by Anne Garrels
TO VINT AND AMER
Table of Contents
Title Page
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
BEFORE
BRENDA BULLETIN: OCTOBER 19, 2002
OCTOBER 20, 2002
OCTOBER 21, 2002
OCTOBER 22, 2002
OCTOBER 23, 2002
OCTOBER 25, 2002
OCTOBER 28, 2002
OCTOBER 31, 2002
BRENDA BULLETIN: OCTOBER 31, 2002
NOVEMBER 1, 2002
NOVEMBER 2, 2002
NOVEMBER 3, 2002
BRENDA BULLETIN: NOVEMBER 4, 2002
BRENDA BULLETIN: DECEMBER 1, 2002
DECEMBER 3, 2002
DECEMBER 4, 2002
DECEMBER 5, 2002
DECEMBER 6, 2002
DECEMBER 7, 2002
DECEMBER 10, 2002
DECEMBER 11, 2002
DECEMBER 13, 2002
DECEMBER 14, 2002
BRENDA BULLETIN: DECEMBER 17, 2003
BRENDA BULLETIN: JANUARY 20, 2003
JANUARY 27, 2003
JANUARY 28, 2003
JANUARY 29, 2003
JANUARY 30, 2003
FEBRUARY 5, 2003
FEBRUARY 6, 2003
FEBRUARY 7, 2003
BRENDA BULLETIN: FEBRUARY 7, 2003
FEBRUARY 8, 2003
FEBRUARY 10, 2003
BRENDA BULLETIN: FEBRUARY 13, 2003
BRENDA BULLETIN: MARCH 4, 2003
MARCH 5, 2003
MARCH 6, 2003
MARCH 8, 2003
MARCH 9, 2003
MARCH 10, 2003
MARCH 11, 2003
MARCH 12, 2003
MARCH 13, 2003
MARCH 14, 2003
MARCH 15, 2003
MARCH 16, 2003
MARCH 17, 2003
BRENDA BULLETIN: MARCH 17, 2003
MARCH 18, 2003
MARCH 19, 2003
BRENDA BULLETIN: MARCH 19, 2003
DURING
MARCH 20, 2003
BRENDA BULLETIN: MARCH 20, 2003
MARCH 21, 2003
MARCH 22, 2003
BRENDA BULLETIN: MARCH 22, 2003
MARCH 23, 2003
BRENDA BULLETIN: MARCH 23, 2003
MARCH 24, 2003
MARCH 25, 2003
MARCH 26, 2003
BRENDA BULLETIN: MARCH 26
MARCH 27, 2003
MARCH 28, 2003
BRENDA BULLETIN: MARCH 28, 2003
MARCH 29, 2003
MARCH 30, 2003
MARCH 31, 2003
APRIL 1, 2003
BRENDA BULLETIN: APRIL 1, 2003
APRIL 2, 2003
BRENDA BULLETIN: APRIL 2, 2003
APRIL 3, 2003
BRENDA BULLETIN: APRIL 3, 2003
APRIL 4, 2003
APRIL 5, 2003
BRENDA BULLETIN: APRIL 5, 2003
APRIL 6, 2003
APRIL 7, 2003
APRIL 8, 2003
BRENDA BULLETIN: APRIL 8, 2003
APRIL 9, 2003
BRENDA BULLETIN: APRIL 9, 2003
APRIL 10, 2003
APRIL 11, 2003
BRENDA BULLETIN: APRIL 11, 2003
APRIL 12, 2003
APRIL 13, 2003
APRIL 14, 2003
APRIL 15, 2003
BRENDA BULLETIN: APRIL 18, 2003
AFTER
MAY 5, 2003
MAY 10, 2003
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Copyright Page
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
This is a chronicle of what I saw and heard during my visits to Baghdad, starting with my first assignment in October 2002 before the war, until I left after U.S. troops finally entered the Iraqi capital in April 2003. Some of it is drawn from my reports for National Public Radio; other parts derive from notes and reflections scribbled at the end of long days. It is a personal account of the buildup and conduct of the war, with a foreshadowing of the aftermath that will be with us for a long time to come. Each reporter covering Iraq, whether embedded or non-embedded, had but one window on the conflict and conflicting views. My non-embedded window was from Baghdad.
