Checkpoint Baghdad

Good Times Roll at Baghdad Club

2008-08-13T13:54:39Z

By Lennox Samuels

It is mid-afternoon on a Friday and the noise level is rising in Al-Wiyah Club, as urbane Baghdadis walk in and stake out their places at coveted dinner tables. Men seated at the legendary teak bar smoke, drink and call out affable greetings to new arrivals. A few people walk through to the tennis court and pool area out back, but most head for the restaurant, where waiters in white shirts and black trousers weave in and out of the aisles. “Come! Your place is here,” a beaming Dr. Tahseen Sheikhly commands a group of six, waving them over to his large corner table. “Sit down; what will you have?”

The crowds have been returning to Al-Wiyah, a venerable social club that for years was a metaphor for the good life in Baghdad. Founded by the British in 1924, it became a popular retreat for the city’s gentry. The colonial grandeur is mostly gone now, the décor more workaday than elegant; the carpet a bit worn; tablecloths faded. The building’s exterior is still pocked from insurgents’ gunfire, most of it aimed at neighboring high-value targets like the Palestine hotel, once a base for U.S. Marines. The violence that engulfed the capital city forced the club to close for more than a year, in 2003-’04.

As recently as the mid-1970s, men had to wear a coat and tie in the club and during Saddam Hussein’s regime, membership was limited mostly to business leaders, senior Baath Party officials and ranking military officers. The membership and dress code are far less strict now, of course, and the club exudes more than a whiff of middle-class inclusivity, as well as secularism. Lawyers, academics, government ministers and military types are jostled by young men in sneakers and teenage girls in tight jeans and makeup, their flowing hair uncovered. The waiters briskly deliver soft drinks, along with beer, Bulgarian wine and stronger spirits.

The din rises as a singer named Muhanna sings a farrago of Arabic dirges and romantic songs. Maryam al-Rayes comes in with her expatriate sister, Hend, who is visiting with her children from the Netherlands. “They’re very surprised because all they hear about is bombings, deaths, bad things,” says Maryam, a foreign affairs adviser to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. “I tell them it is not like that. There’s life here in Baghdad.” Samarra Waffaa, a middle-aged high school geography teacher tastefully restrained in an elegant light-blue hijab that frames eyes ringed with kohl, says Iraq is getting better “every day, every week, every month.”

Tahseen, ever more avuncular as the day progresses, chuckles and gestures with his Cuban cigar as he tells stories about “outdated” assumptions Coalition staffers make about Baghdad. “I ask them what they think about the rest of the city [outside the Green Zone],” he says. “They say that’s dinosaur land; Jurassic Park. I think that’s just a problem with communications, though, because things are better over here now.” He has a point, but there’s still a way to go, for there’s an accelerating need for better infrastructure and public services. As diners attack their mazgouf. a roasted river fish, a brief blackout interrupts Muhanna, mid-song.

In Iraq, Georgian Troops Wait to Join the Fight Against Russia

2008-08-10T17:31:05Z

By Lennox Samuels

Scores of soldiers loiter on one side of the expansive grounds of Baghdad's Al-Sijud Palace, some in full uniform and others wearing brown T-shirts tucked into their camouflage pants. Nearby, dozens of backpacks stuffed with gear stand upright, as if at attention. The troops smoke and chat in small groups, the talk mostly about the violent drama unfolding back home. These are members of the Georgian Army, waiting to be re-deployed to their country in the Caucasus to join the battle against a historical foe they believe is trying to re-conquer their nation. "We look on TV and see the Russians bombing our country and we know what we have to do," says one sergeant who does not want to give his name. "We have to go back and fight."

Russia's military campaign may be designed to eject Georgia from the secessionist republic of South Ossetia, but it also is forcing Georgia to drastically reduce its presence in Iraq. A longtime stalwart of the American-led coalition in Iraq, the small European/Asian nation will send back at least half of its 2,000 Iraq-based troops to help on the home front. Georgia, a small nation of only 4.5 million people, currently supplies the third-largest contingent of forces in Iraq, after the United States and Britain. "The Georgians are redeploying the majority of their troops," says Rear Admiral Patrick Driscoll, a spokesman for the Multi-National Force in Iraq. "We wish them well."

The Georgians, who have been in Iraq since 2004, currently spend much of their time providing security and medical services to Coalition personnel. They have been a familiar sight around Baghdad's Green Zone, manning checkpoints. Many have served on security details along the Iranian border, trying to help prevent smuggling and reduce the flow of potential insurgents into Iraq. Most recently, some companies have been working alongside American and Iraqi troops in their latest drive to kill or expel Al Qaeda in Iraq from Diyala Province. "In the near term their [departure] will have some impact as we adjust operations," Driscoll concedes without elaborating.

For the soldiers waiting on the compound of the massive, blue-domed Al-Sijud, the change of fronts is not only sensible; it is essential. They mill around the compound, which is now called Forward Operating Base Sakartvelo (Georgia's name in the native Kartuli language) and where the distinctive red-and-white, five-cross Georgian flag is mounted at the entrance. As they wait for the Americans to arrange their transport out of Iraq, the troops talk about what they see as Russia's long-held desire to rule Georgia, a former Soviet republic that became independent in 1991, 70 years after it was absorbed into the U.S.S.R. They know that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has tried to navigate a careful course between establishing closer relations with the U.S. and European Union and expanding cooperation with Russia, the nation's powerful—and suspicious—neighbor to the north and east of the Caucasus Mountains. "They've always wanted South Ossetia and Abkhazia [another separatist region in Georgia]," says another soldier, getting up and stamping away.

The men figure that they can employ the battlefield skills picked up from fighting terrorists and insurgents in Iraq to battle the Russians. One lieutenant says the Iraq contingent can play an important role among Georgia's 32,000-strong armed forces, given its Mideast experience. But for now, they must wait to hear when the U.S. will expedite their departure for home. "We have orders to pack but no firm deployment orders yet," says 1st Lt. Nukri Rezesidze, commander of Bravo Company. "It all depends on the Americans." A bearded Georgian Orthodox priest in a black cassock nods as he listens. He's heading home as well, he says. But as Moscow announces that it will send reinforcements into South Ossetia and rejects a ceasefire offer from Tbilisi, many of the troops are hoping they don't fly out too late.

