Dateline Baghdad: Assignment to Iraq
OBFUSCATE, OBFUSCATE, OBFUSCATE
I'm still in regular contact with the people I met in Baghdad during my assignment there last year. Friendships forged under such intense conditions tend to endure given the shared experiences of life under fire, despite the erratic contact that living on opposite sides of the globe imposes.
I had an interesting telephone conversation with J last week, one of the Brits who made my stay in Iraq so much fun. Unlike my parent agency, which recalled me to the UK when the security situation deteriorated, hers kept her out there and she's been working there ever since with just the odd trip back to England to keep her sane.
She says that the situation on the ground there now is worse than at any time since the end of the War and that the close protection teams who provide bodyguard services to British and American staff are no longer prepared to guarantee security along the notorious Qadisiyah Expressway, the 15 mile stretch of road which links Baghdad's Green Zone with BIAP, its airport. When Tony Blair paid a surprise visit to the Green Zone last month, he made the journey by helicopter. It's a move which has now become the defacto means of transport for my friend J and those British and U.S staff still working tirelessly to rebuild the shattered infrastructure, whenever they enter or leave Iraq.
Until recently, the Qadisiyah Expressway betwen the airport and city centre was said to the world's most expensive 'taxi ride' as the CP teams employed to protect Coalition staff charged around £2,750 ($5,108) for the perilous journey. The route has long been the scene of regular attacks and kidnappings by insurgents and security costs have soared in Iraq to reflect the escalating risks for foreign workers. When available, the high-speed drive costs four times more than the £670 that Royal Jordanian charges for a one-way flight from London to Baghdad via Amman. It equates to about £183 a mile compared to 25p a mile for the 2,540-mile flight on the only commercial airline flying to Baghdad.
Royal Jordanian offers two daily 90-minute flights, although times are subject to changes and cancellations, depending on whether the airport is under mortar attack. Known as 'BIAP', the airport is the hub of the US-led coalition's military activities, while the high-security "green zone" is the centre of civilian administration.
What that £2,750 buys you is two armoured SUVs and four Western ex-military bodyguards, usually American, South African or British, packing MP5 submachine guns, M16 rifles and/or AK47 assault rifles. The client rides in one vehicle at speeds averaging 100 mph, while the other, called the "gun car", travels close-by, looking out for potential assailants. Since the beginning of the resistance, this vital route has come under attack from car bombs, suicide attacks, snipers and rocket-propelled grenades. As if to drive the point home, the three Britons killed in one attack last week were targeted as they left the military checkpoint at the Green Zone's Gate 12, which is the entry and exit point for the Qadisiyah Expressway.
J also informs me that the insurgents are using snipers with some success to target people moving around within the Green Zone - unconfirmed reports last week said that two people had been killed in this manner.
All of this should come as no surprise of course, given that many commentators reported last week that "the head of Iraq's intelligence service, General Muhammad Shahwani now puts the number of insurgents at 200,000" The BBC's report stated; "These figures do not represent an insurgency. They represent a war" with "insurgents now outnumbering the number of US troops in country".
Well, fair enough. Except that General Shahwani, appears to have been widely - and literally -misinterpreted. An original translation of the original Jan. 4 interview in Al-Sharq newspaper makes it clear he's talking about the passive support of the insurgency. Christoper Allbritton, the former AP and New York Daily News reporter who is working as a freelancer in Baghdad provides the following translation on his website, Back to Iraq:
What is your opinion about the number of the armed fighters in Iraq? "Officially call them 'terrorists' because they are doing terrorism against the people and they are outside the law, Their number is between 20,000 and 30,000, in all of Iraq, distributed in the Sunni area. And the people who live in this area and emotionally support them, are about 200,000 without offering them money or logistic support. As an example, they don't give any information about their activities if they have this information".
That means those 200,000 do not fight with the fighters? "It’s impossible that the fighters' numbers reach 200,000. These are those who live in the areas where the fighters are active. For example, the right side Mosul is completely out of control and in this area, the terrorists are very active without any announcement about them for the local people, and very often they offer them shelter"
At least the BBC included some of the supporting quotes in its report, putting the soundbite in context. But some other sections of the media - and much of the blogoshpere - seem intent on seeing only what it wants to see and reporting that as fact where Gen. Shahwani's quotes are concerned. Gen Shawani has his own agenda anyway, so just who are we to believe?
Confusion, or deliberate misrepresentaion of the facts?
Regardless of the actual figure, insurgents are engaging U.S and British forces in the worst type of battle - street by street, house by house, and with a faceless ghost of an enemy. BBC reporter Paul Wood was embedded with the US' 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment last month as they undertook bitter street fighting in the battle to capture Fallujah. The 16 minute video report which he filed is a first class example of battlefield reportage and captures perfectly the stress and chaos of house to house combat. Watch it here.
With the planned election date of January 30th rapidly approaching, and no end in sight to the insurgents' attempts to destabalise the whole process, expect further half truths and obfuscation of facts to emanate from the various agencies involved as they attempt to aportion blame with the attendant internecine rivalries that encompasses.
|
|
|
KENNETH BIGLEY: AN ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN?
