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 29 January 2007

Big Scrap

Yesterday there was a big battle in Najaf in which it's reported that at least 250 insurgents were killed. They were there to carry out a mass killing against Shia clerics who were going to Kerbala for an important Shia religious festival. An alarming element of this is that it was both Shia and Sunni who were there to attack the Shia. Those Shia that were involved have differences of religious opinion which I guess are pretty extreme. Also there were Egyptians and Sudanese terrorists too. A US helicopter was shot down in the fighting, which is apparently still going on.

In Baghdad five school girls were killed after mortar rounds were fired into their school. What can you say about that? It's like so much here. Yesterday an Iraqi colleague told me that a couple of days ago they had witnessed a guy get pulled from his car, then the terrorists stuck an explosive belt on him and stuck some explosives in his car and got him to drive towards an Iraqi army checkpoint where they detonated the explosives by remote control. The guy was apparently driving really slowly and shouting at the guys on the checkpoint to get out of the way, which they did so it only killed a couple of soldiers. Insane. This colleague of mine had gone to their neighbourhood to check on their house. Many of the houses on their street have been deserted for a while but now people are just moving in to the houses. And once they're in, that's it. House is good as gone for the people who once owned it. So my colleagues are trying to find someone to house sit for them but not having much joy at the moment. Can you imagine it? You've saved all your life for your house and then some other bastard just moves in and effectively confiscates it because you had to leave after someone told you you'd be killed if you didn't leave the following morning. Pack an overnight bag and leave your life behind.

There's been a lot of rockets and mortars fired into the IZ in the last 7 days. Yesterday was quiet but before that the US Embassy and one of the compounds that houses a lot of people working on reconstruction were taking a fair few hits. And I think the UN compound had something that went in as well. Nobody died as far as I know but one guy at the US Embassy might lose his leg after getting hit by shrapnel. Luckily for me we're in a safe bit of the IZ, rockets don't tend to land too near our place, though it has happened on the odd occasion.

I went on a tour of Saddam's bunker a few days ago, it was really interesting. First we climbed up to the top of a watchtower and got some amazing 360 degree views of Baghdad. From up there if you cast your eye out beyond the T Walls it looked like a normal city. Deceptive... Then we went into the bunker. A palace was built over the top of it (the Believers Palace) and the bunker was underneath. The palace had been hit by a couple of bunker buster bombs which came in through a point in the dome and detonated when they hit the floor of the main room. The place looked like a student house after a full on party, only bigger. I'll get some pictures up soon.

Thursday 18 January 2007

Adventure tourism

It's going to be a pretty interesting few months in the IZ. The plan is for pretty much all of it to be handed back to Iraqis by next January. The only bits that are due to be under ongoing US control are the new US embassy and something else (which I forget for now). It will be a gradual process too. Initially (and this is already happening) companies and compounds are leaving and the T Walls are coming down inside the IZ. It will take several months but you can see the beginnings of it now. Around the end of the year the external walls will come down and there will be no IZ! It's a scary prospect and as you can imagine my eyes are fixed on the exit big time. I'm sure it will be fine until after the end of summer, but then how many people will be sticking around (me included) will depend totally on the situation outside and how that develops. Those companies that stay will have beefed up security arrangements so it will be interesting to see how they work out.

Today I've had to escort a few staff in and out of the IZ. This involves going close to the other side of whichever checkpoint they're coming in at and getting them through the inside search points where they hand in their passports. They collect them on the way back out. Usually I don't have to do this but my staffs' IDs have expired and we need to wait a while for them to be renewed. It's mildly scary going to the checkpoints at all but going towards the other end of them quickens the heart a fair bit. Not something I plan on making a habit of that's for sure. I took a photo going over the Tigris to one of the checkpoints today, facing away from the IZ. I'll try and get one looking back towards the IZ on the next suicide run. I think you can just see smoke from one of the bombs today in there.



On which point, here's a report from Al Jazeera:
"At least 17 people have been killed and nearly 50 wounded in a series of car bombings in Baghdad.

In a market in the southern district of Dora, three bombs in quick succession killed at least 10 people and wounded 30 on Thursday, Reuters reported.

Three more died in a car bomb in the east of the city.

Earlier, four people were killed and 11 wounded when a car bomb hit a police patrol near a cinema on Baghdad's central Sadun Street. Two of the dead were policemen.

A fifth car bomb exploded in eastern Baghdad, killing three people and wounding seven."

Pretty nuts. While there's so much to say about this you feel at the same time like there's nothing to say. Seems the baddies are getting it in before the extra troops arrive.