After Calling Them Attackers, Army Admits Slain Iraqis' Innocence

2008-07-27T22:06:24Z

The military admitted late Sunday that three bank employees – a 57-year-old man and two women coworkers – killed by U.S. soldiers in the Baghdad airport complex were just as their loved ones and Iraqi police had maintained: "Law abiding citizens of Iraq." But the soldiers who fired at them were, a military statement said, "not at fault."

The announcement about the conclusion of an Army investigation corrected what had seemed implausible all along. For weeks after the June 25 shooting, the Army claimed a weapon was found with the Iraqis' car despite the fact that they had just passed through the rigorous weapons searches leading to the airport terminal. Even as NEWSWEEK reported on the high-profile case July 7, the military was standing by its story, which would have meant that a long-time employee of an airport bank branch suddenly decided to divert from his daily commute to fire small arms at soldiers in multiple armored vehicles. The original Army statement portrayed the incident as a minor combat victory, claiming soldiers had killed three "criminals" attempting to attack them.

The new military account calls the incident itself "tragic" and attempts to account for the dramatic reversal by saying there was a mix up in the investigation. A press release stated that the soldiers initially thought they were being fired upon and then there was "a misunderstanding that the Iraqi police arriving at the scene collected a weapon."

But a member of the Iraqi police team at the airport told NEWSWEEK Sunday night that he told American investigators the day of the incident that he and his colleagues had found no weapon. The man, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak about the investigation, said he angrily asked U.S. troops examining the scene why soldiers had fired on unarmed Iraqis. He kept asserting the same in two subsequent interviews by U.S. officers, he said. The original Army statement also said the car "exploded" after it hit a wall, which Iraqi witnesses contradicted.

Iraqi officials have stated consistently since the incident that the Iraqis were unarmed and the western-owned contractor responsible for airport security has attested that it would be nearly impossible for a driver to successfully pass its search points with a weapon. Army spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Stover told NEWSWEEK that investigators knew about July 7 that no weapon was involved.

The victims were Hafd Abood, known to be a doting father who preached education to his children, and two female coworkers, Maha Adnan Younis and Surur Shahid Ahmed. Abood's son Mohammed said earlier Sunday that the military offered each family $10,000 in compensation in a meeting on Friday. He said the families refused the money unless it comes with a written apology.

The case received widespread attention among Iraqis and prompted condemnations by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Iraqi police said early on that it appeared that Abood was driving toward where U.S. soldiers were parked by the road and may have innocently swerved in their direction to avoid a pothole. The military's new account says the soldiers opened fire after using "escalation of force" measures to get the car to slow – including warning shots. They fired warning shots to stop at least one other car after the incident. The soldiers were from a unit that does not usually travel in the airport area, meaning they might not have known that it's considered one of the most secure places in Iraq. Civilian cars there regularly move at close distances with military convoys amid the daily traffic.

Human rights advocates have repeatedly called for better precautions against similar incidents and more thorough military investigations into civilian deaths.

Late Sunday, Mohammed, himself a taxi driver in the airport, was stunned by the news. "I'm confused. I don't know what to do. We need our rights," he said, noting that his father was the breadwinner for a large family. "We need to make a case in American courts." Such cases are nearly impossible to win.

Stover said the military planned to continue meetings with the families.

With reporting from Salih Mehdi and Yassar Ghani in Baghdad.

McCain vs. Obama: Who’s Right on the Surge?

2008-07-24T21:21:54Z

The U.S. military says there were zero attacks in Baghdad on Wednesday. A year ago, there were an average of 43 a day. The question of how this happened has led to the latest tussle in America's race for the White House. Republican candidate and Iraq War supporter John McCain attributes the improvement to George W. Bush’s troop surge. Democratic candidate and war opponent Barack Obama disagrees. Who’s right? The answer is somewhere in between, with an edge to McCain but with Obama raising important points. If you think military force solves problems best, then you can attribute the success to the troop increase and, probably, it largely is. But if you tend to think politics and winning hearts and minds works best, you can point credibly to other factors that also reduced the bloodshed.

The timeline is rather simple. On Jan. 10, 2007, President Bush ordered the troop increase, calling it the "surge" rather than by the more traditional term, "reinforcements." Gen. David Petraeus, the main proponent of the more than 28,000 additional troops, took command on Feb. 10. It then took until June 15 for all the five surge brigades to position themselves. Between February and June, the troops were amassing and already establishing many of the neighborhood combat outposts that were key in reducing the sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites.

Starting June 15, a 90-day surge plan kicked in with U.S. troops retaking areas that had fallen to chaos or control by militias and Al Qaeda. Violence rates, based on military graphics, dropped steeply from an anarchic peak of more than 1,500 attacks Iraq-wide per week in June 2007. McCain is right that the troop increase was important, perhaps the key when combined with their new tactics, in turning the country around.

But Obama is correct that other things were happening at the same time--and even before. There was a swing in attitudes among Iraqis against the violent overreaching by Al Qaeda and, on the other side, Shiite death squads claiming to fight for anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Sunni tribes in the Anbar province, many of which had been fighting against U.S. forces, basically decided they hated Al Qaeda and its sadistic fanaticism more than they despised the American occupation. That happened in mid and late 2006.

In January of this year General Petraeus told NEWSWEEK about the genesis of the Sunni sea change, encapsulated in the story of Anbar's Sheik Abdul Sattar Abu Risha:

"Before I came back [to Iraq in February 2007] he had already gone to the brigade commander there, Col. Sean MacFarland ... and asked him if it would be OK to point his weapons at Al Qaeda instead of MacFarland's soldiers. And MacFarland, being no fool, said that would be OK and then parked two tanks outside his house. But it took them months to build some forces, to just get going ... March was when we started clearing Ramadi and we had it cleared by about mid-April and it was just a city in varying degrees of ruins."

