I Lost My Love in Baghdad
Read I Lost My Love in Baghdad Online
Authors: Michael Hastings
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Copyright © 2008 by Michael Hastings
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Scribner Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2007049806
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-6116-3
ISBN-10: 1-4165-6116-1
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To
ASP
forever
Violence and progress coexist in Iraq.
âGeneral George W. Casey, former U.S. commander of Multi-National Forces Iraq
Me and you and you and me No matter how they toss the dice, it had to be.
â“Happy Together,” 1967
In such dangerous things as War, the errors which proceed from a spirit of benevolence are the worst.
âCarl von Clausewitz,
On War
This book is my own personal interpretation of events. Some names have been changed for security reasons, others for reasons of privacy. A full list of altered names is included at the end of the book, along with an explanation of my sources.
âMH
Andi wakes up Wednesday morning in Baghdad. She takes an hour to get ready. She showers, brushes her teeth, and thinks about placing a Crest whitening strip on her smile. She eats only a Zone bar, high nutrition, and drinks a bottle of Ocean Spray cranberry juice from her small refrigerator. Her room is in the Ramal Hotel off Karrada Street on the fourth floor. It is a two-star establishment pretending to be four-star. Lots of gold and dark reds. There is only a single bed in her double room; she asked for the second bed to be taken out to make space for her yoga mat. The drapes on her window overlooking the compound are always closed. She puts on her jeans, a long-sleeved white button-down shirt, and a navy blue blazer. She checks her email on a laptop with a wireless connection, sends a message to her friend in New York, giving advice on relationship troubles. She grabs her black bag and folder with pen and paper. She closes and locks the door.
Andi walks down the four floors, says good morning to the owner of the hotel, who stands behind the front desk in a suit. She waves at the boy who cleans her room and brings her room service, light meals of hummus and tea. She steps around the metal detector at the hotel entrance, checks to make sure she has her mobile phone, then steps out into the isolated world of her compound. It is a self-contained fortress: two barely functioning hotels facing each other across a narrow, closed-off street, an entire city block taken over by the organizations that live and work inside the compound.
There is sun today, a clear sky, but at this hour it is still chilly. Her office is inside the compound, protected from the main avenue by checkpoints and tall concrete walls. It takes her only a minute to walk there. She passes about a dozen vehicles, some armored white SUVs, others armored sedans, parked underneath an awning. She arrives at her desk about 9
A.M.
She has a trip planned for this morning, her first in her new job at the National Democratic Institute. Compound life can be stifling, and she is looking forward to getting out into the city. She sits down and calls her interpreter, who tells her the meeting is still on. The interpreter will meet her at the Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters in Yarmouk, a neighborhood on the other side of the city. She calls the head of security, telling him she'll be ready to go soon. The security team is waiting outside, four European private security guards and three Iraqi drivers.
Across the Tigris River, other men are preparing for her arrival. A few of them were up earlier, most likely for prayer. They have names, though most don't use them. They are cousins and brothers. They drink chai and start to move to their cars. They stash weaponsâAK-47s, grenades, and a heavy machine gunâin the trunk of an orange and white Opel. They load up two more cars.
The leader's cell phone rings. The ring tone is an Islamic prayer he downloaded from the Internet. The rest of the men are used to it, they know it is his phone. He gets confirmation.
She is coming. She is blond, American. They even have a name.
Andi sends a few more emails from her desk, typing quickly. She takes off her blazer and leaves it on the back of a swivel chair. A coworker wishes her good luck. She turns, smiles, says thanks. She doesn't turn off her laptop and the screen saver kicks in a few minutes after she goes outside. Her private security guard opens the door of the BMW sedan. The sedan has B-6-level armor, which is supposed to stop bullets. She gets in the car, and they leave the compound, traveling quickly through the morning traffic. There is a tail car and a lead car, nothing unusual. The traffic circles are snarled. Iraqi police fire shots in the air instead of using their horns.
It takes her convoy twenty minutes to get to the headquarters of the Iraqi Islamic Party. It is now 10:30
A.M.
Another phone call to the leader from his contact. The same ring tone. She has arrived. The orange and white Opel heads toward Yarmouk.
The meeting is off to a slow start; her interpreter is running a little late. Andi jokes and talks about the weather, about a story in the
New York Times
, about how she isn't able to get out of her compound much. One of the men she is there to meet refuses to shake her hand because she is a woman. Two security guards are with her in the room. The others wait with the cars in the parking lot. Glasses of chai are served. The interpreter, a young Iraqi woman, finally arrives and apologizes for being late. She was held up at a checkpoint, she says, a bomb scare, the typical morning.
They get on with the meeting. The purpose is to discuss how the Iraqi Islamic Party can effectively get their message out to the media. They are an important political party in the new government; the head of the party is one of the country's three vice presidents. It's also a chance for Andi to meet the politicians she'll be working with over the coming month, part of a training program the National Democratic Institute has set up to assist the Iraqi government in building a functioning democracy.
It is now 11:30
A.M.
The street outside the headquarters begins to empty. Traffic disappears; shop owners decide it is time to take a break. The street kids are nowhere to be seen.
The men are now in position. A machine gun is set up on top of a building. The rest of the men, nearly thirty of them, all carrying weapons, hide in alleys and shops along the street.
12
P.M.
The meeting ends, goodbyes are said, cards exchanged.
Andi walks out to the parking lot. The three cars have their engines running. Her security guard opens the door to the sedan, the second car, and she gets in.
12:07
P.M.
The first car drives out of the Islamic Party's compound and heads down the street. The driver and guard don't notice anything wrong. The route looks clear. There is no traffic, no one in the streets.
Thirty seconds later, her car follows.
Andi is sitting in the backseat.