By nature, I'm pretty relaxed when it comes to risk. After evaluating the options, provided I feel the upside warrants it, I'll put myself in harm's way. I've lived my life according to the maxim that there's no point in arriving at death if you've tip-toed your way there, and I'll accept the consequences. One entry, a million different exits, right? Take your pick.
But even so, there are limits and I'm not averse to tipping the odds in my favour if I can. There's a major difference between 'risk' per se, and calculated risk, and having taken a decision to expose oneself to any form of danger (not necessarily mortal danger - some people take chances which are dangerous to their finanical well-being for example), there are certain devices one can employ to minimise the potential downside.
Like many, I've been following the news of kidnapped British contractor Kenneth Bigley, who was snatched from his home in Baghdad by extremists some 11 days ago now. But having been there myself - living in Baghdad during some of the most intense fighting this year and watching the security situation worsen by the day - I can't help but wonder why Bigley made the choices he did, and in so doing, significantly elevated his chances of becoming a hostage.
Army Escort: A soldier of the Parachute Regiment stands guard over the vehicle in which we've travelled to an incident on the road to Baghdad Airport.
Like many of the British contractors living in Iraq to help rebuild the country's infrastructure, I watched Ken Bigley's impassioned plea for mercy on television last week and felt both sympathy and concern at his plight. But by contrast, even whilst I was in-country there, my chances of attracting the same fate as has befallen him were significantly reduced thanks to a few precautions, all of which were open to Mr Bigley but which he chose not to take. Many of those I've spoken to since have all said the same thing: It would not, could not, have happened to them.
As an example, even before my flight into theatre was booked, I'd been despatched by my agency to undertake a "Hostile Environment Survival Course," designed and run by ex-SAS soldiers to increase my chances of survival whilst living and working in Iraq. Courses such as these teach the tenets required to give those of us with no, or distant millitary experience a fighting chance of surviving life in a war zone. You undertake intel briefings, are talked through various protocols such as evacuation procedures, ways to avoid being followed and how to minimise the possibility of an attack. Weapons handling for the worst-case scenario, how to behave if taken hostage, how to get yourself out of a minefield...together with a lot of what seems like common sense. All of it is designed to increase your chances of staying alive.
Ken Bigley underwent no such instruction. His limited hostile-environment training came from his brother, who had spent many years living in the Middle East. When asked by a neighbour why he had no protection in place, he is reported to have said: "I'm not afraid. You only die once." (Guardian Newspaper).
Upon my arrival in Baghdad and for the duration of my time there, I was accommodated within the high-security area known as the Green Zone, a district around Saddam's Republican Palace on the banks of the Tigris which housed the Coalition Provisional Authority and is now home to Iyad Allawi's interim Government, as well as the Embassies of both the UK and USA. Security within the zone is as close as you can get to water tight meaning that one can walk around in relative safety. Trips outside of its environs were never, ever undertaken without an escort provided by a four man-two vehicle close protection team. These CP teams were provided by Control Risks Group (known also as 'CRG'), which provides bodyguard services for government employees and civilian contractors and numbers the Foreign Office among its clients. It's one of the largest British security companies operating in Iraq with more than 750 staff, mainly drawn from former members of the British Army, SAS and Royal Marines. On the rare occasion I travelled without them, I was accompanied instead by British army soldiers in "snatch wagons" - armoured Land Rovers - providing cover with heavy machine guns and SA80 rifles.
Locked and Loaded: A British Army infantryman, part of Force Protection aims his SA80 out of the window of our vehicle, scanning for potential insurgents as we drive along the road from Baghdad International Airport (BIAP) on our way to the security of the Green Zone. The road to BIAP is a well-known hot-spot, and the scene of repeated attacks by insurgents.
I had to give 24 hours notice for an excursion outside of the zone to allow my CP team sufficient time to recce potential trouble spots and assess the security situation. If they deemed the risk acceptable, the trip was on, but subject to veto by my CP officers at any time up to and including departure if the security situation worsened. Travel was in armoured 4 x 4s (the 'White Fleet'), ordinary SUVs upgraded with amour plating and bullet-proof glass. Each of the close protection officers was armed - with personal sidearms, sub-machine guns and various greandes. The vehicles bristled with electronic equipment - sat-nav, tracking, radios, computers - and regardless of how many times we'd travelled together, I got a briefing before each journey on the who, what, where and when, should anything go wrong.
For almost all of his six-month contract with Gulf Supplies and Commercial Services, a United Arab Emirates-based general services and construction contractor, Mr Bigley had lived in a house in the affluent Mansur area of Baghdad, outside of the prptection provided by the Green Zone. He travelled around in a distinctive standard 4x4 vehicle (unarmoured) and chose to have no security guards of his own.
Relaxed but Alert: One of my CP team, armed with Heckler & Koch 53 SMG establishes guard on the outer cordon of a security detail as I attend a meeting outside of the Green Zone in a suburb south west of Baghdad
Today's Guardian reports one contractor in Basra as saying, "It's an unfortunate situation that chap's in, but I don't know the security measures he had in place. He took an unnecessary risk. We live on camp and travel with green fleet [the British army]. There's no ifs, buts and ands about it. It's company policy, we don't travel without the army. If the army say you don't move, you don't move".