This week, McCain took his argument one step too far when he noted that the surge began the tribal turn. He said: "Because of the surge, we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening." He also said he meant "surge" in a broad sense, more than just troop increases but also a new American approach to counterinsurgency. But there was never a public debate about helping Sunni tribes kill Al Qaeda. The controversy around the surge was all about the troop increase, which came after the Anbar revolution had started.

McCain is right that the surge did make more forces available to help the tribal fighters and "protect" the sheiks. But they had already turned. Alas, Abu Risha was killed by a car bomb in September. The movement lives on because the Anbar masses still want it to.

Another major turning point was Aug. 29, 2007, when Sadr imposed a ceasefire on his Mahdi Army (JAM) militias. This was during the height of the surge operations, many targeting Sadr's fighters, but appeared to also be influenced heavily by an ugly street battle during a religious pilgrimage between Sadrists forces and other Shiites. JAM was blamed, and Sadr's image was sullied among fellow Shiites.

And U.S. troops also employed canny manipulation and cajoling in street-level contacts with Sadrist leaders, encouraging and threatening them into setting aside violence. Petraeus might say this couldn't have happened without the extra soldiers on the ground, but we don't know for sure. (Petraeus deserves credit for allowing his commanders the leeway to engage the enemy with their mobile phones as much as their rifles.) Along those lines, there were other important doctrinal changes Petraeus brought with him. He made security for Iraqis the No. 1 priority, saying that it would ultimately also make U.S. troops safer--something long overdue. Soldiers came out from the city-size fortresses and lived in Iraqi streets.

Obama has said his early-2007 plan for a careful troop pullout could have also calmed Iraq. Most Iraqis would have said that a U.S. withdrawal then would have continued Iraq's horrible downward spiral. Probably. But the promise of a withdrawal might have won over some Iraqis. Combined with active diplomacy, it might have convinced neighboring countries that don't want a black hole next door to stop fanning the flames. It seems less than likely, but, as Obama says, it wasn't tried, still hasn't been tried and can't be ruled out. He also says the surge took resources and attention from more pressing battlefields in Afghanistan.

The troop increase was crucial in calming the country, but the tribal war against Al Qaeda and Sadr's--albeit wobbly--ceasefire were important, too. Many Iraqis, by the way, would say they deserve credit for lowering the violence by standing up against the gunmen and cooperating with American and Iraqi forces. All true to different degrees, depending on how much you believe in force or people power.

New 5-Star Hotel for Baghdad

2008-07-22T13:56:10Z

By Lennox Samuels

Two men, one American, the other Iraqi, daubed wet cement on a short stack of limestone bricks and laid the cornerstone for what is to be the first new five-star hotel in Baghdad since the days of Saddam Hussein. A couple dozen people standing in 115-degree heat on a parched piece of land near Zaitun Street and Al Qadisiya Highway, just inside the International Zone, watched the tableau. Most of them understood that the ceremony was a symbol of Iraq's accelerating efforts to transition to life beyond wartime. And the developer's representative spelled it out for those who might not have gotten the message. "This project will be a signal that will go out all over the world that the economy of Iraq is ready for investment," declared Robert K. Kelly, CEO of Delaware-based Summit Global Group.

It will take more than such baby steps to rebuild Iraq, but the cornerstone event is part of a growing trend toward normality in Iraq as violence subsides. Parts of the country remain dangerous and terrorists still occasionally launch attacks that result in mayhem and high body counts, but there is a sense that real change is in the air. "Today we can stand here fairly safely and lay the cornerstone for the future of Iraq," said Brig. Gen. David Perkins, a newly arrived Multinational Force-Iraq spokesman. "This project encapsulates progress across all the aspects of improving security, creating good government and reviving the economy."

Construction on the $100 million, 300-room hotel is to begin in 30 to 45 days. The project is expected to create 500 jobs and be completed within 12 months, Kelly says. The development, dubbed Hotel Two Rivers (Iraq is home to the famous Tigris and Euphrates rivers), will rise in the shadow of monuments to the megalomania of Hussein. Nearby stand the hulking Adnan Palace and the giant Crossed Swords that commemorate the ill-fated Iraq-Iran War.

Summit Global, a group put together by venture capitalists essentially for this project, has signed a 50-year lease on the property, which is approximately 10,000 square meters, says Kelly, who is based in Washington, D.C. The Iraqi government agreed to a tax-free deal for the project, which draws on "capital from a wide range of sources" including Iraqi interests, Kelly says. Both he and Dr. Ahmad Ridha, chairman of the National Investment Commission of Iraq, stressed that the project will be built by Iraqis and ultimately staffed by them. The two men shared the cornerstone-laying honors. Summit Global is negotiating with hotel companies to run the facility, but is not yet ready to say whether it will bear the brand of a well-known chain like Sheraton, Hilton or Hyatt.

Iraq's expanding stability has fostered sundry business schemes and talk of big economic ventures. Recent rumors, for example, have floated the prospect of a multibillion-dollar business and tourism district in the Green Zone that would be a bankrolled in large part by Saudi interests. There has been talk also of a five-star Marriott Hotel. Nobody, including Marriott, would confirm any such plans. A few less-grandiose projects are proceeding, including a new convention center and small motel near Baghdad International Airport, says Raad Ommar, CEO of the Iraqi-American Chamber of Commerce.

