Inside Iraq Blog - Times Online - WBLG

Get out of my house, shrieks the Iraqi woman

“What are you doing in my house?” screamed the furious Iraqi woman as she walked in on a group of American and Iraqi soldiers who were crashing around her living room after kicking down her front door.
“Get out, get out,” she shouted in broken English, shaking her fists in rage at the troops who had frozen as if caught in the act of doing something naughty.
Surveying the damage, the woman shrieked: “Are you happy now?”
American soldiers, and increasingly their Iraqi counterparts, have been conducting house-to-house searches since the invasion, checking neighbourhoods for weapons, insurgents, dead bodies and kidnap victims in a bid to quell the violence that has consumed Iraq.
Hoping to cause minimum inconvenience, the military has softened its approach, always knocking on the front door of a house and waiting to be shown in.
Many homes in dangerous areas, however, are empty after the occupants fled the escalating violence, leaving the soldiers with no option but to break open the front gate and bust down the front door, either with a boot or a crowbar.

Unfortunately on this occasion last Thursday during a search through Saydiyah, a flashpoint mixed Sunni and Shia neighbourhood in southern Baghdad, the owner of one rundown house that had appeared unoccupied showed up after her door had already been knocked in.

Christmas tree shopping in Baghdad

Christmas in Baghdad was always going to be rather lonely so I decided to cheer myself up by buying a tree and all the trimmings.

Admittedly there is a lack of nurseries flogging Norwegian firs in the city and I have yet to see any hand-carved wooden decorations or plumes of thick tinsel. However, fake trees (made in China), flashing coils of colourful lights and boxes of baubles are for sale at certain stores.
Feeling rather excited at the prospect of getting into the festive spirit, I donned a headscarf, hoisted my Iraqi handbag over one shoulder and headed to the central commercial district of Karada with a couple of Iraqi colleagues last week.
It was still a bit early in the morning when we arrived so the three of us ducked into a café to wait until more shops opened.

Settling down on wicker benches around a circular table, we ordered some Iraqi coffee – a strong drink with a bitter taste disguised by lots of sugar that comes in a thimble-sized cup.
One of the guys I was with also asked for a hookah pipe. Soon the air was filled with apple-smelling fumes as he puffed away, while we chatted in low voices against a backdrop of Arabic pop music strumming from a television set in the corner of the otherwise empty bar.
About 45 minutes later it was time to heave ourselves up and hit the shops, or at least hop back into our car and drive a few hundred metres down the road to a rather dilapidated bits and bobs store that had also turned its hand to Christmas gear for the holiday season.

Basra handover, no sleep and a broken plane

Covering the British handover of Basra was always going to be painful after a sleepless night.
Unfortunately I had to wait for my correspondent in the city to file some overnight quotes to me for an on-the-ground piece to run that day. An Internet meltdown at his end meant that this did not happen until 2 o'clock on handover morning and I spent the next three hours writing up the story.
Camped at a US military press centre in Baghdad’s Green Zone where embedded journalists stay when in transit, I gave up any chance of sleep after finishing the work and had a shower instead.
That was when it dawned on me that I had forgotten to pack any form of soap or a towel.
Figuring that water alone was better than nothing, I stepped into one of the plastic shower cubicles in a trailer at the press area before drying myself off with a miniscule flannel, which for some obscure reason I had remembered to bring.
Then my mobile phone rang.
It was 5.30am my time and 2.30am in London where by best friend Louise was calling me from the middle of the dance floor at a rugby club party to let me know that the original version of a classic tune we used to love (Apparently Nothing by The Young Disciples) was being played.
Standing there with my flannel, I sportingly bopped along for a few moments before telling her that I really ought to go as I had a flight to catch.

Father Christmas visits Baghdad

Father Christmas visited Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone on Saturday evening.

Flanked by Mother Christmas, a reindeer and a couple of elves, he dropped by the American Embassy compound to spread some festive cheer among a few dozen US soldiers and diplomats as well as a smattering of officials from other countries.
“We appreciate all your hard work in the North Pole. Thank you,” Father Christmas said, standing on a raised platform that had been made to look like a brick chimney.

His appearance was part of a Christmas tree lighting ceremony on a wide patio area next to an outdoor swimming pool at the former Republican Palace of Saddam Hussein where the embassy is temporarily housed.
Also getting involved in the Yuletide spirit, the top British officer in Iraq had the honour of turning on a twinkling string of lights that twisted around the large, brightly decorated Christmas tree, which stood next to a giant inflatable snowman.
Lieutenant General Bill Rollo dutifully climbed onto the chimney-stage and flicked the light switch as the assembled crowd sipped hot chocolate from polystyrene cups and munched Christmas cookies.

Interpreter dismay at British rejection

Two other former interpreters are also dismayed at being denied access to the Government's assistance package because their contracts were "terminated for absence".
I.K. Salman, who has featured in an earlier blog, left his job and fled Iraq with his wife and two children after an armed gang turned up outside his house in Basra in March 2005.
“They [the British forces] must know very well that attending work after receiving the threat was going to be like a death sentence to me,” said the 43-year-old.
“When I informed one of the British officers about my resignation over the phone immediately after receiving the threat he never told me that I need to send them a written letter and he just accepted my resignation over the phone and said to me that he feels sorry to hear this.”
Mr Salman, who currently lives in Damascus, continued: “It’s not only my case it’s also the case with all the other interpreters who were threatened.
“I think the British Government was only trying, by making us fill these forms, to show the public and the media that they are going to help those people who served them in Iraq ... but then they put this sophisticated criteria just so none of us or maybe only a handful of interpreters will be eligible for this scheme.”

Yanked from sleep by machine gun fire

The explosion of gunshots shook my bedroom window, yanking me out of sleep in an instant on my third night back in Baghdad.
Iraqi police had come under fire from a building near my hotel and were responding. An army unit also stepped in, adding extra rounds of heavy machine gun fire.
After three weeks out of the country, the gunfight in the early hours of Tuesday morning was a harsh reminder that although violence in Iraq on the whole is down there are still plenty of dangers.
Sitting up in bed trying to work out what was happening, I sent a text message to a fellow journalist friend who was sleeping a few floors below me in the same hotel.
“What the f*** is going on outside?” I asked.
She replied: “No clue. Just keep away from the windows.” Followed by: “Don’t they know there are people trying to sleep around here!?”