Another interesting thing today, Bush had a meeting with the new secretary general of the UN and actually asked him to increase the UN's presence in Iraq. It was only a matter of time, this. Having undermined or ignored the UN systematically during his shitty tenure, Bush is now grovelling for help. I was always troubled by his attitude to the UN. For all its failings, and yes there are many, it still remains the most legitimate body to deal with much of the trouble in the world. Instead of ignoring or undermining it for their own political and economic gain, the major countries should be seeking to making it stronger for everyone's benefit, including updating the permanent members to reflect the changes internationally that have happened since 1945. It's good that Bush belatedly realises that the UN is the only external body that can come here longer term and have any chance of keeping some sort of peace.

Wednesday 17 January 2007

I forgot to mention something that made me laugh - Bush once called himself "the decider" which is funny enough (oddly similar to his description of "suiciders") but now, in response to the response to his new new new new Iraq plan, the "educator in chief". Ha ha !! This from a real clever bastard!

Master plan

By now you'll probably know that Bush has at last announced the new new new new strategy for Iraq. It's been pretty much universally panned from what I can tell. I'm not quite sure what to make of it. On the one hand, here is a guy who is doing what his electorate clearly don't want him to be doing. The Democrats did so well in November's congressional elections largely on the basis of their Iraq opposition and their argument in favour of getting US troops out of Iraq. So it doesn't say much about the health of their democracy is you've got this cowboy carrying on with doing things his way. The Iraq Study Group's report also backed a troop withdrawal, but Bush kept waiting until he got a report that supported his wish to carry on and, it seems, even escalate the number of troops.

On the other hand, and I doubt I will ever say this about Bush and Cheney again, I think this is the right plan, if it is carried out properly and also with a degree of reliance on luck. It seems to me to be the least bad option and with good fortune might help to improve things here in the long run. It might of course make matters here no better, but that seems to be what any other plan's guaranteed outcome would be. All the headlines have been about the troop numbers, but that's only a part of what is happening this time. If anything, they should probably send at least 30 or 40 thousand more, but that was always unlikely. There are 2 reasons this plan might work: first, this time there is a real desire to deal with the militias, in particular the Mahdi Army. Whether that is going to happen depends entirely on the Iraqi government. They've shown no inclination to deal with it before, but it's pretty clear that if they don't do something about it then their days as a government will be numbered. They're losing support from the US and, importantly, from their own people, so this is really their last chance to pull finger and do it. The other reason I think this is a starter is that at the same time as they're (hopefully) dealing with the militias, they're also trying to get factories open and Iraqis back into work. If there is work for desperate men that means they won't have to rely on the militias, then the militias can be dealt with by lack of recruits as well as depriving them of political power.

Of course, it's a long shot. But early signs are potentially encouraging. Mahdi Army are apparently going to be keeping a low profile when the extra troops arrive. If the most can be made of that (presumably) more stable time to get the factories up and running and even electricity production increased, then by the time the troops leave there will be less chance of the militias operating as they have been. Maybe this is just wishful thinking, but it makes better sense to me than anything else that's been tried.

For now, though, it's still going ape shit out there. Yesterday 70 people were killed and twice as many injured when two bombs went off at Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. I heard that Sunnis were being blamed for that but that doesn't make much sense. For one, the Sunnis are if anything more affiliated than anyone else at universities, and it was Sunnis who had the vast majority of the teaching jobs at universities in Baghdad before the invasion. Most of them have now fled to Jordan. Also I think the Ministry of Education is Sunni controlled as well, and when you hear about universities or academics being the target of violence, they're usually Sunnis that get killed. This time it was a mixture of Sunni, Shia and Kurds, so it may well be that terrorists from outside Iraq were responsible. At least that's the theory in a logical place but Baghdad tends to defy all logic these days.

This afternoon a couple of bombs went off, the one below in Sadr City killing 15. I saw the plumes of smoke and wondered what the hell it was. It doesn't take long to log on and find out. I remember when I first came to Baghdad I saw some plumes of smoke and wondered whether they were from bombs or simply fires. I don't tend to question it anymore.

Sunday 7 January 2007

Gunfight at the Baghdad Corral

We heard this last night. There were 2 almighty explosions, one was a rocket and the other maybe mortars not long after, that landed in the IZ. Not too close to us but still very loud. Then we heard the small arms fire after that and it was in the direction of Haifa Street, just outside the IZ. There might be a few of these things in the coming days as Maliki has announced a crackdown and the militias (primarily al-Sadr's Mahdi army) will be trying to flex their muscles. I am 50/50 between scepticism and hope that Maliki really will try and crack down. The next few days should be very interesting.

