Day of Capture

Greetings everyone,

I was asked by a few people in response to my last letter to explain more
about my final day in Iraq, which also happened to be the day the U.S.
military announced Saddam's capture.

Early in the afternoon, I was sitting in the living room at our apartment
when I heard a few people shooting from the rooftops. We happen to live
next to a heavily-guarded branch of the Iraqi Communist Party, and it is
not unexpected to hear gunfire on a regular basis. However, it seemed the
shooters were coming from several directions this time. Was it a family
feud? This is also not unheard of. We had the curtains open and decided
the street looked clear enough to walk into the apartments' foyer and ask
our neighbors what was happening.

Our neighbors next door came out carrying pistols (since there's no police
force, every household has a gun). Their eyes lit up. "Saddam, Saddam,"
they said, and made a grabbing gesture. Then they went into the street. My
Arabic was failing me so I went upstairs to our landlord's apartment. The
doors were open, and BBC was playing. This house was a mix of emotions.
The landlord is Syrian Christian and quite westernized. Their housekeeper
is Muslim. While the landlord's wife was smiling and pointing to the
screen, the housekeeper was weeping. "Thank God, things will get better
at last," said the wife. Meanwhile, the housekeeper was touching the
pictures of Saddam's family on the screen and saying each one's name.
"They will hurt him, they will kill him," she said. Then the neighbors
below shot off their pistols next to the house. The housekeeper started
sobbing and yelling. The landlord's wife told her she could tell them
they were under orders to stop shooting. So they stopped. We stayed
watching the TV for about an hour. During this time, the landlord and his
daughter came back from the University of Baghdad. The daughter is driven
to school every day because of the instability. The wife began crying and
hugged them both because she thought they wouldn't make it home. The
landlord watched a few minutes and said, "It is going to be much worse
now." He predicted there would be retaliatory attacks in the coming
days, similar to the rash of bombings during Ramadan.

The shooting itself lasted only about twenty minutes, then settled. It
was much different when the sons, Uday and Qusay, were killed. (I was
mid-flight when that happened). Then, as my teammates report,the shooting
was much more populous and lasted throughout the night. Actually, the
celebration when Iraq won a soccer match against North Korea this fall was
also much more prolonged and intense. (That was a night where we didn't
know what was going on and huddled in the back of our apartment until well
after midnight, thinking a major uprising had begun and perhaps we were
going to die.) There were a few reasons for this subdued reaction, it
seems. One of the probably less obvious ones a few different neighbors
cited is that the U.S. occupation has gone so poorly and people don't feel
their lives have improved much, if any, since Saddam left.

Everyone in the building warned us not to venture far, in case anyone was
looking to retaliate. I was trying to say my goodbyes, so I stuck to our
little street and had to miss others. My Chaldean Christian friend up the
street had not ventured out at all that day. She stayed put with her baby
and toddler. She said, "Sure, I'd like to see him brought to justice, but
I can't even see him on tv now. We've had no electricity all day, and
also no water today either. All I can hear about the news is from my
balcony, since there's no phones either." The power did come on for ten
minutes while I was there, just enough to see a glimpse of the news
conference where he was being examined by a military doctor. Then it cut
out again. Their generator was out of gas due to the domestic fuel
crisis. (Iraqi fuel is being exported at record high levels by US
contractors while gas queues are consistently up to two miles long
throughout the day and night.)

Later we went to church in our neighborhood. It seems much of the
congregation either didn't know Saddam had been captured yet, or simply
didn't care much. People looked tired and strained as usual. The priest
put it well: "We don't really know what this all will mean."

I did venture a little farther onto the main strip to visit another friend
with one of my teammates that evening. People were milling about, but
there was no real mood of celebration. Just the opposite of what the
english news channels were suggesting. I had seen that another branch of
the Communist party held an impromptu street parade near the center of
town, but even footage of that seemed like a comparatively small
gathering. A few children had roman candles and were lighting them.
Still, who knows, they do that every day.

The next morning we left early. On the main street, people were looking
curiously at the newspaper photos of Saddam, but they seemed more
interested in staying warm on the cold day or in catching their taxis.
Whatever they felt, whatever the capture means, life was moving on as it
has been these past eight months under occupation.

Month of the Bombs

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.

The rains are here

The rains are here.
The smell of wet dust is in the air, permeating the house. It is not
unpleasant.
The winds are here
And the dust storms.
Did I ever think Arabia capable of monsoons?

The winter here is its own kind of spring. The true colors of buildings
begin to emerge, especially the vivid tiles of the domed mosques, from
their thick dusty brown crusts. It looks a little more like Easter every
day, as many of the domes are egg-shaped rather than the half-spheres of
Palestine. In the meantime, we can be blown off the roof in a damp wind
if we are not careful. Since we are along the Tigris, the wind is
stronger. I have high hopes that it will sweep away the mosquitoes as
well, which are beginning to spawn in earnest in the moist air.