Similarly, had I expressed a desire to live outside of the Green Zone, dispense with my CP team or ignore their advice, I'd have been shipped back to the UK by my agency on the first flight out of Baghdad. As it was, toward the end of my time there, life became almost intolerable with us on lock-down for weeks at a time - confined to the Green Zone, wearing flak jackets and helmets at all times, confined to underground accommodation at night. It was boring, seemingly unending and frustrating as hell, but it meant we stayed alive (although it wasn't without its moments of concern!) .
Self-Portrait: Wearing standard British army helmet and NATO flack jacket on an excursion through one of Baghdad's more dangerous suburbs. Just visible is the pocket containing the armour plate which covers the vital organs and will stop high-velocity sniper rounds.
That didn't happen with Ken Bigley, though. Whether he wanted to live in a house unprotected or not, he shouldn't have been allowed. Given that he knew the risks, it was unbelievably naive of him to have then chosen to do so.
Even the protection of all the security measures we had available was no guarantee of safety - Bob Morgan, one of my associates in Baghdad was killed along with his bodyguard in May whilst travelling to a meeting one morning, just as he had countless times before. It was just another day and doubtless, his CRG team had given him the same briefing he, I and countless others got each time we ventured out. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time - he and British bodyguard Mark Carman died when a rocket-propelled grenade struck their bullet-proof 4x4 about 500 metres from the gate of one of the entrances to the Baghdad coalition headquarters.
In its latest report, Centurion Risk Services, a company that provides training for those travelling and working in danger zones, says of the situation in Iraq: "Safety for any foreigner in Iraq cannot be guaranteed 100%, with or without security guards ...
"The majority of foreign workers in Iraq can leave at any time and should not feel forced to work in the country. Most foreign workers in Iraq are attracted by good salaries, a fact which has to be weighed against the good, safe life you could have back home without the fear of kidnapping, injury or death. It's their personal decision to work in this dangerous environment ... Training in all aspects regarding these issues should be compulsory. Cost should not be an issue."
Whatever the motivation that led Mr Bigley to take the decisions he did, it's hard to see him as anything other than the author of his own, sad misfortune. Everyone in Iraq is taking a risk - it's just that the contractors get paid an awful lot of money to do it. The maxim "act in haste, repent at leisure" was surely never more appropriate.
|
|
|
CLOSE PROTECTION? THE SHADOWY WORLD OF PRIVATE MILITARY COMPANIES
They travel in armoured SUVs, ostentatiously carrying powerful weapons - assault rifles, sidearms, grenades - and they shoot and arrest people just as the soldiers do but minus the uniform and legal status. They're paid around $1,000 a day, considerably more than the regular soldiers or police officers which they used to be, work six weeks on and three off with paid flights home at the end of each tour. The advantage for the US is that their deaths and injuries don't show up on the figures for troop casualties. They are the bodyguards.
Jo Wilding's account of the incident in which four 'contractors' were killed, sparking off the siege of Falluja by US Marines, provides an interesting perspective on the status of these private security guards...
"We arrived back just after the incident in Falluja where the contractors were shot, burnt, mutilated and dragged through the streets. The scenes themselves, on satellite TV in a friend's house, were shocking, all the more so because the dead men were described as civilians.
But what if they were soldiers, armed men who signed up for war and were paid to fight it? They were shot dead in an ambush - what was done to their bodies afterwards was distressing no matter what, but if they were soldiers, they were killed in action. The truth of course is that they were somewhere in between, mercenaries from US firm Blackwater Security, given a contract by USAID to protect contractors".
And it's not just the US government engaging the services of these private armies, operating on the very edges of legality in the shadowy world of close protection. Britain's own Foreign and Commonwealth Office employs civilian close protection officers from UK firm Control Risks Group amongst others to look after its staff and secondees deployed to Iraq. Global Risk International, another British private military contractor has had as many as 1,200 of its personnel in Iraq making it effectively the sixth-largest contributor to the Coaliton Forces. Most of its uniformed troops are either Nepalese Gurkhas or demobilised Fijian soldiers.
I must admit, I hadn't given the concpet of being provided with my own close protection team a great deal of thought prior to my arrival in Baghdad, other than pondering on the motivations of someone who felt their life, should it come to it, was worth less than mine. After all, as a last resort, a bodyguard's role is to protect his principal's life with his own. And in the strange reality that is life within the Green Zone, I soon got used to the men who, looking like extras straight from central casting, arrived at my accommodation each morning to escort me through Baghdad to wherever my assignments took me. It was only later, upon my return that I paused to consider the deeper implications - both legal and moral - of governments using hired guns.
With soldiers still having to battle insurgents and defend themselves, the job of protecting everyone else in Iraq - from journalists like myself, engineers and those involevd in the country's reconstruction to government contractors to the US' head of the CPA, L. Paul Bremer - is largely being done by private security companies. It's believed that as many as 30,000 former soldiers, special forces personel, police officers - and anyone else with the right skills - are working for private security firms in Iraq. With Blackwater charging its clients between $1,500 and $2,000 per day for each close protection officer - and even I attracted a team of four, plus two two armoured SUVs for each excursion - it's clearly a lucrative business.
