Inside Iraq Blog - Times Online - WBLG

Pilgrims defiant after Baghdad bombings

A multiple suicide bombing by three women failed to dampen the spirits of about one million people in Baghdad this week who flocked to a revered shrine in the north of the capital for the climax of a major religious event.
One of my reporters, Sarmad Ali, was among the streams of flag-waving pilgrims who visited the Khadamiya shrine barely 24 hours after the blasts, which left about 35 people dead and many more wounded.
This is what he saw as he took part in the procession to mark the death of Imam al-Kadham, one of Shia Islam's 12 imams.
From early morning on Tuesday, buses ferried men, women and children from central Bagdad towards the shrine. Many other people chose to walk, passing through layer upon layer of check points as they approached their destination.
Women dressed in black wearing a badge that said ‘search committee’ frisked fellow females to reduce the chances of a repeat attack. Mobile phones were also taken off everyone as they entered the Khadamiya neighbourhood.
Sweltering under the midday sun, pilgrims were able to take shelter in one of many tents that lined the route, offering refreshments inside. Local people also sprayed visitors with water and perfume to help to cool them down.
An overall improvement in security in and around Baghdad enabled families living in former hotspot areas, such as Diyala province to the northeast of the capital and the town of Madaen to the southeast, to take part in the pilgrimage, some for the first time since the invasion.
Many of these people wept hard as they stood to pay their respect inside the shrine. Some carried photographs of relatives they had lost in the violence that consumed Iraq from 2003.

Obama draws crowds at US Embassy in Baghdad

Covering the visit of Barack Obama to Iraq was never going to be easy.
Media access was so carefully controlled that a TV crew was apparently told not to film a stand-up shot in front of a couple of Humvees outside the US Embassy in Baghdad because it might convey military endorsement of the Illinois senator. 
The press was also kept away from a meet-and-greet event “for civilian and military constituents” starring Mr Obama at the Embassy last night.
He, I subsequently learnt, bounded onto a stage to cheers from the assembled crowd in a central hall that also contains a Starbucks-style coffee bar.
Several hundred people, including State Department employees, military personnel and civilian contractors jostled one another in the standing room only gathering for a view of the Democratic presidential candidate.
Mr Obama was accompanied on stage by senators Chuck Hagel and Jack Reed, but it was evident that this was a one-man show. Mr Hagel even quipped at one point: "Jack and I were surprised so many of you came out to see the two of us."
All three men made brief remarks, each expressing their appreciation for the efforts of the military and diplomatic communities in Iraq. Mr Obama thanked "sailors, soldiers, active duty, National Guard, State Department, USAID [and] civilian contractors".
Loud cheering erupted when Mr Obama raised the possibility of his becoming the next "commander-in-chief," before adding how proud he is of the troops.
Afterwards, the White House hopeful worked the room, shaking hands and smiling for photographs. [For pictures of this event do a search for "Barack Obama in Baghdad" on www.flickr.com].
Earlier in the day there was a brief opportunity for reporters also to glimpse Mr Obama when he met Iraq’s Prime Minister at his residence in the Green Zone.  With expectations minimal, I and a couple of colleagues decided to give it a shot.

From Mr Brown to Miss Scarlet

It is just before midday and swelteringly hot in Baghdad.
I am standing outside the blast walls that surround the British Embassy, out of breath and dripping in sweat, having spent the morning chasing around the Green Zone on the trail of Gordon Brown.
Stern-faced Gurkhas guarding the compound regard me with suspicion as I plead to be let inside (and out of the sun) for a press conference that he is due to give.
After a short wait, I’m granted access and taken to an air-conditioned room where UK journalists travelling with the Prime Minister are also being kept.
Mr Brown only has a few, spare minutes during a flying visit to Baghdad to talk to the media before setting off to catch a plane down to Basra.
Addressing the visiting UK reporters, several Iraqi journalists and me the lone Baghdad-based-correspondent-for-a-British-newspaper, he touches on plans to cut troop numbers, dutifully answers a few questions and then leaves.
Show over, the travelling press pack is ushered on to a bus to follow.
I also try to get a lift to the nearest exit but am told there is not enough petrol in the tank.
Alone again in the sun, the only option is to trudge by foot out of the Embassy and along the network of motorway-size roads, linked by concrete roundabouts to a bridge that crosses the Tigris and leads out of the Green Zone.
Not surprisingly, most foreigners move around this compound, which measures about 4 square miles, by vehicle because: a. Of its size; b. The weather is punishingly hot at this time of year; and c. There is still a kidnap threat.
Sadly due to a badging anomaly, I am still waiting for the right pass to get my car through the checkpoints, so am forced to take a bit of a risk whenever I visit the Green Zone, either organising a lift with the person I’m meeting; catching a cab or, when strapped for cash (as I was at that moment), walking.
After a few paces it becomes apparent that I stick out a mile.
Not only am I the only person stupid enough to be walking in the midday heat but I am also a rather conspicuous, blonde-haired foreigner.
It doesn’t take long for some Iraqi man in a dodgy-looking, white, Mitsubishi pick-up truck to take an interest.

