- It’s thanks to the human shields who have flocked to Iraq. They protect the buildings with their bodies, says Hanan.
Thus a new piece of the tangled information puzzle is in place. From yet another box.
- He can see the lights from Baghdad!
Remy is excited. He has just been talking to his good friend Laurent via the satellite telephone. Laurent is travelling with one of the American units and has been south of Baghdad for a few days. Remy has only now been able to get in touch with him.
- He thinks they are moving again tomorrow. Let’s hope so.
While Remy looks forward to the ground war, I dread it. Remy lives life to the full when it is exploding around him. He would not admit it, but he enjoys war. He loves danger. Between wars he wanders melancholically around Paris; he lives in bars at night and sleeps during the day. Bosnia, Rwanda, Somalia, Afghanistan: that is Remy’s life. Now he is getting bored in Baghdad.
- I should go out to them, he says.
- Are you mad? Cross the front? You might as well commit suicide here and now.
The following evening I phone Laurent myself to hear where he is.
- We are standing by a bridge outside Baghdad, but as I don’t have a proper map I don’t know which one. Have you got a shower when I arrive? I haven’t washed in two weeks.
I do not have the heart to tell him the hotel is without water. Laurent has been accompanying a unit from Kuwait; he joined them the day I arrived in Baghdad. Now, three weeks on, he has some gruesome stories to tell.
- They are petrified and shoot before they think. One day they killed two little boys who were walking on the roadside. Suddenly they were lying on the ground. One time an old man was crossing the road. The Americans shot a warning shot but he did not react. They shot again but he continued to walk on. Then they picked him off and just left him lying in the road. When we arrive at a village they shoot in the air to warn people, a sign that they must go inside. If people don’t react they shoot to kill. One day when we approached a village we spied several men standing next to a cluster of houses. American logic runs along the lines: ‘If we shoot and they run, they are civilians.’ So if they don’t hide they are soldiers. Hence they shot and killed a woman in a field on the outskirts of the village. Everyone ran for cover. In other words: They were civilians. The Americans claim that fewer people are killed in this way. It is better to kill someone at once, in order to make people understand that they must stay inside, than to drive through an unknown village where someone might be a suicide bomber.
Laurent is sitting on the edge of the camp talking into his Thuraya. His unit might get the order to attack at any moment. He says he has learnt a lot about the strategy of the invading force.
- The American battle thesis is: 1. Protect yourselves. 2. Win the war. Their fear makes them dangerous. Today they shot at a father who was leading his son and daughter by the hand. The father was not hit but both the children were mortally wounded. The Americans just wanted to drive on, but I couldn’t take it any longer. I screamed at the driver. - What the hell! You can’t just drive on and let them bleed to death. I was so angry he had to stop. I got one of the cars to turn round and we drove them to a field hospital. I don’t know any more - we had to leave. I’m quite sure the little girl died, she had lost so much blood, was nearly unconscious when we got there.
Laurent sighs. The telephone line is silent.
- They cry at night.
- Who?
- The soldiers. I’m sure lots of them will have problems. Only a few do the actual shooting. As though they enjoy it. No one is punished. I have never before seen such trigger-happy soldiers, Laurent says. He has covered wars all over the world for the last twenty years. A bullet smashed his knee in Gaza a few years back and has left him with a limp. His trip to Iraq is the first one since the accident.
- I’m looking forward to the shower, Laurent says on a lighter note, to conclude the conversation. - And a glass.
Yves reaches Baghdad before him. A man with a long beard and wearing the dirtiest of clothes enters the reception area. I walk straight past him when he grabs my arm.
- Mademoiselle, he says, and laughs. Do you remember me?
Of course I remember Yves. He was one of the funniest people I met in Afghanistan. Meek as a lamb and with a ringing laugh. It was impossible not to laugh with him. His big passion was weapons. He knew the names of the weapons systems of all the world’s armies. It gave him great pleasure to discover the weapon and calibre used, according to sound, smell and strength. He travels the world reporting for the French weapons magazine
Raids
.
In Afghanistan I most remember him for the heart-rending conversations he held with his mother. He had no satellite telephone; he just travelled around with a laptop and wrote down everything when he got home. So he would borrow my phone.
- Maman!
C’est moi
. I’m alive. All is well. Really. Don’t be frightened, Maman. All is fine. Oh, Maman, don’t cry, oh. Your birthday? No, I didn’t forget it, but I’m in the mountains in Afghanistan, they don’t have telephones. Now? I’ve borrowed one. I’ll phone tomorrow. It’s expensive, Maman. I’m just borrowing one. I must put the phone down.
Oui
, Maman, I’ll be home soon.
Now here he is, in reception.
- I’ve driven from Kuwait, he says.
- From Kuwait? Through the front?
- It appears so. I lost sight of my unit; suddenly I was ahead of them.
He had driven his own car in tandem with the American forces. When he lost them he was arrested by the Iraqi police and brought to Hotel Palestine. Here Uday took care of him. He confiscated his car keys, laptop, camera and passport and placed him under house arrest. Yves was given a room and strict instructions not to leave the hotel.
When I meet him in reception his clothes are hanging in shreds, they look as though they have been rolled in sand and then in oil.
