July 03, 2009

GI Humor

A year in a war zone requires a sense of humor.

Examples from 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry, 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, based in northwest Baghdad since last November:

--the army is famous/notorious for the names it gives to what it does.  This outfit has deployed on Operations Sniper, Flying Dutchman, Kantana, Tarheels and many others.  But somebody politically correct up the food chain thought they'd gone too far when they named one op "Napalm Rain."  Change it--might offend our Iraqi allies.  The new name:  "Operation Campfire Sing-Along."

--soldiers hate phony gung-ho guys.  Somebody created a fictitious new "Ribbon of the Day," called the Motto Language Medal.  Here's how you win it:  "Soldiers who never say your rank and name, but always call you Warrior, Killer, High Speed, Hard-Charger or Motivator.  They always end sentences with 'Roger!' or 'Hooah!' and are always Charlie Mikeing [CM--continue to march]."

--one American liaison officer with the Iraqi army and national police in the sector unleashed a steady stream of sardonic one-liners:  "The Iraqi economy is run by one giant DMV."  About how sloppy the upkeep was around the local Iraqi army base:  "It's like the 'Little Rascals' set up an army."  On the blue and white Humvees that the national police use:  "Chevy trucks with redneck armor." On how Iraqis feel about 130,000 American troops in their midst:  "If New England was occupied by Canadians, I'd still want 'em to leave." About the makeup of the present-day Iraqi army--composed of throwbacks regulars from the Saddam Hussein era, those who joined after the 2003 invasion and recent recruits:  "It's a Frankenstein army."  On the Shilka Russian-made self-propelled guns atop police Humvees:  "They can be rusty and never cleaned and they still work--the national police stop at company-level maintenance."

--An American officer leading a patrol became disgusted with the static and breakups on radio communications between Humvees and their base:  "The comm sounds like it has the ass today--maybe a bag of ass."

--When they see a pretty Iraqi woman not wearing an abaya or hijab--the long cloaks and veils worn by many Iraqi females--GIs call it "going topless."

And this story, which has made the rounds of some public affairs specialists, is probably apocryphal and certainly didn't happen with the 1st ID battalion.  A U.S. patrol, searching a house, found $300 in cash on on a man in the house.  A lieutenant, following protocol then in effect, put a hood over his head and questioned him. He then called up the line to report what they'd found--$300 and no weapons.  His superior told him to take the guy's picture and let him go.  "Sgt. Frye," the officer said.  "Take some pics of this guy and let him go."  A few minutes later Frye returned with a digital camera and gave it to the lieutenant.  As he scrolled through the images, the lieutenant frowned.  "Sgt. Frye, what did you do?"  "I took his picture and let him go, like you said, sir."  Apparently, the lieutenant would have preferred that Frye remove the hood before taking the photos.  The patrol's HQ later displayed a frontier-style poster of the hooded guy with "WANTED" across the top.

                                                              --Mike Tharp

July 02, 2009

The Guys Who Make the Army Work

"The guys who make the army work." That's what techno-thriller writer Tom Clancy called NCOs. They are noncommissioned officers, the soldiers and Marines in pay grades E-5 through E-9:  buck sergeants, staff sergeants, sergeants first class, master sergeants and sergeants major. 

Northwestern Baghdad is no exception.  In the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry (the "Vanguards"), 2nd Brigade ("Dagger" brigade) of the 1st Infantry Division ("The Big Red One"), noncoms make sure the vision and strategy of senior officers get translated into reality and tactics on the ground.

Sgt. 1st Class John Peterson, for example, took blueprints for a mobile command post--a vehicle that looks like a stretch version of a Ford 350 with desert camo, up-armor, radar and a mounted machine gun--and made sure the local Iraqi army unit got to make one of its own. He helped two Iraqis, Sgts. Salaam and Ayid, prepare a 21-page color handout on the "Badger," which the Iraqis wrote "will enchance the command's ability in performing their duties away from the office."  Peterson, who's been in Iraq since 2007, with just three 15-day leaves to see his family, often pulls all-nighters because that's when the action happens on the streets.  "Hey," he says grinning, "I love what I do."

Sgt. Maj. Jeff Smith, ramrod straight with a brush cut, looks as if he's been sent over by Central Casting to play an NCO like the one in "Full Metal Jacket."  And like nearly every sergeant major in the army and Marines, he knows where all the bodies are buried--and whether to dig them up or leave 'em under the ground.  During one brief encounter in the so-called Command Post of the Future, the sergeant major takes care of three or four problems in as many minutes.  His management style is aided by liberal use of a certain Anglo-Saxon word that he deploys as a verb, noun, adjective and adverb.  Then he stalks out to make sure the next mission gets done.

Noncoms pull the same kind of duty in the Iraqi National Police (INP) and army.

Four Iraqi INP NCOs hang out in a sixth-floor office across a dusty courtyard from the U.S. battalion.  The INP serve as the security arm of the Iraqi army in the northwest sector of Baghdad.  The Americans understand how important NCOs are in the command structure, so they helped start an academy two years ago that features courses like those taught in the U.S.

Someday, the INP are supposed to assume the whole internal security role for Iraq and let the army do what it's supposed to--protect Iraq's borders from outside attack.  Meantime, some 40,000 of them work the northwest sector, scene of a huge holy shrine, upscale shops and cafes, as well as garbage dumps, offal piles and slums that have spawned car bombings, IEDs and suicide attacks. Besides staffing checkpoints, the police officers do traffic control on Baghdad's sclerotic streets. 