Eating out with Iraq's Prime Minister

My fixer was just tucking into his main course of lamb kebabs at a posh restaurant in central Baghdad when a commotion outside caught his attention.
Curiosity aroused, he went to the front door in time to see scores of black, four-wheel drives and pick-up trucks packed with guards pull up in the car-park and on the street.
The vehicles displayed Government badges, prompting my fixer to conclude that some minor Iraqi politician was coming in for dinner.
To his surprise, the suited figure of none other than Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, emerged, accompanied by two young girls, and walked inside.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” said my fixer. “It is the first time I have seen a member of the Government outside the Green Zone.”
Smiling calmly as fellow diners froze mid-mouthful to stare, Mr Maliki strolled over to a table with his young companions – thought to be daughters or grandchildren – while an entourage of burly bodyguards kept a watchful eye.
Within moments, there was a scraping of chairs as people, food forgotten,  scrambled over to try to take a picture with their mustachioed leader.
One of the guards, however, intervened, saying: “Please give him some privacy”, adding that the Prime Minister would pose for photographs after he had eaten.
The pop-star welcome was a far cry from the emotions Mr Maliki’s name used to provoke barely a year ago, when sectarian violence was still high.
People would mock him as weak and ineffective, calling for a tougher man at the top, with some even lamenting the end of Saddam Hussein’s rule.
But a series of crackdowns on Shia militias in the south and al-Qaeda-sponsored fighters in central and northern Iraq has earned Mr Maliki a lot of new fans.
“You eliminated the terrorists. We like what you did,” said one such admirer at the Saysban restaurant.
After he finished eating, the Prime Minister allowed about 10 people to pose next to him one at a time for a photograph. One old woman who was among the chosen few shook his hand, saying: “I prayed to God to help and support you.”
Not everyone was impressed with Mr Maliki’s dinnertime spectacle.
“Why did he not go to eat at a restaurant in Amariya?” scoffed one scathing diner, referring to a notoriously dangerous part of Baghdad. “It is safe here. He is just putting on a show to do well at the next elections.”
Iraqis are due to vote in provincial elections later this year, while the next general election is scheduled to take place in 2009.

[Picture: Nouri al-Maliki talking to the press outside Downing St, after talks with  British PM, Gordon Brown. By Chris Harris for The Times]

The summer hit in Iraq - roadtrips from Basra to Ramadi

The hit song of this summer in Iraq is not some chant in praise of Moqtada al-Sadr but a plaintive, rollicking tale of love and road trips around the country in a communal taxi (the huge GMC Suburbans that are the modern ‘ships of the desert’). In true Iraqi style, Hossam al-Rasam’s chartbuster – which blares from radios in markets and cars stuck in traffic jams – is called “Shotgun”.

Hey Hamoud bring the shotgun so you hear its gunfire

See the look from the eyes of my love and compare them to it,

The shotgun might miss its target sometimes,

But sorry Hamoud the look from her eyes are always lethal

To Ramadi, to Ramadi, take me to Ramadi

Oh GMC driver! take me back to Ramadi. My family is all in Ramadi

Oh Hamoud when she looks, men will fall on both sides,

Her eyes are like a rifle, and you can't tell from where the bullets are coming

The shotgun didn't kill me, but listen to me Hamoud the look from her eyes did

Oh Hamoud forgive me the look from her eyes is lethal

To Basra, this beautiful victorious Basra

Take me to Basra.

Oh GMC driver take me back again to Ramadi

Oh Hilla, the love of Hilla killed me I was raised in the hands of Hilla

Nothing is more beautiful than Hilla

If they ask me from where you are, I would say I'm from Hilla

Oh GMC driver take me back again to Ramadi

Our people are in Ramadi.

It is a song that captures the moment in Iraq. For years, people have been too afraid to travel the lawless roads, where Al Qaeda or Shia militias set up checkpoints with total impunity: they would fall on people from the wrong sect, or linked to the government in some way, drag them from their cars and execute them on the spot, stealing or burning their cars in front of other shocked travelers.

They weren’t big fans of pop jingles, either.

But those days are gone, at least for the time being. Iraq’s roads are now encrusted with army and police checkpoints, and the troops are actually equipped with professional, heavy-duty equipment – armoured trucks and Humvees with .50 cal machineguns, giant Hesco sandbags surrounding little Beau Geste desert forts.

A year ago, you never knew who was actually manning Iraq’s impromptu checkpoints – Mahdi militiamen in army uniforms, or policemen in league with crime gangs who would radio your vehicle description ahead so you could be kidnapped on some lonely, desert highway. This summer, however, that has changed. Even western journalists – the most conspicuous targets for kidnapping – can drive from Baghdad to Basra (albeit dressed in Iraqi clothes, and in my case with my brown hair dyed jet black), a journey that has been off limits for three years or more. Until recently, you would have to take the once-a-week plane to the southern port, then risk driving into a militia-controlled city where any one of a dozen armed Islamist Mafias could pick you off at any time. Either that or arrange an embed with the British military.

Now, driving into Basra is like driving into a military camp – blast walls and ID checks, the occasional Soviet-era tank squatting on a bridge next to some brand new, US-issue MRAP anti-mine troop carrier. It feels like a different country. You can even drive into the Triangle of Death, just south of Baghdad, where just last year an American army unit was ambushed and two of its soldiers carried off to a gruesome death.

Driving south through Baghdad, you pass through a concrete canyon of high blast walls that separate one warring neighbourhood from another. The road is thick with checkpoints, some occasionally manned by the so-called 'Sons of Iraq,' the former Sunni insurgents who now form armed neighbourhood watch patrols and are paid by the US military.

Speeding down the road, you occasionally pass a concrete barrier with a cryptic message spelled out in duct tape: “SOI CP - Do Not Shoot.” This indicates a Sons of Iraq checkpoint: the militiamen often do not wear uniforms, and are therefore susceptible to being shot at by their nervous US allies, given that all gunmen look pretty much the same. It reminded me of a something a colleague reported in the chaotic days after the invasion in 2003 – at a newly reopened Baghdad courthouse, a man in suit with a sign hanging round his neck in English: “Judge, do not arrest.”

Some things don’t change that much.