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!

Monday 13 November 2006

Confessional and Mid Terms

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.

Wednesday 8 November 2006

Sheep coup

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?

Tuesday 7 November 2006

couple of links

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.
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.

Sunday 5 November 2006

The sentence

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.

Saturday 4 November 2006

Iraq's big day

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.