Kelly, meanwhile, says Summit's project is based on solid and clear-eyed planning. "We have studied the investment situation in Iraq and we think it is very positive," he says. "We like to act fast and we like to act first." As for the war, which is by no means over, "We believe the security situation is just right. We don't see it as risky," he tells NEWSWEEK. He also believes there is enough demand for a good hotel, specifically among business travelers. Certainly not many tourists are rushing to visit Iraq. On the other hand, apparently buoyed by declining violence in Iraq, a number of countries have indicated they will open or re-open embassies in Baghdad. The list includes the Philippines, Qatar, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and even Kuwait, which has not had an ambassador in Iraq for 18 years. Considering that hotels like the Palestine and Ishtar Sheraton have fallen on tough times and the venerable Rashid has become less desirable, Summit's new inn could well serve as a temporary home for diplomats who will need accommodations while their permanent quarters are readied.

What Iraqis Think of Barack

2008-07-20T15:22:10Z

Iraqis are mystified by Barack Obama. As he kicked off his tour of Europe and the Middle East—including a stop in Baghdad—this week, both leaders and ordinary people here were trying to size up the Democratic candidate. For many, opinions are distorted by decades of misinformation and years of post-war cynicism about American motives in general. If you ask unemployed, 34-year-old Uday Ahmed whether he views Obama as a Muslim, because his father was Muslim, or as a Christian, which is the candidate's religion, he answers: "I think he is Jewish." It's an old conspiracy complex common in the Middle East, that Jews run American policy. But Ahmed didn't seem to mind. "If he is going to save my country from the chaos, I think I will like him. It is so important to have a good person, whether he is a Muslim, a Christian, or Jewish."

Iraqis--even those who like and work with Americans--generally see the American invasion as a manifestation of U.S. interests in controlling the region and its oil wealth rather than anything done for their well-being. Most we talked to thought Obama would follow that path. Maybe, with all the power outages, they haven't had a chance to be touched by the candidate's telegenic charisma and set aside their cynicism. Here are some samples from Iraqis when we asked about their views of their incoming guest as the potential U.S. leader, his religion and what he'll do for Iraq:

--"What is interesting is that a man who is not white is trying to be president. This is interesting because it is so unique," says Haider al-Mousawi, a history professor in the city of the holy city of Najaf. "His second name, Hussein, is Arabic but that will make no difference because his father refused his religion and his name to get what he wanted. This is the height of pragmatism and is standard in the United States. The person's interests are above all other things." He continues: "Anyway, whether Obama or [Sen. John] McCain wins, the president is just the figure who works on strategies run by the institutions that run America. The president is like a middleman."

-- "He is just like other American politicians looking for their own interests," said Amira Hassan, a 56-year-old grade school teacher. "All the candidates are alike and will work for their own country and personal interests, not do good things for Iraq and its people."

-- "I know Obama is Muslim and I am afraid he will not win the elections because of that. I hope he can help change the bad image of Islam among the west and the whole world," says engineer Ahmed al-Hilli. "Muslims and all Arabs will react to him seriously and positively. . . Obama will do better for Iraq than his predecessors because we have something in common, which is religion."

-- "Obama will win the next elections because the American people want change and want to see the difference between Republican and Democratic policy," says 30-year-old Hussain Alwan. "I see Obama agreeing with Iraqi leaders on a timetable for a (troop) withdrawal and this is what the Iraqi people need at this time."

-- "Obama is right for president of the United States because now we want U.S. policy in the region to change and he will be open for negotiations with Iran and Syria, he prefers to use negotiations rather than force," says 24-year-old bank employee Basma Ibrahim.

Obama is expected to meet the Iraqi Prime Minister as well as huddle with top American officials in the Green Zone during his stopover in the Iraqi capital. Some of the Iraqis we chatted with spending Friday with their families in a park had other ideas for his itinerary.

"I think he should see the militias and put an end to the militias because they still are in the streets," says a 50-year-old former employee in Iraq's security services who asked us to call him by his familiar name, Abu Ali. A clerk in the transportation ministry, 35-year-old Mohammed Fadel al-Rubai, hoped Obama would observe the city's decrepit state. "I need for Obama to see the economic situation and the [poor] services, like the electricity." Abu Ali also wants him to know that Iraqi security forces are up to their jobs now, so U.S. forces can go home.

But Iraqi leaders are trying to discern just how Obama might handle the timing and manner of any withdrawal. Earlier this month as we pressed them for their views of the possible next president, a senior political adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki turned the tables. A genteel man, the adviser was escorting us out his office door when he asked what we thought Obama would do with Iraq. The question, politely asked, seemed to be whether Obama would just pull America out and abandon Iraq to its problems. He seemed reassured when we told him that the candidate's stated policy was a lot more nuanced than that.

With reporting from Hussam Ali, Yassar Ghani, Salih Mehdi and Hassan al-Jarrah.

Pizza Joint: A Baghdad Barometer with Extra Toppings

2008-07-17T19:36:26Z

Sign of the Times: Waleed al-Bayati has re-opened his pizza restaurant (Credit: Larry Kaplow)

Baghdad's probably still too dangerous for western reporters to comfortably linger over meals in restaurants but it's just about right for pizza runs. We made one the other day to mark something of a milestone, the return of Pizza Italiana Napoli, which owner Waleed al-Bayati reopened six months ago. The tiny, crumbling storefront sits amid groceries, liquor stores and sandwich shops on a gritty street near gates to the Green Zone.

There are other pizza options in Baghdad. There's a pizza franchise in the Green Zone and I hear the Italian embassy serves up a great slice to those who can wrangle an invitation. A few restaurants around town offer variations of pizza along with menus of mixed cuisine. But for me and a lot of other reporters who have covered the war, when you think of pizza, you think of Waleed. His shop was a favorite among reporters in 2003 and 2004. We'd meet at the counter – with the gigantic brick oven there's only room for dining at a thin counter in the window – on our way to and from meetings in the Green Zone. A bulletin board was full with business cards from American, British and Italian correspondents. Soldiers also ate there or ordered out, back in the days when things were laid back enough for that. And it was popular with Iraqis who liked western food.

Al-Bayati, 42, learned his pizza skills near the Trevi Fountain in Rome, where he went to college and worked in a restaurant. He speaks Italian and a little English. He opened his shop in 2003 and he was described in Washington Post journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran's "Imperial Life in the Emerald City," an important book about the war's early days (and being adapted in an upcoming film, "The Green Zone.")

