This is my truth

Private security companies

2007-09-18T07:31:00.001-07:00

Last week there was an incident in which a private security company killed 8 and wounded 13 civilians on the streets of Baghdad. The convoy was returning to the green zone when a bomb or rocket went off close by, and the security personnel opened fire on the street. This was by no means the first such incident - there have been many of these. The company concerned was Blackwater, a US based company. The Iraqi authorities have reacted by saying enough is enough and it will expel Blackwater and its employees from Iraq, as well as prosecuting the individuals involved. Blackwater is a huge company and has the contract to provide protection to US State department personnel, including the US Ambassador, in all movements outside the green zone. Its expulsion would be a significant problem for the US if it happens.

I personally think it would serve them right. Blackwater has long been the company that likes to think it can operate above the law. I would estimate no less than 70% of the incidents involving a private security company killing or wounding civilians on the streets of Baghdad have been Blackwater. They didn't even bother to get a licence until a few months ago. The company has ties to the Republican party and basically has patronage from the US government which might explain why it thinks its above the system. The actions of Blackwater have always cast a shadow over the entire private security industry in Iraq. The vast majority of companies do operate professionally and are not the trigger happy mercnaries the media like to portray. Unfortunately, this latest incident will likely lead to a review by the Iraq authorities of all companies' licences, so it might well be that some other companies get kicked out even if they have operated with restraint and professionalism, and within the law.

It remains to be seen whether Blackwater really will get kicked out. Condoleeza Rice has personally intervened to try and stop this from happening. The importance of this can't be made clear enough - this is a real litmus test of how independent the Iraqi government really is from the US administration. Everyone in Baghdad knows that Blackwater is by far the worst offender and that it has always operated above the law. Whether the Iraqis go ahead and expel the company will be one of the clearest signs yet of whether they are really able to dictate their own policies independently of US wishes.

Part of the problem is the Iraqis' own making though. They were supposed to pass a law to regulate the private security industry bnut have failed to do so. I saw a draft law several months ago and it was frankly a shambles. It conflicted with other laws and had inconsistencies in itself, and was going to be a total failure if it became law. That was months ago, and we still haven't seen a next draft. The sooner they pass a law that works, the sooner they will be able to regulate the industry properly and get rid of companies without having to wait for incidents like the one last week.

Another issue at work is self interest of government ministers and people connected with the Ministry of Interior. In the last 12 months around 6 or 7 foreign PSCs have been issued with a licence from the Ministry of Interior, against about 20 odd Iraqi PSCs. The Iraq companies are all owned by government ministers and people in the Ministry of Interior. Clearly, they're trying to edge out the foreign companies so that the contracts all go to the Iraqi companies. Aside from the corrupton of this, it will spell disaster for the performance of those contracts. But hey, it's their country and we weren't invited so I can't honestly say we can claim any moral high ground in this. It's just a shame that the companies who do a good job protecting reconstruction contractors, NGOs, Iraqi officials and others will be sidelined despite doing a good job under difficult circumstances. There are many of you who read this and say "well they're only mercenaries anyway" but you're wrong. Guys like Blackwater behave like mercenaries, not the industry as a whole.

And, I should add, the vast majority of employees working for most of the companies in the industry are Iraqi. There are many foreigners, but mostly it is Iraqis doing the job. That's probably something else the newspapers don't mention.

ironic

2007-08-14T10:12:00.001-07:00

So I spend several months in Baghdad and don't get a scratch, and 2 days into my holiday I get hit by a car. It'll be 2 or 3 months before I can go back to Baghdad but will try and write something soon. There's enough to write about.

Peace
S

PS thanks to Keri for the add

The pull out method

2007-07-10T02:08:00.000-07:00

Again it's been a long time since I wrote. That's partly because I've been busy when I've been here in Baghdad, partly because I've been away sometimes and partly because I don't know where to start. There's so much going on here and you can hardly pick up a western newspaper (or an Eastern one probably) without there being something about Iraq in there. Since I last wrote, there have been some potential laws referred to the Iraqi parliament, Tony Blair's mercifully departed office, several hundred Iraqis and dozens of coalition soldiers have been killed, support for Bush's surge has been collapsing, and Bush commuted "Scooter" Libby's jail sentence for obstructing an investigation into the leaking the identity of a CIA operative whose husband discredited one of Bush's pre-war claims about Iraq's "WMD". And there's been much more, but that's enough to list for now.

So..... the surge. Is it "working"? Is it time to pull the troops out? I was at a wedding in Sweden recently and everyone who met me posed the question and had their own view on it. But is it even possible to answer that question yet? I don't believe so. There continue to be headline-grabbing attacks now and then. About a month ago, a Shia shrine in Samarra was bombed, again, toppling 2 minarets and causing extensive damage. This was the same shrine whose golden dome was bombed in February 2006. That attack was what is widely understood to have really kicked off the sectarian trouble that still rumbles on today. There was a curfew imposed after last month's bombing for 3 days, as the authorities feared it would cause another increase in sectarian bloodshed. I never bought that, because the level of violence is already at a level that would be difficult to increase significantly further. There may have been a slight increase but I think that is mainly due to Al Qaeda wanting to put as much pressure on the US as possible in advance of September, when General Petraeus is due to report to Congress on whether the surge is working.

And that pressure is shown by high profile bombs such as the truck bomb that exploded in Kirkuk on Saturday, the death toll for which could top 150.

Not helping the situation is the continued uselessness of the Iraqi government. The Kurdish Regional Government has been pressing ahead and has agreed its own oil legislation and agreed a revenue sharing draft law with the federal government in Baghdad. The process isn't going anywhere fast in Baghdad however. It is likely at this stage that the Kurds will pass their own oil law allowing them to sign agreements with foreign oil companies, even before the Iraqi government passes its own oil and gas law (which was almost agreed in February but is now being rejected by the Kurds because the Sunnis and Shiites basically re-wrote it at a later conference). There's talk of making the revenue sharing law dependent on the federal oil and gas law, so this will take a while longer to be passed. There's little or no parliamentary activity going on at the moment anyway. Many of the MPs are out of the country for summer so raising a quorum is not necessarily going to be possible. Which could be lucky for Maliki, as a vote of no confidence is apparently being proposed against him in 5 days' time. It's questionable whether that vote will be passed, as explained better by the excellent Juan Cole blog.

So all in all I think it is too early to tell whether the surge will work. It's only in the last couple of weeks that the troop numbers have hit their peak, and violence does continue, albeit that some of it has spread from Baghdad to other places. I've heard it called the "water bed effect" whereby if you push down in one place, others rise. There are good signs in some other parts of the country, though. The western Anbar province was once a hotbed of Al Qaeda in Iraq activity but the Sunni tribal leaders there have had enough of Al Qaeda and are now fighting with the coalition troops to drive them out. That was unfathomable at the end of last year. So I think more time is needed to see how it will play out.

The Americans I have spoken to are very divided on the issue. Some think the troops should get out now, while others think that if that happens, a full blown civil war will erupt. Timing is everything though. It would be a sad irony if the surge, which is probably about the first thing Bush has got potentially right, is scuppered now by a Democratic controlled Congress which only starts asserting itself about 4 years too late, or by Republicans distancing themselves from Bush. It's unfortunate that what happens will be dictated not by events on the ground here, but political necessities in Washington. What you do clearly see now is how isolated Bush is becoming. Congressional delegations and people running for the Democratic or Republican presidential nominations for the next election are making trips out here to speak to people and get their own impression of events on the ground. I think John McCain is over here at the moment so that he can go back and come out with a statement of some sort that improves his chances of nomination. Whatever happens with troop numbers, Maliki has to go if there's to be any progress.

More on the hapless and cretinous parliament: on June 10 the parliament voted to change the Speaker of the Council of Representatives after one MP got his bodyguards to beat up another MP when he walked past his office. As the person who sent me the report said, "so, Iraqi democracy coming along nicely".

Mind you, with Bush commuting Scooter Libby's sentence to shut him up, democracy in America isn't exactly perfect. (Clinton was no saint either - he issued 140 full pardons in his final hours as president, among them to Marc Rich, whose lawyer was.... scooter Libby. If you're not too bored with reading about corrupt bastards looking after themselves in Washington you can read more here.)

An inside job?

2007-05-30T09:50:00.000-07:00

The adviser who was kidnapped yesterday was at the Ministry of Finance giving a lecture as part of a process to implement transparency in government procurement. At the moment , ministers and flunkies are making millions of dollars in corrupt payments to influence the awarding of contracts. So, this new system to make the process more transparent means a lot of people stand to lose a lot of dead presidents. All of which points the finger at involvement not just within the Iraqi Police, but also the Ministry of Finance.

The Guardian reports today that the Ministry of Interior "became politicised by Shia extremists under the previous minister, Bayan Jabr, a leader of the Badr organisation and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq - Iraq's largest Shia political party. Mr Jabr encouraged members of the Badr brigade to take up key posts in the ministry and subvert its operations." The Ministry of Interior is one of the worst arms of government you could ever imagine. Corruption is rife and sectarianism is evident in everything it does. The article goes on to report that Babyan Jabr has moved to the Ministry of Finance but still controls the MOI's budget and police salaries. If that's not a man with likely involvement I don't know who is. The Ministry of Finance was where the kidnapping took place and it's clear that the adviser was targeted from the fact that the kidnappers stormed into the room shouting "where are the foreigners?". Add the police involvement (controlled by the MOI) and a picture emerges.

The Times reported that a Mahdi Army official denied their involvement but said that they "called the Iraqi police in the area and they told us it was uniformed men speaking with Sunni accents". So either the police or the Mahdi Army are trying to blame it on the Sunnis but that doesn't seem remotely credible. For one, the two Ministries involved (Finance and Interior) are both Shia controlled, and the Ministry of Finance is on the edge of Sadr City, a Shia area. There's no way the Sunnis would have had the access to the area to conduct an operation like that. Look at the connection between Babyan Jabr and the Badr Brigade and you have a more likely scenario.

So hopefully the Garda guys and the BearingPoint guy will come back alive.

What a place.

Another Day in Paradise (not in the Phil Collins sense...)

2007-05-29T11:55:00.000-07:00

Another day in paradise. A finance expert and his security team were kidnapped from the Ministry of Finance this morning. This is the first time a Westerner has been kidnapped from a Ministry as far as I know and the scale of the operation is such that it's looking likely the police themselves were involved. That ought to be news that's more good than bad in the bigger scheme of things, because if the police were involved the outcome will more likely be a peaceful one. If the Sunnis or Al Qaeda are the snatchers, less so. Police involvement would suggest a Shia angle so there is hope that this would be a political move. It should never have happened of course, and there will be obvious questions as to how this happened, but they can be asked and answered after the fate of the man and his PSD is known. As it goes, I know who the guy is and have probably met at least one of the PSD guys that were taken, and hope personally as well as morally that all will work out.

Meanwhile, the US and Iran sat down over a cup of tea for the first time since 1980 to shoot the shit. The only thing on the agenda was Iraq which is a good thing. No bleating about uranium enrichment from the US; no whining about spies possibly operating within its borders from Iran. Whether or not these talks produce anything of substance is of course important, and on track record of late you'd have to be a pessimist. But that these talks are even taking place would have been unimaginable not so long ago. It's clear evidence, if any were needed, that the power of Cheney and Bush is giving way to a more conciliatory train of thought within the US Government. And about time too. There has to be a recognition that, whether or not dialogue with Iran and Syria is likely to produce results, the mere possibility is reason enough to have a crack.

As for me, I've been fine. There's been a fair amount of incoming but not right where I am and not such that I feel threatened. I can't recall whether I ever mentioned it, but I joined/formed a band a while ago and we're having a lot of fun. There may be some people who read this and shake their heads and say "shame on you for partying it up when you're in that environment" and if that's you, you're missing the point entirely. This is a difficult environment to work and live in, so if you can do something that brings a smile to people's faces, it means that people can feel better about being here and trying to help with "The Effort". We played on a villa's roof on Friday and it was great setting up the gear when it was still light, looking to the background and seeing all the date palms and a couple of landmarks. One of the more unique gigs you could ever play, as ours all are.

