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Eliot Weinberger: What I Heard About Iraq in 2005 Die vollständige deutsche Übersetzung (Eike Schönfeld) des Textes erschien im Frühjahrsheft 2006 von "Lettre International" / Berlin, Nr.72



In 2005 I heard that Coalition forces were camped in the ruins of Babylon. I heard that bulldozers had dug trenches through the site and cleared areas for helicopter landing pads and parking lots, that thousands of sandbags had been filled with dirt and archeological fragments, that a 2,600-year-old brick pavement had been crushed by tanks, and that the molded bricks of dragons had been gouged out from the Ishtar Gate by soldiers collecting souvenirs. I heard that the ruins of the Sumerian cities of Umma, Umm al-Akareb, Larsa, and Tello were completely destroyed and were now landscapes of craters.

I heard that the US was planning an embassy in Baghdad that would cost $1.5 billion, more expensive than the Freedom Tower at Ground Zero, the proposed tallest building in the world.

I saw a headline in the Los Angeles Times that read: AFTER LEVELING CITY, U.S. TRIES TO BUILD TRUST.

I heard that military personnel were now carrying "talking point" cards with phrases such as "We are a valuesbased, people-focused team that strives to uphold the dignity and respect of all."

I heard that 47% of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein helped plan 9/11 and 44% believed that the hijackers were Iraqi. 61% thought that Saddam had been a serious threat to the US and 76% said the Iraqis were now better off.

I heard that Iraq was now ranked with Haiti and Senegal as one of the poorest nations on earth. I heard the United Nations Human Rights Commission report that acute malnutrition among Iraq children had doubled since the war began. I heard that only 5% of the money Congress had allocated for reconstruction had actually been spent. I heard that, in Fallujah, people were living in tents pitched on the ruins of their houses.

I heard that this year’s budget included $105 billion for the war in Iraq, which would bring the total to $300 billion. I heard that Halliburton was estimating that its bill for providing services to US troops in Iraq would exceed $10 billion. I heard that the families of American soldiers killed in Iraq receive $12,000.

I heard that the White House had entirely deleted the chapter on Iraq from the annual Economic Report of the President, on the grounds that it did not conform with an otherwise cheerful tone.

Within a week in January I heard Condoleezza Rice say there were 120,000 Iraqi troops trained to take over the security of the country. I heard Senator Joseph Biden, Democrat from Delaware, say that the number was closer to 4,000. I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: "The fact of the matter is that there are 130,200 who have been trained and equipped. That's a fact. The idea that that number's wrong is just not correct. The number is right." I heard him explain the discrepancy: "Now are some getting killed every day? Sure. Are some retiring at various times or injured? Yes, they're gone." I remembered that a year before he had said the number was 210,000. I heard the Pentagon announce it would no longer release Iraqi troop figures.

I heard that 50,000 US soldiers in Iraq did not have body armor, because the Army’s equipment manager had placed it at the same priority level as socks. I heard that soldiers were personally buying their own flak jackets with steel "trauma" plates, Camelbak water pouches, ballistic goggles, knee and elbow pads, drop pouches to hold ammunition magazines, and load-bearing vests. I heard they were rigging their vehicles with pieces of scrap metal as protection against roadside bombs, for the production of armored Humvees had fallen more than a year behind schedule and the few available armored vehicles were now mainly reserved for officers and visiting dignitaries.

I heard that the private security firm Custer Battles had been paid $15 million to provide security for civilian flights at the Baghdad airport at a time when there were no planes flying. I heard that US forces were still unable to secure the two-mile highway from the airport to the Green Zone.

I heard that the President’s uncle, Bucky Bush, had made half a million dollars cashing in his stock options in Engineered Support Systems Inc., a defense contractor that had received $100 million for work in Iraq. Bucky Bush is on the Board of Directors, but I heard Dan Kreher, Vice President of Investor Relations for ESSI say: "The fact his nephew is in the White House has absolutely nothing to do with Mr. Bush being on our board or with our stock having gone up 1,000 percent in the past five years."

I heard that a Pentagon audit of merely one part of the Halliburton contracts had found $100 million in "questionable costs." I heard them cite a purchase of $82,100 worth of liquefied gas and a bill of $27.5 million to transport it. I heard that eight other government audits of Halliburton were marked as "classified" and not released to the public.

I heard that African-Americans normally form 23% of the active-duty troops, but that recruitment of African- Americans had fallen by 41% since the war began. I heard that a "US Military Image Study" prepared for the Army had recommended that, "for the Army to achieve its mission goals with Future Force Soldiers, it must overhaul its image as well as its product offering."

I heard that the military was developing robot soldiers. I heard Gordon Johnson of the Joint Forces Command at the Pentagon say: "They don't get hungry. They're not afraid. They don't forget their orders. They don't care if the guy next to them has just been shot." I heard him say: "I have been asked what happens if the robot destroys a school bus rather than a tank parked nearby. The lawyers tell me there are no prohibitions against robots making life-or-death decisions. We will not entrust a robot with that decision until we are confident they can make it."

* * *

In March, on the second anniversary of the invasion, I heard that 1,511 US soldiers had been killed and approximately 11,000 wounded. There was no way to know exactly how many Iraqis had died in the war.