Staff Sgt. Mark Lancaster, Nashville, is a grunt who now liaises with the police to swap information, tell tall tales, hang out and build a bond of trust.  "We're all NCOs," Lancaster drawls.  "They do all the reports, interrogations, scout patrols and go after very important targets."

After seven months or so with his counterparts, the Tennessean feels right at home.  When he walks into their office, they greet one another the Iraqi way--a handshake and kisses on each cheek.  One big Iraqi sergeant tells Lancaster, "If you go to war in Afghanistan or Iran, you come and get me.  I will hang (Iranian prime minister) Ahmadinejad!"

Another American NCO drops by to leave bags of beef jerky and a chew bone for an Iraqi police officer's pet dog.  The chew toy, a foot-long tube of dry leather, immediately prompts a slew of ribald jokes and pantomines from the Iraqis, with Lancaster's interpreter translating it all.  They cut the BS only when a line of veiled women enters the office, female officers hired to search women at checkpoints.

Later, after three of the Iraqis eat a lunch of bread, rice and oranges sitting on a silver Mylar first-aid blanket on the floor--Lancaster declines, saying he's already had chow--the big Iraqi gets serious.  He describes the slow dance the cops must perform to recruit their sources---whether he asks for money, how much, will he hold "a package" for them.  Then they move to "tougher questions--if we send you off to mix with 'special groups' [insurgents], will you give us correct information?"  Finally, the police compare and correlate what their source has told them with other bits and pieces of data to see if they can trust their man.

Any American cop worth his or her salt follows the same drill in cultivating informants.

The Iraqi NCOs are worried about the U.S. withdrawal of combat forces from major Iraqi cities scheduled in two days (June 30).  But not because they fear for their own safety or that they can't do their job.  No, they're worried that people with "wasta," influence, will be able to avoid the warrants they need to make arrests.  "If a man belongs to a certain (political) party, when we go arrest him, he can use wasta to avoid it," says one rail-thin NCO.

Adds another Iraqi sergeant:  "It will be a hard six months after the Americans go.  Then we can show our ability to control the situation."

Lancaster rises to shove off.  He kisses each Iraqi noncom on the cheek, who return the farewell the same way.  "I'll still be here," he says.

Together, all the NCOs--members of an ancient and honorable brotherhood--say, "Inshallah."  If God wills.

Someday Lancaster hopes to write a novel about his two Iraq tours.  He's got, it seems, plenty of material.

                                                                 --By Mike Tharp

July 01, 2009

Three Iraqi Officers Will Help Shape Their Nation's Fate

Meet three Iraqis who will help determine whether this week's handoff of authority and sovereignty to Iraq from the U.S. will succeed.

Two army officers and one National Police general, they are among the hundreds of uniformed men the U.S. must rely on to make Iraqi cities safe.  How they do their jobs will signal, in small but telling ways, if six years of American occupation has helped Iraq more than it has harmed it.

They all work in northwest Baghdad.  With a major Shia shrine in the sector, it's a draw for pilgrims.  Nearly 3 million people live within Its 322 square miles  The Iraqi Army, combined with Iraqi National Police units for checkpoint and other security, totals around 106,000.  They outnumber Americans 3:1.  Insurgent attacks have dropped to around 1.7 a day from 2.5 a year ago, but residents still fear for their safety.  The Ministry of Interior is building a wall around much of the area that includes the shrine to further increase security.  These three officers have a lot to do.

                                                                **********

Iraq Army Staff Brig. Gen.Ismail Hamid Hamas Tha'ir has headed the 22nd Brigade of the 6th Iraqi Army Division for less than a month.  A 20-year soldier, he commanded artillery units for seven years and more recently ran a base support battalion near Baghdad International Airport.

A few nights before the June 30 withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from major Iraqi cities, the general talked animatedly for an hour.  As an aide served heavily sugared lemon-flavored tea, U.S. Lieut. Col. Steve Toohey listened, nodded and answered the general's questions.

The general, waving a two-page Arabic-language document, and sometimes holding a phone to each ear, was confused about whether U.S. combat forces would still be patrolling--on their own--without the Iraqis asking for help.

Toohey repeated the American mantra that they are in Iraq now to 'assist and support," always letting the Iraqis take the lead.  If they ask for help, they'll get what the Americans call "enablers"--from sniffer dogs to high-tech weaponry.

Brig Gen. Tha'ir said it was crucial that Americans hold up their end of the bargain.  "What do I tell a child if he asks me, 'Why are the Americans still patrolling?'  Or a woman?  He compared June 30 to 2007 when the Iraq soccer team won the Asia Cup championship.  "People celebrated for a week," he recalled.  "Maybe this time for a month!"

The general waxed philosophically when he observed that had Saddam Hussein aligned himself with one of two countries, Iraq's fate would have been much different, and better.  Those two countries:  "America or Japan."

His area of operations includes the famous Kadhim Shrine, one of the holiest sites in Islam.  Later this month, two million or more pilgrims--including hundreds of thousands of Shia from Iran--will make their annual visit to the shrine.  His soldiers and the National Police officers under him will be responsible for their safety.  Earlier this year, suicide bombers, including two women, slaughtered hundreds near the shrine.

The general's voice boomed around the ornate room from behind a highly polished wooden desk.  Two sabers hung over one wall, and waist-high vases of artificial flowers sat next to large comfortable chairs.  But his voice softened to a whisper when he leaned forward and said:  "The Iraqi people have suffered too much.  They need to be happy."

Someone had given him a bouquet of fresh yellow roses, real ones.  Before his promotion and a move, he grew flowers and other plants in the garden of his home.  But it's too dry where he lives now, and as for most Baghdadis, the electric power goes out too often to run a water pump. 