I've not been so busy with work lately so have been watching a recent US TV series called Deadwood. If you haven't heard about it, it's about a US goldrush town in the 1870s that was lawless and became annexed to the Dakota territory. (To read Wikipedia's entry about the series click here, or about the place itself click here). There are certainly similarities between that place and Baghdad and it was interesting to think about that. Another interesting thing I came across (well I find it interesting anyway) is an article I read today that was written in 1920 by T. E. Lawrence. You can read the text here and again it's amazing the similarities between the circumstances of 87 years ago and those existing now and in the past 4 years. The patterns of colonialism and/or the attempts, by whatever means and with whichever intentions, seem to be fairly constant. Which makes you hope on the one hand if things will eventually work themselves out, but wonder on the other why the fuck we never learn from our mistakes.

The long goodbye

2007-05-20T01:31:00.000-07:00

At last, Tony Blair is off. He came to Baghdad unannounced yesterday for a last chat with the big guns here and 3 mortars went off in the IZ just as he was arriving. He went down to Basra for a "morale boosting" session with British troops down there and again a mortar went off. It's funny reading suggestions that he may have been targeted - if he really was targeted there would have been 10 times as many projectiles coming in. There were a lot last week and apparently the week before, with some injuries and a couple of Iraqis killed. It seems to have quietened down a bit the last few days; in fact it seems to have been a few quiet days generally across Baghdad. Only a temporary respite, no doubt, but a welcome one.

The draft oil and gas law seems to have taken a few steps backwards. A significant part of the draft law is its annexes, which set out who controls which oil fields. There was a meeting in Dubai a few weeks ago at which the draft of the annexes was changed considerably, such that the Kurdistan Regional Government will not back the law as it currently stands. So the law itself is a long, long way from being capable of being passed.

I joined a band a while ago which is proving, for me, to be the difference between tolerating being in Baghdad and positively enjoying it. We played a few gigs at various places, which were a mixture of private compounds or villas. We have been asked to play the UK and US embassies as well so those are a couple of gigs to look forward to. In fact we were supposed to play the US Embassy last week but in the event we couldn't as our bass player wasn't back in time. That was a relief in some ways because of the relative danger of playing a gig there - it would have been outside, by the pool, which gets hit by mortars from time to time. Would have been a hell of a buzz though.

In the US, finally Paul Wolfowitz has resigned as head of the World Bank. It's incredible that he was ever appointed, being as it was a major "up yours" to all those who opposed the invasion of Iraq, being as he was a chief architect of it. It's incredible too that he fought so hard to stay in the job when it was clear that the vast majority of the Bank's staff wanted him out and that he had clearly breached the Bank's rules on conflicts of interest. But that's symptomatic of the Bush crowd's arrogance. The US Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, is in a similar predicament now. He was, it seems, instrumental in the sacking of 8 federal prosecutors in the US who failed to toe the Bush Administration's line on policy matters. That action badly undermines the separation between the legislature and the judiciary which is fundamental to valid democracies. It's probably only a matter of time before he will be fired or forced to resign, but it's another example of one of the neocon cabal that's grimly hanging on despite clear evidence of not being fit for the job.

It's getting warmer here by the day. Supposed to hit 42 celcius on Tuesday so it's getting towards the 3 months when it won't be below 40 and often gets to 50 or more. Shame there's no decent beach around here....

really close to home....

2007-04-22T07:02:00.000-07:00

This just landed this afternoon. 100 metres away at best. Didn't smash any windows but still pretty freaky...

Closer to home

2007-04-22T06:08:00.001-07:00

Yesterday afternoon 3 mortars landed fairly close, one of them I think landed in the compound next door. I heard some debris falling on the roof of an abandoned half-built warehouse also next door. A rocket exploded at 4am that made the windows shake but wasn't as close as the mortars.

One of my staff's father was kidnapped this morning. From the information available so far, it sounds like this is a case of sectarian kidnapping which will not produce a ransom and release, as would be the case if it were a straightforward criminal kidnapping. That I think is as much a sign as anything about the return to sectarian killings rather than kidnappings designed for financial gain.

It's going berserk here, but there are a number of different civil war/insurgencies going on. Asking whether the departure of the troops will facilitate the return of order is meaningless. If the troops stay, there is less of one kind of violence but more of another. If they go, likewise. It's a no-win situation for Iraq in the near term.

I was disgusted by the run-up to the war, from as early as 2002 when it was clear to me what would follow. I was disgusted in 2003 when the invasion kicked off and I've been disgusted ever since that we kicked down the door of this country when the primary aim was never to "liberate" the people (as evident from the lamentable lack of post-invasion planning). But, but..... we're way past that now. The people of Iraq and its neighbours have to take responsibility for what's going on these days.

For a while there, the surge looked like it was bringing a downturn in sectarian killings. Although there may be less bodies turning up in the Tigris or on the streets, bound and with signs of torture, the car bombings are getting really out of control.

It's up to the people here to stop it and sort their shit out, but the mentality of so many people has to change. There is no sign I can see of that at the moment. Blair and Bush should be strung up in my view for coming here in the first place, but they're not directly to blame for what's happening 4 years on.

One way traffic... the wrong way

2007-04-17T06:24:00.000-07:00

Human Rights Watch released a paper today that highlights the difficulties now being faced by Iraqis fleeing the violence in search of asylum. It speaks volumes that some countries are not doing enough to seal their borders to stop suicide bombers entering Iraq, but are doing what they can to stop refugees leaving Iraq. What a place.

I heard another interesting thing today - since Sadr withdrew his cabinet members from the government yesterday, Ayad Allawi is trying to piece together another coaliton that would take over from this useless bunch of shits for a government. That's great news if he can pull it off. He's widely seen by many Iraqis as a puppet for the US, having spent some time as interim prime minister before this lot were elected. But they also see this lot as being puppets too, only this lot have been a complete waste of space. While many Iraqis don't see Allawi as the ideal choice of PM, he is by far the best of a bad bunch. (Sounds a bit like western leaders to me)

More on bombs and other stuff

2007-04-16T01:39:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday that suicide bomber struck at the parliament buildings. Before that, there was a truck bomb that took out a bridge over the Tigris. Something that surprised me was the reaction of Iraqis I spoke to about that. To them, it wasn't any old bridge or just a means of getting across a river, but something more special than that. It had historical significance to them.

It was built by the British in I think 1920 and was damaged in 1991 by American bombing. Another bridge was hit by a suicide bomber on Saturday with 15 killed. Another 40 were killed in Kerbala, southwest of Baghdad on Saturday.

Yesterday 2 or 3 car bombs and a suicide bomb went off in quick succession in Baghdad, killing another 35-40. We heard the car bombs from here.

All of which raises the question, is the "surge" working? To answer that, I guess you have to ask what it is that the surge is trying to achieve. It certainly seems to be working in terms of reducing the number of dead bodies being found on the streets showing signs of torture. However, there are far too many car bombs going off now, most of which we hear. I've heard another few bangs this morning that sound like they were car bombs so no doubt there will be reports emerging in the next few hours about more today in Baghdad. It's hard to see what the surge can do to avoid that. The other, more predictable, effect of the surge is to push the violence out to other cities in Iraq. It's hard to see how that will all pan out in the near future. I think it's fair to say that, for now, the surge is working well in some ways but not in others, and in any case it will be another 2 or 3 months before it reaches its peak and can really be judged.

Also a few days ago a couple of UK helicopters apparently collided north of Baghdad. I'm not sure if I believe that's the real story. The amount of helicopter "collisions" that have happened here would point to pretty incompetent helicopter pilots being in charge of these multi-million dollar aircraft. I don't buy that generally, and even less in this case given that the helicopters were apparently there as part of a Special Forces operation. You wouldn't think the best of the best pilots are prone to mid air collisions.

Also I read that the official death toll from that parliament bombing has been reduced to 1. Excuse me? Reduced? When does that ever happen?? True, initial reports may have been exaggerated. But I doubt it. All the time there is such a big propaganda war going on it's often hard to believe what you read and you just have to weigh up the likelihood of things. They found an IED ("improvised explosive device") or roadside bomb outside the British Embassy on Friday too. Doubt that made the news. Soon enough though one of these things will go off in the IZ and you'll hear about it.

A couple of reports (from the Red Cross and the Oxford Research Group) recently out about Iraq and the "war on terror". This column highlighted nicely how little the neocons had to say about them.

Paul Wolfowitz, head of the World Bank, is in the shit because he intervened to give his girlfriend a promotion and pay rise that was "grossly out of line" with the rules. Hope he gets stuffed for that. He was one of the architects of the Iraq mess so it would be nice to see him get done out of a job I don't think he should ever have been rewarded with. Alberto Gonzales, the US Attorney General is also in the shit for his role in the firing of 8 prosecutors when they didn't act in accordance with Bush policies. (this is the man who said torture is fine) Slowly but surely, all those bastards that screwed Iraq, robbed their own tax payers and made everyone else in the world less safe are getting their just reward and being discredited. About bloody time.

Suicide at parliament

2007-04-12T09:06:00.000-07:00

It was only a matter of time before this happened. Today at lunch time a suicide vest was detonated in the cafe in the Iraqi parliament building. 2 or 3 MPs dead and more injured. The military found a couple of suicide vests sitting in an abandoned box in the IZ 2 weeks ago, presumably they were dropped by someone for another to come and collect them. There are rumours that a car full of explosives was found in the IZ as well but I'm not sure if that one's true. There will be more attacks like this I'm sure. It doesn't worry me too much in a personal safety kind of way as those things will always be detonated at places like the parliament or other high profile buildings. I don't tend to go those places and have never been to the parliament (though I have been next door on occasion).

What else? The 4th anniversary of the fall of Baghdad was 3 days ago and hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated against the occupation in Najaf. It must be getting harder for the UK and US politicians to insist that the continued presence of troops here is doing any good. Damned if I know - maybe in some places it is and in others it isn't. One of my staff has moved his family into the IZ because the US military set up a base in his neighbourhood and insurgents are always firing things at it, so my employee was naturally worried his wife or kid would be caught in the crossfire. Add to that he was injured (not seriously, to our relief) when a roadside bomb detonated on a street he was walking down with his family. I would still say that the troop surge was and is the right thing in Baghdad but it's less effective than it was and in any case, violence in other cities is in some cases off the scale.

I read today that John McCain, a probable candidate for US President next election, came to Baghdad and went on a walk around a market outside the IZ. In his media statement he bleated about how it was sign that the streets are getting safer. What he didn't mention was that he was surrounded by troops and went in a convoy of a dozen heavily armed and armoured vehicles. Dick.

Yesterday's rocket

2007-03-23T01:49:00.000-07:00

You may have seen on the news that the UN secretary general was giving a speech here in Baghdad when a mortar landed yesterday. He shat it and ducked under the podium. Very amusing. It was very loud and sounded more like a rocket than a mortar. It made the news so we got loads of emails saying "are you ok?" which was nice and all, but this happens all the time so it's always a bit confusing when we get these are you ok emails.

Friday at last. Have a good weekend.

Cases closed!

2007-03-22T00:26:00.000-07:00

You may have heard recently about one of the Guantanamo detainees - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - "admitting" his role, indeed "confessing" to being the guy who organised, at least 30 terror plots against the US, including 9/11. Of course, the "confessions" took place under torture and the hearings are behind closed doors, so they don't remotely live up to the standards of transparency you'd expect from any civilised nation, let alone the one that shouts loudest about democracy and due process than any other. I'm pretty sure if I was being tortured I'd say anything to try and get them to stop. You get the impression the US doesn't give a shit whether he did them or not - as long as they've got somebody to pin the blame on they can shut the file and Americans can sleep safer at night "knowing" that someone has been brought to account.

Actually, I can sleep safer too. If that guy was responsible for everything they say he was (sorry, he says he was while 10,000 volts were going through his balls) then odds are he's the bastard who stole my bike when I was at school. I bet he also cut off the head of Jebediah Springfield and Bart just took the fall too.

Jebediah Springfield yesterday

Four years on

2007-03-21T22:23:00.000-07:00

This week marked the 4th anniversary of the (latest) invasion. So much has happened in that 4 years I'm not going to attempt a summary of the highlights (are there any?) and the lowlights (too many to mention). Last weekend there were mass marches in several cities across the world to mark the event. In Baghdad there were a couple of car bombs and one day 3 trucks containing chlorine blew up.

