Inshallah is a big deal in Baghdad. It means “God willing” and it follows pretty much every answer.
“Can we get a better map?” “Yes, inshallah.” “What’s for lunch?” “Chicken, inshallah.” “Are we going to survive this trip?” “Inshallah.”I’ll never forget a conversation between Tom, an American correspondent who’d been “in country” for more than a year, and Omar, an Iraqi who handled the business side of the Baghdad news bureau where I worked. Tom wanted an interview with an Iraqi general. “Omar, get that for me.” “Inshallah.” No, not inshallah, I really need this.” “Of course, inshallah.” “Can you stop with the inshallahs?” “Yes, inshallah.”I was laughing at the memory last week, and remembered, sadly and fondly, many other scenes after getting an email from a friend, Roy Gutman, announcing that this week the bureau will shut down. The U.S. military effort ended a week ago, so it’s time to move on to other stories.Back in 2003, I opened the bureau. We were Knight Ridder then. After hitching a ride on a Marine chopper into Baghdad (I’d been embedded with Marines for the invasion from Kuwait) I found a room in a hotel that was somehow available, despite the bomb that had shorn off the half of it that faced the Tigris River. It was hardly luxury, and only slightly before Baghdad officially fell. There were U.S. Marines camped out on the street two floors below my window.During the day, the “Devil Dogs,” or Marines, would borrow my satellite phone to call home. At night, I’d “fall asleep” to the sounds of their gunbattles with remnants of the old Iraqi military. In those days, I was living on whiskey and rancid cheese. But then Italian journalists moved into the Abu Nawas Hotel, and we made a deal: I scrounged the black market for liquor, they set places for me and my co-workers at their nightly feasts (Italians travel with great food). Those were our first bureau meals, and probably still the most memorable (especially the Easter meal featuring a bottle of the Tariq Aziz’s top-shelf scotch, nabbed for me by a Marine as a thank-you).But Baghdad memories all eventually take on a melancholy tinge. Before leaving that first time, we moved the bureau to an out-of-the-way, safer, we thought, place called the Hamra. When I returned for the first time to it, I started working with a brilliant Iraqi named Yasser, a surgeon who said the $100 a day I paid him far surpassed what he could earn saving lives in the nearby hospital.He was committed to getting the story of Iraq out to the world. One afternoon, that took us to a little spot just outside town called Abu Ghraib, the home of what would soon be an internationally infamous prison. On this day, during a spell of horrible violence, we were merely trying to make our way to a story. But an American convoy was “hit” not far in front of us, so we stopped on the dusty streets of that place, wondering what to do next, barely able to think through the noise of battle just ahead around a bend.Yasser and I jumped from the car and started questioning some teens on the street. We were interrupted by our driver, honking his horn, and finally squealing away, showering us with gravel, before he came roaring back, just as fast, forcing us to dive away from the curb where the teens were standing.“We’ve got a job to do here,” Yasser yelled. The driver said: “They were going to kill you.”“They were kids,” Yasser replied. “Not them, the mujahedeen hiding in the building, who were shouting, ‘They’re American spies, seize them, kill them.’”We’d been feet from al-Qaida fighters, and had no idea. Having escaped, we spent the next weeks enjoying each drink, each sunrise. I gave Yasser as much cash as I had on me and told him to buy something nice for his wife. She insisted they use some of it to buy me a beautiful rug, which now covers my dining room floor. Less than a year later, Yasser’s luck ran out. A young U.S. soldier mistook him for a threat and put a bullet in his head. Life and death are like that in Baghdad. I made six trips in to Iraq.Because of that uncertainty, there was a night our body guard was injured, and called me in to tell me I was in charge of his duties for the night. He handed me a coil of razor wire, a box of hand grenades, two automatic weapons and 5,000 rounds “just in case” before telling me to “have a good night.”As the bureau closes, now run by McClatchy, it’s not the stories, but the people I remember. So, to the Iraqis who braved assassination to tell an important story, and risked their lives to protect mine, to whom I owe so much more than I could ever hope to repay, to Sahar, and Laith, and Omar, and Hamad, and Hassan, it’s time for a very fond farewell.I know your futures hold much joy and many accomplishments, and I know that we will meet again.Inshallah.Read more Matt Schofield
Posted on Mon, Dec. 26, 2011 08:00 AM
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Baghdad: A fond farewell to a dangerous place
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To reach Matt Schofield, call 816-234-4847 or send email to mschofield@kcstar.com.
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