When peace comes to his country, he said, he will again grow flowers.

                                                               *********

Capt. Haithum Haidr, operations officer of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Brigade of the Iraqi Army's 6th Division, already has three strikes against him for promotion:  1)he's a Kurd; 2)his wife is a Sunni Arab; 3)he was one of the first former Iraqi Army officers from the Saddam regime to sign up with the Americans in 2003.

In an army that favors Shia, the fact that he is one may not be enough to avoid the political landmines and please the right people that any officer in any army must do to win bars and stars.  All he's got going for him is performance.  Maj. Scott Nauman, operations officer for the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry of the 1st Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade, thinks Haithum's battalion is the best of seven Iraqi Army units he works with. 

It was in charge of Haifa Street in northwest Baghdad, a breeding ground of insurgency, and cleaned it up.  Then it was moved to the Hurriyah district, the heart of sectarian violence in the area, and calmed it down.  "If every battalion in the Iraqi Army was like this one, we could have withdrawn a couple years ago," Nauman says.

Haithum graduated from university with a degree in Farsi, one of the six languages he speaks, including  guttural but clear English.  He entered the army in 1983 as an enlisted man and got out eight years later as a warrant officer.  Partly because of his language fluency, he worked in intelligence.  He signed on with the Americans after the 2003 invasion.

"I have learned that politics must also come with a rifle," he said over a lunch of rice and lamb in the battalion's new mess hall.  He showed a cell phone photo of his three children:  one daughter is 14, a son 12 and "the devil," another daughter, is 10.  He's still not sure he promised her the golden bracelet she now wears.

The captain advised Nauman, who was to brief all the battalions' operations officers about the withdrawal, to "simplify it when you're explaining the JOC (joint operations center) because a lot of the officers can't comprehend it."  But once they understand it, "they will do it."

He grabbed an AK-47 rifle off a shelf.  You know why we call this an Osama bin Laden, he asked a visitor.  Because in the first pictures of the al Qaeda leader taken after 9/11, the shorter version of the famous weapon rested against a wall in the background.

He told Nauman about a bad guy he's got his sights on--not an insurgent, but a pimp, thief, blackmailer.  Once he gets his man, he assured the major, he'll make sure all of his rights are protected.  Then with a thin smile, he added, "Of course, we'll follow procedures--he will have to be handcuffed and blindfoldeded." And if, for his own protection, the suspect has to be transported in the trunk of a car, the captain will make sure it finds the bumpiest roads to the jail.

He let out a sigh.  "I think after my daughter finishes university and marries"--in around 10 years--"then my country will be normal again."

                                                             *************

    Gen. Dhafir of the Iraqi National Police keeps two small "love birds" in a cage underneath the aquarium in his office in northwest Baghdad  Neither the fish nor fowl disguise the man's aggressiveness. 

    Operating under the administrative umbrella of the Iraqi Army's 22nd Brigade, 6th Division, he and his men--and a growing number of women who complete the four-month police academy--are responsible for security in a critical part of Baghdad.  They man (and woman) the checkpoints, and the female officers are used to search women passing through.  (Two female suicide bombers killed at least 66 people and wounded 125 others in April near a mosque in the area.)

    Those checkpoints, despised by ordinary Iraqis for the slowdown in traffic, try to keep out the bombers and other insurgents who have targeted the northwest sector.  It includes Karkh, Beladiya, Ghazaliyah and Khadhimiyah--areas of holy shrines, the Tigris River, shops and markets and cafes aching to make a profit and tens of thousands of homes.

    A day before the historic transfer of control over military operations from the Americans to Iraqis, the general spoke of his gratitude to the Americans.  "It is a turning point for Iraq and Iraqi history," he said.  "For us it is like a serial that started in March 2003, and we will have a happy ending in the last episode.  I want to state to the American people that June 30 is a victory for both Americans and Iraqis.  The sacrifices that America gave to this country are a part of the American people as a whole.  You gave Iraqis freedom and control of our counry.  You should be especially proud of the men and women who came here to help us and gave their lives to liberate Iraq and make it a democratic country."

    He turned to his American liaison, Lieut. Col. Drake Jackson.  "I am ready," he said.  "This is our first important mission.  We are going to be in combat providing security.  That's why we are very ready.  You (gesturing to the officer with a silver retractable pointer) have helped us greatly with our training.  The new training will help us change over operations, and that's what benefits us the most."

                                                            **********     

Three military men.  Now they and their comrades are once again in charge of their own country, of its destiny. 

    The world--and their countrymen--will soon find out if they are ready.

                                                         --By Mike Tharp

June 29, 2009

A Night Patrol in Baghdad

    Lt. Col. Drake Jackson briefed the 10-man, two-interpeter patrol before it left the relative safety of Foward Operating Base Justice in northwest Baghdad.  A sandstorm had let up, and the evening sky was clearing.  Some sitting on a concrete bench and some standing, the soldiers from the 2nd Brigade, 1-18 Infantry, 1st Infantry Division checked their M4 rifles and M9 pistols.  Their body armor and Kevlar helmets were on tight.

    "I want to look at the (Tigris) river," the lean 6-foot- 3 Rhode Islander said.  "I want to look at Market Street--they're talking about reapportioning forces (at the checkpoints) there."  If there was "escalation of force" during the patrol--an attack--he told the soldiers to hunker down.  "Charlie Company is our QRF (quick reaction force), but it's easier just to stay down and throw lead."

    Their primary weapon, though, would be the flashlights attached to their rifles. "In all likelihood, there will be people in our formation.  The new RoE (rules of engagement) are that we try to keep the vehicles out.  Bloods and Crips--a tough guy team--could be there."