It does seem to be much better on the streets of Baghdad at the moment. There is the occasional car or truck bomb that goes off, and some bodies do turn up on the streets each day (I saw a couple in the Tigris a few days ago) but it's not dozens of bodies every day like it used to be. The extra troops on the streets and in the neighbourhoods are bringing a bit of stability that hasn't been there for a long time. The locals are pretty wary of it though. People think that the militias are just laying low and seeing what tactics the troops are using for now, and that when the troops pull out the militias will be back. That could take a while. The surge is expected to peak around July and last until at least November. If enough people can get into employment and the electricity and water supply gets more reliable, it might be that the militias find themselves with no grassroots support. Of course, it may be that the troops pull out and the militias do resume control of the neighbourhoods. Time will tell, and the locals are probably right to be sceptical.

There are really 2 things of equal importance that have to be sorted out for Iraq to have a hope of getting anywhere. The first is the obvious one - security. The second is corruption. Getting a company registered in Baghdad is more difficult if there's an element of non-Iraqi ownership. At first glance you might say, "well fair enough, they don't want foreigners coming and taking over the place". But that's got nothing to do with it. Whenever there's an application to register a company which will be partly or wholly owned by a non-Iraqi person or company, or which will have a non-Iraqi director, the application is referred by the Companies Registry to the Residency Office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This is a rule that existed during Saddam's time to screen non-Arab shareholders to make sure they weren't terrorists or otherwise known to be unfriendly to Iraq. It should take no more than 3 days for the application to pass through the Residency Office before being signed off as cleared. These days, unless you pay a low level official a bribe, it takes around 4 weeks. We don't pay bribes under any circumstances, and I think that's the right way to operate, even in a place like Iraq. We tell our clients up front what the situation is and they tend to support us for being above board. If we paid bribes we could get in the shit under Iraq's Penal Code. Funnily enough, people charged under the Penal Code often bribe their way out of the charges. Sam Allardyce would love this place. Bung heaven.

Take another example - private security companies (PSCs). These get a bad press, and sometimes rightly so. Some companies are cowboys and think they're above the law. They're usually the ones driving around like maniacs and who in the past had no qualms about killing civilians. Most PSCs are not like that, at least the ones I know (which is a couple dozen). Most of them are very professional, courteous and focused on their proper job. They do an important job as well, protecting various ministries and ferrying Iraqi and Western officials and companies through dangerous places.

The process of obtaining an operating licence for security companies has been in a mess for a long while. They've been drafting a law to regulate the licensing and oversight of PSCs, which they really need to have in place to make the industry accountable and to weed out the bad from the good. The draft as it stands is crap and conflicts with various provisions in some other laws in Iraq. I gave a presentation to some government ministers and flunkies and 250 other people a few months ago telling them where the draft was in conflict with other laws. It didn't go down too well with the ministers. They have been quietly registering PSCs of their own and refusing operating licences for foreign owned PSCs. There was a flurry of activity at the start of the year when a dozen or so PSCs were given their operating licence. I know at least one of them flew the official at the Ministry of Interior that deals with this, and a mate of his, to Europe on a jolly with spending money (sorry, "to inspect the head office") and lo and behold he presented their operating licence to them when he was about to get on the plane back to Iraq. Now they're even asking that lawyers don't come with the PSCs when they submit their file because they want a bribe to be paid and the lawyers not to see.

Someone who's in the know about such things told me last week that the Iraqi government is sitting on at least 40 billion dollars. This is because several signatures of government ministers are needed in some cases to get money paid out by the government. Sometimes the Shiites will sign off but the Sunnis won't, and vice versa.

So what can be done about this? If it is to stay in one piece and not break into three, Iraq needs a secular government. The obvious person to take control is Ayad Allawi, but even if he came in and a secular government is formed, it won't solve the whole problem. It would be a good start, but the corruption at low levels would still be there, if not the corruption higher up too. Unfortunately, if there was an election today, people would still vote along sectarian lines, despite the trouble that has caused so far. A total change in mentality is needed in Iraq, from the voters right up to the top of government. Otherwise things will keep going backwards and this country will get left further and further behind the rest of the developing world.

From tuk tuks to tanks

2007-03-02T01:03:00.000-08:00

I've just got back from a couple of weeks in Thailand. Great times with great friends and the small matter of my birthday too. I've been in Baghdad 6 months now and it strikes me how it's the kind of place I shudder at the thought of when I'm away but don't mind it so much when I'm here. Especially at the moment as well, what with all the changes due to take place from the summer onwards. Due to the land in the IZ being transferred back to Iraqis, a lot of people are going to be leaving the IZ and moving out to a military camp near the airport. We'll not be able to do that as we are an independent outfit, but we do rent off an Iraqi landlord so we don't necessarily have to leave. It will be more a question of whether it's safe enough to stay if/when they knock down the outer walls to the IZ and open up the roads again. It used to stress me out but now I'm not too worried. I'll go with the flow, stay here as long as it's safe and hit the road when it's looking like getting dangerous.

I've never said what I do here but may as well spit it out. I'm a lawyer working for a small independent company that was set up in 2003 here in Baghdad. We do all sorts of stuff, ranging from registering companies, helping private security companies get their operating licences, advising international (and Iraqi) banks on issues arising from Iraq debt and guarantees, some corporate work such as advising on joint venture documents or assisting with share transfers, litigation advice and representation, plus some oil and energy related work, and advice to various governments. So it's a pretty broad mix.

Since I've been here I've noticed the commercial climate get increasingly difficult for foreigners. Petty corruption within government departments is rife and getting worse. We don't pay bribes which makes it hard but our clients appreciate that we do things the right way rather than the easy way. It's a hell of an eye opener but it makes me really angry to see these people all on the take rather than helping to get this country back on its feet. To be fair, though, I can also see it from the Iraqis' point of view. The US and UK steamed in here nearly 4 years ago and re-wrote a bunch of laws to open the country up to foreign investment. The Iraqis can be forgiven for thinking that the rug has kind of been pulled from under their feet. But we are where we are and the sooner they embrace the changes that have been implemented, the sooner things will settle down. The same can be said of the security situation.

Whatever your views on the invasion and the manner of occupation, we're at a point now where it is undoubtedly the responsibility of the Iraqi government to deal with the violence that has escalated since last February when a shrine in Samarra was bombed. There have been some interesting comments from various places about whether this is or is not a civil war. It seems that the violence has all the hallmarks of a civil war, not least the massive displacement of people, but what is really happening is a bunch of mini civil wars. There's violence between Shia and Sunni, between each of them and the Coalition/occupation forces and, more recently, within competing Shia factions and within Sunni factions that are for or against the insurgency. The last of those seems to be a very recent trend. A lot of Sunni tribal leaders, particularly towards the west (Anbar province) have had enough and want to rid the country of terrorists streaming in from the Syrian border, Al Qaeda in Iraq in particular. That's an encouraging sign.

While I was away, the new clamp down started to take effect. It seems to have had instant results. From a selfish point of view, there seems to be a lot less rockets and mortars landing in the IZ now. Bombings and killings in the red zone are significantly down on what they were in December and January. There have been a couple of high profile, very lethal attacks, but still I think overall the results have so far been very good. The best thing is, the full force level hasn't even arrived yet. From March 11 we won't be able to eat at the dining facility we usually go to because there will be 1,000 more troops in that base alone. Which is a pain in the arse for me food-wise but must mean that more troops are coming to back up those already on the ground. A lot of arms caches have been found which is good news. Many of those contain materials for the relatively new and vastly more lethal weapon - EFPs ("explosively formed penetrators") which are like the common or garden roadside bomb (IED or "improvised explosive device") but can penetrate armoured vehicles. EFPs are said to originate in Iran, which doesn't help the political situation between Iran and the US.

However, a couple of days ago, the US agreed to come to the table with Iran and all other neighbours and the UK among others, to discuss ways to fix Iraq's problems. It can't be underestimated how significant this is. We did a major project advising the US Government on something, and whenever we mentioned Iran you could see body language stiffen and lips tighten. Iran was taboo and the thought of anything that could be considered an overture towards it was implicitly if not expressly forbidden. So let's see how that pans out.

Further potentially good news was that last week a final draft hydrocarbon law was approved by the the Iraqi Cabinet and will be referred to Parliament for a vote. This has been long-awaited and was supposed to be produced by the end of 2006. It could change everything. Basically, for those at the back, the issue is that the oil rich south of Iraq is populated mostly by Shiites, and the oil rich north is populated mainly by the Kurds. There's a referendum soon on whether the oil-rich city of Kirkuk will be brought within Kurdistan or remain in Iraq. I understand the expected result is that it will go Kurdish. All of which could leave the Sunnis with little or no revenue from the oil, as the middle of Iraq (which they mainly populate) hasn't got oil fields that are ready for drilling. So the primary issue the hydrocarbon law had to address was revenue sharing. And the draft seems to have done the right thing: all revenue from Iraqi oil gets pooled, and then shared out on the basis of population. In other words, all Iraqis will benefit, whether they live on an oil field or out in the desert. So far, so good. There is a potential significant problem, however, with the manner in which it (the oil) can be exploited. Production Sharing Agreements ("PSAs") are permitted by the draft law. This basically means that foreign companies can come in, produce the oil and take around 70% of the revenue. This report from globalsecurity.org sets out why PSAs might be considered inappropriate for Iraq, and the gist of it will be why the draft law may not be approved. Even if it is approved, there may be continued violence in objection to it. With any luck, though, it will be accepted and people will get on with rebuilding their lives, society and economy.

So, all in all, very interesting times right now. Some days I am optimistic, others I am not. Today's a "glass half full" day.

Sorry about the long and rambling nature of this post. It's been a while.

Big Scrap

2007-01-28T20:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday there was a big battle in Najaf in which it's reported that at least 250 insurgents were killed. They were there to carry out a mass killing against Shia clerics who were going to Kerbala for an important Shia religious festival. An alarming element of this is that it was both Shia and Sunni who were there to attack the Shia. Those Shia that were involved have differences of religious opinion which I guess are pretty extreme. Also there were Egyptians and Sudanese terrorists too. A US helicopter was shot down in the fighting, which is apparently still going on.

In Baghdad five school girls were killed after mortar rounds were fired into their school. What can you say about that? It's like so much here. Yesterday an Iraqi colleague told me that a couple of days ago they had witnessed a guy get pulled from his car, then the terrorists stuck an explosive belt on him and stuck some explosives in his car and got him to drive towards an Iraqi army checkpoint where they detonated the explosives by remote control. The guy was apparently driving really slowly and shouting at the guys on the checkpoint to get out of the way, which they did so it only killed a couple of soldiers. Insane. This colleague of mine had gone to their neighbourhood to check on their house. Many of the houses on their street have been deserted for a while but now people are just moving in to the houses. And once they're in, that's it. House is good as gone for the people who once owned it. So my colleagues are trying to find someone to house sit for them but not having much joy at the moment. Can you imagine it? You've saved all your life for your house and then some other bastard just moves in and effectively confiscates it because you had to leave after someone told you you'd be killed if you didn't leave the following morning. Pack an overnight bag and leave your life behind.

There's been a lot of rockets and mortars fired into the IZ in the last 7 days. Yesterday was quiet but before that the US Embassy and one of the compounds that houses a lot of people working on reconstruction of infrastructure were taking a fair few hits. And I think the UN compound had something that went in as well. Nobody died as far as I know but one guy at the US Embassy might lose his leg after getting hit by shrapnel. Luckily for me we're in a safe bit of the IZ, rockets don't tend to land too near our place, though it has happened on the odd occasion.

I went on a tour of Saddam's bunker a few days ago, it was really interesting. First we climbed up to the top of a watchtower and got some amazing 360 degree views of Baghdad. From up there if you cast your eye out beyond the T Walls it looked like a normal city. Deceptive... Then we went into the bunker. A palace was built over the top of it (the Believers Palace) and the bunker was underneath. The palace had been hit by a couple of bunker buster bombs which came in through a point in the dome and detonated when they hit the floor of the main room. The place looked like a student house after a full on party, only bigger. Then we went down into the bunker itself. I'll get some pictures up soon.