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: "Well, if you have a country of 25 million people and you have X thousands of criminals, terrorists, Baathists, former regime elements who want to blow up things and make bombs and kill people, they can still do that. That happens in most major cities in the world, most countries in the world, that people get killed and there's violence."

I heard that, along with banning photographs of the caskets of American soldiers, the Administration was actively preventing photographs of the wounded, who were flown in from Iraq late at night, transferred to military hospitals in unmarked vans, and unloaded at back entrances.

I heard about despair. I heard General John Abizaid, Commander of US Central Command say, of the insurgents: "I don’t think they’re growing. I think that they’re desperate."

I heard about hope. I heard General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, say: "I came away more positive than I’ve ever been. I think we’re getting some momentum built up."

I heard about happiness. I heard Lieutenant General James Mattis say that "it’s a lot of fun to fight" in Iraq. I heard him say: "You know, it’s a hell of a hoot. I like brawling."

I heard that Donald Rumsfeld had created his own intelligence agency, the Strategic Support Branch, "designed to operate without detection and under the Defense Secretary’s direct control," without the oversight laws that apply to the CIA, and that it was employing "notorious figures" whose "links to the US government would be embarrassing if disclosed." I heard about the practice of "extraordinary rendition," where suspected terrorists are kidnapped and flown to countries known to torture prisoners or to secret US prisons in Thailand, Afghanistan, Poland, and Rumania.

I heard that there were 3,200 prisoners in Abu Ghraib, 700 more than its capacity. I heard Major General William Brandenburg, who oversees US military detention operations in Iraq, say: "We've got a normal capacity and a surge capacity. We're operating at surge capacity." A year before, I had heard the President promise "to demolish the Abu Ghraib prison, as a fitting symbol of Iraq’s new beginning." I heard that outside the prison there is a sign that reads: "No Parking. Detainee Drop Off Zone."

I heard that some American soldiers had made a heavy metal music video called "Ramadi Madness," with sections titled "Those Crafty Little Bastards" and "Another Day, Another Mission, Another Scumbag." In one scene, a soldier kicks the face of an Iraqi who is bound and lying on the ground, dying. In another, a soldier moves the arm of a man who has just been shot dead, to make it appear that he is waving. I heard a Pentagon spokesman say, "Clearly, the soldiers probably exercised poor judgment."

I heard that the Army released a 1,200-page report detailing the torture of Iraqi prisoners at a single military intelligence base during a few months in 2003. In response to the report, I heard Lieutenant Colonel Jeremy Martin say, "The army’s a learning organization. If we have some shortfalls, we try to correct them. We’ve learnt how to do that process now." I heard a US soldier talk about his photographs of the twelve prisoners he had shot with a machine gun: "I shot this guy in the face. See, his head is split open. I shot this guy in the groin. He took three days to bleed to death." I heard him say he was a devout Christian: "Well, I knelt down. I said a prayer, stood up, and gunned them all down."

* * *

In April I heard General Richard Myers say: "I think we’re winning. Okay? I think we’re definitely winning. I think we’ve been winning for some time."

I heard Major General William Webster, Commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, say: "We think the insurgency is weakening over time. Some of these attacks appear to be very spectacular and well-coordinated, but, in fact, are not."

I heard Lieutenant General James Conroy of the Marines say that American troop withdrawal would soon begin, because "Iraqis are starting to take care of their own situation." I heard Rear Admiral William Sullivan report to Congress that there were 145,000 "combat-capable" Iraqi forces. I heard Sabah Hadum, a spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, say: "We are paying about 135,000, but that does not necessarily mean that 135,000 are actually working." I heard that as many as 50,000 may be "ghost soldiers"– invented names whose paychecks are cashed by officers or bureaucrats.

I heard Army Staff Sergeant Craig Patrick, who was training the Iraqi troops, say: "It's all about perception, to convince the American public that everything is going as planned and we're right on schedule to be out of here. I mean, they can bullshit the American people, but they can't bullshit us." As many countries pulled their small numbers of troops out of Iraq, I heard the State Department announce it would no longer use the phrase "Coalition of the Willing."

I heard that of the forty water and sewage systems in Iraq, "not one is being operated properly." I heard that of the nineteen power plants that had been rebuilt by the US, none works correctly. I heard a US official blame this on the "indifferent work ethic" of Iraqis. I heard that new Pentagon audits now showed that Halliburton had overcharged by $212 million.

I read, in a news article in the New York Times, that thanks to the "sustained momentum" of the "military operation," the "Administration's goal of turning Iraq over to a permanent, elected Iraqi government" was "within striking distance." I heard General Richard Myers say: "We're on track"; and I heard Major General Adnan Thibit say: "We are gaining more victories now because more people are cooperating with us."

I heard General John Abizaid predict that Iraqi security forces would be leading the fight against the insurgents in most of the country by the end of 2005. I heard General George Casey, Commander of the Multinational Forces in Iraq, say: "We should be able to take some fairly substantial reductions in the size of our forces."

I heard that the insurgents had been driven out of the cities and into the desert and that they were having trouble finding new recruits.

I heard Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno say: "They’re slowly losing."

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: "We don’t have an exit strategy, we have a victory strategy."

