And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East (10 page)

In less than a week, I had grown almost inured to explosions and fires. Then something new caught my eye from my fourteenth-story perch at the Palestine Hotel—a plume of black smoke snaking hundreds of feet into the sky. Soon I counted twenty plumes rising around the perimeter of Baghdad. The Iraqis had set oil fires in an effort to “blind” satellites and drones taking reconnaissance pictures and trying to locate Saddam.

From March 21st to 25th, Iraqi forces in the southern port city of Umm Qasr put up an unexpectedly strong fight against British and American units, and the Information Ministry seized the battle as a propaganda tool. Iraqi television broadcast footage of American POWs, as well as “dead American, British, and Zionist forces.” (ABC and other US networks did not broadcast the pictures and accused Iraq of violating the Geneva Convention injunction against exploiting prisoners. Al Jazeera and many European networks aired the pictures of the American captives.) Iraqi television also broadcast brief interviews with five American POWs, several of whom were bandaged. One was visibly shaken, apparently looking off camera for instructions, and another was interviewed in bed and in evident pain.

An enormous sandstorm hit Baghdad on March 26, the
largest
asifa
that Iraqis had seen in a generation, covering cars with what looked like orange snow. The black plumes of smoke and the orange-colored air created a surrealistic scene right out of Hollywood.

I was in a tense encounter that day in the al-Shaab section of northeast Baghdad. At least two missiles had hit a downscale commercial district, killing civilians. I was surrounded by an angry crowd shouting,
“Allahu Akbar,”
which is Arabic for “God is greater” but is customarily translated as “God is greatest.”

The demonstrators could see I was a reporter because I was carrying a camera and a notebook, but they didn’t know I was an American. I put on my best Egyptian accent, making sure to pronounce
j
s like
g
s, and used colloquial expressions the Iraqis would recognize from Egyptian TV shows and movies. The toughest barb came from a man who had the Arab genius for rhetorical questions: “If Americans didn’t want to hit civilians, why did they hit civilians?” I suggested the strike was a mistake. All shook their heads, reflecting an attitude common among Arabs. They distrusted the American government but had absolute faith in American technology. For Iraqis who had seen cruise missiles turn corners to hit government buildings, it was inconceivable that al-Shaab could have been an accident.

That night, American and British warplanes finally bombed the Information Ministry. The Palestine now became the press’s HQ—where we broadcast from, where we ate, where we slept. The hotel’s Orient Express restaurant served the same meal every night: overcooked spaghetti with oily tomato sauce, broiled chicken, and soggy stewed zucchini. If this had been a subsistence war zone, I would have been grateful for the meals, but every day I passed markets brimming with ripe tomatoes, eggplant, fresh
meat and poultry, and every kind of fruit imaginable. The Palestine was like a sleepover party with execrable catering, bombs exploding outside, and wary friends. All told at this point of the war, about a hundred foreign reporters, cameramen, and photographers were there, along with fifty minders.

Ali and I had a close call at a telephone exchange that had been destroyed by American bombs. Ba’ath Party members carrying Kalashnikovs surrounded us within minutes. They confiscated my press card and Ali’s papers. To my surprise, the usually shy Ali was defiant, telling them I was a properly credentialed journalist and, by the tone of his voice, that they should buzz off. They said they were going to take us to a police station, and Iraqi security headquarters was the last place I wanted to be at this stage of the conflict.

I protested again that I was an American journalist. “If I see an American here on the streets of Baghdad, I could kill him,” the leader of the group said. I replied that if he killed me, no one would tell the Iraqi people’s story except reporters embedded with US ground forces. Then he asked if I really tried to tell the truth, and I responded with an Arab-style rhetorical question: “If I didn’t want to talk to Iraqis and tell the world what they were thinking, then why would I be out on the streets—in Iraq, during wartime—talking to you?” He was trapped in his own argument. He let us go, and I mumbled to myself,
“Al-hamdu lillah”
—Thank God.

I was sick by now. I hadn’t been getting much sleep, and my stomach—because of stress, the smoke in the air, and generally dirty conditions—was in turmoil. I also had a hacking cough that prevented me from finishing an interview with Tariq Aziz, Iraq’s deputy prime minister. When the session broke up, Aziz handed me a glass of water, which I could barely
hold. “American biological weapon,” I joked to Aziz and his aide. We all laughed and I fell into another coughing fit as they left.

