More and more frequently since I have started reading books about the Middle East and Iraq I have begun to see how Iraq has been shaped and changed. For the last five years, I read several books. Before those five years, I poured most of my attention on literature, avoiding anything that has to do with politics, especially Saddam’s in order to survive. The books I read were mostly written by journalists who spent quite a long time in Iraq before, during and after the invasion. In this thread, I would like to reflect my opinion about a book I have just finished reading. “War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq” by the newly-promoted NBC reporter Richard Engel. After reading Shadid’s “Night Draws Near,” Chandrasekaran’s “Emperial Life in the Emerald City,” and Packer’s “The Assassin’s Gate” I thought no other journalist than those three could write about Iraq the way they did. But after reading Engel’s I discovered I was wrong.
The book is a must read for every American or non-American who wants to know what went wrong and what happened as a result of that.
One of my graduation presents was a Borders Bookstore gift card. Instead of buying something that might be forgotten pretty soon, I decided to buy a book. When I went to Borders, I found many interesting titles attracting my attention like a desperate child grabbing his father’s sleeves to buy him candy. On the shelf of the ‘Memoirs and Biographies’ sat ‘War Journal,’ shining with a crystal clear picture of Richard Engel. The young American reporter was standing in what I believe the area facing al-Hamra hotel where his NBC’s office was located, the same place where a truck suicide bomber destroyed part of the hotel and the collapsed the surrounding apartment buildings. Because I stood on that particular spot before and after it was destroyed, my eyes couldn’t resist gazing at the picture. I wasn’t looking at Engel, more than on the destroyed building and the three children playing behind him among the rubble and the concrete barriers that were smartly hidden by the photographer.
In the photo, Engels eyes gave me several impressions. I am kind of a mind a look ‘reader.’ I judge on people when I see how they react to something through their look. You can lie or do a certain gesture, but your eyes can never lie. Engels’ eyes gave me two impressions: one of a ‘cocky’ reporter who stayed long enough to understand what Iraq and Iraqis are really like in the war. The other was that of someone fatigued, stressed out, and kind of sad.
I let my fingers leaf through the pages of the book until my eyes impeded, catching something that summed up what I and many other Iraqi bloggers had been talking about regarding the elections in Iraq. “Millions [of Iraqis] did in fact turn out,” Engel wrote. “but they weren’t embracing democracy. They were just following orders…” he added. That very statement made decide to buy the book, even though it cost more than the value of the gift card.
I was curious to know why he gave such a statement that most pro-war Americans would slam him for!
The book’s title made me buy it too in order to see his own perspective and how he felt as a reporter and a human being in covering the war. After all, I was one. But my case was kind of different. I was watching the war as an Iraqi and a journalist. I saw my country destroyed in front of my eyes.
Engel’s first two chapters were not emotional as you would expect in reading a journal or a memoir. It was more like analytical statements in a history book, not in a journal. But when I moved on in reading the rest of the book I found out that the flow of the events and the way they are described in connection to his own feeling was more interesting than I expected it to be. I think the first ‘boring’ chapters were actually preparing me, the reader, to see how things happened. Eventually, I understood why it appeared to be so. I might be wrong, but I think there was a reason.
The book starts with the scene where he was covering Saddam’s capture like a rat in a hole. I bet I don’t need to describe how that happened, because if you don’t know how it happened, we have a problem. The chapter was detailed, well backgrounded and to the point, but it had no emotion. But the moment you leap to the third chapter, things start to move a little more interesting. Engel connects his work life, including his bureau and staff members with what was happening around them in the to be war-torn Baghdad.
We all know sequence of the events that happened since the invasion, I hope. Engel makes sure you DO know. He does that by a very clear timeline sequence of one event that led to the other like a chain reaction. He starts it with the fact that the Sunnis discovering they were no longer the men-in-power and how in contrary to that Shiites WERE in fact the ones to be in charge. He writes about it in extensive details starting from the Governing Council ending with the consequences of the “Iranian-monitored” and “American-backed” elections.