Adventure tourism

2007-01-18T09:43:00.000-08:00

It's going to be a pretty interesting few months in the IZ. The plan is for pretty much all of it to be handed back to Iraqis by next January. The only bits that are due to be under ongoing US control are the new US embassy and something else (which I forget for now). It will be a gradual process too. Initially (and this is already happening) companies and compounds are leaving and the T Walls are coming down inside the IZ. It will take several months but you can see the beginnings of it now. Around the end of the year the external walls will come down and there will be no IZ! It's a scary prospect and as you can imagine my eyes are fixed on the exit big time. I'm sure it will be fine until after the end of summer, but then how many people will be sticking around (me included) will depend totally on the situation outside and how that develops. Those companies that stay will have beefed up security arrangements so it will be interesting to see how they work out.

Today I've had to escort a few staff in and out of the IZ. This involves going close to the other side of whichever checkpoint they're coming in at and getting them through the inside search points where they hand in their passports. They collect tham on the way back out. Usually I don't have to do this but my staffs' IZ badges have expired and we need to wait a while for them to be renewed. It's mildly scary going to the checkpoints at all but going towards the other end of them quickens the heart a fair bit. Not something I plan on making a habit of that's for sure. I took a photo going over the Tigris to one of the checkpoints today, facing away from the IZ. I'll try and get one looking back towards the IZ on the next suicide run. I think you can just see smoke from one of the bombs today in there.

On which point, here's a report from Al Jazeera:
"At least 17 people have been killed and nearly 50 wounded in a series of car bombings in Baghdad.

In a market in the southern district of Dora, three bombs in quick succession killed at least 10 people and wounded 30 on Thursday, Reuters reported.

Three more died in a car bomb in the east of the city.

Earlier, four people were killed and 11 wounded when a car bomb hit a police patrol near a cinema on Baghdad's central Sadun Street. Two of the dead were policemen.

A fifth car bomb exploded in eastern Baghdad, killing three people and wounding seven."

Pretty nuts. While there's so much to say about this you feel at the same time like there's nothing to say. Seems the baddies are getting it in before the extra troops arrive. They can't come soon enough if you ask me.

Another interesting thing today, Bush had a meeting with the new secretary general of the UN and actually asked him to increase the UN's presence in Iraq. It was only a matter of time, this. Having undermined or ignored the UN systematically during his shitty tenure, that twat Bush is now grovelling for help. I was always troubled by his attitude to the UN. For all its failings, and yes there are many, it still remains the most legitimate body to deal with much of the trouble in the world today. Instead of ignoring or undermining it for their own political and economic gain, the major countries should be seeking to making it stronger for everyone's benefit, including updating the permanent members to reflect the changes internationally that have happened since 1945. It's good that Bush belatedly realises that the UN is the only external body that can come here longer term and have any chance of keeping some sort of peace.

2007-01-17T12:50:00.000-08:00

I forgot to mention something that made me laugh - Bush once called himself "the decider" which is funny enough (oddly similar to his description of "suiciders") but now, in response to the response to his new new new new Iraq plan, the "educator in chief". Ha ha !! This from a real clever bastard!

Master plan

2007-01-17T07:02:00.000-08:00

By now you'll probably know that Bush has at last announced the new new new new strategy for Iraq. It's been pretty much universally panned from what I can tell. I'm not quite sure what to make of it. On the one hand, here is a guy who is doing what his electorate clearly don't want him to be doing. The Democrats did so well in November's congressional elections largely on the basis of their Iraq opposition and their argument in favour of getting US troops out of Iraq. So it doesn't say much about the health of their democracy is you've got this cowboy carrying on with doing things his way. The Iraq Study Group's report also backed a troop withdrawal, but Bush kept waiting until he got a report that supported his wish to carry on and, it seems, even escalate the number of troops.

On the other hand, and I doubt I will ever say this about Bush and Cheney again, I think this is the right plan, if it is carried out properly and also with a degree of reliance on luck. It seems to me to be the least bad option and with good fortune might help to improve things here in the long run. It might of course make matters here no better, but that seems to be what any other plan's guaranteed outcome would be. All the headlines have been about the troop numbers, but that's only a part of what is happening this time. If anything, they should probably send at least 30 or 40 thousand more, but that was always unlikely. There are 2 reasons this plan might work: first, this time there is a real desire to deal with the militias, in particular the Mahdi Army. Whether that is going to happen depends entirely on the Iraqi government. They've shown no inclination to deal with it before, but it's pretty clear that if they don't do something about it then their days as a government will be numbered. They're losing support from the US and, importantly, from their own people, so this is really their last chance to pull finger and do it. The other reason I think this is a starter is that at the same time as they're (hopefully) dealing with the militias, they're also trying to get factories open and Iraqis back into work. If there is work for desperate men that means they won't have to rely on the militias, then the militias can be dealt with by lack of recruits as well as depriving them of political power.

Of course, it's a long shot. But early signs are potentially encouraging. Mahdi Army are apparently going to be keeping a low profile when the extra troops arrive. If the most can be made of that (presumably) more stable time to get the factories up and running and even electricity production increased, then by the time the troops leave there will be less chance of the militias operating as they have been. Maybe this is just wishful thinking, but it makes better sense to me than anything else that's been tried.

For now, though, it's still going ape shit out there. Yesterday 70 people were killed and twice as many injured when two bombs went off at Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. I heard that Sunnis were being blamed for that but that doesn't make much sense. For one, the Sunnis are if anything more affiliated than anyone else at universities, and it was Sunnis who had the vast majority of the teaching jobs at universities in Baghdad before the invasion. Most of them have now fled to Jordan. Also I think the Ministry of Education is Sunni controlled as well, and when you hear about universities or academics being the target of violence, they're usually Sunnis that get killed. This time it was a mixture of Sunni, Shia and Kurds, so it may well be that terrorists from outside Iraq were responsible. At least that's the theory in a logical place but Baghdad tends to defy all logic these days.

This afternoon a couple of bombs went off, the one below in Sadr City killing 15. I saw the plumes of smoke and wondered what the hell it was. It doesn't take long to log on and find out. I remember when I first came to Baghdad I saw some plumes of smoke and wondered whether they were from bombs or simply fires. I don't tend to question it anymore.

Gunfight at the Baghdad Corral

2007-01-07T12:30:00.000-08:00

We heard this last night. There were 2 almighty explosions, one was a rocket and the other maybe mortars not long after, that landed in the IZ. Not the close to us but still very loud. Then we heard the small arms fire after that and it was in the direction of Haifa Street, just outside the IZ. There might be a few of these things in the coming days as Maliki has announced a crackdown and the militias (primarily al-Sadr's Mahdi army) will be trying to flex their muscles. I am 50/50 between scepticism and hope that Maliki really will try and crack down. The next few days should be very interesting.

Hanging update

2007-01-07T10:08:00.000-08:00

I heard a couple of interesting things yesterday. I can't verify their truth but I was talking to someone who tends to be in the know about this kind of thing.

The first one is that the original "team" who were supposed to oversee the hanging were "replaced" at the last minute by members of al Sadr's militia (the Mahdi army). Hence the way his name was said by the executioners. Apparently the way they put the noose around his neck (at the side rather than from the back) is another giveaway. Apparently that was the way the British used to do it as well??

The other thing is that Maliki actually tried to resign last Wednesday, but the Iraqi President and the US wouldn't accept it / urged him to stay on. That suggests to me that they're still just trying to get a few things in place so that when his successor comes in he'll have less problems with militias to deal with initially. The extra US troops will presumably have getting rid of the militias as their top priority. I don't think the US has done a great deal properly here and obviously I think they shouldn't have invaded in the first place, but I have to say I think this is the right idea. For once, Bush might have got it right, but that will depend on how the thing is done. They're also now trying to get factories working again (mainly goods like textiles and concrete) so that they can get men back to work. This is crucial in sorting the violence out. It might take a little while to really start working but it's good that they're really starting to focus on "soft" ways to resolve the violence as well as the "hard" option which is coming. If the State department and the Pentagon had worked together in the first place maybe we'd have been at this point 3 years ago....

They say there are 2 potential candidates to replace Maliki, but the smart money has to be on Iyad Allawi. You may remember him from such Iraq interim prime ministerships as 28 June 2004 to 7 April 2005. More about him here. He may have been a CIA stooge but it's widely felt, most importantly by Iraqis themselves, that he is the only person who can hold some sort of government together and get a genuine process of reconciliation moving. Watch this space...

Just thought I'd comment on one more thing. The British Education Secretary, Alan Johnson said "I agree with John Prescott's remarks about the way it was handled and I am an opponent of the death penalty. But it was a matter for the Iraqi people to make that judgment. What happened shouldn't detract from the terrible crimes that Saddam committed. I knew the trade union leader he sentenced to death for organising a trade union in Iraq." I don't think that's the full story. One of the things that has stunned me as I have looked at some Iraqi laws is how progressive they were. The Labour Code, which is still in force today, actively encourages trade unions, and disciplinary action in some cases can't be taken against an employee unless a trade union representative is present. So whoever it was that was sentenced to death by Saddam was probably up to something else. British Politicians should check their facts. Nothing new there then!

maybe there's hope....

2007-01-03T17:59:00.000-08:00

So Maliki wants to step down. That's a relief. Well, a good start anyway. Maybe. There must be a whole lot more than just the poster boy who need to go. Could be a false dawn when he goes, but it might force a shift of behind-the-scenes power for the better. Here's hoping.

Two Very Different Deaths

2007-01-03T01:04:00.000-08:00

One former leader who died last week laid in state and was given an ex President's funeral. Another was taunted and hanged and his body only released to his family and tribe after pressure from the US. Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein couldn't have been buried under more different circumstances.

I have read with interest much of what has been written in the days after Saddam's execution. Some of it regarding the trial and how it was conducted, some of it about the death penalty generally, some about the timing. It's clearly an issue that fascinates people as much as it divides them. The Italian prime minister suggested yesterday that they'd push for a global ban on the death penalty, though it's difficult to see much support for that on the security council.

Anyone that was in any doubt about whether this was "victors' justice" should by now be sure that this was exactly that. The taunting of Saddam and the evocation of Moqtada al-Sadr's name say it all. We already knew the Iraqi government was fizzing at the clopper to get him hanged by the end of last year. Now they have extended the Eid holiday from 4 to 7 days because of the hanging. If that all doesn't add up to victor's justice, I don't know what does. This government has no interest in reconciliation. Maliki depends on Sadr and others' militias for support and the notion of national unity is a sick joke.

Looks like, contrary to the ISG Report recommendation, there will be no chatting to Syria or Iran, at least not publicly. I thought initially that they'd need to do that to get anywhere. More recently I started to think that Maliki and his corrupt bunch were the root of the problem and now that seems pretty clear.

So, the US will send in 30,00 more troops and try to get the Iraqi security services trained properly. Trained to do what exactly? Kill more of their countrymen? Run more criminal rackets? Until you root out the core of the problem the whole army and police will be rotten, from the top down.

The Democrats resume control of Congress in the US tomorrow and Bush will be under a lot more scrutiny in terms of his strategy for Iraq (if there ever was one). During this year I think they'll start handing over checkpoints (the legitimate ones, that is) to the Iraqis. As soon as they start that, I'm getting the hell out of here. The country is carving itself into pieces, and the people that live in it too. I don't fancy being part of that process.

Christmas in Baghdad

2006-12-27T02:42:00.000-08:00

Interesting times in Iraq eh. The question of whether the British operation against the serious crimes unit in Basrah was right or wrong should exist independently of whether invading Iraq was right or wrong. I was dead against invasion in 2003 but think it was, on balance, probably right that they took down the station last week. This is part of Operation Sinbad to try and root out the worst elements of the security forces in Iraq. I understand that western troops and private security companies have committed many disgraces, some reported but most not, but the simple fact is (probably) that dozens of people were saved from torture and execution by this operation. Isn't that a good enough end in itself? Taking down the building itself I think was right as well, why not remove what for many in Basrah would have been a symbol of corruption and murder.

I was surprised to see Saddam's death sentence upheld so soon. They weren't bound by the constitution to issue an appeal decision within any time limit, so they could have stuck it on the shelf for a couple of months. Maliki's keen as mustard to get Saddam hanged so I wouldn't be surprised to see the sentence carried out within the next week. Some of my Iraqi friends are very, very worried that this is really going to make the violence escalate. Of course there's a perverse asymmetry to this - to remove a negative symbol in the shape of the police station in Basrah might well improve things down there but removing one in the form of Saddam in Baghdad is going to lead to a lot of death and destruction.

Aaaanyway. Christmas in Baghdad has been great fun. Parties on every night for the last week and another one to go to tonight. Hopefully I'll have a couple of days off before the round of New Year parties kicks in. My liver is in need of a break.