This sort of chummy attitude with officials from an enemy government proved the undoing of Peter Arnett a few days later. He had covered the first Gulf War so was in a better position than any other journalist to report on the invasion. But then he gave an interview to Iraqi state television in which he said the US war plan hadn’t worked and questioned whether the American people supported the war. It was a propaganda bonanza for the Iraqis, and NBC fired Arnett a few hours later. Arnett told me the interview had been a case of bad judgment. “Richard, all I can say to you is be careful.”

I felt badly for Arnett, who was rebuilding his career after he had been reprimanded by CNN in 1998 for a report he couldn’t substantiate that US soldiers in Laos had used sarin gas in 1970 as part of Operation Tailwind. After he left, I was the last American television correspondent in Baghdad. I understood why most journalists left before the bombing began. What I’ve never quite grasped is why the networks didn’t weigh the risks beforehand. Instead they spent millions preparing to cover the war from Baghdad only to pull out at the last minute.

In the days after the sandstorm, I could only
hear
the air war. The bombs thudding around Baghdad were in a blind spot—too far away for me to see, and far out of earshot of the reporters embedded with US troops. The Pentagon said at the time that it was going after the Republican Guards who had encircled the city, but I never felt the military told the full story of the bombings. In all likelihood, many of the Iraqi casualties occurred in these off-camera attacks.

The thunder of the bombs was a constant reminder that it
was just a matter of time before US tanks rumbled down Sadoon Street, Baghdad’s main thoroughfare. I was beginning to worry that my safe houses weren’t really safe. I came across a Sudanese television crew that had escaped the notice of the Information Ministry and had a house only a block away from the Palestine. They said I could stay with them in case of trouble. I wasn’t sure their place was safe either, but it had the virtue of being close and easy to run to.

The power went out in Baghdad on April 3, and the mood of the city changed markedly. Residents finally faced up to the fact that an invading force was closing in. Stores and restaurants were locked tight, and the streets were virtually empty. I tried to stay outside as much as possible because I was nervous that the concentration of Westerners at the Palestine made an inviting target if Saddam decided to take hostages. I went to the market stalls to buy batteries, water jugs, and food, but I wasn’t good for much else. The constant work and stress had left me exhausted. I was so wiped out that I slept through an appearance on
Nightline
. On April 4, I wrote in my journal, “There were many blank looks on people’s faces. Baghdad is now a city without life.” I probably had a blank look myself.

As it happened, April 4, 2003, was a decisive day. The US Army captured Baghdad International Airport after several hours of fierce fighting. Along with Umm Qasr in the south, this was one of the two times that the Iraqis had put up stiff resistance. Hundreds of Iraqis were killed in the fight. The US Army turned the airport into one of its main bases of operations in the capital.

The next day, the Americans conducted “thunder runs” with armored vehicles racing through the city to test Iraqi resistance.

On the morning of April 6, I was awakened by the sound of
breaking glass. At first I thought a bomb had exploded nearby, but then I saw a beam of light showing through a hole in the curtain covering the sliding door of my balcony. Someone had fired a round through my room, probably from street level; I could see where the bullet had lodged in the ceiling. I was confident that no one had been targeting me specifically, that it was just part of the growing mayhem. But I wasn’t taking any chances. I moved from the fourteenth floor to another room I had rented on the twelfth.

Baghdad is divided in two by the Tigris. The US Army captured the western half of the city on April 7 while the Marines were fighting their way toward the eastern half—my half. The army couldn’t cross the Tigris without the Marines because they would be spread too thin and risk getting cut off from the airport from the rear.

The war came to Baghdad most dramatically on April 8. The night of shock and awe early in the invasion had been spectacular, but it had a disembodied character that made it seem almost like going to the movies. On the eighth the military display was every bit as awesome, but the killing was being done by human hands in close combat. Tanks, automatic weapons, attack helicopters, and the A-10 Warthog attack fighter with its terrifying Gatling gun turned a city of 5 million into a battlefield.

The day was notable for two other reasons. It was the end of the Saddam regime as I had known it. Abu Annas and all the other minders left the Palestine Hotel that morning, never to be seen again. Uday al-Ta’e and his mercurial boss, Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, stayed until the end, but they were cut off from the regime and, in al-Sahhaf’s case, detached from reality. It was also the day that the Third Infantry’s tanks fired on the Palestine, killing two cameramen. A subsequent inquiry
cleared the tankers and their superior of any wrongdoing, but I will always believe the decision to fire was reckless. The Palestine was on the Pentagon’s list of protected sites, and the hotel was too far away—approximately a mile—to pose any danger to the tank.

