A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal (37 page)

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Authors: Asne Seierstad,Ingrid Christophersen

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #General, #Editors; Journalists; Publishers, #History, #Military, #Iraq War (2003-2011), #Language Arts & Disciplines, #Journalism, #Social Science, #Customs & Traditions, #Sociology

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- Are you thinking of changing hotels? Nina Owing asks.

- No, where to? We cannot stay where we want. This is the only hotel available. Battles are raging around the two others we were initially offered.

- So what will you do?

- We’ll wait and see what happens.

Then the Swedes, the Danes, the Finns, the Dutch and the Canadians phone.

- France 3 has pictures.

Remy pops in en route to their offices on the fourteenth floor. They are editing the photos ready to send them around the world. All morning the TV crew had been following the campaign through the districts where the ministries were located side by side. For ten minutes immediately before the bang, France 3’s cameras were focused on the three Abrams standing on al-Jumhuriya. The cameras captured the moment when the middle tank suddenly turned its cannon towards the hotel. A flash of light, a bang and Hotel Palestine shook. The missile hit the floor above France 3. The experienced Ukrainian cameraman Taras Protsyok was filming the three tanks from the balcony. He was hit in the stomach by concrete and glass shards, as was the Spanish cameraman José Couso from Telecinco. He was standing on the balcony next door and his leg was cut clean off. Three Reuters employees were hit in the face, legs and neck by shrapnel.

American HQ stubbornly insists that the tanks were fired on from the hotel. In the first briefing General Vincent Brooks says that the soldiers replied to an attack from the lobby. That would have been a physical impossibility. The lobby faces away from the bridge. Later the general says that was a slip of the tongue and that the tanks were attacked from a position in front of the hotel. The commander of the third infantry division’s second brigade then says that the crew returned fire because they had seen the enemy’s field glasses pointing at them. A dozen TV lenses and cameras had been following the fighting from the hotel balconies.

No one had seen men with weapons or heard shots fired from the building. The pictures from France 3 were proof of that. - If there had been shooting from the hotel the cameras would have caught the sound, says the photographer.

Hotel Palestine is a landmark in Baghdad. - They will never attack this hotel; after all, Americans live here, an Iraqi woman surrounded by her children had assured me.

But that is exactly what the Americans have done. In the subject box I write: ‘Missiles against the cameras’. Someone knocks on the door. Josh stands out in the corridor, a bottle of whisky in his hand. His face is wet with sweat. And tears. He sits down on my chair and cries. Sobs. I sit on the bed.

- My friends are dead.

Josh repeats himself again and again. The big man is wet through. His face is swollen, dissolved in tears. He had been standing on the lower roof, where the cameras were positioned, when the missile hit. Everyone had dropped to the floor when they heard the whistle.

Josh had rushed up the stairs. Well trained in first aid from his army days, he’d hoped he could do something to help.

- When I arrived there was blood everywhere. I rushed and got my first-aid kit. Bandages, I called. Bandages! We must stop the flow of blood. But they just continued to carry them out to the lift, into the lift. It took ages. They lost more and more blood. I couldn’t do anything. They died in my arms. I had my first-aid kit but I could do nothing. Nothing. Helpless, helpless, helpless.

Josh shakes. His tears flow. He has forgotten the glass of whisky in front of him.

- Taras died on the way to hospital, José a bit later. Paul will be OK, and the two others. I should have bandaged them. But I just couldn’t get at them. I could have saved them!

- Josh. It is not your fault that they died. They died because of the missiles; American missiles.

I try to comfort him. Desperate eyes look at me. I walk round the table and put my arms around him, worried that he might break down altogether, that he will not last the course. We remain sitting by the round table. Until today Josh has been the comforter and encourager. Now it is my turn. For a long time I sit and stroke his back. It is late afternoon, twilight is approaching. I have written no more than the title. To catch the deadline I will have to continue. But my friend is sitting here. I say carefully: - Josh, just stay here. But I . . . I’m sorry, I must start to write. Sorry.

He is staring vacantly at me.

- Do stay here while I write, I say again, and realise how hollow it sounds.

- No, I’ll go now. We have a transmission.