Nearby bombings targeting the Green Zone's Assassins Gate rattled the restaurant and drove business away until almost no westerners would eat there. Al-Bayati closed down for about two and a half years. He says improved security makes the work possible again, a story being told by storeowners around Baghdad. But demand for his pizzas, which cost the equivalent of about $4, is down to a small percentage of what it used to be. The reporters don't come around anymore – in part because there are far fewer than there were in 2004 - and Iraqis are turned off by checkpoints and barriers used to protect the street. His complaints sounded familiar as Baghdadis are increasingly growing used to the relative calm but awaiting economic growth and public services.

When we showed up, it was around 100 degrees outside and he was sweating hard (no AC in the shop) as he shoveled our pizzas into the oven. There was the old pungent smell of sewage outside the door – this was never a big place for atmosphere. But the portly man had a wide smile for me when I walked in and the pizza tasted fine. He said I was the second reporter there in a month.

How Safe is Anbar?

2008-07-16T20:26:02Z

By Lennox Samuels

As the U.S. presidential aspirants traded criticisms over the war in Iraq this week, some Americans may have been bemused by the insertion of "Anbar" into the discussion. Republican Sen. John McCain used the Iraqi province to show how off-base he thinks Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama was in his initial opposition to last year's surge, which saw the infusion of 30,000 additional U.S. troops into the war. McCain pointed out that Anbar, once among the deadliest places in Iraq, was greatly improved, with Al Qaeda in Iraq mostly driven from the sprawling western governorate.

The GOP senator was generally right, although Anbar at that moment was not exactly a poster province for tranquility. The day before he spoke, Iraqi authorities declared a security alert and imposed a curfew in Fallujah, a major provincial city and site of some of the war's heaviest fighting just months ago. Fallujah police chief Abdul-Kareem al-Dulaimi says the measure was taken because of recent incidents in the city, including a suicide bombing that killed 15 people and injured at least 17 at a tribal gathering. That attack followed months of calm in Anbar. "We also aimed at limiting the movements of the armed groups on the outskirts of Fallujah who plan to give support to other armed groups inside," he adds.

Anbar has been trumpeted since tribal Sunni militias turned against Al Qaeda in 2006 and appeared to have helped neutralize the terrorist network. But political rifts among the remaining Sunnis appear to be growing more disruptive. The tribal forces are in a bitter power struggle with the establishment Sunni leaders who were elected to key posts back when most Sunnis still boycotted the vote. Recently, the two factions have been feuding over who should be the provincial police chief. U.S. troops had planned to officially turn over security leadership in the mostly Sunni province to Iraqi troops in a ceremony on June 27, but canceled, with the military saying dust storms were going to interfere with travel to the event.

But since then, several Anbar figures have disputed whether the handover, which has occurred in 10 out of 18 provinces so far, should go forward just yet. Tribal leader Ali Hatem al-Suleiman told NEWSWEEK earlier this month that local forces were not strong enough or sufficiently organized to do the job. Though the weather cleared weeks ago, the handover still has not occurred.

As the surge ended this week, leaving 150,000 Americans troops still in Iraq, much of the country has been quiet. U.S. military officials say that nationwide, attacks are at their lowest level since March 2004, declining 80 percent since the surge began in June 2007. In Baghdad, attacks have returned to February 2008 levels after a spike in the intervening months, says Major Gen. Michael D. Jones, of the Directorate of Interior Affairs, which advises the Ministry of Interior. "They're currently at levels that I didn't dream we'd be at here in Baghdad," he says. He did not have specific numbers.

Current Anbar police chief Gen. Tariq Yousif, who is backed by tribal leaders, says the province is in much better shape now, with the Baghdad-Damascus and Baghdad-Amman highways (highly dangerous arteries a few months ago) safe, and open 24 hours. He insists the handover was postponed because of bad weather and adds, "I think we will do it this month, for we are completely ready to deal with the security in a good way by ourselves, without any help from the Americans, except consultations."

The Fallujah curfew was lifted after less than 24 hours. "[Al] Qaeda now has nothing to do but suicide operations and cannot face the Iraqi police," says Yousif. But with at least 30 people killed in the city in recent weeks and signs of restiveness appearing in other parts of the province, "Anbar" may still be more of a cautionary tale for the U.S. military than a success story to be cited in America's presidential campaign.

With Omar al-Mansoury in Fallujah

Bush Hosts An Ally On Force Agreement

2008-06-25T20:31:43Z

President George W. Bush probably can't find an Iraqi more sympathetic to the idea of keeping U.S. troops in his country than Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who stopped by the White House today. The topic was the negotiations over the future of U.S. troops in Iraq and what legal status they will have when the United Nations resolution authorizing them expires at the end of the year.

Talabani is an elder statesman and patron for Iraq's ethnic Kurds. He's the long-time leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two main Kurdish factions. Kurds, who suffered chemical gas attacks at the hands of Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, have been America's closest allies in Iraq since American jets started protecting their autonomous region with a no-fly zone in the mid-1990s. U.S. soldiers can walk around safely in Kurdistan. On a trip there late last year, several Kurds told me they'd be glad to host U.S. bases permanently. For one thing, they think it would deter the Turkish invasion they fear from the north.

U.S. officials in Iraq are relying on the Kurds to help sell a new agreement on an American presence in the country to more hesitant Iraqis, especially the Shiite coalition leading the government, but it's been slow going. Though American diplomats hold out hope to meet a self-imposed July 31 deadline for a deal, Iraqis are less interested. A senior Shiite figure close to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told me this week that they didn't see the deadline as firm, a fact U.S. negotiators have obliquely acknowledged.

The agreement would have to spell out what control Iraqis have over U.S. military operations, whether American civilian contractors have to face Iraqi law when they are accused of killings (or other crimes), whether American troops can continue detaining Iraqis and how many bases they can have here. Those are all sensitive issues that have to be coaxed through the Iraqi parliament (while the Bush administration has taken the controversial stance that the agreement does not need approval from Congress).