The book is enriched by e-mails that my husband, Vint Lawrence, sent to family and friends while I was gone. When I was lucky enough to read them I laughed, cried, and loved him all the more for how much he has loved me. As a friend has said, I reported the war and he reported on me, at times with honesty, at times with unbridled affection. Everyone should have such a Boswell.
This is also the story of an extraordinary Iraqi, without whose help I would have been deaf and blind to much that was going on around me. In the presence of “minders,” he had the presence of mind to negotiate our way through any manner of obstacles and dangers. Given the continuing uncertainty in Iraq, he has chosen to go by the pseudonym “Amer.” I owe him this, and a lot more.
As a radio correspondent, I was not very particular about the spelling of names, which are now to appear in print, so often they are only phonetically, not strictly orthographically, accurate.
May 2003
Norfolk, Connecticut
BEFORE
BRENDA BULLETIN: OCTOBER 19, 2002
Well hello again,
Just when we were all getting used to the idea that our Annie was going to be more or less gainfully employed organizing the linen closet or darning socks by the fire, the damsel is off again—this time to Iraq. You might be forgiven for thinking that after Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Israel in the last year, NPR could come up with, say, an in-depth series on beach erosion between Bordeaux and Biarritz, but the straws in this outfit all appear to be short.
Remember that intrepid comic book character of our youth, Brenda Starr, who was always getting into and out of impossible scrapes? Well, someone the other day dubbed Annie “Brenda of the Berkshires,” a reference to our remote abode up here in the hills of northwest Connecticut. It fits, and it has a certain ring, so I have appropriated it. For those of you who have tolerated my scribblings since 9/11 when she headed off to Tajikistan and points south, these letters will no longer be just Annie Updates but Brenda Bulletins …
Brenda, in her packing mode, is curious to observe. Well over a week before she actually leaves, many too many suitcases are dragged out, only to lie opened but untouched for days on the bed in the spare bedroom. Something Zen-like goes on as she circles and stares at the empty cases. Then one morning, in a flurry, there suddenly appears a great pile of brightly colored, neatly folded frocks and form-fitting pants and snappy shirts and fitted jackets—gorgeous oranges, lime greens, bright blues, and pinks predominate. These are the things Brenda would LIKE to take, the things that are in her nature. But inevitably these treasures go back in the closet, replaced by long, loose, formless things that cover everything and button all the way down—the cheerful pile morphs to monotonous blues and blacks. And by the end there are not very many of these, either, because so much technical gear has yet to go in. The old stand-by Sony cassette tape recorder that has been her mainstay all over the world with three dozen cassettes, the new still-unproven mini-recorder that’s no bigger than a cigarette box, the satellite phone, the laptop, and an odd assortment of technical gear that makes her pieces sound as if they originated in a nearby mall, not halfway around the world. Stuffed in at the end is a huge wad of unread research, the unfinished expense-accounting from her last trip, a staggering number of pairs of reading glasses, and her one surviving hearing aid, a new one, made by an old Russian friend who is now an audiologist in Jerusalem. This tiny device has fifteen minuscule computers in it instead of four, enabling her to eavesdrop virtually on thoughts. That is, if she remembers to wear it.
Last-minute exotically wrapped cart
ons of new sophisticated equipment from NPR arrive. Miniature satellite-phone antennae blossom briefly amid the dahlias. An hour before the taxi is due, she is still downloading a complicated NPR program with a cool competence that may keep her safe until she returns.
She left here with a weighty array of journalistic weaponry that is lean, mean, and all business. All but the technical gear was checked-in luggage at JFK, where security pawed through everything; what was neatly packed upon leaving certainly will not be upon arrival. In the end she didn’t even carry a change of clothes onto the plane; Brenda, as she will modestly admit, knows—if she knows nothing else—how to SHOP.
