Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

A View from Baghdad

A View from Baghdad:

The View from Baghdad: I'm working for an international NGO in Baghad. I'm blogging to give a view of what is happening on the ground in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq that you might not find in other forums. Send me email at babelonandon2003@yahoo.com

Thursday, April 08, 2004

Somewhere Under the Mortar Arc

No, not a song by Judy Garland.

In the southern part of Baghdad is an area called Dora which has a lot of farm land in it. Usually, the insurgents launch mortars out of that area into the Green Zone. My hotel is somewhere under the arc of the mortar. So on nights like this, sitting next to the window working on my computer, I hear to my left a sound that sounds roughly like a bottle rocket taking off, only amplified about 1000 times, then after 45 seconds or so of silence, I hear a very loud explosion to my right.

# posted by The View @ 11:57 AM

Don't Forget to Write

I got something like 500 hits yesterday. Drop a line and tell me what you think.

babelonandon2003@yahoo.com

# posted by The View @ 8:13 AM

Still No Riot

While I don't want to say that things aren't bad here - they are - there is currently very little action on the street, as I understand it.

Still nothing where I am. If you know Baghdad, I'll give you a rundown of trouble spots.

Adhamiya (Sunni neighborhood) is pretty bad - explosions and shooting, according to friends that live there.
Dyala Bridge - this is apparently a key bridge in south Baghdad that the Mehdi army is trying to control.
Karadah, heart of the protests a few days back - mosques are calling on people to join the Mehdi army.
Zayuna & Al-Jadeer - Mehdi army members came to the schools and told them they should shut down for the next several days.
Ameria & Al-Khadraa - mosques are calling on people to join the Mehdi army.
Dora - Explosions overnight
Mansour - Explosions overnight

Some photographers I know are trying to get action on camera, and are having trouble tracking it down. While things may be quiet today, the tension remains. The feeling is that things could go in any direction.

Some NGOs are discussing pulling people out of the country. I don't believe we are to that point yet, but I just bought a shredder the size of a wood chipper so in case I have to leave in a hurry, I don't leave behind anything that would get any of my staff killed. I took all our money out of the bank. I keep my satellite phone and passport with me at all times. I have a PSD (personal security detail - people with cars and guns) standing by in case I have to hightail it to the airport or to Turkey. The road to Jordan goes through Fallujah, and the road to Kuwait goes through the heart of Shi'ia country, so if I have to get out by land, I go to Turkey.

# posted by The View @ 7:43 AM

What About the Reconstruction?

The Farmers Union tells us that they have no seeds or fertilizer. The people of Sadr City are still floating on sewage. The universities were bombed and looted, and are in the same shape they were this time last year. The only cranes on the cityscape are left over from Saddam's attempt to construct the largest mosque in the world.

If a little of that $18 billion were to spill out on to the streets, it would probably go a long way to ease tensions.

# posted by The View @ 7:30 AM

I Reluctantly Join the Ranks of the Pessimists

The last email I received last night was one of my staff telling me he could no longer work for an American organization (see below). The first phone call I received this morning was my good friend, Munqith Daghir, the top Iraqi pollster, telling me he has to cancel a meeting because of the security situation. He said that 25 of his relatives were killed in Fallujah overnight when a helicopter bombed their house.

I'm very afraid that the flood of images of Coalition killing Iraqis and the perceived neglect of Iraq's reconstruction, is going to combine to create a fundamental shift in public opinion, and convert the average Iraqi into an extremist - either political or religious.

Here is the email:

When I came first to your ... & talked to you, I liked your ideas about Democracy ... especially when you tell me about how the new Iraq will be ... & there is no place for Dectatorism again ... & you are working hard & risking by your life to make changes.
But after the News today ... I saw your Democracy ... does Democracy means killing more than 100 citizens & injured over 200 just in Falluja? & more in Baghdad , Ramadi? does the democracy means strafing a Mosque with a 227 Kg bomb (as Kemet said)??? Did you heard that 5 civilians bleed till death in Ramadi coz US soldiers prevent them from going to Hospitals? all of this is just a brief from the whole news within these three days!
can you tell me the difference between your soldiers & Al-Qaida? both killing civilians ... both are terrorists!
SO ... I can't work with your organization anymore ... coz I don't like such democracy ... & I can't work with those killing my people!

It isn't important that you can easily rebut these arguments. They key point is that this is the reaction that is being generated... and nobody is effectively rebutting them in the bigger picture.

This is disheartening.

# posted by The View @ 7:24 AM

Wednesday, April 07, 2004

Compare this to CNN

Here is the view from my window facing west.



Here is the eastward view.



Note the lack of rioting Shi'ia.

# posted by The View @ 4:56 AM

Distinguished Ladies with AK-47s

OK, just to prove that you can have a laugh in a conflict area...