Talabani is considered a wily and skilled political tactician. But his usefulness to Bush is limited by his health. At 73, Talabani went to Washington after a trip to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, which he said was meant to help him lose weight. He went there once last year, reportedly after he had collapsed.

Iraqi Staff: Should They Stay or Should They Go?

2008-06-18T22:08:28Z

What would you tell an Iraqi who asks you if they should uproot their entire family and move to the United States?

That's the question facing us in NEWSWEEK's Baghdad bureau as we explain a new U.S. immigration program aimed at giving safe haven to Iraqis who have risked working with Americans. After years of pleading--often from high-ranking U.S. officials concerned for their interpreters--it will now be easier for Iraqis endangered by their links to Americans to immigrate with their families. The program applies to Iraqis working for the U.S. military, embassy, contractors or media.

Their perils are obvious. NEWSWEEK wrote last year about a married couple who worked for the U.S. embassy and was murdered. The news of the new rules has created a buzz within the media ranks, with translators, drivers, guards and house staff weighing whether to send away for the online application.

The applicants, according to briefings from the embassy, must believe they are in danger because of their link to westerners. It's an easy argument to make for media staff. Translators have been killed and threatened. Most struggle to keep their jobs secret even from family members. They avoid interviewing people who might know, or be able to find out, where they live. Meanwhile, we push them to identify themselves to sources, to list their names on stories in the magazine and on the Web site (for journalistic transparency) or to go with us to press conferences that often televise shots of the attending journalists. We also ask them to give personal information, including addresses, to Iraqi agencies issuing press credentials for media events. Our guards accompany us to interviews and our house staff can be seen coming and going.

While westerners face danger in Iraq, it's so much simpler. If things get dicey, we just leave. Staff, on the other hand, will have to live with their associations forever through whatever political winds could blow in Iraq--pro-Iranian rabble-rousing, the upsurges in anti-Americanism any time Israel strikes a neighbor--in the years to come.

Iraqis have already been fleeing their country but many languish in neighboring states or spend their small fortunes on shady schemes to get to Europe or America. Compared to the several hundred thousands burdening public services in Jordan and Syria each, and the tens of thousands in Sweden (a common destination), the United States has let in a trickle of thousands. George Packer reported the new program might bring in to about 4,000 Iraqis by fall of 2009.

But the new rules posed as much a dilemma as an opportunity for our staff. They asked about their chances of earning a living in America. Some questions: Can a man get a job to support a whole family or will his wife have to work, too? Will their college degrees be recognized? Will their children's schools teach in Arabic? They seemed to weigh the answers against their insecurity in Iraq.

They were healthy questions I was glad to hear. Too often, there's a perception that America's streets are paved with gold or, at least, that the United States offers the kind of wall-to-wall welfare of Saddam's socialist state or nearby Gulf countries, where jobs, health care and university educations are guaranteed.

My western colleagues and I are mainly concerned about the intangibles, the alienation Iraqis might feel in a land that is highly impersonal compared to Baghdad. Americans are private. They don't invite strangers into their homes on chance meetings. And Americans value mobility, flexibility, more than people in this land first settled 8,000 years ago. Many Iraqis, especially those that have stuck it out through the five years of carnage that forced millions into exile, are fiercely loyal to their homes and families. They're also hesitant to start over in a country where they fear they will be treated as second-class citizens, where their degrees won't be recognized and where no one will recognize their tribal names. The heat-inspired Iraqi work rhythms--work in the morning, take a long break in the afternoon, possibly resume in the evening--don't work in the States.

I keep in touch with a few former translators who have left Iraq. One lives in California, training Marines in Iraqi culture and he seems happy. But he is Christian and his mother had lived there for years already. Another lives in Sweden and recently e-mailed me about the lonely walks he takes, despite the large Iraqi community there. Another, a Canadian citizen, has bounced between efforts to start businesses from Montreal to Bulgaria.

Our staff paused some when I told them that, in the standard American immigrant experience, the first generation faces hardship but life is better for their children, who would basically become Americans (and, I joked, might turn around someday and invade Iraq). At the same time, I was wary of my own motives. Was my advice tinged by my desire to keep my staff intact? I told them to reach out to Iraqis they already know living in America for a true picture of what the transition is like, how it compares to living with the dangers of Baghdad.

There are many growing Iraqi or Arab communities in America where a newcomer could feel comfortable and our employees know some who have made it there. Our translators know enough English to work in most jobs (and the refugee status offers English training). Our cook might have the best chance for success. His ambition is simply to cook and he could do that in many an American diner, though I'd miss his roast beef and fine lasagna. Maybe he can leave a few months' worth in the freezer for us to eat after he's gone.

A Horrific Bombing Marks Baghdad's Patchwork Instability

2008-06-17T19:01:17Z

By Larry Kaplow

The terrible bombing in northern Baghdad Tuesday, which reportedly killed at least 50 people in a crowded afternoon market, highlights both the ongoing dangers here and the shifting security geography of the capital.

The Hurriyah (Freedom) neighborhood where the bombing happened is a predominantly Shiite area and is the typical target chosen by Al Qaida in Iraq. That Sunni Muslim group, made mainly of Iraqis, apparently aims to fan the fires of civil strife, in effect provoking Shiite militias into retaliatory strikes that will drive more Sunnis to their cause. U.S. officials have cautiously said that Al Qaida in Iraq has been greatly weakened and Iraqi officials have boasted that it is all but finished. But a string of bombings has occurred in Baghdad and other cities since the start of U.S. and Iraqi raids against Al Qaida targets in the northern city of Mosul a couple weeks ago. This was just the biggest death toll – since March, in fact. Al Qaida still maintains the strength for regular strikes.

