Elisha Grange ('03, Communications) was a public affairs advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Interior in Baghdad, Iraq for six months. Originally hired by the Department of Defense, she transferred to State Department during the June 30 government handover. She volunteered to go to Iraq to put her journalistic ideals to the test and see what the media bias is like in a war zone. The following are excerpts from her emails sent to friends and family.
One : Baghdad,
July 1, 2004
The media coverage during transition was anticlimactic. Everyone was expecting
massive attacks on June 30th. Then the government suddenly was handed
over two days early and Bremer left the country. If there were any plans
for terror attacks, they fell through with the sudden transition. The
media were left without their bombs and fire stories. They still tried
to fill in the news with what they'd expected, but that meant they were
focusing disproportionate attention on the few small mortar attacks that
did occur.
In reality, attacks are at the lowest level since last October. Some intelligence reports I've heard quoted are suggesting the attack levels are going to stay low for a long time, perhaps permanently. You wouldn't know it by watching the news.
By always reporting every attack and bombing, the media make Iraq seem like we're always under fire. We get rapid visuals of people running between buildings, dodging rubble piles, and returning gunfire, but that's not reality. By focusing the camera on the occasional bomb blast, the media miss the true terror of living in Iraq.
The real fear, the kind that eats at one's dreams, comes from Iraq's veneer of normalcy. Every day we go to work. Every day people go about their lives. The streets are clogged with traffic. Iraqis walk down the sidewalks with their kids, they buy ice cream and socialize at night, and stall owners haggle with customers over the price of flat bread and fresh produce.
A Coalition employee can make 100 uneventful runs to their Ministry. Then one day, he or she is hit by a roadside bomb. That's where the fear comes in: the reminder that beneath the daily life, there are people who want to take us out. So we take the typical precautionary measures - travel in convoys, ride in armored cars, always have multiple gunners with plenty of ammo, check our cars for bombs before getting in, never hit anything in the road. ANYTHING. Terrorists have put bombs in everything from coke cans to dead dogs. But to survive, you have to accept that when your ticket is up, you're gone.
When I first arrived, I didn't have any basis for understanding the threats of a war zone. On my third night in Baghdad, I went out with a new group of friends. The guy driving had been here a year. He insisted that the crazier we acted, the less likely we were to be a target. So we drove fast, kept the windows down and blared rock music while laughing and yelling. It worked. We had a great night out on the town and made it back to the Green Zone.
That was back in March, when the threat level was much lower. That same guy who took us all out was attacked about a month ago. His car was rammed off the road, he was surrounded, and an angry crowd began to pull him from his car. A tank patrol turned up and saved his life. Now he jumps whenever someone puts their hand on his shoulder.
We all cope in a
variety of ways. The pressure tends to boil people down to the most elemental
drives: eat, sleep, work, live. A number of people turn to vices. (I've
turned to Cadbury) Some have affairs. We spend hours at the gym, pumping
up and trimming down - our stress leaking out with the sweat. Our conversations
skate easily across sensitive topics, and we laugh at that which we can't
change.
The humor here is difficult to translate to people back home. We deal
with such extreme situations and are put on a shifting moral ground of
gray sand. Where else do you have to fear children? Kids here have been
used to throw grenades, have reported convoy movements, and stabbed soldiers
with used syringes. When we go out, we have to watch everybody, including
kids.
Another gray area we deal with is the snap decisions that have to be made, often at the expense of someone's life. When a car comes speeding up behind us while we're out on a mission, the rear gunner has to make an instant decision--shoot or let them pass. The car could hold a car bomb or a woman in labor. When we get in traffic jams, do we bulldoze the cars out of the way, as it could be an ambush or do we quietly wait until the Iraqi traffic police get the traffic flowing?
The stress would be too much, if it wasn't for the dark humor, good friends, and belief that we are doing the right thing. We are helping a nation build the groundwork for the future.
