Confessional and Mid Terms

Last week we got a call in the evening saying our cleaner's husband had been kidnapped and they needed 5,000 dollars by 10 the next morning. We loaned the money and last I heard they were trying to negotiate it down, but I'm out of country so am not sure what the latest is. It's a tough spot to be put in. I am forever ashamed that my initial reaction (albeit only for a couple of minutes) was to wonder whether it was a scam and whether this would become a habit. It's true that many, many scams are done in this way in Iraq. I was also wondering why they couldn't find the money from family or friends, as most Iraqis can get hold of that amount of money if they ask their extended networks. But to put it in perspective... The worst case scenario if it was a scam is that we loan her the money and it's a scam and maybe we never see it again. But the worst case scenario is if it's genuine is that we don't loan her the money and her husband gets his head cut off. Which would have happened - these guys are barbaric and don't mess about. It brings it all much closer when you have to make decisions like that. These things are happening on a huge scale (the genuine ones as well as the scams). A guy we do some work with had 2 people he knew kidnapped a couple of weeks ago and released after paying 50k.

So Bush got his kicking. Nice. Great to see that prick Rumsfeld get his orders. I'd love to see him get a whole lot more than that though. If he got kidnapped I wouldn't hand out a dime. Let's hope Cheney's next. So what happens now for Iraq? I don't see Saddam being executed, despite all the noises coming from Maliki. I heard it's scheduled for February but will believe it when I see it. So the US will either bring in a whole lot more troops and try to secure Baghdad, or they will gradually cut troop sizes and get out. They're saying they want to give control to Iraq troops but that would be a disaster. They aren't properly trained and more importantly they won't do their job properly because of sectarian alliances. I would rather they talked to Iran and Syria and bring more troops in initially, get Baghdad calmed down, and then have a clear and short timetable for getting troops out of Baghdad altogether. If Iran and Syria are properly involved and the US and UK don't try to impose their own conditions on the outcome, then the Iraq Army can probably get on and make the place safe. The difficult part is then what to do when the country inevitably parts into three, which again is really going to depend on Iran and Syria.

So now they're talking about bringing Iran and Syria on board. Sounds sensible to me, seeing as they're probably backing so much of it. If it does result in improving the sectarian violence, I'll feel sick if Blair and Bush start taking credit for sorting out the mess they created. What they should really be looking at more immediately is getting rid of Maliki and most of the ruling coalition. They've been hopeless and done absolutely nothing to disband the Shiite militias which have been causing so much of the problem.

I am never flying Iraqi Airways again. Totally useless. There were about 30 people (including me) who had tickets for a flight out of Baghdad last week, but couldn't get on because they over sold the flight. They lease their planes and had brought the wrong size aircraft in for the flight. There was no effort to help anyone or make alternative arrangements. It was just tough shit. That's pretty typical in Iraq - nobody pulls their finger out to try and get anything done, even for other Iraqis. Lazy bastards. So I got a different flight, and even that was lucky. No boarding calls or anything, you just have to watch the gate and go and ask from time to time for news. It ain't Heathrow that's for sure. Deathrow maybe.