The capital remains an unstable patchwork of dangers and safe havens - though much better than last year. This morning I came back from an interview in downtown Baghdad via Haifa Street. A year or so ago, that would have been unthinkable as the avenue of boxy, modern apartment buildings had been used off and on as an insurgent staging area. Today, Haifa Street was safe and looked rather tidy and healthy. The nearby Allawi neighborhood, once crime-infested, was also safely passable if still a collection of dilapidated storefronts and workshops.

On the other hand, I recently scrapped plans to go to the flashy, upscale Arasat al-Hindia Street, known for restaurants, banks and clothes stores. It stayed relatively safe through most of the five years of war and was a good place to meet both Sunnis and Shiites. But asking around before our trip, we heard it has been hit by an onslaught of gangster-like street crime. A money changing office there, where I used to go to get large cash transfers for my bureau, has been repeatedly robbed. It's hard to see how, as the office had careful security including lookouts on the street. The short strip of road has also been the scene of repeated carjackings.

Meanwhile, Sadr City, the slum of more than two million Shiites, changes nearly daily with the prevailing political winds as sailed by radical cleric Muqtada Sadr. His followers closely control most of the neighborhood and were ensuring safe passage for western journalists for most of the last few weeks. A recent decree by Sadr that he was reforming his militia and reasserting its right to attack U.S. forces, throws the area in doubt again.

Seatbelts and Shakedowns: Security, Baghdad Style

2008-06-06T19:19:43Z

It’s always been a good idea to wear seatbelts in the capital’s chaotic and obstacle-strewn streets. But whenever I’ve started to buckle in my Iraqi colleagues would warn me off it. Baghdadis don’t wear seatbelts, so the danger of showing myself as a safety-obsessed Westerner would be greater than the risks of a fender bender. But on a trip downtown this week, my Iraqi driver buckled himself into his shoulder strap and explained that while I had been out on a break the police had started requiring drivers to wear their belts or face a fine of about $25.

The streets are tricky. Hundreds are blocked by blast walls protecting public and private compounds or makeshift barricades meant to keep strangers from passing through residential neighborhoods. The asphalt is in crumbling disrepair, and parked cars choke off roads. So traffic police, who have kept working throughout the war, are forgiving about drivers choosing the dangerous “wrong side” option (the English phrase was adopted into the local Arabic long before the war) on busy streets. It seems like a good sign that now they finally not only have a seatbelt law, they actually enforce it.

I got another taste of Baghdad security later as I interviewed a storeowner. Plainclothes police pulled up to question my Iraqi staff waiting in the street. Perhaps someone had called them, worried that my driver and guards were suspicious strangers. (I’ll keep the exact number of guards and other details vague in case any of those who like to kidnap foreigners read this.) I explained to an English-speaking officer, a tall man in a T-shirt and jeans, that I was an American reporter and showed him various IDs. But he insisted that we all go to his nearby station house to explain our presence to his boss. In five years of working in Iraq I’ve never had to do this before.

I ran through some troubling thoughts regarding the spotty record of Iraqi police and the many instances of criminals posing as police. The storeowner was clearly scared about whether he would somehow be held responsible for something. Though the men showed us badges, those could be faked. They were in plain clothes and unmarked cars. But they were consistently polite, almost apologetic, and it was in a part of town where illegal militia activity had been rare of late. Anyway, we had little choice but to follow them to their station, and they placed one of the officers in my car to assure our cooperation.

It was a good sign when we pulled up to the small police post and saw four U.S. Humvees pulling out through the blast wall channel. At least it was a true Iraqi police office. I thought of flagging down the Humvees, but the officer in our car told me there were still more Americans inside, which turned out to be untrue. They gathered us in the commander’s well-appointed office. He had a satellite channel from France on his television, and a little boy, likely his son from his air of entitlement, sat on one of the couches. As in most police offices, there was a metal-frame bed in the corner, neatly made, where the leader must spend a lot of nights.

Things were relaxed as he signed unrelated paperwork and listened to his underlings explain what they had found: a reporter, men with weapons. They took a long at our IDs and paperwork, questioning unclear details about the guards’ government certificate. I explained, truthfully, that NEWSWEEK works with a private security company and that, unlike the massive U.S. and Iraqi government-backed firms traveling the city, our small company has meticulously worked according to Iraqi law. He let me use my mobile phone to start the calls to the Ministry of the Interior that could vouch for us. Our security company sent an Iraqi lawyer to the station. With that in motion, I called a well-known Iraqi official who instructed the officer to release us; I had recently been with this official when he received a similar call for help from Iraqi reporters. That did the trick.

We were let go with handshakes and apologies, and you could say the authorities were just doing their jobs. But there was a catch I didn’t know about until later. Just before we got outside, while I was briefly separated from my colleagues, one of the officers told one of my Iraqi staffers that they frequently provide protection for journalists who show their gratitude in cash. One of my staff, without my knowledge, handed them some money, which they said would only cover part of their costs. So he handed over more and a little more, getting into the neighborhood of about $100 worth of Iraqi currency. They never demanded it outright—and were polite throughout—but to my staff a substantial tip seemed like the prudent move.

We headed home slightly cowed. We had been sidetracked against our will for about an hour. That storeowner was probably still shaken, and my staffers were worried that they had now been identified as Iraqis working with a Westerner. We wondered if our paperwork had ever been the issue or it was just a pretense for supplementing modest police incomes. But we complimented each other on our calm—we’d all avoided the kind of shouting matches that can occur. The police never threatened or insulted anyone. And they sure were plugged into what was going on in the streets. My driver buckled up and took us home.

Spin Watch: When is a Lull Not a Lull?

2008-06-02T20:21:43Z

A senior U.S. Administration official briefed reporters today about the situation in Iraq and applied a spin heavier than any I've heard in Baghdad for a long time. True, security is much better in Iraq today than it was several months ago but this official went beyond what even military leaders would claim. In the meeting, held on the usual (but irritating) diplomatic ground rules that he/she not be identified by name, a reporter asked about the Iraqi government's ability to take advantage of the recent "lull in violence." The official jumped on the phrasing.