So, our Brenda arrived safely in Baghdad from Jordan on Sunday. She spent the three days in Amman waiting for the promised Iraqi visa that never came. It was a quick lesson in how things work over there. She was finally able to reach Ahmed, the Iraqi “fixer” in Baghdad with whom she has been talking for weeks and who had promised to have the visa waiting for her. Ahmed—now follow me on this—said to her, “No problem, all you have to do is contact Nabil in Amman.” Well, Nabil wasn’t much help but he turned her over to Amjad, who is a fellow big-time fixer in Amman. Amjad told her that he couldn’t really help but that Ibrahim could. Ibrahim, in turn, passed her on to Mohammed, who said that for $200 he could set up a breakfast with the Iraqi ambassador. Well, that is how Brenda got her visa. Cheap at the price, it seems, as another news organization had bought the Iraqi ambassador his new car. In the fraying atmosphere of Amman, with everyone squirreling dollars, just about anything is for sale. She also found time in all this to do a yet-to-be-aired piece on how the Jordanians find themselves once again between Iraq and a hard place.
Brenda’s claim that she has absolutely no idea how she got her visa strikes some who know her as slightly disingenuous. When her switch is OFF here at home, many make the mistake of assuming that she carries with her overseas that slightly muddled, directionally challenged, technologically inept persona that is so pleasurable and delightful. Don’t be fooled. About three weeks ago there was an audible click when the switch went ON. Annie became Brenda in an instant. “Wake me at five” meant wake her at five. Carefully crafted exquisite dinners slid into hamburgers with frozen limas or even “fend for yourself” affairs. Research e-mails poured in. Books were ordered and devoured. The phone was constantly in use to far-flung places at odd hours. Her voice took on a different timbre. Brenda knows very well how to work the system, even if Annie doesn’t.
Stay tuned …
V
OCTOBER 20, 2002
Vint and I took our usual farewell walk with the dogs just before the taxi came. It was a spectacular autumn day and we talked about all the garden projects we want to do next spring. We talked about everything but Iraq. But when we said good-bye we knew this wasn’t just another assignment. If there is to be war, this is the beginning of a long odyssey.
I’ve never been to Iraq before and have all the fears I always have embarking on any new assignment. I need to hit the ground running, but I need the right people to help me do it.
After finally getting a visa, I arrived in Baghdad from Amman late at night to be met by the 250-pound Ahmed. I’ve inherited him from other NPR colleagues who have made use of his services in the past. Though he works for an American television network, he moonlights (literally, in this case) for other organizations. His brother is an official with the Information Ministry, so he has the connections necessary to arrange visas, drivers, and hotels—all, needless to say, for hefty fees. He leads me on a mysterious dance through the airport, where endless officials cut in. I try to follow the best I can. Innumerable forms are filled out and stamped with orders not to lose them or I will never get out of the country. What’s most important, though, is knowing how to dish out money. The black case containing my satellite phone is sealed with a sticky white label, and I am told very sternly not to open it until I have checked in at the Information Ministry. Given that it’s well past midnight, that will have to wait until daylight.
It’s an inauspicious beginning. I have just missed probably one of the biggest stories in Iraq in years. While I was traveling, President Saddam Hussein announced a “full, complete, and final amnesty” for tens of thousands of prisoners, opening the doors to Iraq’s notorious jails and releasing everyone from pickpockets to political prisoners into the arms of jubilant crowds.
The decree read throughout the day on Iraqi radio and television marks the first time Saddam’s government has acknowledged imprisoning opponents of the regime, despite years of scathing reports from human-rights groups. This appears to be another attempt to rally public support for war with the United States, which looks increasingly inevitable.
As I check into the Al-Rashid Hotel, reporters describe the scene at Abu Ghreib prison, the country’s largest. As word of the decree spread, thousands of family members raced to this fortress, which is situated on the outskirts of the city. Chaos broke out. Iraqi officials had announced that five hundred prisoners would be released every hour, but guards stood by as families broke through the gates into the prison courtyard to find their loved ones. Prisoners meanwhile pushed their way out. Several were killed in the stampede. As night fell, some family members were still searching in vain for prisoners, calling out for them in the dark or holding up handwritten signs with their names.
The amnesty comes just days after Saddam received a preposterous 100-percent approval in a referendum. The government claimed he got every single vote with every eligible Iraqi participating, and officials say the prisoner release was to thank the people for their support, but the underlying message is clear. In Saddam’s Iraq, life, death, and freedom are in the hands of the man who has ruled Iraq since 1979.