    Ham, one of the interpreters, reminded that a soccer game would be played in a nearby stadium.  Iraqis sometimes fire their weapons into the air in celebration.  "We always pull for ties," the officer said.

    Green and red lasers on their rifle sights would help them line up any target.  Two Iraqi National Police officers joined the patrol.  "It's good to show we play by the rules," Jackson explained, referring to the June 30 deadline that would mandate combined Coalition Forces and Iraqi operations, unless the brigade was in a "force protection" mode when the op could be only Americans. "They can tell people to do things that we don't get the same response," he said of the Iraqis.  "I like having them along."

    A deuce-and-a-half, a two-and-a-half-ton truck, carried the patrol to the base gates.  They dismounted the truck and, spaced three to five meters apart, ventured into Khadimiya district, site of a shrine that's one of the holiest in Islam.

      A dog howled as the patrol moved out, and the smell of charcoal, gasoline and dust hung in the darkening air.  Hundreds of Iraqi civilians--some women in black abaya, some in skirts and scarves (the GI's call that "going topless") mingled with men and children on the sidewalks, in the street, outside cafes and shops.

    The patrol walked slowly, Staff Sgt. Mark Lancaster at point and Iraqi National Police Pvt. Mushary Bashem right behind.  Once the American shined his green laser on a BMW coming toward the patrol too fast.  "Slow down," he and Bashem both shouted in Arabic; it did.

    Several soldiers said "Salaam aleikum (Peace be unto you)," and put their palm on their chest as they passed Iraqi civilians.  Most returned the greeting.  Only one man yelled out, "Too bad you guys are leaving!" referring to the June 30 deadline.

    At the Tigris River, the patrol took up defensive positions along a wall paralelling the water.  Jackson checked out a pump house, which turned out to be empty.  As he and others looked in the structure, Lancaster told Bashem, "Face this way and stay facing this way."  Bashem asked if he could smoke.  The sergeant told him no.

    On the way back, a different route, Bashem moved more aggressively than on the way in to stop traffic so the patrol could cross streets.  A lemon-slice moon hung in the hazy sky. After about 90 minutes, and five miles in 92-degree heat, the patrol returned, without incident, to the gates of Justice.  "Shukran for coming with us," Jackson told the Iraqis. 

    After the truck deposited the sweating soldiers back near the base headquarters, he assessed the patrol's mission.  His take on the river was that because of blast walls and checkpoints, it now posed the only avenue for someone with a bomb to get close to the shrine.  He endorsed the Iraqi police plan to beef up the checkpoints"  "One guy on duty, that always gets me alert.  Three guys can come up to him, 'Here's $50--look the other way.'"

    The officer said what the patrol learned could be used as a training tool for the Iraqi police.  Although he conceded that he and some other members of the patrol had been "skylined" as they looked for possible sniper locations across the Tigris, he didn't see how they could have learned as much as they did had they stayed on the other side of the road.

    "For me, mission accomplished."

    The men gathered their gear and headed off for more water, air conditioning. and a shower.

                                                      --Mike Tharp

June 24, 2009

To embed or not to embed?

Unless you have a kidnap or death wish, there's only one answer to the question for a reporter covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

You embed.

The question arose again this week because the U.S. Army's 1st Cav in Mosul barred a Stars & Stripes reporter from embedding with one of its units in that still hinky northern city.  Military flacks justified the disbarment by citing a March story from the reporter that "refused to highlight" what amounted to good news the Army was doing in Mosul.  They also said he "behaved unprofessionally" and wouldn't answer questions about stories he was writing.

Stripes denied all the allegations and said its reporter's stories from Mosul had been accurate and fair.  Its editorial director said the newspaper "would not tolerate the Army's attempts to control it."

Banning a Stripes reporter is semi-pardoxical, since the newspaper, although independent, gets $10 million a year or so from the Pentagon.  It's widely read by the troops in the Middle East, Europe and Asia. 

Some ideological purists from both the left and right galaxies of the blogosphere have long criticized the embed system, arguing that reporters won't write nasty stories about guys whose M4s are protecting them on bang-bang missions.  Or that they'll write only about the atrocities they witness (or make up)once they're safely back in their hotel rooms.

This is of more than passing interest here because I'm due to start an embed Saturday.  It will be for four days with an infantry outfit withdrwing from suburban Baghdad.  Hope to do one or two more while I'm here. I was also embedded last year for 10 days in Kirkuk with the 10th Mountain Division. 

And an argument could be made that I was one of the first embeds--before the system itself was invented in the mid-'90s by a group of hacks and military flacks--when I rode into Iraq from Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf War.  The pool system used in that war created the embed system because the pool arrangements sucked for everybody.  Reporters were tethered to public affairs officers who babysat them, and all our reports had to go through a clearing house (censor's bureau) in Dharhan.  And the military suffered too because little of the heroism and ingenuity on display by American combatants was ever seen or recorded for the folks back home.

In the runup to Desert Storm, Maj. Randy Riggins, executive officer of the 37th Engineer Battalion out of Fort Bragg, simply told my PAO puke that there wasn't room in his Humvee for him and that he, the ranking officer, would be responsible for me.  So off I drove with the combat engineers, unminded by this bank clerk activated from the reserves as a captain. We were sandwiched between a French Foreign Legion outfit and the 82nd Airborne.  We wandered around southern Iraq till the 100-hour war ended.

