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thedrifter
02-02-06, 11:49 AM
A Dwindling Corps in a Volatile, Battered City
Paul McLeary
Part of a continuing series about the life of an embedded reporter in Iraq.

BAGHDAD, IRAQ -- Among reporters who have been in and out of Iraq since the beginning of the war, there seems to be a kind of consensus that the summer of 2003 and, to a much lesser extent, part of 2004, was a kind of golden period for reporting.

It was still possible then for Westerners to walk the streets of Baghdad, sit in restaurants and, most importantly, spend time with ordinary Iraqis. But as the insurgency became more violent, more brazen and more constant, reporters were forced to cut back on their forays into the city.

This isn't to say they no longer go out. While I was in Baghdad, one reporter left her paper's guarded compound to spend the night at an Iraqi family's house to do some reporting, and everyone I spoke to said that they do get out a couple of times a week to work a story. Still, the situation being what it is, bureaus rely heavily on Iraqi stringers and fixers to go out and collect information for their stories. When Westerners do go out, they normally bring at least one armed Iraqi guard, and plan their trips as much as possible so that someone knows where they are, and how long they should be gone.

But it wasn't always like this. A photographer I spoke to in Baghdad told me that at one point things were so lax that "we would drive to Fallujah for lunch and visit some tea shops, then drive back." In the earlier stages of the war, some reporters even were able to end-run the official channels of the embedding process. The same photographer told me, "We would get a driver, drive up to an American base and introduce ourselves, and ask if we could deploy with them for a day or two. Usually the private at the gate would go get an officer, and the officer would just shrug and say, 'Sure, c'mon in.'"

Over dinner in an empty restaurant with two newspaper reporters (still within the blast walls surrounding the hotel and a few houses transformed into compounds for Western news organizations), I heard similar stories about easier times, including a karaoke bar reporters visited a few times in Baghdad.

But those days are long gone, and all that's left are a group of hardened, somewhat frustrated reporters, angry at their inability to move around; a group, it must be said, that is becoming increasingly isolated as the once-formidable media presence in Baghdad slowly clears out.

At my hotel, most mornings I was the only non-Iraqi who partook of the free breakfasts available, save for one American editor who would have early morning meetings with his Iraqi stringers.

Since I arrived in town just two days after the Christian Science Monitor's Jill Carroll was kidnapped, her abduction invariably came up in conversations with other reporters. Given the fact that the press pool has coalesced around a shrinking number of people and they're all gathered in a few compounds, everyone seems to know one another, and Carroll's abduction has cast a pall over the small group. Every reporter I spoke to was acutely aware that, although Carroll went out without an armed guard, what happened to her could happen to any of them, at any time. For reporters in Baghdad, death or abduction are very real possibilities every time they leave their protected areas.

Blame who you will for a city of rubble, teetering on the brink of chaos -- the Bush administration for starting a war while failing to plan for the aftermath, Paul Bremer's ineffectual Coalition Provisional Authority, the horrific bloodlust of the terrorists. But the result is that the certainty of violence is woven into the daily life of Baghdad. And for anyone who criticizes the so-called "hotel journalism" that they claim is practiced by the dwindling Baghdad news corps, I would invite them to trade in their morning Egg McMuffin and leisurely 30-minute drive to work for just one foray into the streets of Baghdad to get a story with one of these reporters.

The members of the press here aren't above reproach, but the situation they find themselves in is almost impossible -- and one that could go bad for anyone at any moment, as November's bombing of the al Hamra hotel and Jill Carroll's abduction illustrate graphically, and tragically.

Editor's note, Jan. 29: ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt were hit by an improvised explosive device as the two were traveling with an Iraqi military unit Sunday. Each suffered head injuries from shrapnel, and, at last report, were in serious but stable condition at a U.S. military hospital.

