Mideast Diaries

There is so much need in Baghdad, it’s so awful.  And it surrounds you every where you go.  I had my driver drop me off a block from the hotel.  While walking back, one man stopped me and asked if I’m American.  He spoke English pretty badly but enough to say he desperately needs work, could I hire him as a translator.  While I was explaining to him that I have a translator, another guy came up and asked me if he could use my Sat phone.  Then a whole group of people surrounded me and were saying things in Arabic that I didn’t understand.  I just walked away. (more…)

Working in Baghdad has changed.  It’s no longer a place where you can walk outside the hotel and the stories hurl themselves at you. It’s now hard work finding stories.  It’s odd, because it doesn’t seem possible something would change that quickly.  But it has and everyone is talking about it, all the reporters anyway.  I’ve been working so hard this week and I haven’t gotten a single story done.  It’s embarrassing and so frustrating.  (more…)

I went this morning to find the gun market.  It took longer than I would have thought, since everyone here has guns, I figured they’d be easy to find.  But it took a lot of time to find where people buy them.  It’s in the miserably poor Baghdad neighborhood called Ur.  I went in the morning, and it turns out they only sell guns in the afternoon.  There was one guy trying to unload a Chinese-made Kalachnikov for $33 and a Czech rifle for around $40. (more…)

It’s amazing how quickly you get used to things.  Baghdad now feels normal to me.  I mean, life is nowhere near back to normal, but the chaos and craziness is no longer shocking.  Those first few days were so exciting and everything I saw seemed unbelievable.  Now, I kind of get the place, get the rhythm of things, (more…)

Here’s an article, along with my commentary in bold:

U.S. General Says Baghdad Power to Be Restored (more…)

A bit of firefight outside, a pleasant breeze.  It’s not bad here.  It goes in waves.  There are such inconveniences.  I’m on the 18th floor of the hotel now.  I have my own room.  But it was many other people’s room before and I don’t think it’s been cleaned in a while.  I haven’t been able to shower for two days.  The power has been out all afternoon, so I’m writing in the dark and my battery is dying. (more…)

I had the most stressful evening and it had nothing to do with violence or danger.  It was just trying to file my story for tonight.  I have this great satellite phone that feeds data.  Most of the time, it’s amazing.  I can be anywhere in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East–in the middle of nowhere–and I have a high speed connection.  I was having so much fun today and yesterday instant messaging my brother and my dad and a good friend.  It was working so smoothly, I didn’t feel any rush to file.  So, when I started filing the Sat Phone just crapped out. (more…)

After yesterday’s terror, today was shockingly safe feeling.  I went out with a reporter who is a friend of mine.  We had a translator and a driver and just drove all over the city looking for stories.  I felt no fear at all.  We were wandering in big crowds.  Even some somewhat angry ones.  The city is safe.  At night it isn’t.  I found out that at around the time of my harrowing dark drive through the city, another car of reporters was surrounded by six guys with AK-47s. (more…)

The day started out great.  Yesterday, I moved to Um Qasr, the southern city in Iraq where a lot of journalist spend the night.  That’s not all I did.  I woke up at 6, went and bought a car, got a roof rack for the car, bought all these jerrycans of oil, bought all these camping supplies.  Bought all this food.  Packed up all my stuff, loaded up the car.  Somewhere during that time, I got a call from a friend that she met some woman who wants to go to Baghdad.  I wanted to go to Baghdad, but I didn’t want to go alone and I’ve been waiting days to find someone who will go with me.  Ideally, I wanted a caravan of several cars.  So, I talk to this woman on the phone and she and I agree to go to Um Qasr together and try our best to get to Baghdad.  Then I have to load all her stuff in the car.  The point is: I was moving at the fastest speed possible all day, scrambling to get going. (more…)

Yesterday, a couple reporters and I decided to go up to Basra.  I have to say, I feel like a total coward and loser for missing this whole war.  My assignment was not to cover the battles, but to cover the impact on the people.  And until this week, it just wasn’t possible to do much reporting with people.  There was no reason for me to go into the war, but I still feel like a loser.  I feel embarrassed writing this, actually. (more…)