And being effectively inside of a war zone, there is a blurred line between close protection work and combat operations - battling it out alongside, or in support of, regular soldiers as happened in Al Najaf whilst I was in Baghdad. Within hours of that incident, rumour were rife that the defence of the CPA compound in the town had been handled not by regular troops, but by a team of eight CP officers from Blackwater Security. The Washington Post was on to the story pretty quickly.
There exists an uneasy relationship between the various subcultures of close protection officer in Iraq, and I witnessed a diverse range of nationalities and abilities working for different agencies. Senior officials representing the British Governemnt in Iraq such as Sir Jeremy Greenstock or Christopher Segar are protected by the professionals - members of the army's Royal Military Police close protection squads. The rest of the British contingent in Iraq are looked after by armed civillians under contract to private security companies. The British contingent from CRG were for the most part, extremely professional, courteous and low profile. Most were drawn from the various branches of the UK military, with a number of ex- Royal Military Police close protection officers amongst their number. I met at least two who were serving police officers with firearms experience and who had resigned from the police specifically to take up positions in Iraq. They were under no illusions about the longevity of the role, taking the money and flirting with the danger for as long as it was worthwhile.
The Americans on the other hand - especially those looking after Bremer himself - were the polar opposite - loud, brash and arrogant. They wore a de facto 'uniform' which although it was of their own choosing, looked to have been formed by common consent from a depot of Banana Republic. They parade around wearing Oakley sunglasses, wearing flak jackets and vests laden with ephemera - radios, grenades, spare cartridges and magazines - curly wires trailing to their ears whilst they cradle automatic weapons aggressively in front of them. Beige cargo pants, held up by a gunbelt bearing a personal sidearm seemed to be the order of the day and their attitude made them no friends, especially amongst the soldiers and journalists who their work often brought them into contact with.
"They act like they're God's gift to combat operations" complained one soldier to me, "Swanning around with weapons and equipment every bit as powerful as anything in our armoury, but without any of the legal framework that we have to work within. They're rude, aggressive and to be honest, their attitudes piss us guys off so I dread to think how the Iraqis view them".
And with the security situation in Iraq worsening, and the number of civillian staff seconded there increasing, the demand for close protection officers in theatre is rising daily, bringing with it its own problems. As word spreads amongst army units about the relative wealth and benevolent working conditons available to CP Officers, many soldiers are seeking to cut short their careers for the money and glamour of life in the private sector. But as the demand increases, firms are finding themselves with a requirement they can't meet, and the temptation exists for a relaxation of standards to meet demand. Sure, there are the special forces guys, the ex intelligence service people, and the cream of the infantry regiments. But there are also those too old, those too young, and those simply too gung ho to be effective. And of far greater concern, working in a country with no legal framework and outside of the direct payroll and control of government, who is responsible for ensuring that they are up to scratch?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
The legal position, as if it's of any import, is unclear. Not being regular soldiers, they don't qualify for the protection of the military parts of the Geneva Conventions. Not being unarmed civilians, they are not covered by the Fourth Convention relating to non-combatants, either. Nor could they be classified accurately as spies or intelligence agents. Perhaps the new category invented by the US for its prisoners of war from Afghanistan might be appropriate: Unlawful Combatants?
In almost every case, CP officers are ex-soldiers, trained at taxpayers' expense in the skills which governments are finding so valuable and which are being charged back to them at two to ten times the former rate. It's massively more expensive for governments to use private military companies than the conventional forces they have available, but then the political cost tends to be so much lower - private contractors killed in Iraq tend to attract far less media and public attention than conventional soldiers on active duty so the political cost is lower to policy makers and governments fighting a losing battle with an increasing percentage of voters who oppose the conflict.
Against that background, private military companies' involvement in future conflicts looks assured.
|
|
|
IRAQ FOR THE IRAQIS
I've been doing a lot of soul searching since I returned from Baghdad, in part trying to derive an element of order from the sensory overload I experienced in country. But there's been another force at work too, a peeling back of the layers which formed my belief that we were just and right in going to war in Iraq - and it's left me asking questions of myself, too. What I saw there, what I heard and learned has left me with one inescapable conclusion - we don't belong there.
The one question asked of me time and again since I returned is, "Has it changed you?" and I can't deny the obvious truth that it has. Already sceptical of beliefs, this assignment has deepened my sense of cynicism and left me questioning the very basis of my judgement - how could I have been so wrong?
I've taken away with me a deep and enduring respect for the Iraqis and a far greater appreciation of Islam and the various aspects of the Muslim religion. Where before was ignorance, I now have understanding - and a belief that the similarities between Islam and Christianity are far greater than the divisions that separate us.
I've come away with an appreciation of the dynamics that dictate life in Iraq post-Saddam, and a sense of what it is like for both the Iraqis, and those US troops in Baghdad who have been sent to 'keep the peace' there. The individual troops that I spoke to displayed a far greater understanding and empathy for the plight of the Iraqis than I had perhaps anticipated they would judging by the US' policy as a whole.
