It’s not as easy to read online as in print, but the Columbia Journalism Review has a very interesting oral history of the Iraq war from reporters who were actually there that you should check out.
Some "highlights":
The chaos went on — people forget — for two months at a high volume,
high intensity. Even a month and a half after the fall of the
government, people were going around in buses and picking a building,
go up there and load up and drive back to Sadr City. And they would
dismantle buildings, first of all the valuable and movable things, then
the furniture and then the windows and then the window frames and the
electrical and the light fixtures and eventually strip the thing bare.
This was going on in view of American soldiers, sometimes literally
across the street from where soldiers would be guarding some of the few
places that they were told to guard. And it was true — and famously or
infamously true — that the oil ministry was one of the few buildings
that was guarded from the very beginning.
Arabic was — language was the Achilles heel, not just of public affairs but of the whole operation. If there’s any single lesson for the military in general, all aspects of the military, it’s first and foremost the ability to speak to people in their own language. It hampered public affairs to no end, but it was a constant, unremitting problem at every level, every operational level.
There was a survey done at the First Cavalry Division, soon after the arrival of a guy named General Chiarelli, who commanded the First Cavalry Division [as of March 2004], and he brought in every company commander, something like a hundred company commanders. One hundred percent, every company commander in the First Cavalry Division, according to General Chiarelli, every one of them said their number one concern, their number one priority, number one problem they had was language. I mean every one of them, it was unanimous, and that’s about as rare as you can get, saying if there was one thing they needed to take with them, that they needed to focus on was either getting the language ability themselves or taking with them extremely competent linguists. Constant, unremitting problem.
And that problem has shown up constantly across the board in everything. Operational, logistics, you know, intelligence. But in my area, [public affairs] it was just an unremitting problem.
The military was far easier to deal with, and, in some ways, far more
understanding of what we were doing than the CPA. Their press office
was headed by Dan Senor, Bremer’s spokesman. Their press office was
packed with Republican Party loyalists, people who were hired for their
political views, not because they possessed a great degree of expertise
in public relations or expertise in the Middle East or in post-conflict
reconstruction. They were the ones who had put people on blacklists —
they were just incredibly sensitive about anything that might not
project the CPA in the most favorable light possible. Reporters were
seen as either sympathetic and on their side or those who didn’t get
it. And if you didn’t get it, either you were perhaps granted some
interviews so that you would get it or you would be written off as a
lost cause.
We have never recovered from the Abu Ghraib thing. And it’s likely all
the time we’re in Iraq, we never will. It will take a decade and
beyond. I mean, those pictures, a hundred years from now, when the
history of the Middle East is written, those things will be part and
parcel of whatever textbook that Iraqis and Syrians and others are
writing about the West. Those pictures. It’s part of the permanent
record. It’s like that guy in Vietnam that got his head shot. It’s just
a permanent part of the history. That will never go away.
It kind of amazes me and saddens me that to this day there are people who will not face the reality of the Iraq mess (this includes some Democrats). There are still some who think that any minute now Iraq will turn into a full-on western democracy and that the sacrifice of 3,000 Americans to destroy WMDs that don’t exist will have all been worth it. Even more disheartening, not all of the people who believe that are blind right-wing loyalists. To me, this is an even worse position to take than President Bush’s which is essentially a lot of machismo and bravado in not wanting to appear "weak" when the poor execution and justification of the war have already done that damage.
For the sake of American security and democracy we’ve got to get out of Iraq.
And now we are asking Iran and Syria (aka Rumsfeld’s axis of evil) to help out.
Man, the opinion of reporters on a war! That about closes the door on this one. Will be interesting to see if the new Congress agrees we have lost the war. I mean if we have lost it,as your ‘experts’ say, why stay. Who do we surrender to? Ourselves?
I’m no longer sure which frustrates me more; the clumsy and hamfisted way we decided to launch the war or the clumsy and hamfisted way the war was then executed.
Our own American culture of top-doggism is at least partially to blame. It’s one thing to refuse to learn French when you go to Paris on holiday, it’s another thing to refuse to learn Arabic or Farsi when you decide to invade and occupy. It’s arrogance, pure and simple, and it costs us more, in the long run, than just our foolish pride.
Man, the opinion of reporters on a war!
Speaking of arrogance, why do I think Dugger would say the same thing if this opinion had come from an ordinary Iraqi citizen?
“Man, the opinion of people who actually live in the war zone!”
Dugger | Nov 14, 2006 7:37:59 AM
“Will be interesting to see if the new Congress agrees we have lost the war?
Because, really, according to the REAL expert — Dugger — we should be settling in, prepared to continue losing lives for AT LEAST another 10-15 years. Just until Iraqis get back on their own two feet.
That was rather -well- lame, BD. Why would an ordinary Iraqi citizen know much about the macro geopolitical situation in Iraq? The reporters are all biased and live in an ideological liberal cocoon, but at least they hear more of the larger situation. But an ordinary Iraqi citizen???