The Marines finally arrived on April 9, cautiously fanning out from their tanks. Within a quarter hour, a crowd of curious Iraqis cautiously approached them. Some of the Iraqis at the front were bare chested and waved their white undershirts to show they didn’t mean any harm.

This group of about two hundred people started pulling down Saddam’s statue. They tied a rope around Saddam’s neck but couldn’t budge the mammoth statue, which was anchored in cement. Two blocks away, a company of Marines watched and waited. Doubtless aware that a large television audience was watching back home, they finally drove a Marine tank rescue vehicle—an armored personnel carrier with a crane to drag away damaged vehicles—to the base of the statue.

Several Iraqis jumped on the vehicle as a Marine looped a chain around the statue’s neck. The atmosphere was electric, almost like a carnival, when the Marines pulled down the statue and Iraqis slapped their shoes on Saddam’s effigy, a profoundly insulting gesture in the Arab world. Ali raced around capturing these iconic images on my handheld camera.

The Marines first covered the statue with an American flag, but quickly understood that this sent the wrong message and replaced it with an Iraqi flag. I put several Marines on camera as the crowd, composed of Shiite Muslims, chanted, “Yes to freedom and the fall of dictatorship!” Freedom and dictatorship fortuitously rhyme in Arabic. But they also yelled, “Remember and love Sadr,”
a reference to an influential Shiite cleric who had been killed by Saddam’s agents in 1999.

I knew at once this was an ominous sign and said so in a live report on ABC: “As for the future of Iraq, about 60 percent of the population are Shiites, and the government of Saddam Hussein was Sunni. The Shiites in this group here are saying they want the next government to be a Shiite government, and they hope the Americans are going to support them. So this will be a tricky maze to navigate during the next period.”

Saddam Hussein was finally hunted down on December 13, 2003. His feral sons, Uday and Qusay, had been killed by US forces five months earlier. I thought it was brave to remove Saddam and his horrific system of government, and I would have considered it just and even noble if it had been the main reason for invading Iraq. He certainly had enough blood on his hands. His regime had murdered thousands—hundreds of thousands if you included those who died in the ultimately pointless and victor-less war with Iran that lasted from 1980 to 1988. Another thirty thousand died in the Gulf War waged by the United States and thirty-three other nations in 1991 to reverse Iraq’s military annexation of Kuwait. But as time passed I grew increasingly skeptical that the United States had a plan to manage Iraq. The Americans arrived with decisiveness and purpose but then seemed to improvise everything else. It was as if there was no plan at all to deal with Iraq after invading it. I was also suspicious of Washington’s changing explanations as to why it went to war in the first place. President Bush’s administration said the primary casus belli was destroying Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, which turned out to not be real but were seized upon by political hawks. The secondary reason offered up was that the war was needed to stamp out the
Iraqi regime’s links to international terrorists, who only arrived in numbers
after
it became clear there would be a US invasion. Later the administration said it invaded Iraq to bring democracy and protect human rights. The casus belli was a moving target.

Back in the States, many people saw the capture of Saddam (he was hanged on December 30, 2006) as the end of the war. What it really was, although few appreciated it at the time, was the end of a chapter. The
war
lay ahead. To the chagrin of the United States—the president and Congress, military leaders, the general public—America would be stuck in Iraq for eight more years and the impact will still be felt for years to come. Saddam was the first of the Arab big men to go. He was knocked off his perch by Washington, which was odd since it was Washington that supported him in the war with Iran and chose not to remove him even after he invaded Kuwait. President Bush decided Saddam Hussein had to go to make way for the fantasy garden of democracy he wanted to plant in the Middle East. Saddam was one of the key leaders, horrible and brutal with psychopaths for children, who’d been holding up the house of the Middle East safeguarded by the United States since World War II. The others: Mubarak, Gadhafi, Ben Ali, and the Assad family, would soon face major challenges of their own. Their fall would unleash the religious fanaticism and ethnic hatred they’d been simultaneously containing and creating because of their horrific mismanagement, brutality, and corruption. The big men had incentives to both contain and maintain a permanent enemy. The dictators claimed that without them in charge, Muslim fundamentalists would take over. It would become a self-fulfilling prophecy.