The overriding feeling amongst soldiers on the ground there is that they are involved in a fight which they should never have started. I thought maybe the first few comments along these lines were a local anomaly; but no. It's an attitude prevalent amongst most coalition troops who have had enough contact with the Iraqi population to form an opinion. They like and respect the population as a whole and they bear no animosity to those fighting against them.
So what do I believe?
Nobody is going to spill any tears over Saddam's removal from power and the destruction of his regime. But what led the US, a nation which had previously supported that regime, to prosecute a war against it in the first place? That Saddam was a 'bad' man as George Bush so memorably opined in one TV interview? Sure he was. But so too are many other dictators in central and South America if we want to look on the US's own doorstop - cast the net further afield - to Africa perhaps, or the Far East - and there's a veritable smorgasbord of bad-ass, corrupt despots and tyrants ruling cowed populations through murder, nepotism and genocide.
Why Saddam? Oil?
Perhaps.
Because the US is losing Saudi Arabia and it needs a foothold in the strategically important Middle East?
Definitely
Because the US is the world's self-appointed policeman and it could?
And why not?
Does it matter anymore? In the short term, no - and history will be a far more objective and perhaps harsh judge of George and Tony than any contemporary commenator, anyway. Besides, at this juncture, the reason is academic, it doesn't matter to the average Iraqi. The average Iraqi wants only to get on with life, wants to pick up the pieces and get on with day to day stuff like working, earning money, going to the shops without risk of being shot.
But that's old news. We came, we saw and we conquered. You'd think the Iraqis would be climbing over themselves to thank George and Tony and welcome the tens of thousands of gun-toting soldiers and mercenaries of the coalition forces with open arms, wouldn't you? Er...no, actually. Because whilst the visible signs of Saddam's rule such as the countless murals and monuments to his self-aggrandisement are largely gone, the physcological legacy of his presidency is proving a little more troublesome to erase. The Iraqis it seems, simply don't want us there.
"We need a strong man - that's what all Iraqis believe. Everyone is going in different directions and it simply weakens the country", says Lt. Hamid Shakar, a 35-year old officer in the new Iraqi police force.
Saddam's divide and conquer regime brutalised many and left deep scars across the population but millions of average Iraqis who were of no direct threat to his regime led tolerable lives. To those people he was a force for Iraqi and Arab nationalism and a leader who commanded order. The result was a life that was predictable and relatively secure.
There's something a little ironic about a 200 year old nation attempting to impose its own brand of democracy and civillity on the 5,000 year old cradle of civilisation through the use of force. Forget the moral arguments for a moment - what makes you think that democracy is necessarily right for a region ruled with an iron fist from the days of Harun Rashid, the ninth century caliph credited with building Baghdad into the world's richest city? This blueprint persisted through centuries of brutal rule until the UK wrested control from the Ottoman Turks in 1921 and installed a puppet monarchy on an undesiring population. The result of that debacle was one of the bloodiest uprisings in the country's history which saw both monarch and prime minister murdered by the people and the ascent to power in 1968 of the Ba'ath Party.
In the eyes of Iraqis such as 29 year old journalist Laila, (above), the Americans haven't exactly set a good example. "They can't keep order", she says, "They don't communicate what they're doing to the Iraqi people and they can't even seem to provide the basic infrastructure necessary for us to live a normal life". Indeed, it's difficult to see how the Coalition Provisional Authority can even appreciate the issues facing the average Iraqi when so many of its members have never even set foot outside of the relative sanctuary of the 'Green Zone', so pervasive is the culture of fear fostered inside its environs.
I came across members of the CPA on my recent visit who despite having been in Iraq since last June had yet to venture outside of the 4km square area surrounding the CPA HQ at the Repulican Palace. It's an unreal existence and it presents a skewed frame of reference to anyone not prepared to venture into the world beyond.
The average American is fiercely proud of being American, despite their country having one of the modern world's shortest histories. Imagine how proud, how strong then is the heart beating within the chest of the average Iraqi whose national culture and history predates that of most of what we consider to be the civillised world's. The Iraqis are a wonderful, hospitable, friendly people. But they are a proud people and they don't take to being dictated to by the US any more than the average US or UK citizen would were the roles reversed. Let me ask you this - if the roles were reversed, would you be arguing the case from the comfort of your armchair and writing letters to the editor of your preferred broadsheet newspaper in between wringing your hands? Or would you have taken up arms against those you saw as the unlawful invaders occupying the land you love, those who had caused the deaths of your sons and daughters, but explained them away as "collateral damage"?
Bush told the Iraqis prior to his 'Shock and Awe' campaign last year that he would liberate them. He told them that the war was with Saddam and his regime, not the Iraqi people. He promised them deliverance - and just look at what he delivered them.
An occupying army which means that the average Iraqi has less freedom of movement now than ever they did under Saddam's rule.
Porous borders with little or no control over imports. From 30,000 border guards under Saddam to just 4,000 poorly armed and equipped officers under Bremer's CPA.
Tanks and armoured vehicles on the streets.