* * *

A few weeks later, I heard the Pentagon spokesman, Lawrence di Rita, admit that "there’s been an uptick" in violence. I heard Pentagon officials dismiss this as "desperate attacks by desperate individuals," but I heard General Richard Myers now say about the insurgents: "I think their capacity stays about the same. And where they are right now is where they were almost a year ago."

I heard that a report by the CIA National Intelligence Council had stated that "Iraq has now replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of ‘professionalized’ terrorists," providing "a recruitment ground and the opportunity for enhancing technical skills." I heard it that it said that Iraq was a more effective training ground than Afghanistan, because "the urban nature of the war in Iraq was helping combatants learn how to carry out assassinations, kidnappings, car bombings and other kinds of attacks that were never a staple of the fighting in Afghanistan during the anti-Soviet campaigns of the 1980's."

I heard that the State Department refused to release its annual report on terrorism, which would show that the number of "significant" attacks outside of Iraq had grown from 175 in 2003 to 655 in 2004. I heard Karen Aguilar, the Acting Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the State Department, explain that "statistics are not relevant" to "trends in global terrorism."

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: "Goodness knows, it doesn’t take a genius to blow up a building."

I heard that in the month of April there were 67 suicide bombings. I heard Colonel Pat Lang, former Chief of Mideast Operations at the Defense Intelligence Agency, say: "It’s just political rhetoric to say we are not in a civil war. We’ve been in a civil war for a long time."

I heard that 1,600 US soldiers were dead. I heard that every week over 200 Iraqis were dying in the suicide bombings.

I heard Condoleezza Rice, on a surprise visit to Iraq, say: "We are so grateful that there are Americans willing to sacrifice so the Middle East will be whole and free and democratic and at peace." On that same day, the bodies of 34 recently killed men were found in a mass grave; a high official in the Ministry of Industry was shot to death; a leading Shi’ite cleric was shot to death; and the Governor of Diyala province survived a suicide bombing, though four others in his entourage did not and 37 nearby were wounded.

I heard Donald Rumsfeld, asked whether we were winning or losing the war in Iraq, reply: "Winning or losing is not the issue for ‘we,’ in my view, in the traditional, conventional context of using the word ‘winning’ and ‘losing’ in a war."

I heard a truck driver named Muhammad say: "With my own eyes I've seen the Americans, when their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb, open fire on all the civilian cars around them," and another driver, from Fallujah, say: "If Bush is a real man, he should walk down the street alone!"

I heard that the Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has 3,000 Kurdish peshmerga soldiers stationed around his house.

I heard the President proclaim a "critical victory in the War on Terror," with the capture of Abu Farraj al-Libbi, whom the President said was a "top general" and the #3 man in al-Qaeda. I heard him say: "His arrest removes a dangerous enemy who was a direct threat to America and for those who love freedom." A few days later, I heard that the man had probably been confused with someone else with a vaguely similar name.

I heard that a former associate of Osama bin Laden in London had laughed and said: "What I remember of him is that he used to make the coffee and do the photocopying." I never heard this reported in the American press. At the dedication of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, I heard the President compare his War on Terror with Lincoln’s war against slavery.

I heard the President say that Iraqi forces now outnumber their American counterparts.

* * *

In May I heard that there were three suicide bombings every day.

I heard a journalist ask the President: "Do you think that the insurgence is getting harder now to defeat militarily?" And I heard the President reply: "No, I don’t think so. I think they’re being defeated. And that’s why they continue to fight."

I heard a human rights worker say: "In Baghdad today, four clerics (three Sunni and one Shi'a) were assassinated. The bodies of two other Sunni clerics who had been abducted last week were found. A suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle in the Abu Cher market killing nine Iraqi National Guard troops and injuring twenty-eight civilians. Two engineering students were killed when a bomb (or rocket) struck their classroom at a local school. The dean of a high school in the Shaab neighborhood was assassinated. One judge, two officials from the Ministry of Defense, and one official investigating corruption in the previous Interim Government were assassinated. In all, thirty-one dead, forty-two injured, and seventeen abducted. Rumors abound in Baghdad about who is responsible for all the attacks but no one has claimed responsibility. And yet compared to some days in recent weeks here in Baghdad the number of dead and injured was fewer in number. So comparatively speaking it was a fairly quiet day here in Baghdad."

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say, "We don’t do body counts," but then I heard the Pentagon releasing body counts. It said 1,600 insurgents had been killed last year in Fallujah, but then I heard that the Marines had discovered "few bodies" after the city was captured, and months later a "martyr’s cemetery" was found to contain only 79 graves. I heard that the Army had completely destroyed a "guerrilla training camp" near Lake Tharthar, killing all 85 insurgents, and I heard the television news report that this was "the single biggest one-day death toll for militants in months, and the latest in a series of blows to the insurgency." But then I heard that some European journalists visited the camp the next day and the insurgents were still there. Then I heard US officials claim that the insurgents must have dragged away their own dead. But then I heard a reporter ask how all 85 dead insurgents could have dragged themselves away. And I heard Major Richard Goldenberg reply: "We could spend years going back and forth on body counts. The important thing is the effect this has on the organized insurgency."

I heard about despair. I heard Colonel Joseph DiSalvo, Commander of 2nd Brigade Combat Team, say: "What we’re seeing is the terrorists are in desperation." I heard him say: "By the end of the summer, the terrorists will be captured, dead, or, in the least, severely disrupted."

