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Chaos and Hope in Postwar Iraq
An Online Report from Peter Breslow in Baghdad
This essay was filed for npr.org by Weekend Edition Saturday Senior Producer Peter Breslow, who is with the show's host, Scott Simon, reporting from Iraq.
April 24, 2003 -- Scott and I had it easy. The bombing of Baghdad was over, the shooting had calmed down by the time we arrived and the only thing nerve wracking about our 10-hour drive into the city from Jordan was the fact that our driver did it pretty much without his hands ever touching the steering wheel.
He brewed coffee from his cigarette lighter. He thumbed through his journal. He made sandwiches. He combed his mustache. The only time the gas pedal wasn't mashed to the floorboards was when we had to cross a bridge that had been cratered by bombs.
Our car was loaded with supplies we'd purchased in Amman. While I was scouring the supermarket shelves there for dried fruit and bottled water, Scott was checking out the Dead Sea salt facial masques. And it struck me -- I was headed to Baghdad with Frasier.
We pulled up to the infamous Palestine Hotel as the light was fading outdoors -- and non-existent indoors. No power, no elevator and a garbage-strewn trip up 11 flights of darkened stairs to the room that had been heroically inhabited for so many weeks by Annie Garrels. The remnants of Annie's presence helped tell the story of her time in room 1133: helmet, gas mask and flak vest in the corner, a satellite phone with a broken antenna from when the security police made a sweep and Annie had to stash the phone quickly, and a view from the balcony across the Tigris to the charred Planning Ministry that had been hit by a missile. It seems petty to complain about anything when I think of Annie holed up in that room.
The dim lobby of the Palestine is constantly humming with journalists running back and forth hauling flak vests on one shoulder and camera tripods on the other; also, the occasional self-important Iraqi surrounded by a retinue of staff people and uniformed followers.
In front of the hotel sits a huge fleet of vehicles all sporting duct tape "TV" insignias on their doors and hoods, as if those two letters give you some kind of immunity. There was CNN's Humvee, ITN's fully armored car, the Wall Street Journal's big white Mercedes -- and NPR's little blue Toyota (excellent gas mileage) with our driver Ahmed. Looking up to the 15th floor from the outside, you can barely pick out the balcony where two journalists were killed by an American tank shell.
Beyond the vehicles, concertina wire holds off a throng of desperate people: A man looking for news of his brother who disappeared in 1979, an out-of-work engineer who asks in perfect English, "What can you do for me?" All we can say is, "We'll tell your story to the American people." Others are asking if they can borrow a satellite phone to call a sister in England or a mother in France, to tell them that they are alive. Almost all are passing notes explaining their situations to a little kid who's collecting them in a cardboard box. It seems doubtful anyone will ever read these short pleas.
The one bright spot is a young man named Annis, who speaks English with a mild southern accent. He'd spent time in Tennessee and was looking for work. We just may have hooked him up with some reporters from The Boston Globe.
We've been here for a week, and every day things improve: running water one day, electricity another, hot water even comes on at some point. Gradually restaurants are opening and you can actually buy something besides kabobs. Gunfire occurs almost exclusively at nighttime and we've started leaving our flak vests in the trunk of the Toyota.
Stories throw themselves at you as you walk out of the hotel. We feel a little guilty. It's almost too easy. Go to an emptied political prison and you bump into a former prisoner who came back to see the cell where he was beaten. Strike up a conversation with someone at a fruit stand and they tell you a story that makes you teary. Go to a school and you find a group of teachers who have spontaneously gathered to clean up the smashed windows and toppled desks for their students.
People complain about the bombing, complain that the United States didn't stop the looting, complain about 35 years of repression, but they are endlessly courteous and helpful and generous. Sometimes, they are even a bit hopeful.
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