The big man gets up and leaves. The technician. The voice in the ear of the reporter during live broadcasts. The voice that connects studio to reporter. The backroom boy who no one sees, no one hails, who never achieves fame and honour. Who suffers all that we suffer, the same dangers, the same traumas, but who never reports them. He has to store them in his head while he adjusts the satellite in order that the signal might reach the London studio and in order that someone else might vent their impressions.

When I have sent the story I prepare to report for the TV news. I dig the helmet out of the cupboard. White, hard, heavy. I put it on for the first time and hurry down the stairs.

- The helmet is crooked, says the technician and tightens the strap. We start the transmission.

- The whole building shook, I tell Christian Borch of
News Night
. Bloody blankets . . . smashed cameras . . . three killed . . . tanks shooting . . . memorial . . . shock . . .

- What is the situation in Baghdad this evening?

- Planes circle overhead . . . bombing in the distance . . . the battles continue.

Out of the corner of my eye I spot David reporting from his position to Sky News. We both talk about what we have seen, heard and experienced, me in Norwegian, he in his polished Queen’s English. It pours out of us. We transform the incident into short, concise sentences.

- We will leave you there, Åsne Seierstad in Baghdad.

As though synchronised, David and I take out the ear-pieces.

- That’s really cute, David calls from his position.

- What?

- White! It’s white!

- What?

- Your helmet. It suits your golden locks!

Some helmets are navy blue. Some green, some black.

- Yours is the only white one, he compliments me.

I look over at Josh. He stares hard in the other direction. Now that the transmission has come to an end he sits down on a stool and lights a cigarette.

The spotlights on the roof are pointing at us. Everywhere else is pitch-black. It feels unreal, like being on a floodlit ship. The roof is like a sparkling deck, surrounded by glowing lanterns. We don’t know what the surrounding darkness hides. Nor what our surroundings will look like when we wake in the morning. Where will we be then? What will the view be? A new sensation grips me and settles in my stomach - dread.

Next morning the rats have deserted the sinking ship. Uday, Kadim, Mohsen - all gone. Gone too are the men who sat and chain-smoked behind the table with the cardboard sign. Gone are the uniformed Baath Party men. Gone are the guards, the police.

The hotel manager paces the reception. - We have been left to our own devices, without guards, without weapons.

The toughest among us have already been out. They report that the Americans have taken Saddam City, that they are being received like heroes, with flowers and flags, that looting has started in the wake of the Americans’ entry.

Over the whole city police and security guards have vanished into thin air. Armed gangs roam the streets, smash windows, loot shops, schools, public buildings. But they are, to a certain extent, cautious, there is no talk of mass-looting - yet. The roads around the hotel are deserted.

- They’ll be here soon, they’ll be here soon, the hotel manager chants. - They know that journalists live here, that they are unarmed, that they have masses of money. Thousands of dollars. Like mobile treasure troves - unprotected. Woe betide us, they’ll be here soon.

He advises us to hide computers, telephones and money. Remy helps me to find a hiding place. In the tiny corridor between my room and the bathroom some roof tiles are loose. He dismantles them and shoves everything in. Now what?

I remain on the ship. I dare not venture into town. I can’t risk being caught in crossfire. Having heard Yves’ remarks, the most foolhardy thing to do would be to drive around with Amir. The Americans might think we are suicide bombers. I sit on my bed and twiddle my thumbs, trying hard to convince myself that one does not go into a town where an invading army are fighting their way to the centre; where one does not know where the frontline is. I walk out onto the balcony. Deliver a report of all I haven’t seen, just heard. The only thing I have seen is that the Iraqi soldiers have disappeared. Today, the more daring become my private news agencies. I dawdle around the hotel, popping out to the rumour-mongers on the flagstones outside.

- Mohsen tried to leave the hotel in Yves’ car. But Yves had let the tyres down!

- Portuguese TV has been beaten up in Sadoun Street. They took everything!

- That happened to Sanja too!

- Who?

- The Bulgarian. The one who is making a documentary.

- Uday went around the rooms yesterday collecting money. He threatened to throw people out if they didn’t pay!

- That devil never got anything from me!

- He collected thousands of dollars.

- Both airports have been taken.

- My interpreter is gone.

- And my driver.

- There’s no one serving breakfast this morning. I’m dying for a glass of tea.