I heard Dick Cheney say: "The level of activity that we see today, from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

I heard Porter J. Goss, Director of the CIA, say that the insurgents were "not quite in the last throes, but I think they are very close to it."

I heard Dick Cheney later explain: " If you look at what the dictionary says about throes, it can still be a violent period. When you look back at World War II, the toughest battle, at the most difficult battles, both in Europe and in the Pacific, occurred just a few months before the end. And I see this as a similar situation, where they're going to go all out."

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: "Last throes could be a violent last throes, or a placid and calm last throes. Look it up in the dictionary."

* * *

I heard Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican from Nebraska, say: "Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality. It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."

I heard Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Wellman say, about the insurgents: "We can’t kill them all. When I kill one, I create three."

I heard that Congressman Walter Jones, Republican from North Carolina and the man who renamed french fries as "freedom fries," was now calling for the withdrawal of US troops. I heard him say: "The American people are getting to a point here: How much more can we take?" I heard Congressman Mike Pence, Republican from Indiana, explain why he is opposed to a timetable for withdrawal: "I never tell my kids when my patience is going to run out, because they’ll usually try it."

I heard Condoleezza Rice speak about a "generational commitment" in Iraq.

I heard the President say: "We have put the enemy on the run, and now they spend their days avoiding capture, because they know America's Armed Services are on their trail."

I heard him tell the American people: "As we work to deliver opportunity at home, we're also keeping you safe from threats from abroad. We went to war because we were attacked, and we are at war today because there are still people out there who want to harm our country and hurt our citizens. Our troops are fighting these terrorists in Iraq so you will not have to face them here at home."

I heard the President say: "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

* * *

I heard that US troops had killed the #2 man in al-Qaeda in Iraq. I heard that US troops had killed another man who was the #2 in al-Qaeda in Iraq. I heard that US troops had killed yet another man who was the #2 in al-Qaeda in Iraq.

I heard that, in Baghdad, 92% of the people did not have stable electricity, 39% did not have safe drinking water, and 25% of children under the age of five were suffering from malnutrition. I heard that there were two or three car bombings a day, on some days killing a hundred people and wounding many hundreds more.

I heard General William Webster say: "Certainly saying anything about ‘breaking the back’ or ‘about to reach the end of the line’ or those kinds of things do not apply to the insurgency at this point."

I heard a "high-ranking Army officer" say: "There’s simply not enough forces here. There are not enough to do anything right; everybody’s got their finger in the dike." I heard that the soldiers of Marine Company E had set up cardboard dummies of themselves to make it appear that they had more men in battle.

I heard the President say: "I'd say I'd spend most of my time worrying about right now people losing their life in Iraq. Both Americans and Iraqis. I worry about my girls. I used to worry about my wife, until she hit an 85% popularity figure. Now she's worried about me. You know, I don't worry all that much, other than what I just described to you. I attribute that to– I've got peace of mind. A lot of it has to do with my particular faith, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that a lot of people pray for me and Laura. I'm sleeping pretty good. Seriously. I get asked that. There's times when I hadn't been. I've got peace of mind."

* * *

In 2005 I heard about 2001. I heard that on September 21, 2001, the PDF (President’s Daily Brief), prepared by the CIA, reported that there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein was connected to the September 11 attacks.

I heard Condoleezza Rice say: "The fact of the matter is that when we were attacked on September 11, we had a choice to make. We could decide that the proximate cause was al-Qaeda and the people who flew those planes into buildings and, therefore, we would go after al-Qaeda. or we could take a bolder approach."

I heard Karl Rove say: "Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war. Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said we must understand our enemies."

In 2005 I heard about 2002. I heard that on July 23, 2002, eight months before the invasion, Sir Richard Dearlove, chief of MI6, reported in a secret memo to Tony Blair that he was told in Washington that the US was going to "remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD." However, because, "the case was thin, Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran," "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

I heard that this "Downing Street Memo" was a scandal in the British press, but I didn’t hear it mentioned on American network television for two months. During those two months, ABC news had 121 stories on Michael Jackson and 42 stories on Natalee Holloway, a high school student who disappeared from a bar while vacationing in Aruba. CBS news had 235 stories about Michael Jackson and 70 about Miss Holloway.

I heard that in the second half of 2002, the US Air Force and the RAF dropped twice as many bombs on Iraq as they had done in all of 2001. I heard that the objective was to provoke Saddam into giving the allies an excuse for war.

I heard that the primary source of information about Saddam’s mobile biological weapons labs and germ warfare capability, used by Colin Powell in his presentation at the United Nations and in the President’s 2003 State of the Union address, was an Iraqi defector held by German intelligence. The Germans had repeatedly informed the Americans that none of the information supplied by this defector, an advanced alcoholic, was reliable. He had been given the code name Curveball.

I heard that the primary source of information about the tons of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons buried under Saddam’s private villas and under Saddam Hussein Hospital in Baghdad and throughout Iraq, was a Kurdish exile named Adnan Ishan Saeed al-Haideri. He was sponsored by the Rendon Group, a Washington public relations firm that had been paid hundreds of millions of dollars by the Pentagon to promote the war. (Rendon, among other things, had organized a group of Iraqi exiles in London, given them the name the Iraqi National Congress, and installed Ahmad Chalabi as their leader.) I heard that after Al-Haideri completely failed a lie detector test, administered by the CIA in Thailand, his stories were nevertheless leaked to journalists, most prominently Judith Miller of the New York Times, which published them on the front page.