$18bn of 'aid' for the reconstruction of Iraq awarded to a raft of corporations and businesses, the overwhelming majority of which are US contractors
The bidding process for the rebuilding of Iraq has been criticised for including only a handful of companies, some with substantial political clout and none of which is based outside of the United States. Officials said the invitations to bid on reconstruction contracts went to US Corporations for 'Security Reasons'. Ah, OK George, so we were good enough to stand 'shoulder to shoulder' with you on your house of cards foreign policy on Iraq, but not trustworthy enough for the major reconstruction contracts.
Halliburton, the company of which Vice President Dick Cheney was CEO until 2000 has the two largest contracts in Iraq - one for $8.6 billion for providing logistical services to the US Military, and a second fo $7 billion for rebuilding Iraq's oil infrastructure.
Halliburton's war profiteering is intimately tied to its relationship with Cheney who largely created the company's present government contracting business from the ground up. His relationship with Halliburton goes back to at least 1991, when the company received contracts from then secretary of defence Cheney to rebuild facilities in Kuwait which had been destroyed in the first Gulf War. When Cheney joined Halliburton as its CEO in 1995, he aggresively sought out more government business and is credited with almost doubling Haliburton's government contracts during his five year tenure.
One can't help but feel that this was a war decided upon long before our governments launched the PR offensive to convince sceptical populations on both sides of the Atlantic of its dubious merits. Wars are always profitable for those left to pick over the rubble; and what rubble we created in Iraq. Ripe pickings indeed.
It's a strange kind of peace being prosecuted in our name in Iraq. And whatever the private thoughts of the troops, the collective military might and the abrogation of personal responsibility inherent within Army units of the Coalition has led to some alarming traits which are hardly going to fill the Iraqi population with feelings to goodwill.
I saw US Army tanks in Baghdad with "Kill, Assault and Battery" painted on the barrels by their crews. Soldiers patrolling in Humvees with 50 calibre machine guns painted with similar slogans of war. I Flew in US Army Blackhawks whose machine gunners had similar statements on their helmets.
And yet...
The war is over, isn't it? Just who is the enemy here?
The Iraqi people?
Those people who have had enough and taken up arms against what they see as an occupying force with no right to be there? Those who welcomed the liberating army to Baghdad just twelve short months ago but who are resentful of the increasing 'Americanisation' of their capital, the lack of respect shown for their environment?
How would you feel if foreign soldiers patrolled your street, remote figures in body armour, helmets and goggles carrying an assortment of weapons locked and loaded and ready for use against you?
Sure, the rebuilding of any country after a war is a difficult time and there are bound to be issues; but what when the war is unjust on every level, why should the local population be made to suffer?
I made contact with UK peace activist Jo Wilding whilst I was in Baghdad. She was instrumental in the effort to bring humanitarian assitance to Falluja last week and her account of her time there is a must-read for anybody with an interest in what's happening in Iraq. Her thoughts echo my own at what I saw but her final words in her account of Falluja are so much more aposite than anything I can come up with:
"it’s a crime and it’s a disgrace to us all".
Quite.
|
|
|
PARTING SHOT
If a week is a long time in politics, it's a lifetime in Baghdad. After a nightmarish journey butressed by hell at one end and heaven at the other, I'm back. I'm home.
I almost never made it.
After my last entry on Thursday, the situation in Baghdad deteriorated rapidly. For those of us on the ground, the lockdown was extended making us virtual prisoners in a cell of our own making. For the first time since the end of the war last year, an order was issued forcing us to move into hard shelters; all areas of the green zone outside of certain specified locations were declared no-go areas and perhaps of more concern to those of us left, the bombardment increased considerably. The mortars, the rockets, the gunfire which had previously been a night time 'annoyance' became a 24-hour a day threat with real implications for us all.
Friday was to be my final day in Baghdad - I'd managed to book a flight out via Kuwait with British Airways for Sunday morning but first, I had to get there and that meant an RAF Hercules out of Baghdad from what was once Saddam International Airport - and that lay way outside of the green zone in an area which was seeing intense activity from insurgents against coaltion forces.
Friday didn't inspire me with confidence - all RAF flights out of Baghdad had been cancelled due to the security situation and the airport had come under intense mortar bombardment. The road from the capital into the airport itself had become a graveyard of vehicles attacked by insurgents, littered with the burnt-out hulls of fuel tankers, overturned cars and trucks. It was a danger zone. Still, I'm an optimist - I could but hope.
Midnight on Friday, packed and ready to depart, I took a walk onto the roof of what had been my home for the past 48 hours - a reinforced concrete shelter complex - for a final look across the skyline of the city I had come to love. We'd been under bombardment most of the evening, a litany of incoming mortar rounds battling it out with the occasional rocket blast and incessant small arms fire getting increasingly near to our location. It had been quiet for an hour or so. It was a balmy, peaceful evening and I was in conversation with two US Army soldiers in the watchtower atop our accommodation.
Out of nowhere, the peace was shattered by a 'whooooosh' overhead, the unmistakable sound of an incoming rocket. I stood rooted to the spot, unable to move, knowing only that the missile was destined to land close by. I had no idea that it would be as close as it was.