The Al-Rashid is full of reporters I know from other assignments in other places. Towering over everyone is Nick Turner, a talented cameraman for CBS News. Though he’s a little grayer than when we first met, he’s as lean and deliciously mean as he was twenty-five-plus years ago, when we were both assigned to Moscow. He says work conditions are frustrating and will remind me of the former Soviet Union, where raising a camera had the same effect as raising an M16—everyone scattered for cover.
The Al-Rashid Hotel became world famous in 1991, when CNN broadcast from here during the Gulf War. It’s a huge complex, and its cavernous halls, full of people I can only assume are intelligence agents, are slightly menacing. By the elevator there is a man whose only job is to watch you get on and off. On the 8th floor, my new home, there’s another man monitoring the hallway. His job, I suspect, is also to watch who comes and goes.
It is indeed a familiar setup, developed and perfected in the Soviet Union, where “floor ladies” were also the bane of my existence. When I first arrived in Moscow to be ABC’s correspondent in 1979, I lived in the Intourist Hotel for a couple of months while I waited to move into an apartment. Vera Ivanovna was a surly presence whose cleaning was so thorough as to include a regular search of my belongings and the removal of my address book. Though barely over five feet, she also body-blocked anyone trying to visit my room. When I met her again years later, after Mikhail Gorbachev had lifted the veil of fear, she greeted me warmly and apologized for her behavior. “I am so sorry,” she said simply. “I always wanted to make you some decent soup because you never ate anything,” she recalled, “but I couldn’t. You understand.”
We exchanged stories about her duties back then, necessary to keep her job, and my efforts to thwart her. We talked about how life had changed for her. While many of her friends were embittered at the loss of Socialist security and scared of an uncertain future, Vera proved to be an indomitable soul. She had had contact with foreigners and an inkling of what life might be like beyond the confines of the Soviet Union. She was enthusiastic about the reforms under way, even though her savings and her pension had evaporated with the crash of the ruble. Too old to benefit from the changes, she nonetheless hoped her children and grandchildren would live a very different life. B
ut in addition to hope, the end of Soviet rule brought chaos and conflict. I have a feeling I am about to watch a repeat.
OCTOBER 21, 2002
I didn’t sleep well, nervous about how I’m supposed to tackle this complicated story in a country I don’t know. In the cool light of dawn I finally see the famous mosaic on the hotel threshold. In my confusion last night I missed it, but everyone who enters or exits the Al-Rashid must walk over the scowling image of George Bush the elder with the words DOWN WITH USA etched in tile.
Ahmed hands me over to the man who will be my driver. Thirty-eight-year-old Amer is some sort of distant relation. Everyone here seems to be related, but he’s the opposite of Ahmed, whose style can only be summed up as “slob.” With thick black hair and a perfectly trimmed mustache, Amer is tall, strikingly good-looking, and well-dressed, but most important of all, he has a decent command of English. Ahmed’s language skills seem limited to dinars, dollars, and cents.
Amer takes me in tow and we begin another mysterious dance at the Information Ministry. The power to make or break emanates from one small office on the ground floor, where I have been told I will spend as much time sucking up as I will reporting. I pay my obeisances, register my satellite phone, which is duly unsealed, and look for somewhere to work. The prospects aren’t good. Work space inside is limited; the few offices are already rented for exorbitant sums, so I find myself camped outside in a dusty courtyard that overlooks a busy, noisy main thoroughfare. Amer helps me scrounge a desk, a rickety chair, and an extension cord to one of the few available electrical outlets.
There is a rigorous system for controlling and monitoring Western journalists in Iraq that has been honed over the years. The Information Ministry’s goal is not to facilitate our work, but to make sure we do only what they wish us to. Satellite phones, by which we can communicate, access e-mail, and broadcast to the States, are to be kept in the Information Ministry at all times because officials are leery of these portable machines, which they cannot easily bug. They are nervous about us, and they are nervous that Iraqis could use the phones for uncensored calls. All reporters must also have an officially approved “minder” who will monitor every interview if able. The minders’ knowledge of a foreign language is by no means their top skill. A display of loyalty to the regime is. And most Iraqis, familiar with the rules and the penalties for an injudicious remark, are wise enough not to speak to a foreigner even without a minder present. With so many journalists now in Baghdad, minders are in short supply—and it’s clear there are a lot of frustrated, unattached reporters milling around the lobby unable to work.