My embed last year was successful for both McClatchy and for the 10th Mountain Division.  I linked up with some public affairs officers and enlisted personnel who knew what the hell they were doing.  Capt. Bruce Drake, for example, is a 'Mustang,' a former enlisted man who became an officer; even cooler, as an EM he was a Marine, then joined the Army and started getting bars on his shoulders.  He made sure I got to everywhere I wanted to go and met danged near everybody I wanted to meet.  As a result, I got several solid stories and even more blogs during my time up there.

Sure, some will say, you wrote the stories they wanted written.  Nope.  I wrote about what the unit was doing to prevent, treat and deal with PTSD.  Not a lively conversation topic in the mess hall.  And sensitive as hell because the VA--and the active military through guilt by association--was getting blasted back home for its non- or maltreatment of both active duty and former soldiers suffering from the psychological disease and, worse, TBI--traumatic brain injury from the IEDs blowing up all over both battle spaces.

But the 10th gave me free rein.  The result was the first and still only--far as I can tell--story about what a military unit in a war zone was trying to do to help its soldiers facing pressures no soldiers and Marines had ever faced.  While the rounds were flying and the bombs were exploding.

So you embed.  I read the Stripes' reporter's March story that got the 1st Cav brass PO'd at him.  I'd have written it much the same way.  I thought it was a good piece of journalism.  Not sure why the military got its knickers twisted to the point of banning a guy who works in a business that buys ink by the barrel--though those cheap little pixels are now trying to take us down.

Mike Hedges, managing editor of the Washington Examiner, gives talks to college students about the many wars he's covered (three of 'em with me). When the subject comes up, he tells the classes, “With reference to what Churchill said about democracy, embedding is the worst possible system except all the others.”  Then he rolls out a list of stories, from the Apache pilot who killed him own men in friendly fire, to the U.S. soldiers who poisoned themselves in Saudi Arabia making homemade booze (a minor diplomatic incident ensued) to the capture of top Saddam lieutenants.  The stories "I couldn’t have gotten without embedding."

Matthew Fisher, a good friend who's covered 14 wars (some of them many times over) and who's on his way to live in Kandahar, Afghanistan, for two and a half years in a tent, has been embedded many times.  The correspondent for CanWest, Canada's biggest newspaper chain, says this about his embeds with Americans, Canadians and British: 

'While it is true that they do not want you to highlight problems (that is normal behavior anywhere), if you are with any unit for a few days you will get a fair sense of what is right and wrong.  I think it is immensely valuable to embed, particularly when has been the case in Iraq and is now the case in Afghanistan, it is virtually impossible to move around the country freely on your own to suss out information.  Embedding is not a perfect construct, but it is a helluva lot better than sitting on your behind doing nothing.  And when combat operations are at a high tempo, there is no other good way to get a feel for a war and the man doing the fighting."

And you can make friends as an embed.  Bruce Drake and I are still in touch.  And five years ago, in a lovely outdoor ceremony overlooking Puget Sound, I watched former Maj. Riggo Riggins marry his lovely Naomi. 

I was their best man.

                                                           --Mike Tharp

June 22, 2009

Kirkuk: a place that should be seen--and heard

The Iraqi army major, a Kurd, didn't know what hit him.  Col. David Paschal, the 6'6" commander of the 10th Mountain Division based in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk last year, had taken off the diplomatic gloves.  As tea and soft drinks were served by fawning subordinates, the major almost preened in his easy chair.  The top-ranked American soldier in the area had come to visit HIM. 

After a few minutes of pleasantries--the Arabic translated by Paschal's female Lebanese interpreter--the officer from Chicago leaned forward in his seat.  Rawboned hands as big as those of former Bulls defensive ace Jerry Sloan clasped themselves together, as if trying to avoid making fists.

His usual command voice grew even louder.  He demanded to know why 200 Sunni Arab inductees had been turned away the previous week by the major.  The major started to explain about not enough trucks and lack of bunks and...

"Bull! I know why," the colonel thundered.  "Because they were Sunni!  We can't have that here.  We need every soldier we can get."

With that the colonel jumped out of his chair and, followed by his interpreter and junior officers, stalked out of the office.  The tea and Cokes remained untouched.  Paschal waved off the major's offer of a ride back to his vehicle.  "He's a pretty boy," he muttered as the group marched a half-mile in 110-degree heat.

Saturday's lethal truck bombing in Kirkuk, which killed 73--including 35 children--and injured at least 254 while leveling some 80 houses, brought back the memory of the colonel's outburst.  The major's refusal to induct Sunni Arabs into a local unit of the Iraqi army highlighted the divisions plaguing the city 155 miles northeast of Baghdad.  Kurds, Arabs. Turkoman and Assyrians make up its population of nearly 850,000.

The fact that Saddam Hussein displaced thousands of Kurds living there in the '90s with his own Sunni Arabs and the fact that the city sits on top of some of the largest oilfields in Iraq help explain why the bombing occurred.  Revenge.  And money.

Another bomb exploded Sunday, injuring five, and two police officers were wounded the same day trying to defuse a car bomb. At least a dozen people are still missing and feared dead from Saturday's blast.

Two other facts show why Kirkuk remains a roadblock for both the Iraqi central government's administrative control and the U.S. military mission in Iraq.  One is that because of the urban divisions, Kirkuk residents didn't even vote in last year's general election.  That means their voices weren't heard at the polls or the political souks where funds and favors are handed out. The second is that a commission appointed to conduct a demographic census of the city--the better to parse the percentages of each part of the population--still hasn't been able to finish the job.

The Kurds think they hold a majority and so should be governed by the semi-autonomous district of Kurdistan farther north.  But that would set a dangerous precedent for Iraq's delicate balancing act among Shia, Sunni, Kurds, Turkoman (a Turkic ethnic group) , Assyrians (an ancient people, today mainly Christian) and others for political representation and power.