Just a nanosecond after hearing the rocket's flight, there was a brief, immeasurable moment of nothingness - and then the sky was rent by a noise the like of which I have never heard before. The impact site was no more than 100 yards from where I stood, looking transfixed at the incredible destruction wrought by the 157mm missile. I felt the blast wave hit me, lifting me from my feet and moments later, the noise - the most incredible, all-enveloping sound reached outwards, consuming everything in its path. There was nothing else, just the sound of the explosion - a palpable thing which threatened to seemingly extinguish every aspect of life within a two mile radius.
And as suddenly as it had appeared, there was nothing - just a crater and some fiercely-burning flames at the site of impact, and the night silence punctuated by countless car alarms in the car park past my right shoulder, set off by the blast wave.
No injuries, no fatalities.
They tried again. Just seconds after the arrival of the first, another whoosh, another rocket inbound. It lands even closer than the last one - I see it hit the ground and in that spilt second, I know I'm going to die - there is no shelter, just open ground between me and the warhead. I tense, waiting for the inevitable...
And wait. Nothing. It's a dud - it fails to explode.
I slept fitfully that night.
Early on Saturday morning, my close protection team arrived to take me to the airport only in place of the usual two car escort, I was now in a four car convoy. The guys were jumpy on the run out, constanly fingering their automatic weapons, their eyes scanning for threats, steering a path along the highway between the skeletal remains of vehicles attacked by RPGs and small arms fire.
We reached the airport without incident but almost immediately came under fire from mortar rounds. One, two, three, four...the unmistakable 'whoosh...crump' as the rounds landed, 'walking' forwards, each impact closer than the one before and all within the grounds of the airport.
Ten minutes, another four. Then a rocket. I look up and I see a cloud of thick, black smoke a klick or so along the road I've just travelled. I grab my D1 and take the image above - that cloud is the burning remains of another fuel convoy, attacked by insurgents on the road to Baghdad, just another few names to add to the increasing number of dead from the Coalition forces.
It's hot. 92 degrees and not even mid day yet and as well as no hard shelter from the threat of incoming rounds, there's no shelter from the fierce desert sun. Two litres of water pass my lips in two hours. I watch first one, then another RAF Hercules take flight in the by now familiar tactical climb - ultra-low level followed immediately by a 75 degree angle of bank first one way, then the other, climbing a steep, banking spiral directly over the airport site to the final flight level, out of range of any surface to air missile, out of harm's way.
We're called for our flight and walk to the Herc on the pan just as another takes off ahead of us - and it comes under attack almost immediately. Mortars - another four, and this time, they really are too close for comfort. And they find their target - a group a little away from us, wreaking havoc, destroying the lives of others like ourselves, sparing us, but not them. We board the aircraft just as the airport tannoy makes an all-points call for assistance for all Emergency Room and trauma team personnel onfield to report immediately. Casualties.
The take off is the most tense period of my life to date - escape is so close, safety nearby but still just out of reach. For ten minutes immediately after leaving the ground, we are still a target, still within range of anything the insurgents want to throw at us. I'm drenched in sweat, it feels like our collective futures sit atop a knife edge.
And suddenly, we're safe. Still the same people, the same aircraft. But now we're out of range and the cloudless skies permit a view of the peaceful, flat, featureless terrain of Iraq's desert far below us. I imagine the missiles aimed, but falling short of their mark like spent arrows fired from below, and it feels for the life of me like I've been chased out of the country by a barrage of fire snapping at my heels.
I sleep fitfully in Kuwait that night, every distant sound becoming mortar or rocket fire in my semi-conscious mind.
Sunday morning arrives for me just after midnight with a 3 am departure from the US Army base which has accomodated me since landing. For the first time in three weeks, the military machine hands me over to the more familar and desirable elements of civillian life as I'm left with my luggage and two other people at the ultra modern, deserted Kuwait International Airport with the promise of home a few short hours away.
07:00 and I'm first in line for the Club World check in at the BA desk. Five minutes and boarding card in hand, I'm through to departures and the blissful oasis of the Club World lounge. It all feels so unreal.
The flight into Heathrow was as idyllic as the RAF flight out of the UK some three weeks previously had been hellish. BA's business class product is one of the best on the market and the less than half full cabin meant the each 'cocoon' was next to another, empty one. I pressed the button to slide the seat into its flat, bed position and grabbed a power nap, a few hours to help me face the rest of the day. The flight was effortless, the luxury, the service so incongruous with that which had been the norm for the past few days.
And seven and a half hours after taking off, I saw England's green and pleasant land a few hundred feet beneath the aircraft. Home. Back to safety. Back to a view of Iraq filtered and presented by the TV news as against the uncluttered clarity of vision presented by my own eyes.
My mind's a whirl. A million thoughts, a thousand feelings and a changed perspective which I need to, and will, write about here.
A huge thank you to everyone at 20six who has commented, sent me emails or generally wished me well whilst I was away - your thoughts, your comments reached through the distance and the fog of the conflict to present a link to normality. Thank you.
|
|
|
LOCKDOWN
What a difference 24 hours makes. Tanks and Bradleys on the streets of the green zone, and anyone with a weapon is carrying it locked and loaded. There's been a marked increase in the number of troops on the ground and at checkpoints, strengthening of security everywhere and we're wearing body armour and helmets 24/7.