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: "Well, you never know what's going to happen. I presented the President a list of about 15 things that could go terribly, terribly wrong before the war started. And the fact that the oil fields could have been set aflame like they were in Kuwait, the fact that we could have had mass refugees and dislocations and it didn't happen. The bridges could have been blown up. There could have been a fortress Baghdad with the moat around it with oil in it and people fighting to the death. So a great many of the bad things that could have happened did not happen."

I heard a journalist ask him: "Was a robust insurgency on your list that you gave the President?" and I heard Rumsfeld reply: "I don’t remember whether that was on there."

In 2005 I heard about 2003. I heard a US Marine, who was a witness to the event, say that the capture of Saddam Hussein was a fiction. Saddam had been caught the day before in a small house, and then placed in an abandoned well, which was invented as the "spider hole" where he was hiding. I never heard about this Marine again.

In 2005 I heard about 2004. I heard that, during the attack on Fallujah, the President had suggested to Tony Blair that the headquarters of the Al Jazeera network in Qatar should be bombed. I heard that Blair persuaded him that it wasn’t such a good idea.

* * *

Because it was difficult for the military to attract new recruits, I heard that an Army directive recommended "alleviating the personnel crunch by retaining soldiers who are earmarked for early discharge during their first term of enlistment because of alcohol or drug abuse, unsatisfactory performance, or being overweight, among other reasons." I heard that the Pentagon had asked Congress to raise the maximum age for military recruits from 35 to 42.

I heard that the US military was actively recruiting in Latin America, offering citizenship in exchange for service.

I heard that Hispanic-Americans make up 9.5% of the actively enlisted, but 17.5% of those given the most dangerous assignments.

I heard that the government had offered $15,000 cash bonuses to National Guard personnel who agreed to extend their enlistment. I heard that the government never paid, and cancelled the offer after many had signed up.

I heard that in veterans’ hospitals, the only televison news that is permitted is the Pentagon Channel, a 24-hour news station that features programs like "Iraqi Freedom Journal."

I heard Rory Mayberry, a former food manager for Halliburton in Iraq, say that they routinely served the troops food that had expired by as much as a year. I heard that they would salvage food from convoys that had been attacked. I heard him say: "We were told to go into the trucks and remove the food items and use them after removing the bullets and any shrapnel from the bad food that was hit."

I heard that, in a poll of American soldiers in Iraq, more than half rated their unit’s morale as "low" or "very low."

I heard the Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine state that, of the soldiers returning from the war this year, "1,700 said they harbored thoughts of hurting themselves or that they would be better off dead; more than 250 said they had such thoughts ‘a lot’; nearly 20,000 reported nightmares or unwanted war recollections; more than 3,700 said they had concerns that they might ‘hurt or lose control’ with someone else." I heard one soldier say: "My nightmares are so intense I woke up one night with my hands around my fiancee's throat." I heard that one in four required medical treatment and it was expected that as many as 240,000 would suffer from some form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I heard that members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, were demonstrating at the funerals of soldiers who had died in Iraq, claiming that the war was divine retribution for American immorality. I heard that they held signs depicting "homosexual acts," with the words "God Hates Fags"; "God Hates America"; "Thank God for IED's [roadside bombs]"; "Fag Soldiers in Hell"; "God Blew Up the Troops"; and "Fags Doom Nations."

I heard that headstones in Arlington National Cemetery were now being inscribed with the slogans "Operation Enduring Freedom" and "Operation Iraqi Freedom," along with the traditional name, rank, and date of death of the deceased soldier.

I heard Jeff Martell, who makes headstones for the cemetery, say: "It just seems a little brazen that that's put on stones, It seems like it might be connected to politics."

* * *

On the first anniversary of the "transfer of sovereignty," I heard that there had been 484 car bombs in the last year, killing at least 2,221 people and wounding at least 5,574. I heard 890 US soldiers had been killed in the last year and that there was now an average of 70 insurgent attacks a day. That same day I heard the President say: "We fight today because terrorists want to attack our country and kill our citizens, and Iraq is where they are making their stand. So we'll fight them there, we'll fight them across the world, and we will stay in the fight until the fight is won."

I heard him say: "Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war. Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women, and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, in Washington, and Pennsylvania."

I heard him say: "Some may disagree with my decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, but all of us can agree that the world's terrorists have now made Iraq a central front in the War on Terror." And I remembered that, three years before, to justify the invasion, he had said: "Imagine a terrorist network with Iraq as an arsenal and as a training ground."

* * *

I heard Tom DeLay, then still House Majority Leader, say: "You know, if Houston, Texas, was held to the same standard as Iraq is held to, nobody'd go to Houston, because all this reporting coming out of the local press in Houston is violence, murders, robberies, deaths on the highways."

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say that the Shi’ites "are reaching out to the Sunnis and allowing them to come into the constitutional drafting process in a very constructive and healthy way. So there's an awful lot good that's happening in that country."

I heard Scott McClellan, the White House Press Secretary, say: "I think we have a clear strategy for success, and there is great progress being made on the ground. We are succeeding and we will succeed."

