Nbadan
09-26-2004, 05:07 AM
More unreported news from the war...
Oct. 4 issue - Bricks and plaster blew inward from the wall, as the windows all shattered and I fell to the floor—whether from the shock wave, or just fright, it wasn't clear. The blast was so loud it sounded as if the building couldn't possibly stand, but it did. Toaster-size chunks of twisted metal fell in the yard and banged off the roof; later they'd be identified as pieces of a U.S. Army Humvee, blown up by a suicide car-bomb a full block away. No one was hurt in that building, which had been heavily blast-protected. But out on the street, 18 people perished, including one U.S. soldier; another three grunts were seriously burned and several children at a nearby Iraqi house were injured. Among the dead were three Iraqis who were incinerated in their car—which was so badly mangled it took wailing relatives more than a day to extract their corpses.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the incident was that it scarcely made the news. It was just another among a recent surge of terrorist attacks, one of two suicide car-bombs that day in the Mansour neighborhood of Baghdad. Besides, everyone was focused on the discovery of the headless corpse of American Jack Hensley, 48, found floating in the Tigris River. Gruesome videos of Hensley's beheading and that of fellow American Eugene (Jack) Armstrong, 52, played on Islamic Web sites. Armstrong's body was later dropped off only five blocks from his home, also in upscale Mansour.
In a way that bombs and bullets don't, the agony of the 23 hostages now being held by insurgents hits hard with Westerners here. It's not difficult to imagine yourself blindfolded and kneeling in a jihadi snuff film. The 140 hostages taken since April include a score of nationalities and people of many professions. Truck drivers, journalists, missionaries, businessmen—all have been targets. Many hostages have been released, but not recently. Of 28 people killed, 24 had their final screams recorded on tape and bandied about the Web. It's a form of terrorism that's deeply personal and, as in Beirut in the 1980s, disproportionately effective.
The day after Hensley's body was found, his surviving colleague, Briton Kenneth Bigley, 62, was shown in a video as he wept —and pleaded with his prime minister. "Please, please," he said, "I need you to help me, Mr. Blair, you are the only one who can help me. I need to live, I want to live..." His captors are from the Tawhid and Jihad group, led by Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist with Qaeda ties. It was apparently Zarqawi—identified by the CIA from a voiceprint—who had personally cut the Americans' throats as they struggled and screamed; he then severed their heads and held them up for a bloody close-up—in one case, casually gouging out the victim's eye. Later another group, calling itself Followers of Zawahiri (after the Qaeda No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri), boasted that they had beheaded two Italian antiwar activists, Simona Pari and Simona Toretta, who had been snatched from their Baghdad home on Sept. 7. But no film emerged, and Italian officials said they believed the claim to be a hoax.
Throughout Italy, people hung white sheets from their windows in reply to a Vatican appeal to show solidarity with the two Simonas. In Britain, Bigley's extraordinary plea stirred up strong antiwar feelings, putting Blair in an awkward position on the eve of Labour's party conference. "I feel desperately for Kenneth Bigley and his family," said the conservative opposition leader, Michael Howard. "And I feel for Blair, too, who is in the most unenviable predicament." Blair telephoned Bigley's family twice to express his sympathy, but refused to give in to Zarqawi's demands.
That same day in Washington, President George W. Bush only mentioned the beheadings in passing, as he shared a podium with Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi at the White House Rose Garden. "We're sickened by the atrocities. But we'll never be intimidated. And freedom is winning." For his part, the Iraqi leader blamed the press for the bad images. "In 15 out of our 18 Iraqi provinces we could hold elections tomorrow," he said. "Although this is not what we see in your media, it is a fact."