I'm sitting here watching a live press conference on BBC World News which is taking place in a conference room next door to me. It's in the same conference room from which Paul Bremer uttered those memorable words, "Ladies and gentlemen, we got him!" and its being held by US Army General Sanchez who is in command of the military operations currently taking place across the country. Many of the local 'journalists' here aren't journalists at all and use press conferences to ask 'questions' which are really no more than anti-coalition political statements. Something like 200 'newspapers' opened in Baghdad after the war but have never had an issue printed - the 'journos' use them to get press accreditation. Gradually, they're being weeded out, although Sanchez has handled them rather well thus far.
Various reports coming in on the wire as I write - two bombs defused within the green zone and there are unconfirmed reports of a US forces heliciopter having been shot down by insurgents. I'm still trying to get confirmation on that. Last night was one of the worst so far for activity - constant explosions from incoming mortar rounds, rockets. Tracer fire arcing into the night sky, Apaches unleashing their own personal hell in response, and no end of gunfire.
In an attempt to preserve some sort of normality (and relieve the boredom of being confined to the green zone) I drove down to one of Uday's palaces yesterday afternoon to see the lions. I've mentioned in an earlier entry from here that he used to feed them on his victims - the women he raped, people he'd tired of - but since the occupation, they've been nurtured, protected and cared for by the Americans.
I went along at feeding time - these two were the youngest and really quite delightful, both gaurding their food jealously as they attacked it with vigour.
She's got something they want! I was shooting straight towards the sun with this one so wasn't overly hopeful of a stunning results, but I love the way the shadows fall and how the sunlight provides backlighting to highlight the flies.
If looks could kill, she'd be a hungry cub.
There's something alluring about big cats, and I love the social structure to their groups - one male, several females and the young all working together for the common good. One of the cubs - I think it was the one in the pic above - decided she wanted to play after eating and made a jump at the male's back - he was distinctly unimpressed but he did emit the most incredible roar.
If we can get out, I'm going out tonight with a few of the guys to the Chinese - sort of a farewell dinner as I fly out of here soon, and back to normality. Will blog more as and when I know it
Il a l-liqa
|
|
|
STREET LIFE
The picture above was taken on my last excursion into the Red Zone in company with the British Army. SOP here is for armed soldiers travelling in civillian vehicles to have their weapons locked and loaded and sticking out of the window ready for any potential threat - and as we've seen in the past 48 hours, threats here are both constant and widespread.
The demonstrations and violence occasioned by supporters of radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr have seen more than 50 people killed in two days of protests and led to yesterday's attack by some of the US Army's Apache helicopter gunships on Sadr City, a slum in Baghdad's eastern suburbs. Given that all the trouble hitherto has been with the minority Sunni muslims who had been loyal to Saddam, we're now facing the proscpect of a battle on two fronts.
For the first time yesterday, we were warned of potential trouble within the Green Zone and as I was walking along the main drag early yesterday evening, I had a close call with a suspect in a vehicle who drove past my companion and me several times, acting very suspiciously. Fortunately, a US Army Humvee came to our aid and the guy disappeared, but it brought home just how volatile this place is at the moment. The lockdown continues, resulting in all my meetings for today being cancelled, and last night was the worst since I arrived for gun battles, rockets and mortar attacks.
Humvees in their many guises are a regular sight within the Green Zone, whether patrolling, parked up or engaged in some activity or other. During daylight, it's awash with soldiers but come night time, it's a little less safe and current advice is for us to stay off the streets. Oh well, back to base early tonight again - at least I'll be able to see the Arsenal v Chelsea game though.
See what I mean about the Humvees - it's hell trying to find a parking space streetside!
Remember the news footage at the start of the 'Shock and Awe' bombing campaign? Those night time camera views across the Tigris from the roof of the Palestine Hotel to the precision bombs which fell from aircraft unseen to those buildings at the centre of Saddam's empire? That's what now constitiutes the green zone and most of those buildings which survived the bombing have been taken over by the occupying forces or CPA. It still seems strange to remember that we're not in a State at present but in what is officialy an 'Occupied Territory'. In practice, this means no stamp in one's passport on arrival as the British Military controls Basra Airport, and no laws other than those passed by the occupying powers - at least until we hand sovereignty back to the Iraqi people on June 30th.
This is an image I shot last week whilst driving around the Red Zone enroute to an assignment. It's in the south-west fringe of Baghdad and shows two young women dressed in traditional chador and the not so traditional high heels - another facet of a progressive culture without the restrictive edicts of life under Saddam.
This image shows a suburb just west of the Green Zone, a mix of contemporary and tradtional houses juxtaposed with areas of open space where other homes once stood. I shot this pictuire from the Blackhawk helicopter which flew me to the Iranian border last week.
The US Amry guys work a punishing schedule on tour here and life consists of either eating, sleeping, patrolling or mounting guard. Patrols are long and often result in contacts - gun battles with local insurgents who cruise the capital looking for US Army patrols to engage. Rest breaks are an opportunity for weary soliders to catch a few minutes of sleep before mounting another patrol.
Il a l-liqa, In sh'Allah
|
|
|
[next page]
powered by
20six.co.uk