Most of our friends and neighbors are dressed in winter jackets over
sweaters over thick shirts. They look at us as if we are crazy. We are
still in shirtsleeves by day, but some of us are pulling out sweaters and
blankets at night. The temps are probably in the high 60’s now.

I apologize for not having written for so long. It’s been quite
overwhelming here—both in terms of how busy we are and the emotional toll
of witnessing the suffering of Iraqi people under both the old
dictatorship and the new. I say that because everyone here knows who is
really in charge. As a firm believer in nonviolence, I never want to say
that violenceBut after this month of blood and the sudden promises of
Iraqi independence by June, I am not so sure.

Life these days is punctuated with helicopters, tanks, Humvees, and car
bombs and explosions. All of us here are a little jumpy at the slam of a
car door outside. Several weeks ago now, Humvees came down our street and
fully-armored soldiers went door to door registering all the people in the
houses. They came to our building also, and were shocked to see
foreigners living outside a heavily guarded compound, among the people.
They wanted to know how many people lived in our building, and especially
how many foreigners were inside. They registered our building on their
GPS device, and went on down the street. Our neighbors realized then that
we, too, could be harrassed. The military then began regular ‘patrols’ of
our street several times during the day or night. In addition, we noticed
several helicopter patrols hovering low over our building at different
times of day. Since fraternization or association with the US military is
grounds for militant groups targeting NGOs—the UN and Red Cross already
suffering heavily for this—we were feeling less than grateful for their
‘security’ presence. In addition to certainly feeling no more secure with
these tanks ‘patrolling’ down our street at two in the morning and waking
all the neighbors, we certainly were feeling no more rested at night.

I am finally, two months into my stay in postwar Iraq, getting to feel as
though this is a regular team. Everyone is up to speed and pulling
together. I am delighted to be free of the role of team coordinator.
Trying to keep everything moving at the same time as training four new
team members and learning a new environment and trying to referee a
particularly difficult team conflict had completely worn me out. Uff-da!
I dumped the role off on Cliff the second he walked in the door. I’ll
have to pick it up again while he leads the delegation, but that will be
alright for just ten days. In the meantime, I’m working to coordinate our
growing ‘Campaign for Justice for Iraqi Detainees.’ I will send the
releases to you all shortly. This will keep me (and the whole team!) more
than busy, I think, until I head over to Palestine for Christmas and back
home for January. My only regret is that our team should really be
stirring things up on a daily basis here just at the time that I have to
leave here.

I’ve made a few friends here beyond all the families we work with who have
relatives in the US prison camps. One is Katrina, a woman who began
approaching us on the sidewalks saying, “Lisa, Lisa,” She was friends
with Lisa from our team who was here over the summer. She and several
other families are squatting in an unfinished shopping center. Katrina
and her young son live in a small shop and keep most of their belongings
under a set of stairs. She is a widow, and her older children are away
and married. Fortunately, there is a small bathroom in the shop which
provides water for cooking, though some days when the water goes out, they
get it from a tap out on the street. When there is electricity, they cook
on a small electric-coil hot plate. Both times I’ve been in her home so
far, she has made me eat. She also takes pride in sending me home with
small gifts tucked in my purse or pockets—gum, candy, a bar of soap. Last
time she gave me a t-shirt. She even painted my nails. The currency of
friendship in Iraq is the exchange of small gifts, often in slightly
sacrificial acts. Katrina is Chaldean Christian. She looks quite
Kurdish, but I won’t say that to her. Ethnic tensions are running high,
and the Chaldeans don’t want to be associated with either the Kurds or the
Iraqi Arabs. Katrina is the boss around the shopping center, and proudly
has all the men wrapped around her finger. She’s hollered at each of
them until they came in and introduced themselves properly or done her
some favor (I especially enjoyed seeing the man who opened her tiny can of
tomato sauce with a large knife. She rewarded him with a box of matches
so he could light his cigarettes.) She has an unconquerable spirit and
zest for life.

Mariam is an Assyrian Christian woman with a four-year-old daughter and a
baby. She lives at the end of our street in a third-floor apartment. When
I first visited her, she had MTV on in the background, where an American
woman was pole-dancing in skimpy underthings. We were both trying to
ignore it without much success. Finally, after much other small talk, she
asked me if all American women dressed like that and acted like that. I
said no, only a very few do that or dress like that. She accepted this
and then said, “It is not flattering and it is not beautiful.” Over the
past three years I have come to learn that 90% of the known world has seen
Baywatch, and this is their primary cultural encounter with Americans.

I am writing so much here and sending so little. I have started three
letters explaining some of the issues here and they are still waiting to
be completed. In the meantime, I'll continue to send the reports I've
been writing for the project. In some ways, there's really no more to
say.

It is my day off once again, and I find that days off are often days where
my body decides it's okay to be ill. Fortunately, I did get to sleep in
today. Now I'll return home to try finishing those letters, write an
article, and try to stay sane while things go boom and helicopters fall
out of the air.

peace,

Le Anne