"This is not a, quote, lull in violence," the official insisted. "It is a steady decline, which one could track, plot on a graf, which I know [ military spokesman] Kevin Bergner has and you've probably seen, starting in December 2006 and projecting in virtually a straight, leveled averaged line down to this week in Iraq."

The official didn't stop there: "That's not a lull. That is a continuous decline in every metric of violence. Where spikes have occurred, those spikes have been related to developments on the ground, often to security advances or, in the negative sense, to a particularly spectacular Al Qaeda attacks. But the trend line has been, based on the plots I've seen, unaffected by that. It ain't a lull. It is a progressive decline that is now some 17 months in duration."

Setting aside whether you can logically discount things like "developments on the ground" and "spectacular Al Qaeda attacks" when assessing conditions here, the official's statement that the violence started dropping 17 months ago goes back further than I've heard others assert. It would mean the violence was dropping even before the troop surge, which was done for the purpose of reducing the violence.

I'm not sure exactly which military charts the official is referencing. But since the speaker claimed the backing of "every metric," I'll go with the most comprehensive chart offered by military spokesmen, which been updated frequently on this blog, the latest last week.

The graph clearly shows that the number of overall attacks in December, 2006, was in the middle of a gruesome climb to a peak of nearly 1,600 attacks a week in June, 2007. Then there is, indeed and thankfully, a steep drop that is largely reflected in what Iraqis say anecdotally. But if we're going to understand the Iraqi experience and the overall conditions here – both crucial as decisions are made for the future - it's worth noting that the downward trend is more like 10 months old instead of 17. And many of those months were still bloody by any normal standards.

Iraq's National Soccer Team Gets Back on the Pitch

2008-05-29T19:39:46Z

Iraqis breathed a collective sigh of relief Thursday as they learned their beloved national soccer team would be allowed to keep playing. FIFA, world soccer's governing body, rescinded a decision to suspend the Iraqi squad from qualifying matches for next year's World Cup tournament. The national team is set to play Australia in Brisbane on Sunday, when you can expect all televisions to be tuned in any place in Baghdad that's getting its share of the seven hours of daily city electricity.

Iraqi soccer is often called the only big national success story since the U.S. invasion and fall of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003. Despite the country's chaotic mayhem, dysfunctional government and decrepit utilities, Iraq came in fourth at the 2004 Olympics and won the Asian championship last year. The wins repeatedly sent Iraqis into the streets with dances and celebratory gunfire that sometimes alarmed U.S. troops. The team–a mix mainly of Arab Shiites and ethnic Kurds with one Sunni Arab star (see The Official Younis Mahmoud Website)–unites Iraqis in its success and diverts attention from bloodier matters. But it has also gone through its own episodes of raw bloodshed, division and politics.

Hussein's son Uday ran the country's sports establishment for years before the war. He infamously had players jailed and beaten when they failed to bring home wins. He also stifled their requests to play abroad where they could make real money.

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After the war, retired soccer stars Ahmed Radhi and Hussein Saeed engaged in a public feud over control for the newly liberated soccer domain. I interviewed Radhi in 2003. He was young and handsome but with an athlete's naiveté and clearly doomed against Saeed, an older and educated former player who had already reached high positions in the soccer union under Uday. Baghdad soccer fans would buzz with rumors about Radhi having Saeed's house raked with machine gun fire (others said it was a hand grenade) but Saeed, who I saw at a team practice in 2004 as he was flanked by Kalashnikov-wielding bodyguards, was secure in his hold on soccer power and had good connections in the game internationally.

Even amid their early post-war success, players would complain that the soccer administration wasted or stole money that they should have gone for things like good soccer shoes (players bought their own) and health insurance. Granted, sports organizations worldwide have a pretty long record for corruption and mismanagement.

It was a decision by the Iraqi government that apparently touched off the latest off-field drama. The cabinet of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki disbanded the Iraqi Olympic Committee, claiming its leadership was corrupt and failing to hold required elections. The soccer federation, still run by Saeed, is under the committee's jurisdiction and was apparently also dissolved. FIFA, which held to a hands-off stance throughout much of Uday Hussein's sadistic rule of Iraqi soccer, pronounced this decision as illegitimate political interference. On Monday, it announced it would suspend the team's World Cup participation unless the Iraqi government reversed its action.

Widespread distress and news coverage ensued with frequent updates on the negotiations. The team arrived in Australia (they train outside Iraq for safety) on Tuesday. Coach Adnan Hamad, who steered the team through the 2004 Olympics, fretted that the controversy would prove a defeating distraction.

But Thursday the FIFA ban was reversed after the Iraqi government stipulated that it was not targeting the country's soccer federation in its move against the umbrella Olympic Committee. One of the first hints that a resolution was on the way came the night before in a report quoting none other than Ahmed Radhi, who for now appears to be back on workable terms with Saeed. Saeed assured him that the game would go and Australian officials were pushing to play the Sunday match so they would not lose the television revenues. Whatever the reason, now it's up to the players to overcome the chaos and win. They've done it before.

For May at Least, A Drop in Violence

2008-05-27T16:35:38Z

With the end of the intense fighting between Shiite militias and U.S. and Iraqi troops, violence has dropped significantly, according to military statistics. Here's another look at the trends in one of the charts released by the military that we've been posting on Checkpoint Baghdad. The chart runs through the start of May. U.S. officials said over the weekend that there were only about 325 attacks for the week ending May 23 (not on the chart), which would make the lowest weekly figure since March, 2004, when there were about 330 attacks.

The figures coincide with anecdotal evidence around Baghdad. Iraq is still volatile and violent but Iraqis in many neighborhoods say the last couple weeks have been quiet, even to the point in which there is anecdotal evidence of more displaced people attempting to return to neighborhoods from which they fled or were forced. A look at the chart shows that bloodshed can skyrocket or drop from quickly from week to week, but the month of May has been better than most.

Violence in Iraq
Military statistics reflect the pattern of attacks in the country