Here's wishing you and yours a safe and happy Christmas, and all the best for 2007 wherever you are.

S

Back to Baghdad

2006-12-12T20:00:00.000-08:00

It's never easy flying Iraqi Airways. I had problems with them when I left Baghdad to go on leave and was flying back in from Kurdistan the other day. We boarded the flight 2 hours after it was scheduled to depart, which was fine. We expected that and 2 hours isn't too bad for this airline. So then we sat there for a while and nothing happened until they asked everyone to get back off the plane again to check the luggage. They'd lined all the bags up on the tarmac and we had to go and identify them to get them put back in the hold. Nothing to do with security measures - just plain incompetence. It puts you in the mindset that you are back in Iraq though, so it's not all bad.

Being back isn't that bad, though it's much tougher to come back after leave than it is to come here in the first place. You get used to normal life and seeing friends and family again and then it's back to this madness. One of our guys' brother was shot and killed 3 days ago, the cleaner whose husband was kidnapped (and has now disappeared altogether - very suspect) had a brother murdered 2 weeks ago, and another guy saw someone dragged out of his car and shot in the head yesterday outside his front door. This place is much worse than it was when I left and the sense of fear is palpable. The main obstacle for security is the government. They are a total disaster for the people of Iraq. Many Iraqis think even talking to Syria and Iran won't make any difference now. Maliki and his corrupt, partisan government should be overthrown as soon as possible. I wouldn't lose too much sleep if they were kidnapped tomorrow.

As for today's suicide bombing that killed over 50 people looking for work and injured 3 times as many, it will be blamed on Sunnis. I'm not so sure though because Iraqis aren't usually suicide bombers - Arabs are. So my guess is the suicide bomber this morning was Syrian or in any case a foreign terrorist. Not that that will stop the Shiites going on a sectarian death squad jolly though.

In other news gunmen stole USD 1 million from a bank truck in Baghdad. That probably translates into a lot of rockets, so soon, in a sense, it will be raining money.

Something didn't smell right......

2006-12-06T23:10:00.000-08:00

This is pretty funny. Lighting your farts when you're a kid is one thing, but this takes the cake. Presumably her farts didn't smell like sulphur in the first place...

So the long awaited and much leaked Baker report came out yesterday. Already Bush is ruling out direct talks with Iran and Syria. Well clearly he's got it right so far, so why follow the advice of the Baker Commission? If it wasn't so tragic it would almost be funny. Any plan that doesn't involve direct talks with Iran and Syria is doomed to failure. The Iraqi police and army are so corrupt that without Iranian and Syrian involvement they will never be able to function as they should. The big difference between the Iraqi army and the army in Kurdistan is that the former are easily bought but the latter are not. You wouldn't ask prisoners to police the streets of the US or the UK, so why do it here? Simply embedding another 20,000 troops with the Iraqi security services won't make a blind bit of difference if you're not getting the neighbours involved. The borders are more leaky than England's middle order so unless you contain the problem you're always treading water. If the Iranian and Syrian borders are sealed and the weapons and terrorists stop coming in, then you can at last begin to deal with a finite quantity of shit. But Bush seems more content to piss in the wind. He must rate the size of his bladder...

A very different Iraq

2006-12-06T05:21:00.000-08:00

I'm in Kurdistan at the moment, which is broadly the northern part of Iraq. A brief history lesson. In 1992 Kurdistan (or the Federal Region of Kurdistan to give it the full name) became semi autonomous. It has its own constitution and has passed some of its own laws, although these are not significantly different from Iraqi law. One difference is that laws passed by the CPA in 2003 and 2004 are not recognised here as they were not legislated through the regional assembly (parliament). Between 1992 and 1997 all sorts of shit was hitting the fan as rival factions battled for power, being the PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) and KDP (Kurdish Democratic Party). The PUK was led by Jalal Talibani and the KDP by Massoud Barzani. These days they are President of Iraq and Kurdistan respectively. After the imposition of the UN's Oil for Food program in 1997 and intervention by the US, things calmed down and they've been working alongside ever since.

Being here is bizarre - I don't even feel like I am in Iraq. Life here is normal. There are no bombs, rockets, mortars, helicopters or kidnappings. There is no razor wire. Kids go to school and walk down the street freely, restaurants do a bustling trade and there are hundreds of them, many run by people who fled Baghdad. So yeah, it really is hard to believe this is Iraq. I'm not looking forward to going back to Baghdad this time. I'm sure that at some point in 2007, maybe in Spring or Summer, even the IZ is going to be getting too dangerous. So I will hunker down in Baghdad for the next couple of months but after that I'll have to either come up to Kurdistan or get out of Iraq altogether. Not much use making fistfuls of dollars if your fists have been blown off or you're dead.

Bye bye Bolton

2006-12-04T21:49:00.000-08:00

I was happy to see that Bush has now given up trying to permanently appoint John Bolton as the US ambassador to the UN. Bolton has been doing that job for over a year, but only on an interim basis as his appointment hadn't been formally approved by the US Senate. The Bush administration has shown total contempt for the UN and Bolton's presence on its behalf was a symptom of that. Bolton was a critic of the UN and he was sent to "shake it up" which really means to bully other members into approving things that were in the best interests of the US. Given his public criticism of the UN, even before he was appointed temporarily, he was the very last person Bush should have been thinking of, but that shows the mentality of the Bush administration. The UN does have its faults, but to seek to undermine it further is in nobody's interest. International law does matter, as the clear breach of it in invading Iraq has shown. When countries start disregarding it, as the US and UK did in 2003, who are they to turn round and object when other countries do? So yeah, laters Bolton.

Back again

2006-12-03T22:54:00.000-08:00

I've been out of Iraq for a while and am now back. I caught up with a lot of people who mean a lot to me in various places and had the best holiday I could have hoped for. While I was away I felt strangely detached from what was happening here, but maybe that was no bad thing. When you're here, the things those people are doing to each other start to grind you down so it's good to get out and have some normality for a while. Of course the Iraqis don't have that luxury. Being away made me really take stock of where I'm at and it was really hard to come back. I'm not sure I'll be here longer than another 12 months now, though circumstances on that ground may well mean I'm not even here that long. I have been sounded out for another job here which pays more and is doing something that would probably be more constructive for this country than what I have been doing so far, which has been a mixed bag. What I've been doing isn't counter-productive for Iraq, but I have always felt like I wasn't doing what I came here to do, or at least to the extent I'd like. So we will see. I should know in the next few days whether I will be changing.

So.... what's been going on the last few weeks? There was that horrific day in which a couple hundred Shiites met their maker courtesy of a series of car bombs, and a couple of days ago some more car bombs killed another 51. The number of horribly disfigured people must be at least 500. Religion's a strange old thing. The things people do to each other, and all in the name of this god they've been brainwashed into believing in since birth. A book I was reading on holiday had a quote that interested me, something along the lines of "the more a religion tends towards monotheism, the more barbaric it becomes". Sounds sensible to me. My own view is that religion is a problem full stop. On a small, personal scale it can help people in times of need and give them hope. On a large scale however it's a disaster for the human race. Look at history, and the present for that matter - when people stop thinking of themselves (and others) simply as people, and move towards narrower groups based on religion or race (which often overlap), their ideals start to conflict and all hell breaks loose. When you look at black and white clips of WWII and see human beings slaughtering each other you wonder what the hell was that all for. And on it goes. Religion is, for me, a way of the human race absolving ourselves of responsibility for our actions (the theory being that we'll all be judged by a higher power at the end of the day). Moral values such as not stealing exist totally independently of religion, so quite why anyone needs to have a god to adhere to those virtues is beyond me. If you're religious, then good luck to you. Just don't try and convert me.

Iraq's government is in a bit of a mess with Sadr's lot pulling out in protest about Maliki's meeting with Bush. I will try and get hold of a link to the press conference they held - I didn't see it as I was probably on a beach somewhere, but apparently Bush was just plain embarrassing. What's new, yeah I know, but apparently he was off the scale of muppetry. More later.

Confessional and Mid Terms

2006-11-13T15:10:00.000-08:00

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.

Sheep coup

2006-11-07T23:33:00.000-08:00

This from a local newspaper a few days ago:

Details Of US Coup Attempt Against Al Maliki’s Government [¨Nabaa Newspaper] (3 NOV)

Summary: Secret reports confirmed that the US is preparing for a military coup to frustrate Al Maliki’s government. The plan is that a group of Palestinian women will dress like beggars and go to Shiite areas, such as Buratha, to give information. At the same time, Sunnis will move from Sunni areas toward Shiite areas such as Shula and Kadhmiya. The Sunnis will dress like cleaning, electricity, and water workers. The plan also includes placing bombs in at least 100 sheep and spreading them in local Shiite markets. They will then detonate them to create chaos in these areas. The coup plan focuses on Baghdad but there will be other attempts in Najaf. The plan in Najaf will be to take fake coffins which will contain bombs. There will be 100 funerals heading to Najaf during one week and there will four people escorting each funeral. These people will stay in the city and they will make contact with other people on the out side in order to prepare for their missions. Iraqi authorities found out on OCT 26th that Najaf was closed by someone for hours. Many holy shrines were closed such as Kufa, Imam Muslim Bin Aqil, Imam Mukhtar Al Thaqafi, Imam Ali’s House, and Sahala Mosque. All these shrines were closed because there were attempts to blow them up and push Iraq into sectarian war. Because of these explosions, people will lose trust in Al Maliki’s government and demand to replace it. Then Iraq will ask for the US help to form a salvation government. US forces will bring the former army and use it again. Parliament will be dissolved and its members will be arrested. The new constitution, political parties, and militias will be canceled. There is information saying that there are officers already prepared in one of the neighboring countries in order to receive the leadership of Iraq. The new government will include a small number of ministries led by military officers. An election will be held after one year. The US plan ensures that the new government will be able to break the Shiite plans in their areas. It will also clean Iraq’s hot areas of gunmen. Alliance members are worried about a change of power in Iraq. US forces are trying to reoccupy Baghdad. These US forces will withdraw after the coup and the Iraqi Army will receive the security missions.

Erm, "The plan also includes placing bombs in at least 100 sheep and spreading them in local Shiite markets."??? Dolly the insurgent?

couple of links

2006-11-07T00:24:00.000-08:00

I meant to post these but keep forgetting.

Here's a little something from Simon Jenkins on the hysteria the media have created in their portrayal of terrorism. Self serving too - a scared public = bigger circulation. Great! Presumably the same reason they never asked the right questions in the run up to Iraq. They allowed Fox's brand of "journalism" to set the bar. Way to go.

And here's something about the strange death of Dr David Kelly. A bit fishy, that was.

2006-11-06T23:58:00.000-08:00

It's been relatively quiet as far as I could tell while the curfew was on. That got lifted this evening so we might start seeing things get nasty. I wandered outside a few minutes ago and heard heavy machine gun fire from across the Tigris. Also one of our staff lives in a Sunni neighbourhood. We called him yesterday and today to make sure he was ok and he said there's been trouble in his neighbourhood. Bullets whizzing over his roof and the sound of gunfire very close to his house. Today there have been a lot more fighter jets passing over than there usually are and the helicopters have been different. Instead of the usual Black Hawks that take people to the airport or wherever, there have been those sinister looking things with weapons all over them. God knows what's going on out there. The authorities have shut down some Sunni TV stations as well (see Riverbend's entry from yesterday) so it's even harder to find out what's really going on, as opposed to what they want you to see. Aah, good old freedom of speech, Iraqi style.

Nice to see Riverbend is still alive. I thought she'd fallen victim to a Shia death squad as she hadn't posted for a long time.

The sentence

2006-11-05T12:26:00.000-08:00

So he got death in the last few minutes. We heard a rocket or bomb go off around the time the sentence came down so we're hunkering down today. There shouldn't be a great deal going on while the curfew is in effect but the coming days could be interesting. Maybe this is all worrying about nothing and the Sunnis won't go nuts. The Shiites certainly like it - they're out in their cars today beeping and whistling and hanging out windows.