I asked one of my staff, Salwah, a delightful distinguished lady in her fifties (who incidentally lost three sons to Saddam in one way or another) to try to track down weapons permits for our drivers. As a last resort, I'd like my drivers to be able to fire back.

She came back and said she was unsuccessful in getting our drivers or herself a weapons permit. I was taken aback, and said "You have a weapon?" She said she had two - a 9mm Iraqi made Tariq pistol and an AK-47. I told her to go get her AK, somewhat in disbelief. This is what she returned with.



Salwah has been on NBC, so she is not worried about showing her face on my blog. She is a pretty brave lady.

# posted by The View @ 4:46 AM

Tish on the CPA Response to al-Sadr

Tish Durkin is one of the smartest people I know, and one of the few journalists who, when it came out I am a Republican did not say "You Nazi!" or "How do you live with yourself?!?!" She in fact was in favor of the war, and gave up a good gig as a columnist with the National Journal to be a freelancer in a war zone.

That being said, she has become frustrated with the CPA's dealings with al-Sadr. She spent much of last year in Sadr City, and as you can see from one of my other recent postings, called this mess from about four months out.

Here is an excerpt from her recent piece in the New York Observer. She emailed me with this paragraph, and said it was one of the kinder, friendlier passages. After reading the piece (which is worth reading) I would have to agree.

"It is to be hoped, but should not be assumed, that at least one participant in this debate knows someone who knows someone whose mother has a cousin who knows Moqtada from a frittata. You can bet your bottom dinar, though, that no one is asking the question: how come this joker has so much rabble to rouse? Why, a solid year into America's self-congratulation for having removed the great oppressor of the Shi'ite majority, does an at-least-disquieting segment of that majority find itself with the time and the inclination to go forth and menace? Didn't anybody get the memo that if you take over a country that is bursting with angry and unemployed young men, it just isn't smart to leave them with nothing to lose?"

I know lots of people at the CPA. 95% of them are well-meaning, and 75% of them are competent and 30% of them are pretty amazing people. Bremer, for instance, is one of the most hard-working, dedicated and smartest public figures I have met. I can say that for many of the top people I have encountered. However, CPA seems to be victim to an organizational inertia that overwhelms brilliance.

Part of it is completely out of the hands of anyone in Baghdad. There is a machine in Washington that spits out money, and nearly as I can tell it is completely arbitrary and sporadic in its functioning. The fabled $18 billion in reconstruction money would be helpful in getting things calmed down here. If people had jobs, if the streets in Sadr City were paved, if the schools were not floating on sewage, then people would be less inclined to follow a young, loud-mouthed upstart... which is what he was last summer.

# posted by The View @ 12:42 AM

Tuesday, April 06, 2004

Sadr City Shi'ia on Saddam's WMD

Recent posts seem to all be borrowed copy, and all about or from Sadr City. Why break the trend.

This is a piece written by Sayeef, who lives in Sadr City and whose brother works for me. It is a piece on his point of view on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

This is in his original English and his handwriting, rather than inputting it on the keyboard. It is a little rough to read, but well worth it.

# posted by The View @ 10:34 AM

Don't Piss Off the Shi'ia

Tish called this Sadr business from about four months out. Here is an excerpt from Tish Durkin's piece in the New York Observer on November 17, 2003.

To win the game will be to keep to tolerable levels the collective contempt, rage, pressure and violence from the largest single segment of Iraq’s population. To lose the game will be to lose everything.

The name of the game is: Don’t Piss Off the Shia.

The reasons for Americans to play the game are many and clear. The Shia—the Islamic minority, but Iraqi majority, who believe that only family members of the prophet Muhammad, beginning with his cousin and son-in-law Ali, have the right to lead Muslims—comprise at least 60 percent of the Iraqi population. As the people most oppressed by Saddam Hussein, they were the most given to euphoria as his government fled.

But they are also, by and large, the least educated, the least secular-minded and the most destitute of Iraqis. Therefore, they have proven to be among the most susceptible to the poignant delusion that the removal of Saddam would be immediately followed by the reign of heaven on earth—or, at the very least, by a swift and steady rain of jobs, goods and services to their patronage-parched areas. What has followed instead has been the thud of realization that Iraq is still a ruin, and they are still buried under it.

To play Don’t Piss Off the Shia is to confront the unfathomable forces of religious fanaticism, cultural pride and tribal honor. Then again, it’s also a lot about loot.

The game consists, to an irritating degree, of gauging and then neutralizing the influence of one person, Muqtada Al-Sadr, a 30-year-old cleric who is the son of Muhammad Al-Sadr, the assassinated leader for whom Saddam City, the Baghdad slum, was renamed Sadr City. Mr. Sadr has clearly scented the potential for political relevance in playing the role of spoiler.

# posted by The View @ 9:54 AM