Ellie

yellowwing
02-02-06, 12:36 PM
Welcome to the ****! We got tens of thousands of Marines that have been living this way for 7 months at a time. Some of them are going for their 3rd tour. And they don't enjoy a nice hotel's free breakfast in the morning!

thedrifter
02-02-06, 03:09 PM
Feb. 02, 2006 - 3:01 PM
Dispatches from Iraq
Embedded with a Night Patrol in Fallujah
Paul McLeary

Part of a continuing series about the life of an embedded reporter in Iraq.

FALLUJAH, IRAQ -- The curfew had not yet come into effect, but the streets were already deserted, the darkened windows of buildings staring vacantly into the night. We were on night patrol, rolling through the streets of Fallujah with two 7-ton trucks and a few Humvees, waiting for something, or someone, to show itself.

The only sign of life I saw was an occasional brand-new Iraqi Police truck, invariably parked off to the side of the road, lights flashing. In a telling sign, each time we would roll by, at least one Marine would train his gun on the police vehicle until we passed.

Curfew in Fallujah falls at 11 p.m. each night, after which anyone found out on the street is considered a target. But the city is so dangerous that after nightfall, few venture out; with the Marines making random, quick-strike forays into town, and criminals and insurgents on the prowl, residents have long since learned to stay indoors.

The troops were ready to go as soon as we left the barbed-wire gate at the rail station. We stopped a few blocks into the city to pick up some Iraqi soldiers for the patrol; and one of them tried to frisk a Marine before he entered their post. The Marine brushed him off and walked on by, and a couple of the guys laughed. We waited while the Iraqis took their time getting ready, which didn't endear them to the Marines sitting around me in the open back truck. The guys stayed alert however; any time a car happened to drive by on one of the side streets, the Marines trained their weapons on it until it passed from view.

In Iraq, everyone and everything is a threat.

After setting off and weaving through the empty streets, we came up on a large corner house which had been selected beforehand for a search, and unloaded from the trucks. One Marine told me to hold back, so he and I crossed the street and flattened ourselves against a wall as the troops entered the house's walled-in front yard, and others set up a perimeter on the street.

A few seconds later they were in, and we ran across the street to follow. The owner, a stern-looking man who looked to be in his late 40s, appeared resigned to the fact that his house was overrun with Marines, and seemed to know the drill: call his family into the living room, while the soldiers searched the rooms of the three-story house. His wife and children (about 5 or 6 kids in total, ranging from teenagers to small children) quickly gathered, with the women covering their heads, and sat on the couches to wait. I headed upstairs with a couple of the Marines, trying not to get in their way as they quickly looked through the rooms, and then followed them to the roof.

It was only once I got to the roof that I could see just how dark the city was. At street level, it was hard to get a sense of things as we sped through the deserted city, but up here I could see the vague silhouettes of buildings stretching in every direction, with the only light coming from houses that had gas generators. Public electricity is little more than a dream in Fallujah, with power being out most of the time, so most people use generators to light their homes. In the distance, a mosque's minaret was lit brightly, standing as the only truly discernable structure in the city.

We could hear occasional gunfire off in the distance, and the Marines took up positions on the roof overlooking the street below on one side and the neighborhood's rooftops on the other. One of them gave me his night vision goggles to look through, but even with those, I didn't see anyone on the street other than Marines. We waited up there for a bit, and the guys trained their guns on anyone they saw peak out of a doorway or walk into their front yard below.

Heading back down, we found a couple Marines sitting in the living room with the house's owners, as if they were neighbors who had dropped in for a chat. As the Marines got up from the couch to leave, one of them turned to me and pointed at the homeowner, saying, "This guy says he doesn't like Marines, and he likes Saddam." He turned to look at the man in disgust. "You shoulda been down here," he said to me. "This is where the real story was. This guy."

The Iraqi looked at me with a satisfied grin on his face. I couldn't help but think that he knew he could get away with talking to Marines like this, whereas had he tried the same thing under Saddam's regime, the outcome most certainly would not have been a couple laughs, a muttered "*******," and a peaceful exit from his home.

In all, the night produced no arrests. The city remained quiet.

We headed back to base, the guys unloaded their gear, and settled in -- to wait for the next patrol.