I heard the President say: "We have a clear path forward."

I heard that Halliburton had built a wall around the Green Zone, made of 12-foot- high, 5-ton concrete slabs, topped with concertina wire. I heard that mortars fired into the Green Zone often fell short and landed in the neighborhoods just outside the wall, and that frustrated suicide bombers, unable to get into the Green Zone, would blow themselves up outside the wall.

I heard Saman Abdel Aziz Rahman, owner of the Serawan Kebab Restaurant, which is next door to a restaurant where a suicide bomber at lunchtime had killed 23 people, say: "We are the new Palestine." I heard Haider al-Shawaf, who lives on Al-Shawaf Street, now bisected by the wall, say twice, in English: "It was very nice street. It was very nice street."

I heard the President say: "America will not leave before the job is done." I heard Dick Cheney predict that the fighting would be over by the time the Administration ends in 2009.

* * *

After Amnesty International compared American treatment of Afghan and Iraqi prisoners to the Soviet Gulag, I heard the President say: "It’s an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world. It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of– and the allegations– by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble– that means not tell the truth."

I heard that most of the insurgent violence in Iraq was personally directed by a Jordanian, Abu Musab al- Zarqawi. I heard that rumors of his presence had led to the US bombings of Fallujah, Ramadi, Mosul, Samarra, and a village in Kurdistan, but each time he had narrowly escaped. I heard that he had been seen recently in Jordan, Syria, Iran, and Pakistan.

I heard that he was closely linked with Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and the government of Syria.

I heard that he was the bitter enemy of bin Laden, the secularist Saddam, and the secularist Syrian government. I heard that he had died in Afghanistan. I heard that, after an injury in Afghanistan, his leg had been amputated in a hospital in Iraq, which was proof of Saddam’s connections to terrorism.

I heard he was still walking on two legs. I heard he was one of the hooded men in a video showing the decapitation of a young American, Nick Berg, although the men never removed their hoods.

I heard that he had died recently in Mosul when eight men blew themselves up rather than surrender to the US forces who had surrounded their house.

I heard Sheikh Jawad al-Kaesi, an important Shi’ite cleric in Baghdad, say that Zarqawi had been killed long ago, but the US was using him as a "ploy."

I heard the President compare him to Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot.

I heard that he had less than a hundred followers in Iraq.

I heard that there could be as many as a hundred groups responsible for the suicide bombings and I heard that many of them were connected to Ansar al-Islam, which had many more followers in Iraq than Zarqawi and had actual ties to Osama bin Laden before the war. Ansar al-Islam was almost never mentioned in Administration speeches or in the press, for it is a Kurdish group, and all Kurds are presumed to be allies of the US. I heard that unemployment for young men in Sunni areas was now 40%. I heard that the per capita income was $77, half of what it was the year before; that only 37% of families had homes connected to a sewage system, half of what it was before the war.

I heard General George Casey say: "Iraq slowly gets better every day." I heard Lieutenant Colonel Vincent Quarles, Commander of the 4-3 Brigade Troops Battalion say: "It’s hard to see all the progress that has been made. But things are getting better."

I heard that the Pentagon was supposed to deliver a report to the Congress on the training and capability of the Iraqi security forces, but that it had missed the deadline and was reluctant to release the report. I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: "It's not for us to tell the other side, the enemy, the terrorists, that this Iraqi unit has this capability, and that Iraqi unit has this capability. The idea of discussing weaknesses, if you will, strengths and weaknesses of ‘this unit has a poor chain of command,’ or ‘these forces are not as effective because their morale's down’ – I mean, that would be mindless to put that kind of information out."

I heard General William Webster say that the insurgents ability "to conduct sustained, high-intensity operations, as they did last year– we’ve mostly eliminated that." In the next few days, I heard that suicide bombings in Baghdad had increased, including one at a school that killed some two dozen children, and the explosion in the central square of a stolen truck of liquefied gas, killing at least 71 people and wounding 156 others. I heard that the highest-ranking diplomat from Algeria had been kidnapped. I heard that the highest-ranking diplomat from Egypt had been kidnapped and killed. I heard that no Arab country would send an ambassador.

I heard an unnamed "senior Army intelligence officer" say: "We are capturing or killing a lot of insurgents, but they're being replaced quicker than we can interdict their operations. There is always another insurgent ready to step up and take charge." I heard him say that the US military was having a hard time understanding the insurgency’s unlikely coalitions of secular Baath Party members and Islamic militants.

I heard that, after a car bombing killed several children, the Task Force Baghdad 3rd Infantry Division released a statement quoting an "Iraqi man who preferred not to be identified": "They are enemies of humanity without religion or any sort of ethics. They have attacked my community today and I will now take the fight to the terrorists." A few weeks later, after a car bomb killed 25 people near the al-Rashad police station, I heard that the Task Force Baghdad 3rd Infantry Division released a statement quoting an "Iraqi man who preferred not to be identified": "They are enemies of humanity without religion or any sort of ethics. They have attacked my community today and I will now take the fight to the terrorists."

I heard that the Administration had decided it would no longer refer to a War on Terror. The new name was now Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism.