I believe I would go with our military and senior government observers on site – Iraqi and US.
Dugger | Nov 14, 2006 10:24:30 AM
“I believe I would go with our military and senior government observers on site – Iraqi and US.”
pedrugger, we don’t CARE what you believe. We care that the invasion is a cocked up mess and that people continue to die.
“The reporters are all biased and live in an ideological liberal cocoon …”
Because the view is so much better from inside a Scotch bottle …
The ordinary Iraqi citizen is going to end up shaping the macro geopolitical situation in Iraq–because it’s ordinary Iraqi citizens who are either (a) joining the insurgency or (b) being attacked by it.
I would love to see you go up to one of these Iraqi citizens and tell them “it’s okay, your brother/sister/wife/child died for larger geopolitical issues that you can’t possibly understand as well as politicians and soldiers. Just hang in there and you’ll thank us later. Why, you won’t even remember that feeling of hatred you had after the country’s all better!
There goes Dugger knocking back his kool-aid and depending on the opinion of his Love Leaders. After all, what would average Iraqis care or know more about the macro-political forces that now rule their country. No one knows enough except the all-powerful George Bush, and his hand picked Team of Wheaty-Eaters!
And the reporters! Oh those biased reporters! Reporting on the negatives and not the positives! Those reporters should focus on the shiny schools with fresh coats of paint and not on the teachers being dragged out and shot in front of the students. If the reporters run stories that aren’t full of praise for George Bush’s macro political genius they are biased.
So Dugger, if we start with your premise that Bush and his team can see a macro political landscape that makes them nearly omniscient, why are they wrong all the time? We can start with the premises they put forward for the war, NO WMDs, no anti US terrorist ties, no threat to the US. Then go into their lack of understanding and planning for the aftermath of the war because they strictly based it only on what they wrongly supposed would happen (greeted as liberators). Next look at the last 3+ years of failing to adapt to the deteriorating security situation brought on by that lack of planning. Next look at the worsening terrorism situation in the world. Etc Etc Etc… Now again, Dugger, tell us of this know-all macro-political genius we should all rely on.
Hey Dugger, why don’t you show some balls and go report from Iraq before bleating about “biased” reporters and sounding again like an idiot.
Dugger will never go to Iraq (even though it’s safer than Los Angeles County!) because he understands the “macro geopolitical situation” there: People get killed in Iraq.
This is too funny not to be shared:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,1541295,00.html
OW,
Hey OW. Would the reporters be any less baised if I did go? BTW Rush Limabaugh went to Iraq and Afghan, you know. Does that mean he has much, much bigger balls than lil’ OW????? Letting Rush show you up in the courage department, OW?
Over.
Rush Limbaugh went under protection of armed guard, controlled by Centcom. Ditto for Al Franken. These reporters are running around Iraq with the very real danger of being beheading. They’ve got way more balls than either you or I have. Why are you so stupid?
Rush Limabaugh went to Iraq and Afghan
Did he take his little blue pills along?
Yes, Dugger would go to Iraq and spend all his time drinking Scotch in the Green Zone, slurring about how the Iraqis “Jush don geh it.”
I think Rush Limbaugh went for the Fraternity initiations.
Rush flew around in a C-130 jump seat (ever done that, not comfortable)in Iraq and Afghan. A C-130 is much more vulnerable than a high flying jet – especially in less secure areas. If those reporters are courageous, and most are, then Rush is too. Don’t you hate it.
Rush can’t have it both ways–either he was brave for going into a dangerous territory, or these liberal-bubblehead reporters are lying about how dangerous it is.
If those reporters are courageous, and most are, then Rush is too.
I wonder if they all had the same security arrangements…
Ok, I officially refuse to communicate with people this dumb. Go sign up, Dugger, because there’s a decent soldier getting shot instead of Republican wastes of space.
Dugger, still waiting on that list of Bush administration WMD claims that turned out to be true. Get back to work.
Dugger’s and his allies’, like our misAdministration’s, refusal to at least engage reality in Iraq is one of the most pro-terrorist acts I can imagine. bin Laden doesn’t engage in Fantasyland terror, but rather real-world terror.
LoLLLLLL!!
Oliver, it appears you hit a nervsy wervsy with the fucking know it all …
Dugger | Nov 14, 2006 3:45:24 PM
“Would the reporters be any less baised if I did go? BTW Rush Limabaugh went to Iraq and Afghan, you know. Does that mean he has much, much bigger balls than lil’ OW????? Letting Rush show you up in the courage department, OW? Over.”
Obviously this whole thing is biased. Just look at the doctored-up photo of smoke over Baghdad. The patriot nosepickers at LGF should be all over this.
OW, “Go sign up, Dugger’
Shouldn’t you at least do it once before I do it twice?
Sniff … oh god … snifffff ….
That’s beautiful, pedugger.