The Citadel, a medieval-looking fortress 130 feet high across the Khasa River in Kirkuk, tells Kirkuk's history like the rings in a fallen tree.  First it was a Jewish temple, then a Christian church, finally a Muslim mosque.  Today it is a monument.

Last year two young men from Kirkuk started their own media company to provide video, audio, still photography and interpretation.  They called it The Citadel, no doubt hoping that 21st century technology would help bridge thousand-year-old breaches.  Saturday's slaughter suggests that many more such efforts are needed from all sides, with Americans like Col. Paschal acting as sometimes forceful referees, to keep the peace.

At some point in the history of this 5,000-year old settlement, it was called by an Assyrian name, Arafa.  In Arabic, "arafa" means "to be acquainted with Allah in knowing each other, the land of equality with no boundaries," according to the IslamicFinder Web site.  Kirkuk is a Turkoman word that means "a place that should be seen."

Iraqis of all stripe, and their American allies, can only hope that the oldest names of this volatile city will again one day mean what they say.

                                                 --Mike Tharp

June 20, 2009

Your correspondent in the rainbow 'Dream Man' undies

'Journalists who take themselves too seriously can look forward to funerals paid for either by donation or by the city council.'

--Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Prize-winning Turkish novelist

The glamor and glory of a war correspondent.

Five straight days in the same clothes. Five hours on plastic chairs between planes at London's Heathrow Airport, 11 a.m.- 4 p.m. Four hours on metal chairs at Istanbul's airport, 11 p.m.- 3 a.m. No luggage after landing at Baghdad International Airport at 6 a.m.. It stayed in Turkey. Washing your hair with hotel hand soap.

Wednesday a biblical sandstorm blew into Baghdad. Visibility that night was one meter. Sahar, a McClatchy bureau reporter, braved the reddish-brown fug to pick up her son up at an Internet cafe. He walked in looking like a gray ghost. No planes in the air, so no bag.

Earlier, Nasif, the bureau manager, kindly dispatched a driver. He returned with shampoo, two pair of pants, two shirts, disposable razors, shaving cream, two undershirts (called "wife beaters" in trailer parks) and two pair of underwear--briefs, colored in green, blue and orange triangles with "Dream Man" stenciled around the waistband. We always wondered what the Scots wore under their kilts. Now we know what some Iraqi men wear under their dishdashas, the gray or white neck-to-ankle robes.

Jet lag, despite Melatonin and sleeping pills prescribed by Dr. Christian Gallery of Merced, Calif.; a two-months supply of them and high blood-pressure medicine filled hassle-free by Travis at the Save Mart pharmacy there. But they don't work. Awake 2-6 a.m. Tuesday. Up at 3 a.m. Wednesday. 2:40 a.m. Thursday.

Somehow, through closed doors, windows and curtains, the sand seeps in, hanging a smoke-like haze throughout the office, a film of desert dust on every flat surface. It smells like bad breath. Dr. Gallery also prescribed Cipro, good for the sore throat now starting to scratch and the runny nose.

Departing rotator Jack Dolan, an ace investigative reporter from the Miami Herald, types away on a final story. He's due to fly out on a 9 a.m. flight next day to Istanbul, then onward to Spain to meet his wife. But the muck in the air casts doubt on whether he'll get out Thursday.

Still, there's a chocolate cake and soda pop party for him thrown by the staff. Hussein, a steadfast and thoughtful English teacher-turned-journalist, makes an appearance. He's on his way to live, under a State Department program, in Dallas.

Other stalwarts from the bureau last year already have taken advantage of that exit strategy: Omar, the office manager, now lives in Massachusetts. Hussein, a driver, calls Atlanta home with his wife and 6-year-old and 4-month-old daughters. Scott Parrish, a basketball teammate in Tokyo 20 years ago, is trying to help him find a job. Suhaib, another driver, already was living there. His dad, Nasif, may join him in July.

McClatchy no longer employs Centurion bodyguards, and last year's armored Mercedes sits gathering grit on a side street. Paul Davies, a former British Royal Marine commando who shepherded dozens of rotators through the scary old days, landed on his rugger's boots with the AP.

Death and destruction are way down in the capital, but three IEDs have blown up within hearing distance of the bureau wthin the last month. Jenan, Sahar and Laith take turns compiling the Daily Violence Report, now only a half-dozen entries each evening from around the country, down from double and triple that number a year ago.

This spring Corinne Reilly of the Merced Sun-Star sent back photos of her and bureau folks eating in a restaurant. Nobody did that a year ago. Jack enjoyed ice cream at a shop a few blocks away that was car-bombed last June. A lemon smoothie at an Old Baghdad walk-in hit the spot Tuesday.

The hall pass, a biometric hologram ID that all foreign journalists must wear, is essential. Until it hangs from a lanyard around your neck, no embeds with troops, no access to the International Zone, no nothing--you're a non-person. 

 Breakfast downstairs consists of tomatoes, cucumbers, a thumb-sized object resembling a cold hot dog, soft white cheese in foil wedges, jam, bread and a square scrambled egg. Lunches and suppers in the bureau kitchen include yogurt, rice, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, pickles, beef, lamb or chicken, fresh-baked pita-like bread and soda pop with lift-off tabs not seen in American since Coors cans in the '60s.

The bed is calf-high, a meter wide, two meters long--just right. Cell phone service proves dicier than in Yosemite National Park in the Sierra Nevada, thanks to American military jamming of frequencies to keep them from being used to set off homemade bombs.

American combat troops are pulling out of the major cities--wait one--the lights just went out...Now they're back on. Deadline for withdrawal is June 30.