I heard General Richard Myers say: "I’ve objected to the use of the term ‘War on Terrorism’ before, because one– if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution. And it’s more than terrorism. The long-term problem is as much diplomatic, as much economic– in fact, more diplomatic, more economic, more political than it is military."

I heard that the Administration had decided it would no longer refer to the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism, which was too long. The new name was now the old War on Terror.

I heard the President say: "Make no mistake about it, we’re at war. We're at war with an enemy that attacked us on September the 11th, 2001. We're at war against an enemy that, since that day, has continued to kill."

I heard Abdul Henderson, a former Marine corporal, say: "We were firing into small towns. You see people just running, cars going, guys falling off bikes. It was just sad. You just sit there and look through your binos and see things blowing up, and you think, man they have no water, living in the third world, and we’re just bombing them to hell. Blowing up buildings, shrapnel tearing people to shreds."

* * *

I heard a "former high-level intelligence official" say: "This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next we’re going to have the Iranian campaign." I heard Condoleezza Rice say that an invasion of Iran "is not on the menu at this time."

I heard that John Bolton, the new US Ambassador to the United Nations, had said: "There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power in the world– and that is the United States– when it suits our interest and when we can get others to go along." I heard that he keeps a bronzed hand grenade on his desk.

I heard the President say: "This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. Having said that, all options are on the table." I heard the White House Press Secretary, Scott McClellan, say: "The President makes decisions based on what is right for the American people."

I heard about despair. I heard the President say: "As democracy in Iraq takes root, the enemies of freedom, the terrorists, will become more desperate." I heard about hope. I heard him say: "These terrorists and insurgents will fail. We have a strategy for success in Iraq. As Iraqis stand up, Americans and Coalition forces will stand down."

I heard an unnamed "top US commander" question how the current Iraqi Ministry of Defense, largely staffed by civilians appointed by the US, would be capable of maintaining an army: "What are lacking are the systems that pay people, that supply people, that recruit people, that replace the wounded and AWOL, and systems that promote people and provide spare parts."

I heard that the Iraqi Bureau of Supreme Audit could not account for $500 million in the Ministry’s budget, and had discovered that the Ministry had deposited $759 million in the personal bank account of a former money trader. I heard Iraqi Lieutenant General Abdul Aziz al-Yaseri say: "There's no rebuilding, no weapons, nothing. There are no real contracts, even. They just signed papers and took the money."

* * *

I heard a White House spokesman, Trent Duffy say: "The President knows one of his most important responsibilities is to comfort the families of the fallen."

I heard Cindy Sheehan, whose son, Casey, had been killed in Iraq, describe her meeting with the President.

I heard her say: "He first got there, he walked in and said, ‘So who are were honoring here?’ He didn't even know Casey's name, he didn't, nobody could have whispered to him, ‘Mr. President, this is the Sheehan family, their son Casey was killed in Iraq.’ We thought that was pretty disrespectful to not even know Casey's name, and to walk in and say, ‘So who are we honorin' here?’ Like, ‘Let's get on with it, let's get somebody honored here.’ So anyway, he went up to my oldest daughter, I keep calling her my oldest daughter but she's actually my oldest child now, and he said, ‘So who are you to the loved one?’ And Carly goes, ‘Casey was my brother.’ And George Bush says, ‘I wish I could bring your loved one back, to fill the hole in your heart.’ And Carly said, ‘Yeah, so do we.’ And Bush said, ‘I'm sure you do,’ and he gave her a dirty look and turned away from her." As the President moved to his ranch for a six-week summer vacation, Cindy Sheehan camped out at the entrance, demanding another meeting, which the President refused. I heard him say: "I think it's important for me to be thoughtful and sensitive to those who have got something to say. But I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life. I think the people want the President to be in a position to make good crisp decisions and to stay healthy. And part of my being is to be outside exercising."

I heard that privately he had said: "I’m not meeting again with that goddamned bitch. She can go to hell as far as I’m concerned."

* * *

I heard that 82% of Iraqis were "strongly opposed" to the presence of foreign troops and 45% supported armed attacks against them. Less than 1% believed that the foreign troops had made the country more secure.

I heard "top military commanders" say that we could expect "some fairly substantial reductions" in troops by next spring. I heard them add that the reduction would come after "a short-term bulge in troop levels."

I heard that 1,100 bodies were brought to the Baghdad morgue in one month, many with hands bound and a bullet in the head. I heard that 20% were too disfigured to be identified. I heard that in the Saddam era the number was normally around 200. I heard that doctors were ordered not to perform post-mortems on bodies brought in by US troops. On a single day, I heard that fighting had broken out between two Shi’ite militias in Najaf, leaving 19 dead; that the bodies of 37 Shi’ite soldiers, killed with a single bullet to the head, had been found in a river south of Baghdad; that the Iraqi President Jalal Talabani had escaped an assassination attempt in which eight of his bodyguards were killed and 15 injured. On that same day, I heard an "unnamed White House official" say that the Iraqis were "making substantial and real progress."

I heard Condoleezza Rice say: "It's a lot easier to see the violence and suicide bombing than to see the rather quiet political progress that's going on in parallel." I heard her say that the insurgency was "losing steam." As riots broke out in Baghdad over the lack of electricity, I heard Nadeem Haki, a shop owner in Baghdad, say: "We thank God that the air we breathe is not in the hands of the government. Otherwise they would have cut it off for a few hours each day."

