Welcome

This blog starts from the time I spent in Baghdad 2006 to 2007, when I wanted to record some thoughts and give friends the inside mail on a crazy environment. Since then, after some time out from a broken ankle and between times working in London, I've been on the road again around eastern Europe, NZ and South America. So far. This continues with the hope of telling anyone who's interested about the new places I'm seeing and the people who make them interesting.

On the right you can find links to previous posts. I need to figure out how to get the order of current posts right. Maybe having used this for a few years it's the kind of thing I should have sussed...

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!

Thursday 26 October 2006

Soundbites #2

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.

Tuesday 24 October 2006

Soundbites #1

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)

Monday 23 October 2006

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.

Sunday 22 October 2006

Climbdowns

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.

Saturday 21 October 2006

A doomed marriage

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.

Thursday 19 October 2006

Alert Levels

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

Wednesday 18 October 2006

Swiss Toni

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

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***

Thursday 12 October 2006

655k

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.....

Wednesday 11 October 2006

spin

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.

Tuesday 10 October 2006

Rockets

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

Monday 9 October 2006

Saddam's Trials

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.

Saturday 7 October 2006

Dogs & Politics

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.

Wednesday 4 October 2006

Let down

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.

Sunday 1 October 2006

More photos

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

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