What happens then?

Stay tuned.

Your correspondent in the rainbow "Dream Man" undies will be on the job.

Hopefully also wearing the steel-toed boots lodged in a bag somewhere in Istanbul.

Glamor and glory.

Wouldn't trade places with anybody.

                                                                 --Mike Tharp

June 19, 2009

The ordinary becomes magic in Iraq

Last night I went out for supper.

One of the most ordinary acts we can do.

But it was the first time I'd ever done it in Iraq.

Last year Leila Fadel, the McClatchy bureau chief, Hussein, a reporter, and I were on the verge of venturing up the street outside the guarded compound where the bureau is to an ice cream shop.  We'd talked about the security situation and decided that since several Iraqis and a few foreigners they knew had already gone there, we'd give it a shot.

A couple nights later, from the rooftop we were forbidden to go to, we watched the ice cream shop burn down after a car bomb blew it up.  So much for a chocolate cone.

Last night Jack Dolan, the Miami Herald's bulldog/watchdog reporter, and I decided we wanted a burger.  There were plates in the fridge left over from lunch, but we both took one look at 'em and shook our heads.  "Burger," we said at the same time to Laith, a bureau reporter. 

To me, "burger" meant the cafe downstairs in the hotel we call home.  So I started to move, wearing sandals and the traffic-cone-colored shorts I wear after dark when nobody but the staff is around.  Both Jack and Laith looked at me.  "Uh," said Jack, "those might, ah, set us apart a little."  You want me to change into jeans?  They nodded.  Well, OK, it's only people from the hotel, I thought, but all right. I changed.

We got downstairs and I headed toward the cafe.  It was closed.  They were walking out the guarded doors.  Outside.

Outside!

The only times last year I'd been outside the wire had been in an armored Mercedes, an armored Humvee, a 25-ton mine-resistant rig, a Black Hawk helicopter and a C-130. 

The drachma dropped.  We were going outside the compound. On foot.  In jeans and sandals and a shirt. Last year my time on the streets of Baghdad consisted of three tense five-minute interviews:  one with a fish restaurant manager; one with a bookseller; one with a magazine kiosk owner.  While Hussein, his head on a swivel, translated, our driver loitered a few meters away, engine on, in case the presence of a 6'3, 220-pound westerner caught somebody's attention whose attention we didn't want to catch, and we had to make a run for it.

But last night we walked past the security guards manning the iron rail across our road and came to Jadriyah Street.  Cars and trucks and scooters buzzed past in two lanes either side of a weedy verge.  It turned out the most dangerous part of the night was getting across that street.

We came to the Tazij ("Fresh") restaurant.  Many tables inside, a few on a terrace in front--a short grenade throw from the street.  Inside or out, Jack asked.  Wherever it's cooler, I said, immediately regretting it when Jack decided it would be cooler outside.  All I could think of was the scene in "The Killing Fields" when the New York Times reporter and his freelance photographer friend were sitting at an outdoor cafe in Phnom Penh and a Khmer Rouge guy on a scooter cruised by and tossed a bomb.

But Laith led us past the terrace  behind a high hedge where dozens of tables sat on green grass.  Red and yellow fairy lights were necklaced on the hedge.  An orange cat meowed his way from table to table.  A little girl in a pointed party hat ran through the opening in the hedge and onto the terrace. On the street as we were ordering, a wedding party in several cars drove by, horns honking and people shouting.  The smell of charcoal drifted through the starry night.

Jack and I had lamb burgers, Laith a chicken burger, Pepsis all around.  They came on buns the size of salad plates, French fries on the meat forming a double layer of delicious. 

I leaned back in the metal chair.  And relaxed.  It still seemed a dream--to eat a meal outside in Baghdad.  Before the insurgency got real in early 2004, reporters and Iraqis alike could still do this in post-invasion Iraq.  But that small luxury, that little slice of heaven, like so many other parts of a civil society, had been swept from the table by four years of violence.

After we ate, we talked, mostly about girls and sports.  How normal is that?

As we crossed the street heading back to the compound, I felt as if I'd also crossed a threshold. Last year in May, I wrote the first, or one of the first, stories about the sharp decline in violence and what it might mean:

'After weeks of relative calm, two questions are being asked in war-torn Iraq and in the United States:  Will it last?  And when can Americn forces come home?'

I knew I was going out on a journalistic limb, but intellectually, I thought the timing was right to raise the questions.  Emotionally, though, I harbored deep doubts about how long the calm might last.

Our supper Thursday night eased some of those doubts.  Hell, I've been around long enough to know that all it might take to keep people cowering again in their homes is another Alaskari Shrine incident--the 2006 bombing of the sacred mosque that lit the fuse that touched off civil war for the next two years.

And as American combatants pull back to their bases outside major Iraqi cities by the end of this month, knuckleheads may test the Iraqi army and police to see just how tough they are.  More bloodshed is inevitable.

But last night's plain and simple walk to eat a meal outside the walls gave me more hope than I've ever felt about this place.  Sure, it could all turn back to dung in a white-hot heartbeat.  But for one easy hour or so, sitting with two friends at a quiet cafe in south central Baghdad, it seemed anything was posible in Iraq.

Even peace.

                                                                               --Mike Tharp

June 18, 2009

A Fed Who Truly Helped

Haider, our driver, and I were threading our way through 108 degrees and a narrow concrete path hemmed in by blast walls in the International Zone (IZ).  That's what the old Green Zone is called now.  We both had to get U.S. military ID badges so we could be street legal and enter places we couldn't go without 'em.