Much of that media, ourselves included, were in virtual hiding last week, as were nearly all foreign civilians—hostages have even included Russians, French, and 12 Nepalese workers, who were assassinated without any plausible justification. Intelligence that criminal gangs are kidnapping foreigners and selling them to terrorist groups has increased fears about moving around Iraq. Heavily armed convoys of contractors' SUVs, once a common sight, have all but disappeared from busy roads. "The only serious reconstruction going on now," says one Western businessman, "is inside the Green Zone," the heavily fortified area that houses Iraqi government and American Embassy offices, and is guarded by an entire U.S. Army brigade. "We're trapped in a rat's cage," says an ambassador from a non-Coalition country in Europe, who no longer leaves his bunker-like residential compound. "No area of Baghdad is risk-free."
Many foreign companies have suspended operations. Their staffs are staying off the streets, and others are refusing to come in to replace those rotating out. "We have contractors there doing nothing because of the security situation," says Will Geddes, managing director of the London-based security firm ICP Group Ltd. "There are companies that we're having to hunker down with until we feel comfortable to move them [around]." Even major news organizations are finding it difficult to staff the story: "We just can't find senior correspondents who will come to Iraq now," says the bureau chief for one major American newspaper.
Iraqis suffer most. In the same week the American hostages were taken and killed, at least 300 Iraqis died from terrorist attacks. Some 45 Iraqi translators working for the American military have been killed in Baghdad. The most recent case occurred last Monday, when a woman was gunned down in her car in the afternoon. Terrorists also killed a top official of the state-owned Northern Oil Co. last week, while two moderate Sunni sheiks were kidnapped and killed in Baghdad.
The U.S. military is doing its best to hit back. A week ago a U.S. missile destroyed a car in Baghdad carrying Sheik Abu al-Shawmi, Tawhid and Jihad's spiritual leader, according to the cleric's father. Other airstrikes have targeted suspected Zarqawi safe houses in Fallujah. But none of that has had any noticeable impact on the terrorists' operations. Last Friday six Egyptian employees of the mobile telephone company Iraqna were kidnapped. Analysts talk about the need for a major assault on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, but that is said to be unlikely before the U.S. presidential election in November. The last such offensive, in April, resulted in numerous American casualties.
U.S. officials insist the climate of fear has not stalled rebuilding. "It's utterly, utterly untrue that we've abandoned reconstruction," says Col. Jeffrey Phillips, deputy director of the Project and Contracting Office at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. "I wouldn't say it's put on hold," Phillips said. "I would say certain projects are put on hold, what they call the 'out years,' but we're still pressing ahead with projects closer to hand." Priority is given to projects where security is established. "If you build it up and they blow it up, it doesn't take the two of us to figure out it's counterproductive."
U.S. officials deny speculation that many embassy staffers have been leaving Iraq recently. However, the State Department has had a hard time staffing the embassy in Baghdad, which is only at 50 to 60 percent of authorized strength, one official says, despite pay bonuses of 50 percent and more. "The only thing that will get people there is money," says an official in Washington.
That's what brought James, a young U.S. computer technician, to Iraq 12 months ago. Sitting in a house in Mansour, guarded by two dozen Kurdish guerrillas, or peshmerga, he's now considering his options. As the technical director for an Internet start-up, James provided the expertise that helped his Iraqi partner build the venture into a company employing 70 Iraqis. But now many of their clients have fled, and James is unable to visit others when they have a problem. He hasn't gone out on a service call in a couple of months. His Iraqi staff do his shopping; if he needs a doctor or barber, it's a house call. When he went home for a vacation in August, he was shocked to discover that even walking around the block was exhausting. He now uses a dance videogame to stay in shape.
"I get 10 e-mails a day from friends and family asking, 'Why don't you leave?' says James. The firm's other American expert has done just that. James says that if he evacuates now, the company will probably collapse. "I don't want to leave them in the lurch, but if things stay the way they are, I'll get out by December." That seems a long way off, but he and many other jittery expats sense that things will get worse in Iraq before they get better. And just about everyone is asking himself, Is it worth the risk?
