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| Iraq |
| Michael J. Totten: Live from Baghdad |
| 2007-07-20 |
| . . . “Don’t fall asleep,” said the soldier next to me. “When you see the rest of us grab our helmets, put yours on, too. We’ll be beginning the spiral dive into Baghdad.” “To avoid flying low over hostiles?” I said. “Something like that,” he said. This was not United Airlines. The funny thing about the steep corkscrew dive is that I couldn’t feel it. Anyone who says it is scary, as some journalists do, is talking b.s. If you can’t look out the window or see the instruments in the cockpit, you’ll have no idea if the plane is right-side up, flying in a straight line, upside down, sideways, or even spinning into a death spiral. I’m not sure how the others knew when to put on their helmets. Perhaps someone signaled. No one could hear anything over the roar of the plane through their ear plugs. The landing was smooth and felt no different from an American Airlines touch down in Los Angeles. The back of the plane opened up onto the tarmac. Light like a hundred suns blinded my darkness-adjusted and dilated eyes. I could barely make out the dim shape of military aircraft behind us amidst the pure stunning brilliance. My first view of Baghdad looked exactly as I expected it would – like another world. We dismounted the plane and I stepped into harsh blazing sunshine. You know how it feels when you get into a black car in the afternoon with the windows rolled up in July? It’s an inferno outside, but inside the car it’s even hotter? That’s how Iraq feels in the shade. Sunlight burns like a blowtorch. If you don’t wear a helmet or soft cap the sun will cook your brain. First you get headaches. Then you end up in the hospital. Getting from BIAP to the IZ (the International Zone, aka the Green Zone) is an adventure all by itself. First you haul your gear to a bus stop that feels like Crematoria. Then you get on the bus and ride for 45 minutes to an army base. Then you get off that bus and wait an hour to catch another bus. Then you get off that bus and wait for an hour to catch yet another bus to yet another base. Then you wait in the sun yet again – and by this time you’re totally fragged from the heat – and take another damn bus to a helipad. . . . After the sun went down the air mercifully cooled, down to 100 degrees or so – which is lovely after 120, especially when there is no longer burning sunlight. Tiny bats flew over the base from the direction of a reedy lake a few hundred meters away. There were no bugs. I watched helicopters fly over the city in the distance and launch burning white countermeasure flares to confuse heat-seeking missiles as the pilots flew over hostile parts of the city. This was the only evidence I saw that I was in a war zone. I heard no shots fired, and I heard no explosions. After having spent several days Baghdad’s Green Zone and Red Zone, I still haven’t heard or seen any explosions. It’s a peculiar war. It is almost a not-war. Last July’s war in Northern Israel and Southern Lebanon was hundreds of times more violent and terrifying than this one. Explosions on both sides of the Lebanese-Israeli border were constant when I was there. You’d think explosions and gunfire define Iraq if you look at this country from far away on the news. They do not. The media is a total distortion machine. Certain areas are still extremely violent, but the country as a whole is defined by heat, not war, at least in the summer. It is Iraq’s most singular characteristic. I dread going outside because it’s hot, not because I’m afraid I will get hurt. “I read on the Internet that the war costs 60 billion dollars a year,” Larry said. “Well, if it’s on the Internet it must be true,” I said jokingly. A soldier heard me and swiveled his head. “Did you just say that?” he said incredulously. “You’re with the media and you just said that? Man, we ought to throw your ass right out of here.” I laughed, but he was only barely just kidding. Most soldiers and officers I’ve casually met so far are not hostile. Most ignore me unless I say hi to them first. Others say hello or good morning first and call me “sir.” Some are eager to chat. They all seem to want to know where I’m from. Lots of them are from Georgia and Texas. . . . Baghdad is gigantic and sprawling. It looks much less ramshackle from the air than I expected. Individual cities-within-a-city are home to millions of people all by themselves. The sheer enormity of the place puts the almost daily car bomb attacks into perspective. The odds that you personally will be anywhere near the next car bomb or IED are microscopic. . . . |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #1 Wow! A real reporter who can write. I feel like I just spotted a wooly mammoth. |
| Posted by: AT 2007-07-20 12:35 |