NP- Back to Iraq Blog

[Ghetta Life]

Thought I'd pass along this blog by a Time reporter in Baghdad, Christopher 
Albritton.  His take on the current situation there shows how bad things 
really are now.  This really is becomming another Vietnam, and here at home 
too many people are just getting tired of the bad news...

http://www.back-to-iraq.com/

September 14:

"I don’t know if I can really put into words just how bad it is here some 
days. Yesterday was horrible — just horrible. While most reports show 
Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra as “no-go” areas, practically the entire 
Western part of the country is controlled by insurgents, with pockets of 
U.S. power formed by the garrisons outside the towns. Insurgents move freely 
throughout the country and the violence continues to grow.

I wish I could point to a solution, but I don’t see one. People continue to 
email me, telling me to report the “truth” of all the good things that are 
going on in Iraq. I’m not seeing a one. A buddy of mine is stationed here 
and they’re fixing up a park on a major street. Gen. Chiarelli was very 
proud of this accomplishment, and he stressed this to me when I interviewed 
him for the TIME story. But Baghdadis couldn’t care less. They don’t want 
city beautification projects; they want electricity, clean water and, most 
of all, an end to the violence.

And in the midst of all this violence, most of the Iraqi Interim Government 
is out of town. Security Advisors, heads of important ministries and the 
chief of the new Mukhabarat are all mysteriously absent. The Iraqi security 
forces are a joke, with the much talked about Fallujah Brigade disbanded for 
being feckless and — worse — riddled with insurgents who were being paid and 
trained by the U.S. Marines.

Thousands of Iraqis are desperate to get a new passport and flee the 
country. These are often the most educated Iraqis — the have the money to 
get new passports and travel — so the brain-drain will accelerate.

The poor and the disenfranchised are finding their leaders in the populist 
and fundamentalist Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr or in the radical Islam of 
the jihadis, who are casting a long shadow on this formerly secular country. 
Iraq has its own home-grown Wahhabists now, something it didn’t have 18 
months ago.

In the context of all this, reporting on a half-assed refurbished school or 
two seems a bit childish and naive, the equivalent of telling a happy story 
to comfort a scared child. Anyone who asks me to tell the “real” story of 
Iraq — implying all the bad things are just media hype — should refer to 
this post. I just told you the real story: What was once a hell wrought by 
Saddam is now one of America’s making."


Ghetta

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