By Rod Nordland, Newsweek International (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6100477/site/newsweek/)
Oct. 4 issue - Bricks and plaster blew inward from the wall, as the windows all shattered and I fell to the floor—whether from the shock wave, or just fright, it wasn't clear. The blast was so loud it sounded as if the building couldn't possibly stand, but it did. Toaster-size chunks of twisted metal fell in the yard and banged off the roof; later they'd be identified as pieces of a U.S. Army Humvee, blown up by a suicide car-bomb a full block away. No one was hurt in that building, which had been heavily blast-protected. But out on the street, 18 people perished, including one U.S. soldier; another three grunts were seriously burned and several children at a nearby Iraqi house were injured. Among the dead were three Iraqis who were incinerated in their car—which was so badly mangled it took wailing relatives more than a day to extract their corpses.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the incident was that it scarcely made the news. It was just another among a recent surge of terrorist attacks, one of two suicide car-bombs that day in the Mansour neighborhood of Baghdad. Besides, everyone was focused on the discovery of the headless corpse of American Jack Hensley, 48, found floating in the Tigris River. Gruesome videos of Hensley's beheading and that of fellow American Eugene (Jack) Armstrong, 52, played on Islamic Web sites. Armstrong's body was later dropped off only five blocks from his home, also in upscale Mansour.
In a way that bombs and bullets don't, the agony of the 23 hostages now being held by insurgents hits hard with Westerners here. It's not difficult to imagine yourself blindfolded and kneeling in a jihadi snuff film. The 140 hostages taken since April include a score of nationalities and people of many professions. Truck drivers, journalists, missionaries, businessmen—all have been targets. Many hostages have been released, but not recently. Of 28 people killed, 24 had their final screams recorded on tape and bandied about the Web. It's a form of terrorism that's deeply personal and, as in Beirut in the 1980s, disproportionately effective.
The day after Hensley's body was found, his surviving colleague, Briton Kenneth Bigley, 62, was shown in a video as he wept —and pleaded with his prime minister. "Please, please," he said, "I need you to help me, Mr. Blair, you are the only one who can help me. I need to live, I want to live..." His captors are from the Tawhid and Jihad group, led by Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist with Qaeda ties. It was apparently Zarqawi—identified by the CIA from a voiceprint—who had personally cut the Americans' throats as they struggled and screamed; he then severed their heads and held them up for a bloody close-up—in one case, casually gouging out the victim's eye. Later another group, calling itself Followers of Zawahiri (after the Qaeda No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri), boasted that they had beheaded two Italian antiwar activists, Simona Pari and Simona Toretta, who had been snatched from their Baghdad home on Sept. 7. But no film emerged, and Italian officials said they believed the claim to be a hoax.
Throughout Italy, people hung white sheets from their windows in reply to a Vatican appeal to show solidarity with the two Simonas. In Britain, Bigley's extraordinary plea stirred up strong antiwar feelings, putting Blair in an awkward position on the eve of Labour's party conference. "I feel desperately for Kenneth Bigley and his family," said the conservative opposition leader, Michael Howard. "And I feel for Blair, too, who is in the most unenviable predicament." Blair telephoned Bigley's family twice to express his sympathy, but refused to give in to Zarqawi's demands.
That same day in Washington, President George W. Bush only mentioned the beheadings in passing, as he shared a podium with Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi at the White House Rose Garden. "We're sickened by the atrocities. But we'll never be intimidated. And freedom is winning." For his part, the Iraqi leader blamed the press for the bad images. "In 15 out of our 18 Iraqi provinces we could hold elections tomorrow," he said. "Although this is not what we see in your media, it is a fact."
