I was already awake the morning when I heard the bizzare sound of what I
could only describe as a jet speeding up and slowing down to break the
sound barrier multiple times, only I don’t think jets can do that. Or
thunder, which is unheard of this time of year. Within two hours, BBC
reported that it had actually been a multiple-rocket attack against the al
Rashid hotel, where Paul Wolfowitz was staying in Baghdad.
Since then, it has been a tragic Ramadan. Another day we were just
walking out the door when the force of another blast went ahead and opened
the door for us. It didn’t break, it just puffed open. We went up to the
roof and saw the black smoke rising. That was the Red Cross. The same
day, multiple police stations were targeted by car bombs. And then there
have been the nearly-nightly mortar attacks on the CPA across the river.
My skin is on edge, waiting for the next explosion. It’s very hard to
relax when your nervous system is instinctively fully charged.
I can now tell the difference between a regular bomb and a car bomb. A
car bomb is much more powerful, and has the distinctive ‘double-boom’: one
for the explosive itself, blowing open the car, and the other a
split-second before or after of the gas tank splitting open. It is also
much higher pitched than a regular bomb or mortar. I can also pick out
Iraqi gunfire, US gunfire, Iraqi mortars, US mortars--I don't count US
Apache helicopters or tank rounds because I was all too familiar with them
from before, living with them daily in Palestine.
There are so many groups carrying out these bombings, for so many reasons.
This is the reason I have waited to send this letter, because sorting
them all can be so complex. Part of unraveling the mess is to check our
Iraqi neighbors’ reactions to individual bombings. Those which are
carried out against the US military are, sadly, generally supported.
Responsibility for these attacks are claimed by the Iraqi resistance.
When we ask why they are carrying out these attacks, and why now, the
answer is always the same: Occupation, house raids, and dead children.
There is no justice and no democracy, now six and seven months after the
‘liberation.’ There is no security, either from the general post-war
chaos or from the brutal actions of our own US soldiers. They are not
Baathists, because they hated Saddam. And they are not foreigners.
I am sorry to report that. But that is what is said on every street and
in every house we visit.
Some Iraqis would like the US military to stay, if they would police the
streets and adhere to human rights and due process. Others want the US to
be gone immediately, and get the UN to replace them for the peacekeeping
functions. Others say, “Anything is still better than Saddam.” Others
say, “Even Saddam was better than this.”
The other bombings—of Iraqi schools and cultural landmarks, are pretty
unanimously opposed by Iraqis we speak to. The question is, who is
responsible for these? One leaflet passed out around Baghdad at the
beginning of Ramadan, claimed to be from the Ba’athists and threatened to
bomb every school and university over the first weekend. So most of our
friends and neighbors kept their children at home. But some of them told
us they didn’t think the bombs were from the Ba’athists. One said, “It
could be the Kuwaitis. We deprived them of a year of school when Saddam
invaded their country. Now I think they want to take revenge.”
Myself, I don’t know.
I have learned here that when you see a large group of people clustered
here, it can only be one of two things: either some office is handing out
benefit payments, or there is a funeral. Funerals here involve an
open-faced coffin wrapped in a blanket. [Palestinians do not use coffins.
They use a platform instead]. Someone mounts the casket onto the roof
rack of their car, and all the male relatives and neighbors follow in
procession to the burial field. The women gather in the house of the
deceased and weep together. I know this because in the last little while
I have been to far too many funerals.
Our team has a friend who has received one of the postwar reconstruction
sub-contracts. He is supposed to provide meals for two thousand prisoners
at one of the prisons in Baghdad. To do this, he has a $3,000 budget per
day. If everything is going well, he can make a small profit.
Unfortunately, with power outages and water shortages, things don’t go so
well too often. Right now, he’s losing money. Trouble is, he’s
subcontracted from a Qatari company which receives $4,000 per day just for
hiring him to do the job. Trouble is, the Qataris are subcontracted from
a US firm, Halliburton (its local subsidiary here is KBR) or Bechtel,
which pockets the rest of the contract at nearly $10,000 per day. Just
who exactly is being aided by our aid programs?
At the CPA, 6,000 US military and civilian staffers must be fed each day.
The cost of providing a Western-style meal (hamburgers, fries, onion
rings, potato chips, alternate entrée, soup bar, salad bar, soda fountain,
coffee, tea, and dessert, plus two cans Coke) is $20,000US per day. KBR
holds the contract and has subcontracted it to another Iraqi company.
What the contract bid was actually for above that I don’t know. Another
Iraqi friend said to us, “if we were only allowed to use local workers for
these positions, rather than housing Americans, more people would be
working [and those who are newly unemployed are mostly government office
workers] and they would have no need to be fed. They would just go home
at the end of the day.” US military and civilian staff are all salaried
on a US pay scale in addition to being fed, and the costs are counted as
reconstruction.
And so goes $20 billion. At most, only 1/4 of it is likely to reach the
Iraqi people.
Friday, November 21, 2003
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