Two: Undisclosed location in Iraq, July, 2004
I was helping guide the press around a high-end capability police training facility. When the press got ready to reboard their Blackhawks, the military media liaison invited me to accompany them to their next stop - a military training facility. I grabbed my backpack and strapped myself in.
We flew by helo for about 15 minutes and landed at the facility. We were taken to a series of empty buildings. The instructors had the trainees do a drill for us where they took over three of the buildings. The media with us conducted a few interviews, and then it was time for the next drill. Same thing, different buildings. I asked one of the instructors where I should be to take pictures, and he said in the front hallway of the first building. I walked over to the hallway and stood there with several of the instructors. We faced the building that still held all the trainees, waiting for their cue.
Just a note--these
were not basic recruits. They were Special Force trainees, to be used
for major operations requiring skilled teams. They were unlike the police
SWAT team I'd watched earlier that day. The SWAT team was all about secrecy
and stealth. Their job was to sneak up, grab a person, and go. These military
guys were more forward. They announced their arrival with a massive flash-bang
bomb (all noise, no explosives) and burst into a building with tightly
controlled teams shooting blanks.
The cue was given. A flash-bang exploded, and the trainees opened fire.
One team provided cover fire. The ammunition used is all blanks, but they
still flash and smoke and smell like a post-apocalypse fireworks celebration.
Two teams came running across the street in a low crouch, gun barrels
facing us. They flowed in a sinuous movement through the brush and along
the building before kicking in the front door. They ignored us and proceeded
to bash in already smashed doors, shooting and keeping in their tight
formations. The instructors moved among them, correcting the direction
of their weapons, pushing the guys into more defensive positions, urging
them to hurry. I followed the teams as they secured several classrooms.
The guys would occasionally glance at me, but focused on their job. It
was weird being an impartial observer as they took over a building - like
I was invisible.
As soon as the advance team shouted the "all clear," several more teams came running across the street. They quickly took up defensive positions in the recently secured building and began breaking the windows facing the next building. They set up their machine guns and then on cue, began laying down cover fire. I ducked, clapping my hands to my ears and backed out of the room. The sound waves of the blasts physically jarred me. An instructor grabbed my arm and together we ran to the next building just as the advance team was bursting in to secure it. We watched for a moment, and then the instructors pulled me to the third building. We could still hear the gunfire and shouts next door, but this building was still empty - littered with rubble and all the windows broken.
The instructor suggested
I hide in a corner of the room. It would allow me to get great pictures
as the guys burst in. Also, it would help train them to recognize a noncombatant.
"They'll pass the test if they don't shoot you," the instructor
explained.
I nodded and crouched down. The gunfire got closer, the soldiers' shouting bouncing off the walls as they came closer. Soon I could hear their boots in the hallway, sending rubble skittering across cement floors, the bang of doors as they were kicked in, and occasional breaking glass as they removed a window to shoot out or climb through. My knees began to ache from the crouching, and sweat dribbled down my neck, seeping into my shirt. The heat was stifling. The gunfire slowed down, replaced by closer shouting. The doorway down the hallway banged open; then the one next door. I double-checked my camera and mumbled under my breath, "They're just blanks, they're just blanks." My heart was beating in my wrists, my neck, and my stiffening knees.
A soldier whipped around the corner, his gun aimed at me. Three more appeared in a single breath behind him. They kept their guns pointed at me while they stepped cautiously into the room. I snapped the pictures. They scanned the area and backed out. Gone. The next doorway in the hallway banged open as they went on with the search. I slid from my knees onto my back, clutching the camera to my chest, breathed in a couple times, and grinned. Then I realized I was missing all the action, and ran back out into the foyer. One of the instructors met my eyes. I winked and said the trainees had passed. He said he knew they were good. "The last group would have shot you," he said. "These guys are much better."
Now as I watch the
media report on the Iraqis taking over control of their national security,
I have to grin. These guys are good. The insurgents are losing popular
support as they continue to attack Iraqi civilians. International police
trainers in the field have told our office that the transition completely
changed police morale. They are taking more initiative and continuing
to work toward a free Iraq, governed and protected by its own people.
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