This is by no means the end of it anyway - there is an automatic appeal process because the sentence was death. Saddam doesn't need to request an appeal, it just happens. So within I think 10 days 9 judges of an appeal court will review it and they have a minimum of 20 days to grant or deny the appeal. They can demand a retrial or if they uphold the death sentence it has to be carried out within 30 days. No new evidence is heard, they just review how the trial was conducted. There have long been concerns about how fair this trial was so it's not 100% that the sentence will be upheld. It could be a lot longer than 30 days before we hear anything in any case.

The thing that disturbs me is the timing of this. It was pretty clear that he was going to get a guilty verdict and most people thought he would get the death penalty. I thought they would defer sentencing to avoid Iraqis killing each other on a bigger scale than we've seen. Funny how it's come on the weekend before the US mid term elections. The Republicans are in the shit because of Iraq and a whole host of sex scandals, plus the way they botched the relief effort after Hurricane Katrina. Sadly this stunt will give them a boost. Once again it's a case of saving Bush's arse instead of saving Iraqi blood. These fuckers make me puke.

I'm out of here for a holiday soon. Good timing.

Iraq's big day

2006-11-04T13:26:00.000-08:00

So tomorrow is the big day - the verdict for the Dujail trial. Hard to see a not guilty verdict coming in. So far, so good. If they also sentence him tomorrow, i.e. confirm or not the death penalty, this place explodes. I don't know what will happen but if they sentence him tomorrow they're nuts. Not just Baghdad but the whole country will go ape shit if they do the sentencing tomorrow.

Not too much new happening lately. There was that American soldier/translator who went to see his Iraqi wife and never came home, so they locked down Sadr City looking for him. There was an air strike there one day last week as well which we hear took out a major terrorist too. It's about time they had a crack at that place. The Iraqi PM wasn't too pleased about it but that's because half his cabinet members have got malitias too of which Sadr is just an example, directly or indirectly. He is a disaster for the Iraqis and Americans alike. His days must be numbered but let's see how he goes.

There was a real upsurge in rockets into the IZ after he lifted that siege. Not that much of a shock really.

Soundbites #2

2006-10-25T23:15:00.000-07:00

First, thanks to Rach and Fraser for a couple of Bushlines:

"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror."

"I would guess, I would surmise that some of the more spectacular bombings are done by al Qaeda suiciders"

"The United States of America is engaged in a war against an extremist group of folks"

"Trying to stop suiciders -- which we're doing a pretty good job of on occasion -- is difficult to do. And what the Iraqis are going to have to eventually do is convince those who are conducting suiciders who are not inspired by Al Qaeda, for example, to realize there's a peaceful tomorrow"

"After the bombing, most Iraqis saw what the perpetuators of this attack were trying to do."

"Frustrated? Sometimes I'm frustrated. Rarely surprised. Sometimes I'm happy. You know, this is -- but war is not a time of joy. These aren't joyous times. These are challenging times."

Erm. "SOMETIMES I'M HAPPY" ?????

And yesterday he came out with a series of little nuggets:

"I think I owe an explanation to the American people." You really think so???

"The people need to know that we have a plan for victory." Another useless word. There is no victory, just varying shades of defeat. The world isn't as black and white as Fox viewers might like to believe.

He's always banging on about "the enemy" as well: "As the enemy shifts tactics we are shifting our tactics as well" No, as the American public shifts its opinion and starts waking up to what a mess you've made, and you start to shit your pants because you can't fool them anymore, only then do you find it within yourself to change your tactics.

"This notion about, you know, fixed timetable of withdrawal, in my judgement, means defeat." Ha ha ha!! Your judgement? That's served you really well hasn't it!

Tony Blair came out with another one yesterday as well. He said that to pull British troops out before Iraqi troops were confident they could handle security would be "a complete betrayal not just of the Iraqi people, but of all the sacrifices that have been made by our armed forces over the years". This coming from the man who has unequivocally betrayed the British forces by sending them into an illegal and unnecessary war with inadequate kit in the first place, and shat on the Iraqis in the process. This man is a lunatic.

More shifts in the last couple of days. Bush called the Iraqi PM only 3 or 4 days ago and said he fully backed his government ("heck of a job, Maliki" anyone?). Yesterday there were signs that patience in Washington is running out and Maliki's days are numbered. About time too. Maliki's been useless. There have been whispers of a coup of some sort going around here for 2 or 3 weeks now. Watch this space.

Yesterday the US carried out a raid on Sadr city for the first time. They must have been looking for an interpreter of Iraq descent who went to visit some family of his and never came back. A raid on Sadr city's been overdue for months. Maliki's not happy about it at all.

Yesterday 200 serving members of the US Armed Forces signed a petition calling for an immediate withdrawal of US troops. Apparently they don't like the idea of being asked to put their lives on the line not for their country, but for corporate oil interests. I wonder why. Blair take note.

Soundbites #1

2006-10-23T17:30:00.001-07:00

It's incredible how bland politicians sound when they're yapping about anything, but particularly in the case of Iraq. Here's a sample taken from today alone:

Bahrham Saleh, Iraq's Deputy PM: "Failure is not an option" (unless you get Rummy involved in the planning, in which case it's COMPULSORY)

Margaret Beckett, British Foreign Minister: "We need to keep our nerve. We need to get Iraq back on its feet. We need to establish greater stability" (You need to piss off until you have something useful to say instead of the blindingly obvious)

Tony Blair, twat: it's hard to know where to start with this goon, but today he said Britain would "hold its nerve" (I'm sure that's steadied a few nerves. Thanks, Tone. We trust you. Really.)

Des Browne, British Defence Secretary: "out when the job is done" (oooh, a nice little variation on "stay the course" as coined by Karl Rove. What job is that, anyway?)

Don't even go there with Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld. Actually on second thought, please do. I'd love to hear the ones you like best.

Contrast this from Sir Menzies Campbell, leader of the Liberal Democrats in the UK: "If we are to salvage anything from Iraq the essential first step is an admission from the prime minister and President Bush that they got it wrong" (Absolutely. It's a shame they've got their heads stuck so far up their arses they'll never have the humility to acknowledge their humiliation)

2006-10-22T23:56:00.001-07:00

Just reading about some researchers backing up the method used in the recent study on Iraq deaths that was published in the Lancet. I came across a surname I thought must be made up. It's got a Gary Larson kind of edge to it - maybe a crocodile with a spotlight in his face protesting he know nothing. See for yourself. You'll know it when you see it.

Climbdowns

2006-10-22T08:13:00.000-07:00

Last week the chief of staff of the British Army dared to state that the British Army's presence in Iraq was part of the problem and that it was time to get out soon. The next day he was doing the rounds of television studios trying to back pedal but the genie was out of the bottle. A couple of days ago a senior State Department official in the US, Alberto Gonzalez, said the US had been stupid and arrogant when it came to Iraq. Apparently this morning he's withdrawn his comments too. Hell I'll stick them back in the ring. It was like Donald Rumsfled was almost determined to mess it up. An incredible lack of competence, driven largely by the fact that the Pentagon was determined to take full control from the State Department, despite State having done a lot of work on post invasion planning. Rummy ignored them at every turn, the idiot. Check this out.

A doomed marriage

2006-10-21T00:19:00.000-07:00

There's been a real shift in the last few days. People that are well placed to know are coming out and saying that the mission here is not working. There are two schools of thought. One (which I believe) is that the US and UK are going to have to get out of here soon and leave the Iraqis to sort their country out with assistance from Syria and Iran. The other is that the US will have to bring extra troops in and try to retake Baghdad. I don't see how that can happen. There's no way I can see that we can stay until we hand over security to the Iraqis. We'd be here forever. I hate to say it, but they are in many cases lazy and corrupt. Everyone is on the take here. For foreign companies to get licences to run security companies they have to first pay tax and social security in respect of their Iraqi employees. There's two ways of doing this: 1. Pay what you're supposed to by reference to the salaries you've got in the company accounts or 2. Pay an official at the Tax authorities a bribe and get them to lower the amount payable. This is how business is done in Iraq. This video is an example of how the security transfer is going. It's just not plausible for us to stay "until the job is done". It sounds as if Bush is starting to accept this at last.

Alert Levels

2006-10-19T00:45:00.000-07:00

sent to me from the UK recently.

FRANCE
Following the recent events in London, the French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from 'Run' to 'Hide'. The only two higher levels in France are 'Surrender' and 'Collaborate'. The rise was precipitated by a recent fire which destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively paralysing their military. In response to the French raising their alert level other European countries have responded in kind.

ITALY
The Italians have increased their alert level from "Shouting Excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing". Two more levels remain, "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides".

GERMANY
The Germans have also increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Full Dress Uniform and Marching Songs". They have two higher levels, "Invade a Neighbour" and "Lose".

US
Seeing this reaction in continental Europe the Americans have gone from "Isolationism" to "Find Somewhere Ripe for Regime Change". Their remaining higher alert states are "Take on the World" and "Ask the British for Help".

GREAT BRITAIN
Finally, here in GB we've gone from "Pretend Nothing's Happening" to "Make Another Cup of Tea". Our higher levels are "Chin Up and Remain Cheerful" and "Win". The British are still feeling the pinch in relation to recent bombings and security threats and have raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." Londoners have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to a "Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was during the great fire of 1666

Swiss Toni

2006-10-18T06:11:00.000-07:00

No, not Tony Blair, but the Vice President of Iraq....

"Being Vice President of Iraq is a lot like making love to a beautiful woman, Paul..."

Bleak outlook

2006-10-17T23:12:00.000-07:00

The future isn't looking good for Iraq. Last week it was reported that the Iraqi Parliament approved a new law that will allow Shiites to form their own semi-autonomous region in the south, in the same way as the Kurds have had (with the Federal Region of Kurdistan) in the north since 1992. Sunnis boycotted the vote, as did some Shia parties who didn't like some of the measures in the law. There's a dispute as to whether the law was validly passed - 138 out of the 275 legislators need to be present for there to be a quorum. The headcount had to be repeated several times. The session was behind closed doors but some parliament staff spoke to the press on condition of anonymity. Those who were Shia said 140 voted, Sunnis said 133. So who knows?

Either way, this is the first step in the break up of Iraq into federal regions. The Sunnis would have the central part of Iraq. They're not happy with that idea as the oil is concentrated in the north and the south, so they'd be left with a raw deal. Although no changes are to be made, i.e. the merging of governorates in the south into one Shia Region, until 2008, don't be too surprised to see a massive upsurge in violence in the months ahead.

It's too late to get the security situation under control now. This place is one Grade A basket case. The media reported that the "leaked" draft Baker report last week suggesting that Iraq may be split into federal regions was directly at odds with what Bush would want to be said. Yeah right. This is the new policy and that's their way of testing public reaction. Whatever happens in between now and when the policy is announced is filler.

Iraqis are fleeing in their thousands. Well over 1 million have left already and the rate goes up every week. I wouldn't be too surprised to see Coalition forces out of here in 6-12 months. So I guess I will be out of here too, unless I can work in Kurdistan.

This is worth a look even if you don't think Cheney's a complete c***

655k

2006-10-12T12:24:00.000-07:00

By now you've probaby heard about the report from the Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health that since the start of the invasion in March 2003, 655,000 Iraqis have died. In case you didn't get the detail, researchers interviewed 1,849 households at 47 random locations in Iraq this summer. Heads of households were asked how many members had lost their lives in the year before the invasion and how many in the three subsequent years. Crucially, researchers asked for death certificates in 87% of the households and, of those, 92% produced them. The results were then applied to the population of Iraq as a whole. Of the total estimated 655k, just over 601,000 were violent deaths and included insurgents/combatants, police and civilians. Just under 200,000 of these were directly attributed to coalition forces and the rest were "other" or "unknown".

The figure to concentrate on I think is the 601,000. Naturally Bush, Inc. and Blair.con have rejected the findings, but remember Rumsfeld saying "we don't do body counts"? They either didn't do body counts because they simply didn't care (despite being there "to liberate the people") or didn't want the bad news to come out. The Lancet study in 2004 that estimated 100,000 dead springs to mind, and the (neo)cons were very quick to scramble their spin and discredit machines into work on that one. The media took it as read that the study was flawed, probably after a few rednecks said so on Fox (that bastion of truth and balance), so the Lancet study was never given the credence it should have been.