Engel continues writing by mentioning that how the Sunnis became frustrated, knowing that the Shiites were going to win in the elections because they were the majority. So they decided to boycott and turn to insurgency where bloodthirsty al-Qaeda was waiting for a chance to impose its terror power in Iraq. Who else other than the Shiite “infidels” deserves to be attacked the most? As a result, Shiite militiamen did not stand still and started attacking back. In the middle innocent people died from both sects died, of course.
Engel did an amazing job in describing one of the scariest nightmares Iraq had ever gone through. Ibrahim Jaafari, the “elected” Prime Minister of Iraq. He compared him to his competitor at the time, Ayad Allawi, who was liked by many Iraqis for his strong personality. By nature, we Iraqis do not like sissies, soft spoken, and delicate leaders. Jaafari was that kind of a ‘leader.’ The best part written about Jaafari was that when a Kurdish politician told Engel, “You can’t get answers from him. All he does is he talks philosophy.” Engel wrote, “Iraq didn’t need a philosopher. It needed a leader.” I totally agree.
When you keep reading, you could definitely tell how things were declining from bad to worse to the worst. Engel does it in a very clear and simple way, unlike many books that were written about Iraq. He does it like a story, unlike his first chapters. His tone of writing changes that sometimes I feel that he actually wrote those exact words in a notebook. He mentioned that he kept a video journal. So that might be it.
By 2006, Engels tone could be barely recognized the same. He writes in details how he didn’t care less when he saw dead, rotten and burned bodies and destroyed buildings. I read that part and remembered how I had the exact same feeling when I was there working for the Washington Post. But I left in mid 2006 and came to the U.S. to pursue a Master’s degree. I had nightmares. I jumped every time I heard thunder or ambulance sirens. It took me two years to heal, that’s if I am healed. But the other day I was in Washington DC and something happened that made reconsider knowing myself, my old self. One evening when I was coming back from the Metro station to my friends place, I happened to witness something terrible. I was with a friend of mine when I heard people screaming and gathering to see what happened on the first floor of the station. I peered and saw a young athletic man in blue shirt and brown pants lying on the floor bleeding from his head while he was motionless. There was a young blond woman weeping and screaming next to him while other people were calling for ambulance. I saw the man lying on his back (his head was facing the ceiling), but he seemed he was still alive since his abdomen was moving up and down.. When I saw the man the first time, I didn't have the "normal" feeling I had in Baghdad two years ago. This time, I felt really normal. I was shocked like everybody in the station. I had this horrible feeling of a man dying in front of me. If I were in Iraq, I would have moved on and might not even think about for more than a minute, but that incident haunted me. It was a sad incident but it made me realize that I am finally "recovered." I have my senses back. I felt like a normal person again. It was such a strange feeling I never expected.
I wonder how long it’s going to take Engel to “recover.” War is always ugly. It affects the core of your soul, no matter how strong you are.
The best time to read is when you travel, I believe. I went to Washington D.C. again, volunteering to help The List Project and Upwardly Global with their career summit they held for Iraqi professionals who were resettled in the United States recently after receiving death threats back home. I took the cheap, 15-dollar Chinatown bus to get there. On the way, I was still reading the book and was in the final chapters of it. Engels tone became even sadder. He recalled and described stories that no human being could ever endure seeing. Stories that not even people would watch in horror movies. The collapse, the control of the outlaws, the segregation, the displacement and the monstrous way of killing people. He talked about orphans, his own employees’ self destruction, and mostly HIS own destruction: his divorce.
At the end Engel meets with his country’s ill-famed president. He shoots his words and facts in the best interview with Bush I have ever read. Bush admits to Engel that the war was more like a personal decision than a long-range strategy for the Middle East. "I know people are saying we should have left things the way they were,” Bush tells Engel. “but I changed after 9/11. I had to act. I don't care if it created more enemies. I had to act."
As a result to that action, more than 4 million Iraqis became refugees, hundreds of thousands died, more than 4,000 American soldiers lost their lives in vague-aimed war and hatred against the American nation increased because of that ‘war on terror.’ But who cares? The president didn’t for sure. He had to act!
