NP - Back to Iraq Report

[Ghetta Life]

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

Bumps in the Road

BAGHDAD—The Americans have killed two Iraqi journalists inside of a week. 
One was killed Friday and I just heard news of the other. I know a lot about 
the first death, but at the request of his family, I can't publish much 
because his widow fears retribution for her husband having worked for a 
Western news organization. But he was killed with a single shot to the head 
by Americans in a passing convoy.

[UPDATE 30/6/05 11:33 +0400 GMT: The journalist I mention above is Yasser 
Salihee, who worked for Knight Ridder. The full story is available here. As 
Tom writes in the copy, "Knight Ridder didn't previously report on Salihee's 
death because his family was worried about reprisal from insurgents, who 
often target Iraqis working for Western organizations. The family's wish to 
have Salihee's story told now outweighs those concerns."]

[UPDATE 29/6/05 10:38 +0400 GMT: Sorry for the harshness of my above words. 
I wasn't trying to say that the first Iraqi journalist was killed by 
Americans for being a journalist. There is no evidence that he was killed 
for anything but being near a convoy and being in the wrong place at the 
wrong time. However, a single shot in the head does suggest he was 
definitely targeted and not the victim of a lucky shot.]

I think the Americans have gotten a lot more trigger-happy and twitchy after 
the campaign of car bombs and other violence that has gripped Iraq for the 
last, what? Five weeks? Six? I've lost track. I can't tell anymore what 
headlines from the Associated Press listing the number of dead are new 
bombings or just updated casualty figures from earlier in the day.

“We have a choice now,” said A., my gruff, scotch-drinking office manager, 
confidant and mentor in all things Iraqi. “We can be killed by Zarqawi or 
the Americans.”

Since returning, it feels like I'm listening to the same record I've been 
listening to for a year, only with the volume turned up. Donald Rumsfeld, 
the American Secretary of Defense, says U.S. is winning the war and that the 
media are focusing too much on bad news. I know this because the press 
releases from the American Forces Information Network tell me so:

<<Progress in Iraq Takes Back Seat to Violence in Media, Rumsfeld Says
By Petty Officer 3rd Class John R. Guardiano, USN
American Forces Press Service >>

<<WASHINGTON, June 26, 2005 – The “solid progress” being made in Iraq seldom 
gets the same level of media attention as terrorist killings and beheadings 
there, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today. >>

<<“The fact of the matter is that the progress has been solid,” Rumsfeld 
told George Stephanopoulos on the ABC News program “This Week.” >>

<<The secretary said the American people can be optimistic about a good 
outcome in Iraq, but the optimism must be tempered with an understanding of 
reality. “We have to recognize that it's a tough, tough, tough world, and 
there are going to be bumps in the road between now and then,” he said. >>

“Bumps in the road”? Just earlier today, presumably before the Iraqi 
journalist was killed, an Iraqi member of parliament was killed in a car 
bomb attack. I can't even begin to tell you how many Iraqis have been killed 
in the weeks I was away. And how many more Iraqis, journalists or otherwise, 
will die because the Americans can't tell who's friend or foe? Those aren't 
“bumps in the road.” Those are signs that you went off the road without a 
map a long time ago.

Where do you even begin combatting the head-in-the-sandism, brazen 
propaganda and revisionism of the above release. (By the way, it's about the 
fourth or fifth one I've received in the last few days touting the same 
theme, apparently in concert with President Bush's push to let Americans 
know that everything is going hunky-dory.)

News flash: Iraq is a disaster. I've been back one day, and the airport road 
was the worst I've ever seen it. We had to go around a fire-fight between 
mujahideen and Americans while Iraqi forces sat in the shade of date palms 
on the side of the road, their rifles resting across their laps. My driver 
pointed to a group of men in a white pickup next to me. “They are 
mujahideen,” he said. “They are watching the Americans.” Indeed, they were, 
and so intently that they paid no attention to me in the car next to them. 
We detoured around two possible car bombs that had been cordoned off while 
Iraqis cautiously approached.

Rumsfeld's assessment of “good progress” on the constitution is not 
accurate, as the committee to draw it up still hasn't completely agreed on 
how the Sunnis will take part.

When I was in Ramadi, I found the morale to be lower than expected. It 
wasn't rock-bottom among the Marines of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine 
Regiment, but it wasn't great. Most of the ones I talked to weren't 
confident they were doing anything worthwhile, and were instead focused on 
getting home alive. If a few Iraqis had to die to make that happen, well, 
war is hell.

I'm not sure who's winning this war, the Americans or the insurgents. But I 
know who is losing it: the Iraqi people. Those bumps in the road are their 
graves.

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