But this is harder to ignore. The British government prefers to rely on figures from the Ministry of Health here, which recorded 7,254 deaths in all of 2005. I nearly choked on my cornflakes when I read that. BushCo and Blair.con prefer the figure of around 50,000. Has anyone called a nurse for those two? Okay, to be fair, even I think that 601,000 violent deaths figure is probably a bit high, but I reckon that as a minimum, 400,000 (including during the invasion) is totally realistic. Even that's something to be properly ashamed of. It just amazes me how these two both got voted back in 2 years ago. Admittedly in both the US and UK the Opposition stuck a real fucking donkey up against Bush and Blair respectively, but come on, isn't this important? It shows what shit state democracy is in on both sides of the Atlantic if your choice is to vote for a donkey or a prick. And we're exporting THAT???

Bit of excitement tonight........... It's raining!

So that thing the other night was the thing down at FOB Falcon (the US base) but in separate news, there were some rockets lobbed in here too. Never a dull moment, apart from the fact that there's nothing to do.....

spin

2006-10-10T23:29:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning and flicked on the news and it's saying those blasts last night were from an ammunitions store in a US base in southern Baghdad. I don't believe that for a second, unless there was that AND rocket attacks into the IZ. Last night, some of the things we heard were so loud and made the windows rattle that there's no way they were in the south of Baghdad - they must have been around here. There were other, quiter ones, more thuds than bangs. Some media reports are of around 20 explosions but I heard upwards of 50, mostly sounding further away. I doubt I'll get any more info about it as whatever it was they're obviously not letting on.

Rockets

2006-10-10T15:10:00.000-07:00

I hadn't really heard much in the way of rockets or mortars landing when I first got here, except for the occasional one off in the distance somewhere. I can sure as shit hear them tonight! They're apparently landing a few streets away but it sounds like next door and still makes the windows rattle and has that weird vaccuum sound of a bomb. Tasty!

2006-10-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

By the look of this today was a bit more spicy...

Saddam's Trials

2006-10-09T13:12:00.000-07:00

The first thing to make clear is that there isn't one "Saddam trial". There has been one set of court proceedings already, relating to the killing of 148 Shia in Dujail in 1982. The one going on now is for the slaughter of tens of thousands of Kurds in 1988 in what was called Operation Anfal. Among others also on trial are his cousin, "Chemical Ali".

I went to the Anfal trial today. It was a strange experience, being totally mundane on one level and totally unreal on another. It had the participants you'd expect - judges at the top (five of them, of which the chief presiding judge sits in the middle), prosecutors on one side, defence lawyers on the other, a witness box facing into the courtroom with a curtain around it which could be drawn at the witness's request, and defendants in the middle as you can see from TV footage. There were also interpreters and scribers and bailiffs and people responsible for document production. And a few Americans with the little earphone wires that make them look like extras off 24 but much harder. So far, so normal.

Then you start listening to testimony and despite the normality of structure, this isn't exactly a petty theft trial. Rather than "witnesses" as such, the people that testified were "complainants". The first one spoke from behind the curtain and spoke of how the army came with tanks and destroyed the village and arrested busloads of people. They were taken to Tikrit and held there for a day and then taken to a military prison where they stayed for 7 months. People were malnourished and some died of disease, others torture. Some women were tied to the fence and left in the hot sun all day. Some women were beaten with cables. The stories went on and on. People's families were split up when they were arrested and she, like others, never knew about the fate of hers until their ID cards were found in the mass graves in which they had been buried. The court showed pictures of the ID cards that were found. Her brother and sister can have been no more than 10 at the time. I still stand by the comment from my last post about a life being a life but it's those pictures that left a bigger imprint on me than anything else did today. (They actually fucked up by also showing the complainant's ID which obviously doesn't sit well with the fact that she was giving testimony from behind a closed curtain. The court deleted it from the record but everyone in the courtroom was able to see it for the 15 seconds or so it was on screen.)

The other complainants gave similar accounts about how their villages were destroyed, how their families went missing to never be seen again, how long they were in detention for. One referred to the army taking his ID card off him and saying he didn't deserve it as he was Iranian - the "justification" being that the army accused the Kurds of siding with the Iranians. Not that this will make the headlines, but he also said that he had heard (at the time) that leaflets had been dropped from helicopters telling villagers to leave his village because there would be big trouble, but they didn't believe their village would be hit as they were just simple people and besides they had nowhere to go. All they had was the land their families had been farming for generations, and their livestock. They had nowhere to go, or no way of taking their livestock with them.

At the end of each of their testimonies, the prosecutors and the defence lawyers asked further questions, and when that was done the judge asked whether the complainant had any questions for Saddam or the court, and who they held responsible. They asked him, why did this happen to them when they were just poor farmers? Why if they were accused of siding with the Iranians did they not get a trial like he has today? I guess it was just for the record as the defendants weren't invited or extected to respond. As to who they held responsible, Chemical Ali seemed to be equally culpable in their eyes - his name and Saddam's were the only ones that came up consistently. Bizarrely in the case of Chemical Ali, that was the name three of them used (as interpreted) rather than his actual name (Ali Hassan al-Majid). They were also asked by the judge whether they wanted to claim compensation, which was interesting - i.e. that they had to formally request it, or that it was even part of the proceedings. Maybe it makes sense if you think harder about it, i.e. they're complainants, so why shoudn't that be the case? It's just that this isn't Judge Judy so after hearing all this crazy stuff you get reminded of the normality of structure again.

The judge that now presides over the trial (it's actually, like the others, called a Tribunal) was appointed 2 weeks ago after the first judge was removed. He was good at making clear that he wasn't going to stand for any shit. In the past the court has at times looked like a bit of a circus. Today there were no theatrics from Saddam (which was almost disappointing) but he did get told off once. The 2nd defendant had been passed a copy of documents that were produced to the court and passed it to Saddam to look at. The judge stopped proceedings and told Saddam that if he wanted a copy of anything he had to ask him, not speak to the other defendants. As the judge got on with the proceedings Saddam was passing the papers back to the other guy and the judge stopped again and said "Look! We've just talked about this! We will give you a copy" which was amusing as Saddam was just passing them back.

Now for the legal bit. This Tribunal, well the Supreme Court, was set up under last year's constitution. There is no article in the constitution allowing removal of a judge from presiding over a case unless an individual request to withdraw has been made by the judge himself or parties in the case on grounds of prejudice being shown by the judge and/or public prosecution. The court has to act with full independence of all other authorities, including the President, government etc. Now, when the request to remove the last judge was made, it was made by the prosecutor. The problem is that it was made by him because of pressure to do so from the government, after the last judge said that Saddam wasn't a dictator. So, whether that judge was right or wrong, the way he was removed broke the rules in the constitution.

Then there are the major difficulties they'll have in the Dujail (i.e. the first trial) sentencing. That was scheduled (and, officially, still is) to be handed down next Monday. The inside, unofficial, word is that is unlikely as they just don't know what to do. It's pretty likely he'll get a guilty verdict, but the problem is what sentence to give. If they give him death, then the Sunni will go nuts. If they don't, then the Shia will kick off. So it's a no win situation that's been created by the insistence on having the trial here in Iraq - whatever the sentence is, there will be a lot of blood spilled because of it.

Both those reasons would be justification for just transferring the whole thing to an International Criminal Court but it's probably too late for that now. That would be seen as a defeat for the Iraqis and egg on the face of Bush & Co. Clearly saving some embarrassment for the White House is more important than getting it right in the first place. Oh but now the Americans are apparently going to advocate a break up of Iraq on sectarian lines, so that's ok then.

Dogs & Politics

2006-10-07T12:09:00.000-07:00

I went to a party at an embassy the other night which was good fun. It was only then that I realised that I hadn't really met anyone here on the diplomatic side of things here yet. A good bunch, and they sounded keen to get me out from time to time which will be good. I have been invited to another embassy this week so I look forward to that. I was talking to one person and the conversation started getting political. She was basically blaming the country's ills on the Sunni and pointing out that they have killed women and children with their brand of violence. I had to bite my tongue and excuse myself to go for a piss.

I think the general view is that Sunni = insurgent and Shia = sectarian death squad. To my mind, anything which is designed to destabilise security here should be considered insurgency whether it's sectarian or not. I am no apologist for either side - for me a coffin is a coffin, no matter the size of it. That's one aspect of western reporting that has always had me scratching my head.

The impression I get from what is happening out there is that a lot of the security situation is attributable to the Shia. The Ministry of Interior is controlled by the Shia, and therefore the police are almost, if not entirely, Shia. There is pressure on the PM now to start reigning the Shia in, as he is considered to be cutting them too much slack. Sunnis don't trust the police so the Sunni neighbourhoods have their own security forces. There were a couple of mass kidnappings last week - one from a meat factory and one from a computer centre - and the Sunni are saying that the Shia police stood by and allowed it to happen. Of course, none of this makes the Sunni insurgents blameless, although many Iraqis believe there are a lot of foreign terrorists, particularly Syrians, in the country whipping up hatred. It is a tiny minority of the population carrying these acts out, and often with assistance from outsiders. It may therefore be that some of the bombings are being perpetrated by Syrians but blamed on Sunnie. Either way, Iraqis just want this to stop so they can get on and rebuild their lives.

Things have definitely got worse out there the last 2 or 3 weeks. It's hard to get an objective view of what is happening, but I think that fragmentation of neighbourhoods has been happening on a pretty big scale sadly. Q moved last week to his wife's parents' place so at least he is safer but how must it be for him to have to do that? Some Iraqis I have spoken to think there will be no such thing as Iraq in the long run - it will split along ethnic lines. I can certainly see why that is what some are resigning themselves to, but it's still too early to tell. I still hope that things will get better in the long run.

Enough of that. Here is a picture I got emailed that has been making me laugh all day. Nothing to do with Iraq.

Let down

2006-10-04T01:30:00.000-07:00

A while back one of our guys, let's call him Q, was doing translations at a meeting and, long story short, it was filmed without prior warning to him and he was worried that if it was broadcast he would be in big trouble outside the IZ. If anyone in his neighbourhood knew he was working in the IZ with foreigners he would have been sniffed out and killed before long. I had gone to the media office and arranged for his face (and another guy's) to be edited out, so thought all was fine.

But it turns out these guys didn't do as they promised. The other guy's face was on the satellite channel broadcast, which this other guy found out through a family member of his and told Q. So odds are that Q's was on it as well. Q moved his family out of his neighbourhood the other day so hopefully they are now safe. I told Q he should come live with us in the IZ but he's not going to for now. He's staying away from his neighbourhood but I still feel uneasy. Not nearly as uneasy as him though. I can't figure out whether those clowns in the media office are incompetent or sinister. You can never tell over here, and you sure can't trust anyone. There was a rumour going around that people from within the palace they are based at were plotting to allow car bombs to be set off inside the IZ but in a place like this there will always be rumours like that. I will always be on my guard here. Some people have got a very messed up agenda. It doesn't matter whether their skin is white or brown, whether they carry a briefcase or a bomb, they're the same.

There was a meeting yesterday in the convention centre (which is where a lot of the high level meetings are) between the PM and some Shia and Sunni leaders, to put in place a plan to try and stem the sectarian violence. This has happened before and the results speak for themselves, so it's unclear whether this latest initiative will help matters. The one potential difference this time is that al-Sadr has given it his backing and will ask the "Mahdi Army" to can it for a bit. If they follow his orders then that will be a major turning point. If on the other hand they think of him as a "suit" these days and he can't control them, then it's another probable failure. Fingers crossed.

More photos

2006-10-01T09:57:00.001-07:00

A few more photos here of the 14th July Bridge (named after the day the Baathists came to power in 1958 in a coup to overthrow King Faisal II) and the 14th July Monument (often called 14 July roundabout), plus one of a dusty road (in case you're reeeeallly curious) and one of the Monument to the Unknown Soldier facing the sunrise.

Not much new here the last few days. The brother-in-law of the new judge at the Saddam Tribunal was murdered last week. The trial resumes next Monday. It was adjourned until then anyway, so the killing and the adjournment are not related. Closer to home, the ex husband of one of the women we employ was killed recently. I don't know how but sectarian violence is probably it. I haven't heard of any big blasts or discoveries of dozens of bodies for a few days. Not sure if that means it's genuinely been quieter or nothing's been reported. On Friday night a curfew was announced for all of Saturday so nobody outside the IZ was allowed to be out of their house at all, whether on foot or in a vehicle.

Oh, and today I saw my first cloud here.

Traffic enforcement

2006-10-01T09:30:00.000-07:00

Penalty points and fines clearly weren't working....

