began. Was it

April when the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it

when Moqtada and Jish Mahdi declared war on the U.S. military? Was it

when Sadr City, home to ten percent of Iraq's population, became a

nightly battlefield 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 has been transformed to 'imminent and active threat,' a

foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to

come.

 

Iraqis like to call this mess 'the situation.' When asked 'how are

thing?' they reply: 'the situation is very bad. "

 

What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn't

control most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each

day around 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 are 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 that the ministry of health -- which was attempting an

exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers -- has now

stopped disclosing them.

 

Insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a day.

 

A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr City yesterday. He said

young men were openly placing improvised explosive devices into the

ground. They melt a shallow hole into the asphalt, dig the explosive,

cover it with dirt and put an old tire or plastic can over it to

signal to the locals this is booby-trapped. He said on the main roads

of Sadr City, there were a dozen landmines per every ten yards. His

car snaked and swirled to avoid driving over them. Behind the walls

sits an angry Iraqi ready to detonate them as soon as an American

convoy gets near. This is in Shiite land, the population that was

supposed to love America for liberating Iraq.

 

For journalists the significant turning point came with the wave of

abduction and kidnappings. Only two weeks ago we felt safe around

Baghdad because foreigners were being abducted on the roads and

highways between towns. Then came a frantic phone call from a

journalist female friend at 11 p.m. telling me two Italian women had

been abducted from their homes in broad daylight. Then the two

Americans, who got beheaded this week and the Brit, were abducted from

their homes in a residential neighborhood. They were supplying the

entire block with round the clock electricity from their generator to

win friends. The abductors grabbed one of them at 6 a.m. when he came

out to switch on the generator; his beheaded body was thrown back near

the neighborhoods.

 

The insurgency, we are told, is rampant with no signs of calming down.

If any thing, it is growing stronger, organized and more sophisticated

every day. The various elements within it-baathists, criminals,

nationalists and Al Qaeda-are cooperating and coordinating.

 

I went to an emergency meeting for foreign correspondents with the

military and embassy to discuss the kidnappings. We were somberly told

our fate would largely depend on where we were in the kidnapping chain

once it was determined we were missing. Here is how it goes: criminal

gangs grab you and sell you up to Baathists in Fallujah, who will in

turn sell you to Al Qaeda. In turn, cash and weapons flow the other

way from Al Qaeda to the Baathisst to the criminals. My friend

Georges, the French journalist snatched on the road to Najaf, has been

missing for a month with no word on release or whether he is still alive.

 

America's last hope for a quick exit? The Iraqi police and National

Guard 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 U.S. military has allocated $6 million dollars to buy out

30,000 cops they just trained to get rid of them quietly.

 

As for reconstruction: firstly it's so unsafe for foreigners to

operate that almost all projects have come to a halt. After two years,

of the $18 billion Congress appropriated for Iraq reconstruction only

about $1 billion or so has been spent and a chuck has now been

reallocated for improving security, a sign of just how bad things are

going here.

 

Oil dreams? Insurgents disrupt oil flow routinely as a result of

sabotage and oil prices have hit record high of $49 a barrel. Who did

this war exactly benefit? Was it worth it? 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. Guess what? They say they'd take security over freedom any

day, 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.

This is truly sad.

 

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

importance of voting. He said, " President Bush wanted to turn Iraq

into a democracy that would be an example for the Middle East. Forget

about democracy, 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 it from its violent downward spiral. The genie of terrorism,

chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result of

American mistakes 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 other half, the disenchanted population is too terrified to show

up at polling stations. The Sunnis have already said they'd boycott

elections, leaving the stage open for polarized government of Kurds

and Shiites that will not be deemed as legitimate and will most

certainly lead to civil 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 degree elect a leadership. His response summed it all: " Go and

vote and risk being blown into pieces or followed by the insurgents

and murdered for cooperating with the Americans? For what? To practice

democracy? Are you joking? " 29 September 2004

 

* Farnaz Fassihi, a Wall Street Journal reporter sent this report as

an e-mail to friends -

 

 

WSJ EDITOR BACKS IRAQ SCREED

By KEITH J. KELLY

New York Post - September 30, 2004 -- Wall Street Journal Editor Paul

Steiger has come to the defense of his beleaguered Baghdad

correspondent, who blasted the war in Iraq as a " disaster " that has

deteriorated " into a raging barbaric guerilla war " that will haunt the

United States for decades.

 

" Despite President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster, "

Wall Street Journal reporter Farnaz Fassihi wrote in a group e-mail to

friends that inadvertently became widely posted on the Web.

 

Yesterday, the e-mail was mentioned prominently on the journalism blog

by Jim Romenesko on the Poynter.org site.

 

Steiger said Fassihi's missive included " a few expressions of purely

personal opinion about the situation there. "

 

But the Wall Street Journal editor said the musings in no way

distorted his reporter's ability to deliver fair coverage from Baghdad.

 

In her e-mail, Fassihi laments, " Being a foreign correspondent in

Baghdad these days is like being under virtual house arrest. "

 

Fears of abductions have sharply curtailed reporters ability to cover

events or move about.

 

" My most pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass story

but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive. In

Baghdad I am a security personnel first, a reporter second. "

 

She also said the " Iraqi government doesn't control most Iraqi

cities. " She said there are car bombs, assassinations, kidnappings and

beheadings. " The situation, basically, means a raging barbaric

guerilla war. "

 

Steiger said: " Ms. Fassihi's private opinions have in no way distorted

her coverage, which has been a model of intelligent and courageous

reporting, and scrupulous accuracy and fairness. "