- Do you know where I can get my clothes washed? he asks.
Washed? The hotel is without water. My water bottles wouldn’t tackle that much dirt.
I spot the solution a few yards away. Amir. He is the same size as Yves. His mother has packed him off with masses of clothes, like Yves’ mother would like to have done. I ask if he can spare a few pieces for Yves. He can, and soon Yves is sitting in my room, washed and delighted in Amir’s clothes.
- Do you have vodka?
Yves empties his glass and starts to talk. About the journey, the Americans, how he got lost. In the Dora area, on the outskirts of Baghdad. The Americans rolled in with their columns of tanks. The Iraqis replied with artillery from positions by the road side. The Iraqis managed to hit an Abrams, one of the enormous American tanks, with a rocket-propelled grenade. It stopped completely and the soldiers inside sought refuge in another tank. One soldier was killed, two injured.
- The smoke lay black all over the area, from the burning Abrams and the Iraqi tank. The column turned and that’s when I got lost and found myself in Baghdad. But can you imagine, an Abrams. They left it! Never in the history of America, in the history of the American army, has an Abrams been left behind during a battle. Never!
When the Americans pulled out they bombed the tanks. No one will be able to pick over the remains. Yves has fallen silent. He drains another glass.
- This is the worst sort of warfare I have ever witnessed. Those columns are columns from hell. Every unit advances accompanied by about fifty vehicles. First the Abrams, then the Bradleys and the Amtracks for the troops, then the Miclick mine-detectors, and lastly a Humvee equipped with a loud-speaker telling people to stay inside. This column shoots at anything that moves. They don’t even wait for orders. There is obviously no punishment or sanction for killing civilians. That might have made them think and not act like cowboys. I’ve even seen them shoot cows. They love firing away with 25mm cannonballs at portraits of Saddam Hussein. They’re still taking revenge for 9/11. They talk a lot about that, but there’s no shooting discipline, it’s up to themselves, boys of twenty. I don’t blame them; I would have done the same when I was twenty.
Actually, Yves did exactly the same when he was twenty. He was a mercenary in the South African army and fought on the side of apartheid. But Yves has come to terms with his past.
- They are frightened, and suffering losses makes them more frightened. That spurs them on. It’s their commanders who are responsible, Yves sighs. - It was awful when we got to Mahmudiya, a village south of Baghdad. The Americans attacked the village because air surveillance showed that several tanks were hidden there. According to the villagers, more than two hundred people were killed. Of course the Iraqis shouldn’t have put tanks in the midst of civilians, but still. The Americans were taking no chances and shot wildly into the village to try and destroy it. Between Mahmudiya and Baghdad I saw many wrecked cars with all the passengers dead. I saw them shoot through the open window of a house.
- They’re forgetting one thing, Yves says, looking out through the taped balcony door. - The battle for hearts. He empties his glass. - That too must be won.
He falls into deep thought. I point to the balcony. The NERA aerial is erected, the one he knows so well.
- Do you want to phone home?
On 5 April I also have to write home. Not to maman, but to my editor in Norway who is fretting about all that might happen to me.
Aftenposten
’s chief editor, Einar Hanseid, says that if it were possible he would come and fetch me. I need to send him a calming mail. That means a bit of self-examination, to ascertain why I still choose to stay.
Dear Editor,
I am very grateful for your concern and the moral responsibility you feel. I regret the worry I am causing you.
I share both the worry and fear that something might happen. But I still feel safe enough. There are more than one hundred western journalists here, and I promise I will not approach the frontline whenever it reaches our street corners.
Of course I have considered leaving several times, but I just cannot make myself do it. I cannot pack my bags and go; it is as if this whole story has fastened itself in my brain. Of course I could pull myself together and say, Åsne, this is too dangerous, but I just cannot. Anyhow, now it is not safe to leave either. But do not think that I have not considered it carefully. I have come to realise that this is my life: to travel here, cover the war, the suffering, the events. I can’t leave until I know what will happen.
But please do know that I feel no pressure whatsoever from anyone to stay, except from myself. I feel no obligation to stay in spite of my large circle of readers. Eight European newspapers print my articles and I feel accountable to them - after all, I am here for them. But the moment I feel I want to leave, I will. The moment I am frightened, or uncertain, I will leave, assuming it is safe to do so.
Anyhow, the buck stops with me, as you have encouraged me to leave and would pull me out if you could. In other words, you have no moral responsibility, although I know you feel you do.
Apologies for my late reply, but I have been very busy.
Best wishes from Åsne
PS. Per Kristian, the bit about the working conditions you wanted me to write is inappropriate at the moment. Now that the Americans are at the doorsteps of Baghdad, I would prefer to write about that.
The war marches on. Bombs fall all night and all morning. Direction southeast, direction airport.
From the central command in Qatar come reports that the troops are advancing on Baghdad, while the Iraqi Information Minister obstinately insists they have got lost in the desert.
Thousands of inhabitants try to flee the neighbourhood around the airport. The Americans are soon to be seen outside their windows.
It is as though Baghdad is afraid to breathe. The broad avenues are deserted, only the skeletons of the market stalls remain, and rows of shut-up shops glare at the few passers-by.