Hanging update

I heard a couple of interesting things yesterday. I can't verify their truth but I was talking to someone who tends to be in the know about this kind of thing.

The first one is that the original "team" who were supposed to oversee the hanging were "replaced" at the last minute by members of al Sadr's militia (the Mahdi army). Hence the way his name was said by the executioners. Apparently the way they put the noose around his neck (at the side rather than from the back) is another giveaway. Apparently that was the way the British used to do it as well.

The other thing is that Maliki actually tried to resign last Wednesday, but the Iraqi President and the US wouldn't accept it / urged him to stay on. That suggests to me that they're still just trying to get a few things in place so that when his successor comes in he'll have less problems with militias to deal with initially. The extra US troops will presumably have getting rid of the militias as their top priority. I don't think the US has done a great deal properly here and obviously I think they shouldn't have invaded in the first place, but I have to say I think this is the right idea. For once, Bush might have got it right, but that will depend on how the thing is done. They're also now trying to get factories working again (mainly goods like textiles and concrete) so that they can get men back to work. This is crucial in sorting the violence out. It might take a little while to really start working but it's good that they're really starting to focus on "soft" ways to resolve the violence as well as the "hard" option which is coming. If the State department and the Pentagon had worked together in the first place maybe we'd have been at this point 3 years ago....

They say there are 2 potential candidates to replace Maliki, but the smart money has to be on Iyad Allawi. You may remember him from such Iraq interim prime ministerships as 28 June 2004 to 7 April 2005. More about him here. He may have been a CIA stooge but it's widely felt, most importantly by Iraqis themselves, that he is the only person who can hold some sort of government together and get a genuine process of reconciliation moving. Watch this space...

Just thought I'd comment on one more thing. The British Education Secretary, Alan Johnson said "I agree with John Prescott's remarks about the way it was handled and I am an opponent of the death penalty. But it was a matter for the Iraqi people to make that judgment. What happened shouldn't detract from the terrible crimes that Saddam committed. I knew the trade union leader he sentenced to death for organising a trade union in Iraq." I don't think that's the full story. One of the things that has stunned me as I have looked at some Iraqi laws is how progressive they were. The Labour Code, which is still in force today, actively encourages trade unions, and disciplinary action in some cases can't be taken against an employee unless a trade union representative is present. So whoever it was that was sentenced to death by Saddam was probably up to something else. British politicians should check their facts. Nothing new there then...

Thursday 4 January 2007

maybe there's hope....

So Maliki wants to step down. That's a relief. Well, a good start anyway. Maybe. There must be a whole lot more than just the poster boy who need to go. Could be a false dawn when he goes, but it might force a shift of behind-the-scenes power for the better. Here's hoping.

Wednesday 3 January 2007

Two Very Different Deaths

One former leader who died last week laid in state and was given an ex President's funeral. Another was taunted and hanged and his body only released to his family and tribe after pressure from the US. Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein couldn't have been buried under more different circumstances.

I have read with interest much of what has been written in the days after Saddam's execution. Some of it regarding the trial and how it was conducted, some of it about the death penalty generally, some about the timing. It's clearly an issue that fascinates people as much as it divides them. The Italian prime minister suggested yesterday that they'd push for a global ban on the death penalty, though it's difficult to see much support for that on the security council.

Anyone that was in any doubt about whether this was "victors' justice" should by now be sure that this was exactly that. The taunting of Saddam and the evocation of Moqtada al-Sadr's name say it all. We already knew the Iraqi government was fizzing at the clopper to get him hanged by the end of last year. Now they have extended the Eid holiday from 4 to 7 days because of the hanging. If that all doesn't add up to victor's justice, I don't know what does. This government has no interest in reconciliation. Maliki depends on Sadr and others' militias for support and the notion of national unity is a sick joke.

Looks like, contrary to the ISG Report recommendation, there will be no chatting to Syria or Iran, at least not publicly. I thought initially that they'd need to do that to get anywhere. More recently I started to think that Maliki and his corrupt bunch were the root of the problem and now that seems pretty clear.

So, the US will send in 30,00 more troops and try to get the Iraqi security services trained properly. Trained to do what exactly? Kill more of their countrymen? Run more criminal rackets? Until you root out the core of the problem the whole army and police will be rotten, from the top down.

The Democrats resume control of Congress in the US tomorrow and Bush will be under a lot more scrutiny in terms of his strategy for Iraq (if there ever was one). During this year I think they'll start handing over checkpoints (the legitimate ones, that is) to the Iraqis. As soon as they start that, I'm getting the hell out of here. The country is carving itself into pieces, and the people that live in it too. I don't fancy being part of that process.