Much of that media, ourselves included, were in virtual hiding last week, as were nearly all foreign civilians—hostages have even included Russians, French, and 12 Nepalese workers, who were assassinated without any plausible justification. Intelligence that criminal gangs are kidnapping foreigners and selling them to terrorist groups has increased fears about moving around Iraq. Heavily armed convoys of contractors' SUVs, once a common sight, have all but disappeared from busy roads. "The only serious reconstruction going on now," says one Western businessman, "is inside the Green Zone," the heavily fortified area that houses Iraqi government and American Embassy offices, and is guarded by an entire U.S. Army brigade. "We're trapped in a rat's cage," says an ambassador from a non-Coalition country in Europe, who no longer leaves his bunker-like residential compound. "No area of Baghdad is risk-free."
Many foreign companies have suspended operations. Their staffs are staying off the streets, and others are refusing to come in to replace those rotating out. "We have contractors there doing nothing because of the security situation," says Will Geddes, managing director of the London-based security firm ICP Group Ltd. "There are companies that we're having to hunker down with until we feel comfortable to move them [around]." Even major news organizations are finding it difficult to staff the story: "We just can't find senior correspondents who will come to Iraq now," says the bureau chief for one major American newspaper.
Iraqis suffer most. In the same week the American hostages were taken and killed, at least 300 Iraqis died from terrorist attacks. Some 45 Iraqi translators working for the American military have been killed in Baghdad. The most recent case occurred last Monday, when a woman was gunned down in her car in the afternoon. Terrorists also killed a top official of the state-owned Northern Oil Co. last week, while two moderate Sunni sheiks were kidnapped and killed in Baghdad.
The U.S. military is doing its best to hit back. A week ago a U.S. missile destroyed a car in Baghdad carrying Sheik Abu al-Shawmi, Tawhid and Jihad's spiritual leader, according to the cleric's father. Other airstrikes have targeted suspected Zarqawi safe houses in Fallujah. But none of that has had any noticeable impact on the terrorists' operations. Last Friday six Egyptian employees of the mobile telephone company Iraqna were kidnapped. Analysts talk about the need for a major assault on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, but that is said to be unlikely before the U.S. presidential election in November. The last such offensive, in April, resulted in numerous American casualties.
U.S. officials insist the climate of fear has not stalled rebuilding. "It's utterly, utterly untrue that we've abandoned reconstruction," says Col. Jeffrey Phillips, deputy director of the Project and Contracting Office at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. "I wouldn't say it's put on hold," Phillips said. "I would say certain projects are put on hold, what they call the 'out years,' but we're still pressing ahead with projects closer to hand." Priority is given to projects where security is established. "If you build it up and they blow it up, it doesn't take the two of us to figure out it's counterproductive."
U.S. officials deny speculation that many embassy staffers have been leaving Iraq recently. However, the State Department has had a hard time staffing the embassy in Baghdad, which is only at 50 to 60 percent of authorized strength, one official says, despite pay bonuses of 50 percent and more. "The only thing that will get people there is money," says an official in Washington.
That's what brought James, a young U.S. computer technician, to Iraq 12 months ago. Sitting in a house in Mansour, guarded by two dozen Kurdish guerrillas, or peshmerga, he's now considering his options. As the technical director for an Internet start-up, James provided the expertise that helped his Iraqi partner build the venture into a company employing 70 Iraqis. But now many of their clients have fled, and James is unable to visit others when they have a problem. He hasn't gone out on a service call in a couple of months. His Iraqi staff do his shopping; if he needs a doctor or barber, it's a house call. When he went home for a vacation in August, he was shocked to discover that even walking around the block was exhausting. He now uses a dance videogame to stay in shape.
"I get 10 e-mails a day from friends and family asking, 'Why don't you leave?' says James. The firm's other American expert has done just that. James says that if he evacuates now, the company will probably collapse. "I don't want to leave them in the lurch, but if things stay the way they are, I'll get out by December." That seems a long way off, but he and many other jittery expats sense that things will get worse in Iraq before they get better. And just about everyone is asking himself, Is it worth the risk?
By Rod Nordland, Newsweek International (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6100477/site/newsweek/)