oh g*d
I think this is the worst, yet. I'm in shock. I want him home. Now. Especially after this. Anyway, here's the latest installment.
Baghdad Notes/Requiem for a journalist
Things at the Al Mansour can change in an instant. One moment you're making
conversation, writing a script or trading very bad jokes in the office or
around the makeshift kitchen table, and the next there are explosions and
you're low to the ground.
So it was on Saturday night. We were finishing a script when there when a
series of explosions rocked the hotel. There's some dispute about how many
followed - between four and six. What is not in dispute is that they were
dangerously close. At first, we though the hotel was under fire. The answer
turned out to be, if anything, worse.
Our producer, Ben Plesser, crept onto the balcony and, using a big air
conditioning unit as cover, raised up enough to look down to the left -
where he spotted the insurgents firing off mortars. They were just past the
tennis courts in an open field. We were not the target, but down there about
100 yards away, the insurgents were using us as cover for their firing zone.
The bad news came fast. The targets were two hotels across the Tigris River,
well known as home to American civilians working for contractors, and also
home to several US media outlets. And at one of them some of our people were
there for a Saturday night barbeque hosted by the good folks at Fox News.
In minutes, we had reached them by radio. The party was interrupted when the
first mortars hit but the explosions were a ways away. But as the insurgents
kept firing, their aim got better and the hits were closer. The people
outside dashed inside.
First question is always the one that stops the heart - was anyone hurt.
What we really meant - were any of our people, our friends, the people who
left a while ago to relax and chat and have a drink...were any of them hurt.
There were tense moments and crackling radio exchange and then the
answer...no.
In fact, no one was hurt - friend or foe.
I went to my room at midnight, badly in need of escape. So I watched a DVD
of "It's a Wonderful Life." How much difference one man's life makes in the
world. It didn't work. It was almost 5 am before tiredness trumped adrenalin
and my eyes closed.
So, of course, that meant I missed round two.
Our hotel is on Haifa Street. About a mile or so away there is always
shooting. Around here the seasoned hands call it "Bandit Junction," because
there are rival gangs fighting for control. On a clear and bright Sunday
dawn, tailor-made for sleeping in and having pancakes for breakfast, the
fighting renewed. This time they got their target.
It was a Bradley fighting vehicle, disabled in the middle of the street just
after dawn at about 7 am. A Bradley is heavily armed, moving on tank tracks,
designed to take infantry safely into the heart of the battlefield. It is
amazingly uncomfortable inside - hot and stuffy, men crowded in the back
waiting for the back door to drop so they could run out into combat.
Our cameraman, Sean Keane, heard the noise and from the depths of sleep
dragged himself and his camera to the roof and started taking pictures.
And there you see, through his long lens, the Bradley burning furiously. The
Americans inside had long since escaped with minor injuries. Other American
Bradleys came onto the scene, moving their turrets left and right, the
damaged Bradley now fully engulfed and starting to explode as ammunition
inside was burning.
As the military put it, the ammunition was cooking and going off, in a
series of blasts.
Once the US vehicles pulled out, the people hiding in nearby buildings
poured in. Some were curious, some to celebrate America's embarrassment. At
that point, the US military tells us, six rockets were fired from two
swooping helicopter at the Bradley to destroy it and prevent local people
looting it or being hurt by exploding ammunition. (The story later changed
to - the helicopters were just checking it our when someone fired at them so
they fired back.)
Unfortunately, there were crowds of people around the hulk. Several were
killed, including a producer for one the Arab cable news outlets who was
talking into a camera when it happened. The camera jumps wildly, drops of
blood splattering the lens.
At the end of it, your thoughts turn to what you would have done. Had we
been on the scene when the US convoy left the burning Bradley behind, we
would have done what journalists do - we would have run closer for a better
picture. It's our instinct and our training and our competitive hunger to be
first and get close. It's how we cover a story.
Just like the producer.
###
Thank god I'm not a soldier's daughter. I can't even begin to send those families enough prayers - and given how un-religious I am, that means something.