To paraphrase a line in Macbeth, day thickened--with grit and grime from the sandstorm that enveloped Baghdad the past two days.  The residue stuck to the sweat on our arms.

At a dozen points along the 20-minute route, we were checked for IDs, and sometimes body-searched, by Iraqi soldiers, police and hard-eyed Peruvians. The modern-day Incas were armed with AK-47s and looked as if they wanted to revenge Pizarro by humiliating any gringo in range.  The name of their private security company is Triple Canopy.

In what passes for military logic, some of the checks and searches were only 30 or 40 meters from the last one, in plain sight of the next group of gunsels, who had just watched their comrades force us to dump everything from our pockets into a plastic bowl. We carried it the way a new inmate must lug his bedsheets to a cell.

There were wands and some sort of machine  that looked like the black monolith in "2001" where we simply stood for a few seconds, front and back, while it gave us cancer or made us sterile or mapped our genomes in order to let us move to the next station.  A first-tour U.S. buck sergeant from Ghana smiled and shook his head at the whole procedure.

And there was one body search that, if done by a female, would have turned on both her and me big-time.  Sadly, it was conducted by a swarthy dude wearing wraparound shades.

The only more dehumanizing pastime I've experienced was going through the U.S. Army physical at the Chicago induction facility 40 years ago.  Think DMV, cattle slaughter warehouse and Jerry Springer Show.  We didn't have to strip to our skivvies during this IZ drill, but the attitude of the searchers was the same: Please just give us an excuse to unlimber these automatic weapons and put you down in the dirt.

So it was with real relief that we wandered from this Hieronymous Bosch landscape into the cool confines of the Combined Press Information Center (CPIC).  This is where all hacks, drivers and some other media-affiliated folks have to get hooked up with a biometric holographic ID--a backstage pass to the war.

Besides the air conditioning, the room was brightened by the presence of Soheir Flanagan, in charge of media credentialing.  She's from Gilbert, Ariz., by way of Egypt. The Irish part "came from injection," she explained while I filled out the form.  Luckily, the CPIC card I got last year had expired only on May 30, so I didn't have to have the retinal or rectal (just kidding) exam or have my fingerprints taken; they were on file.

Ms. Flanagan is a contractor for Government Linguistic Solutions who has spent 25 months total in Iraq.  Fluent in Arabic and Southwestern English, she's got five grown kids "spread out all over creation."  She lost her husband to cancer some years back.

This is all by way of explaining that she cut me a big break.  "I'm making a huge exception for you, you know," she said over her desk.  I pleaded ignorance, but knew what it was. I'd forgotten my letter of accreditation from McClatchy; it was in the car, and when Haider and I exited the vehicle, I didn't know that would be the last I'd see of it till we were done.

She told me what I was missing.  I told her what had happened.  I told her I could either go back to the car and go through the dehumanizing drill all over again (I didn't say 'dehumanizing') or we could fax it or e-mail it to her.

"E-mail, not fax," she said crisply.  Then she handed me my brand-spankin' new CPIC all-access badge.  Then she smiled.  

"It is so nice to find a government official with a heart and a personality," I said, shaking her hand.  She smiled again.  I e-mailed her the letter as soon as I got back to the bureau.

Since hacks must deal with CPIC on a regular basis during our deployments, it's reassuring to know there's both a lady and a reasonable person working there. She could've gone by the book and tied me down in red tape.  But her experience and instinct told her that here was a rule that could be--not bent--but delayed an hour or so.

In the case of Soheir Flanagan, she WAS from the federal government--and she truly WAS there to help you.

Shukran and much obliged, Ms. Flanagan.

                                                                                               --Mike Tharp

June 17, 2009

World's Worst Commute? Try Jenan's in Baghdad

A big U.S. motor oil company has been sponsoring a "World's Worst Commute" contest on TV.  Commercials have shown folks across the land talking about the bridges, bypasses, detours, flyovers, clots of cars and other hassles they must endure to go, say, 27 miles in two hours.  The winner gets a ride with a NASCAR champ.  (Is second prize two rides?)

We've got a winner right here in the Baghdad bureau:

Jenan.

Take today's commute.  She lives less than 1 kilometer--0.6 miles--from the bureau.  Because of traffic, checkpoints, blast walls, police and military convoys, even that short distance usually takes her 15 minutes to drive.

This morning, just before she left for the office, an IED--a homemade bomb--blew up in the street near her home in the Karrada district.  Within a minute, Iraqi security forces, mostly police, converged on the scene.  Instead of seeing to the wounded, Jenan said, they started firing wild random shots with their automatic weapons.  Some bystanders were hit. 

"They were in the wrong place at the wrong moment," the McClatchy reporter explained about the wounded.  Some were kids, now out of school.

Still upset hours after the incident, Jenan explained how the Iraqi officers had learned recon-by-fire from the Americans.  U.S. troops used automatic weapons fire to suppress anybody coming to the scene of a blast because insurgents learned to detonate a second, and sometimes even a third, bomb once crowds had gathered. The American tactic was meant to deter the bad guys from approaching the carnage to create more havoc.

Like any tactic, it's imperfect.  This morning, Jenan could see no reason for the Iraqi officers to unleash magazine after magazine with no clear targets.  "Sometimes the student learns too well from the teacher," she said.

The incident shows how critical it will be for Iraqi forces to show professional restraint once American troops are pulled out of major Iraqi cities by June 30.  According to Jenan's experience this morning, the homegrown men in uniform still have a lot to learn.

And her commute?  After detouring around barricades and checkpoints, she was an hour late.

As for any award, it'd be tough to stick all those advertising decals on her hijab.

                                                                                   --Mike Tharp