24 December 2003, Christmas Eve in Baghdad,
Explosions Abound
Dahr Jamail
12/24/03: (ICH)
Arriving back at my hotel with Ahmed this evening, everyone is flittering about
talking about the attack on the big hotel. We obtain a few sketchy details, but
enough to head us in the direction of the most heavily fortified hotel compound
in Baghdad. Racing down Sa'adoun Street in a taxi we are told a suicide bomber
had blown himself up in the Sheridan, killing a soldier and many of the
guests.
At the entrance of the compound a machine gun carrying Iraqi
policeman tells us the French Embassy was hit,
not the hotel. So we walk
towards the entrance of the inner compound that leads towards the Sheridan, and
an American soldier tells us he doesn't know what happened, but pointed us
towards the French embassy
just down the street.
He is quite
friendly to me, so I ask him where he's from, "I'm from California."
I
can tell he isn't sure if I'm an American, due to my beard and Kefir wrapped
around my neck, so I say,
"I'm from Alaska. How are you doing man?" He
replies, "Hanging in there brother. Hanging in there. I was born in Anchorage,
but now I live in San Diego."
I tell him to keep hanging in there and he
thanks me. As we begin to walk away I hear him say, "Merry
Christmas." I
swing around and tell him the same, and see him smiling.
At the French
Embassy, which is completely intact, we meet a group of cameraman and the main
security guard for the embassy. We are told the following story.
At
approximately 8:30pm, a car pulled up near a palm tree in a small field near the
Tigris River, approximately one block from the Sheridan Hotel. Two men calmly
got out from the car and unloaded a small
Russian made Katusha (sp?) missile.
By the time it had launched and slammed into the top floor of the
Hotel,
creating an explosion that shook the windows of my hotel five blocks
away, the Iraqi guards nearby
panicked to find where it was launched
from.
We walked another block down the street to find the guards who were
responsible for manning the checkpoint, which is about 40 meters from where the
missile was launched.
One of the guards tells us that he spotted the men
loading the launcher back into the car and jumping
inside the car. As the car
drove away the guards told us they shot at it over 120 times, but the
attackers
sped away nonetheless while returning fire.
We walk
down an unlit side street back towards my hotel. We stop at a tea vendor on the
street, about
two blocks from the area where the missile was launched. Ahmed
asks the tea man what he heard,
because Ahmed didn't think the guards story
really stacked up. There were no shell casings around where
they said they
fired 120 times, and the guards couldn't tell them what type of car it was, even
though they'd shone their spotlight on it.
The tea man tells us he heard
the huge explosion by the missile, but no bullets at all. He asked us
if
maybe the guards used slingshots, because they didn't hear any shots, a
mere two blocks away.
The stories of the incompetent hastily trained
Iraqi Police abound. Almost as popular, but not quite, is
the story of
resistance fighters joining the Iraqi Police force to help in the attacks
against the Americans. Could this be the latter?
While walking the rest
of the way to the hotel we hear four huge thumps in the distance.some sort of
bombs.
Ahmed thinks they are mortar attacks.
It's been that kind of
day.
It all started last night just after midnight. I'm almost
asleep and I hear (and feel) huge thumping explosions on the outskirts of
Baghdad, towards Al-Dora, also known as 'machine city' for all the mechanic
shops there. The firing was from howitzers, as well as Apaches who arrived on
the scene to take part, and a gunship with its sickening sounding roar of
bullets so close together they almost sound like a fog horn. The whumping
explosions occur very often, then a break, then again.
I run to the
roof to see, but only stand in the cold night with two hotel workers listening
to the huge thumps beyond the flaming oil flare from the refinery that isn't
functioning correctly.
This morning a few of us head over to see
what happened. The US Military reported a convoy was attacked, and they returned
fire heavily against insurgents.
Over in Alwat Al Rashid, the
specific area near the US base, we learn that the base was attacked (as
convoys
don't travel at night), and the base basically opened up with
everything it had in every direction, which
has become the typical response,
unfortunately.
As with each of the aforementioned stories, the truth is
always pieced together from collecting all the
stories, and finding those
that match, which have thus far always come from the locals in the area, who
are
not affiliated with either side of the fighting.
As I type now, it
is 9:45pm, and several large explosions have gone off down the street, probably
3 kilometers. I've heard several now, all over Baghdad tonight, and it's not
even Christmas yet, which everyone expects to be a very bad day here. Sporadic
machine gun fire pierces the night from all parts of Baghdad right now. An
ambulance races by under my window in the direction of a few of the deep
explosions.
Earlier today there is news of three US soldiers being
killed by another roadside bomb. Several more wounded. The number of wounded and
dead US soldiers from the invasion and occupation is now nearly 11,000.
I
really feel for the US soldiers being put in this position.really they can't
trust anyone, because even
those who are supposedly helping them, namely the
IP's (Iraqi Police), are likely to be working against them.
They are here
fighting what is now an ill-defined war, fighting for their own survival, never
knowing where
or when the next IED, suicide car bomb, or human suicide
attacker will befall them. While this certainly doesn't justify the commonly
adopted policy of indiscriminant firing in every direction which always kills
innocent Iraqis, I can see why they do it.
When does this end? No
WMD's have been found.nothing even close. Saddam is captured. The regime has
been replaced by the Americans, either Bremer and his cronies, or Iraqi exiles
they have appointed.
If this invasion wasn't about the oil, then
why are the Americans still here? Why haven't the UN been brought in to assist
in the transition so the American soldiers can be sent back home where they
belong? The
two pretexts for the invasion, removing the threat of WMD's and
getting Saddam out of the picture, have been
accomplished.
While
driving in a taxi to visit a hospital earlier, we are stuck in a long traffic
jam. The police man makes our direction wait as a couple of Humvees pass, then
he lets us move. Our taxi driver says, "I never liked Saddam, but he gave us
protection and what we needed to live. Saddam was honey compared to the
American's. The Americans are like hell. I'm happy for this gas crisis. Fuck my
job, I just want to see the Americans fail here."
He is angry with the
traffic jams, the fighting, the terrible daily living conditions people have to
struggle against in Baghdad.
"I want to see it get worse," he
continues, "I want this to get so bad it proves to the world that all those who
celebrated Saddam's capture are thieves and cowards!"
Ahmed shakes his
head. He looks at me and somberly says, "I want to go out from my country Dahr.
I want to go someplace where I can feel safe. This is all that I want."
The
Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in
anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas
"avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans
l'anarchie"
|