United Colours of Bennetton, classy driving and questionable phrases.

2006-09-27T23:39:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of nationalities out here doing various things. As far as civilians are concerned I guess there's everything under the sun, though I have not been here long enough to meet that many. Also I guess you need to be connected to an Embassy or something to get to meet the full range of nationalities.

It's worth mentioning something about the security personnel (by which I mean military, as opposed to private security companies). The checkpoints outside the IZ are manned by the Americans, but they are gradually handing over control to the Iraqis. At the many checkpoints around the IZ you'd think it is American military who are carrying out duties. From what I have seen, that isn't the case. Most I have come across are South Americans, Colombian I think. Good guys, ready to have a bit of friendly banter even though they are doing a really shitty job. They have to sit there under the hot sun for hours on end just checking people's badges and doing vehicle searches. Maybe they're bringing some goodies from back home to keep themselves from falling asleep from the monotony...

Then there's the Georgians. They're a different breeed altogether. Not respected. Everyone (apparently) looks down on them, including the Iraqis. I hear that in the past they have sometimes taken bribes and I know they are unduly aggressive in their approach to their work. When they drive around the IZ they speed around expecting everyone else to yield to them. When you see a military vehicle at the back of a convoy with someone sticking out the top manning a machine gun you need to keep a distance of 50-100 metres. In the IZ it's not really necessary for them to be sticking out the roof at all, as they are usually returning from the Red Zone and are obviously no longer in a hot area. Sometimes you inadvertently get within the range (for example if they pass through a roundabout and you're at one of the entries). With anyone but the Georgians, this is fine, but the Georgians do the universally understood sign for stop or keep your distance, which is a raised fist on a straight arm. This means, come any closer and we might shoot, and they mean it. It's just not necessary in the IZ though, which is why everyone gets pissed off with them because they're being over the top. But they're the ones with the guns, so I just stay back.

Driving here generally is pretty bad, but very funny. Nobody seems to know how to use a roundabout, so basically the biggest vehicles (or the Georgians) have right de facto right of way. It is pretty amusing. Some of the overtaking is pretty classy too. This place makes India look like a driving school.

A PSD was taking personnel out of Baghdad the other day. Their vehicles were properly marked, i.e. had their company logo on the side, so they could easily be identified as a PSD and not a militia. This is required as they have armed vehicles front and back. Anyway, they were passing through an American checkpoint, and the Americans started shooting at them. Unbelievable. They were properly marked, so what was the deal? You have to wonder why they arm kids to the teeth and don't ensure they can read or carry out basic mental functions to make decisions that, ultimately, other people's lives depend on.

Which got me thinking, why the hell do they call that sort of incident "friendly fire"? Doesn't sound very friendly to me. "Yeah I'm just off to Pete's for a barbeque, we'll pound a few beers, eat some steaks and maybe fire a few rounds at each other, it'll be great". Just like the term "collateral damage" which has always made me sick. I'm sure it's not very "collateral" to the people you're killing or their families.

For that matter, why does the word "stutter" have so many t's, or "stammer" so many m's? Why is phonetic spelled with a "ph"?

Close shave

2006-09-27T00:39:00.000-07:00

One of our guys was in the Red Zone the other day and was stopped in traffic. He saw three men with guns approach the car in front, drag the driver out and stick him in the boot of the car, and drive off. He was, understandably, shit scared. He said the thing the frightened him the most was the look on the man's face as he was bundled into the boot. Hving seen the look on his own face the other day after that meeting, I can see exactly what he means. He makes a point of not washing his car and he drives an old banger because kidnappers target expensive cars or expensively dressed people. Not that I ever had that excuse....

Conflicting graffiti, exaggerated media stories, Ramadan and the UN

2006-09-24T09:33:00.000-07:00

I remember before I came here I was reading in the papers that previously mixed neighbourhoods of Shia and Sunni in Baghdad were fragmenting and becoming predominantly Shia or Sunni enclaves. Under Saddam, society was much more secular and Shia and Sunni (and Christians) intermarried, lived next door to each other, went to the same schools, built and worshipped at their mosques (and churches) in the same neighbourhoods, etc etc. If this claim of fragmentation were true, it would have been one of the worst aspects of the consequences of the invasion. Upon speaking to Iraqis here, the message I get is that those stories are exaggerated and that, although it is happening to some degree, it's not as much as the papers say.

Ramadan started yesterday and will last for the next 30 days. The authorities are predicting an upsurge in the sectarian violence. It started yesterday with a big bomb at a place where people had gone to get cooking oil. 35 or more dead and who knows how many maimed for life. Even before I found out about that, there seemed to be something in the air that didn't feel right. It wasn't the feeling I was in danger, just generally an uneasy feeling. I wondered if maybe I'd reached the end of the honeymoon period, but today's fine, so maybe it was just something intangible in the atmosphere. Maybe we're tuned in to fear like animals are to earthquakes or eruptions.

I hope it doesn't go too ape shit during Ramadan, otherwise those stories of fragmentation will probably be closer to the truth than they are at the moment.

One of our guys handed in his notice the other day. He's been offered a job in Jordan and wants to get out of Baghdad so his daughters can go to school again. It got me thinking, well if it gets bad enough outside the IZ that more of our staff decide to get out of Iraq, then that will be curtains for my job. So I registered with the UN to try and keep a step ahead of the game. It means my personal history can get checked out by them now so that if I need to find something else in a hurry further down the line I shouldn't have to wait as long. Assuming they take me on of course.

Two conflicting pieces of graffiti. No prizes for guessing which one cracked me up.

A realisation. And a tank.

2006-09-20T10:20:00.001-07:00

Something happened recently that gave me much more of a sense of how hard it is for Iraqis. I would say it "brought it home to me" but really I can have no idea. Just a better one than I did. One of our guys went to a meeting and ended up being pushed into doing translations for the Iraqi speakers, who were members of one of the government Ministries. Our guy didn't know the meeting would be filmed, nor did he know he would be asked to translate. It just happened when he got there. He came back after the meeting visibly shaken. Some people can have a scared look, like a kid who's been caught doing something naughty at school and knows his parents will find out, or maybe like someone who's been caught smuggling drugs through customs or something, but this was a look like I have never seen. It made me scared just to see it. The problem was that the film was to be released to all sorts of media outlets in the region, including online. He would have had both Shia and Sunni after him. It's not being melodramatic to say he'd have been dead within a week. I know his circumstances outside the IZ, and he would have been well and truly fucked. He was too frightened to think straight, so I made him get on the phone to the right people and arrange an appointment with the media folks while the footage was in post production. I was dropped him off at the checkpoint out of the IZ and watched him walking towards the exit. It was the walk of a man who was beaten - shoulders sagged forward, a slow trudge, no reason to want to get to his destination. That's when it occurred to me what risks he takes to do his job here. I went to the media office the next morning and arranged for his face to be edited out of the end product.

Having had some more time to see a bit more of the place and meet a lot of people, I have to say life here so far has exceeded my expectations. It's nuts, for sure, but I'll never forget my time here and I don't regret coming for a second.

We have been using an armoured Suburban the last week or so to get around. I'm no petrol head and still have no interest in cars, but this thing is awesome - I feel like I've added another couple of inches. It's heavier than Harry Rednapp's eyelids and takes a wee while to get any speed up but you could leave a Rolex on the dashboard in Rio de Janeiro with an invitational sledge hammer and it would still be there when you got back. Bulletproof. We took it to fill up with petrol the other day and it took 135 litres, amid fits of laughter. Most surreal driving experience so far: giving way to a tank on a roundabout. I had right of way but you can't really argue with a tank.

Some of the monumets and architecture here is pretty amazing. This link has more information and pictures but here are some pictures I took of the Monument to the Unknown Soldier and the Hands of Victory.

First impressions

2006-09-13T23:26:00.000-07:00

So here I am.

The flight into Baghdad is a bit of a laugh, instead of a straight descent the plane comes down in big loops because a straight descent is considered too dangerous. I'm told the take off is the same when you fly out, and because you're pointing upwards instead of down, motion sickness is a problem. NASA could probably recruit from these flights - if your stomach is strong enough you're in!

I was brought to the Green Zone (called the International Zone or IZ by everyone here, so that's what I'll start using) in a PSD (personal security detail) convoy. Before I came, I had the impression or expectation that the PSD guys would be a bunch of Rambo's with no necks and steroid addictions, but actually the ones I have come across have been very professional and focused on their job. They look after you and make sure you know what to do in the event of any trouble. IEDs (roadside bombs) are not so much an issue now because vehicles have to be searched to even get onto the road, so the more common issue is incoming automatic fire. The armoured vehicle you're in has 2 inch thick windows so even if there is incoming, it's not a problem. Plus there are armed vehicles front and back of the convoy with guys out the roof with machine guns so you have extra protection there.

It's very weird being in a place where you can walk down the street freely, go to the beer shop, sit on the swinging sun lounger thing on the front lawn and have a smoke, while there are people being blown up within a few miles. At night instead of police sirens you hear helicopters, but it all means the same thing - someone's having a much worse time of it than me. Instead of a normal fence there's an 8 foot one with razor wire. Instead of a postman there are armed guards. You get the idea. I'm not sure whether it's because of these things or in spite of them, but I really like it here. It will be better when I have my badge and can move around freely and use things like the pool and gym, dining facility ("DFAC") and the big general shop ("PX") which is basically Tesco Armed Conflict, but for now it's all new and exciting so not having those freedoms is no biggie. It beats being blown up by a car bomb. We have Iraqis working for us and they sometimes have to go out into the Red Zone to go to one of the Interior Ministry buildings. One of them went out today and 10 minutes ahead of him was that car bomb that killed 5 Iraqi police. He was fine, just had to go another way round. This is reality for these folks. They've been through a hell of a time but still have spirit like you'd never believe.

I'm learning a new Arabic word or phrase each day and really like being able to say little things to the Iraqis in their language. They have good English, but you can tell they have pride in their language and like to teach you, and appreciate the effort. Like most nationalities I guess, except maybe the French who live in Paris, who get the arse with you just for being there.

It's pretty hot in the daytime, usually around 42 - 46 celcius, but it doesn't feel as hot as that because there is low humidity. It's still the hottest midday sun I've ever experienced but in the shade it's not too bad. It's showing signs of cooling down though, and by Christmas time it will be hovering not far above freezing. The nights will start to get cooler next week. On days when it is windy, there is a lot of dust. It makes the Northern Line look like a Swiss mountain railway. The locals are sneezing a lot but so far it hasn't affected me at all, except for one night when I felt like I'd been sitting in an airport smoking lounge for a couple of days.

So this is where it starts...

2006-08-03T08:50:00.000-07:00

Soon I will leave for Iraq. I don't know how long I'll be there. Friends and family think (know?) it's a somewhat crazy thing to be doing, but with risk comes reward. And I'm not on about the money, because that would have been the entirely wrong reason (although a sweetener, for sure). No, life is, or should be, an adventure. In a strange way I feel like life is there for the taking but it's when you take bigger risks that you take more from it.

I'll save ranting about the invasion and the reasons for it for another entry, as everyone has their own view anyway. Though I think it was wrong, or at least done for the wrong reasons (which have been made abundantly clear by the lack of post-invasion planning), we can't turn back the clock and I want to at least try to make a positive difference. I knew the moment they got resolution 1441 in 2002 what would happen. Yet another totally unnecessary conflict with a fuzzy beginning and an unpredictable end. Some people may say it's a "my god is better than your god" thing, but it's always, at its core, about power. This time it was about indescribable amounts of money too.

I want to learn Arabic so I can speak to Iraqis in their tongue, because using their language will allow me to discover so much more about them than I would having to rely on translation. I didn't foresee the civil war that's been unfolding for the last several weeks, and I feel so guilty for the Iraqi people. In time, I want to talk to them, understand them, and above all to say I'm sorry, and that we're not all like that. I have spoken to people who are out there, and I have been reading a blog by riverbend (http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/) which is amazing.

The sectarian violence will pass, though it may get worse before it gets better. It's possible that getting electricity back to a stable supply and giving people some hope, something to live for, will reduce the ranks of those disenfranchised young men. Their land is occupied and the world watches and does not, or cannot, do anything. Is it that much of a surprise, then, that some of them have turned to violence? Of course this isn't to justify it, but beginning to understand something is very different from justifying it.

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