I heard General Barry McCaffrey say, after returning from an inspection of Iraq: "This thing, the wheels are coming off of it."

* * *

I heard that the President’s approval rating had fallen to 36%, lower than Nixon during the summer of Watergate. I heard that 50% now believed that sending troops to Iraq was a mistake. I heard Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, say that the President "believes that those who want the US to begin to change course in Iraq do not want America to win the overall War on Terror. He can understand that people don't share his view that we must win the War on Terror– but he just has a different view." I heard that the President, at a strategy meeting, had said: "Who gives a flying fuck what the polls say? I’m the President and I’ll do whatever I goddamned please. They don’t know shit."

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: "It's been alleged that we're not winning. Throughout history there have always been those who predict America's failure just around every corner. At the height of World War II, many Western intellectuals praised Stalin. For a time, Communism was very much in vogue. Those being tossed about by the winds of concern should recall that Americans are a tough lot and will see their commitments through."

I heard General Douglas Lute, Director of Operations at US Central Command, say that the US would withdraw a significant number of troops within a year. I heard him say: "We believe at some point, in order to break this dependence on the Coalition, you simply have to back off and let the Iraqis step forward." The day before, I heard the President say that withdrawal would "only embolden the terrorists and create a staging ground to launch more attacks against America and free nations. So long as I'm the President, we will stay, we will fight, and we will win the War on Terror."

I heard the President, still on vacation at his ranch, say: "A time of war is a time of sacrifice." I heard a reporter ask him if he planned to do any fishing, and I heard the President reply: "I don’t know yet. I haven’t made up my mind yet. I’m kind of hanging loose, as they say."

I heard that the US was now spending $195 million a day on the war and that the cost had already exceeded, by $50 billion, US expenses in all of World War I. I heard that $195 million would provide 12 meals a day to every starving child on earth.

* * *

I heard the President, at North Island Naval Air Station in San Diego, compare the War on Terror to World War II. I heard him quote the words of Captain Randy Stone, a Marine in Iraq: "I know we will win because I see it in the eyes of the Marines every morning. In their eyes is the sparkle of victory." In a long speech, I heard him briefly mention Hurricane Katrina, which had struck a few days before and which, at the time, was believed to have killed tens of thousands. I heard him say: "I urge everyone in the affected areas to continue to follow instructions from state and local authorities."

I heard that emergency response to the hurricane had been hampered because 35% of the Louisiana National Guard and 40% of the Mississippi National Guard, as well as much of their equipment and vehicles, were in Iraq. Approximately 5000 Guards and troops were eventually deployed; in 1992, following Hurricane Andrew in Florida, George Bush Sr. had sent in 36,000 troops. I heard that the Guardsmen in Iraq were denied emergency two-week leaves to help or find their families. I heard they were told by their commanders that there were too few US troops in Iraq to spare them. A few weeks after the hurricane, I heard the President say: "You know, something we– I've been thinking a lot about how America has responded, and it's clear to me that Americans value human life, and value every person as important. And that stands in stark contrast, by the way, to the terrorists we have to deal with. You see, we look at the destruction caused by Katrina, and our hearts break. They're the kind of people who look at Katrina and wish they had caused it. We're in a war against these people. It's a War on Terror."

* * *

On the day after an estimated 200,000 people demonstrated against the war in Washington, a pro-war rally was held on the Mall. I heard Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican from Alabama, address the crowd: "The group who spoke here the other day did not represent the American ideals of freedom, liberty and spreading that around the world. I frankly don't know what they represent." The crowd was estimated at 400.

I heard the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, tell Congress that the Administration had "no comprehensive policy or regulatory guidelines" for postwar Iraq. I heard him say that Iraq's Bureau of Supreme Audit had reported up to $1.27 billion missing in the period from June 2004 to February 2005 alone.

I heard that, along with the $30 billion appropriated by Congress, the US Agency for International Development was also seeking private donations: "Now you can donate high-impact development assistance that directly improves the lives of thousands of Iraqis." I heard that USAID’s "extraordinary appeal" had raised $600, but I heard Heather Layman, spokeswoman for USAID, say that she was not disappointed: "Every little bit helps." In 2003, Dick Cheney had said: "Since I left Halliburton to become George Bush's Vice President, I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had, now, for over three years." I heard that he was still receiving deferred compensation and owned more than 433,000 stock options. Those options were worth $241,498 in 2004. In 2005 they were worth more than $8 million. Along with its $10 billion no-bid contracts in Iraq, Halliburton was hired to expand the prison at Guantanamo and was among the first to receive a no-bid contract for Hurricane Katrina relief.

I heard the President say: "At this moment, more than a dozen Iraqi battalions have completed training and are conducting anti-terrorist operations in Ramadi and Fallujah. More than 20 battalions are operating in Baghdad. And some have taken the lead in operations in major sectors of the city. In total, more than 100 battalions are operating throughout Iraq. Our commanders report that the Iraqi forces are operating with increasing effectiveness." An Iraqi battalion has about 700 soldiers. The next day I heard General George Casey tell Congress that the number of "combat ready" Iraqi battalions had dropped from three to one. I heard him say: "Iraqi armed forces will not have an independent capability for some time." When asked when the American people can expect troops to be withdrawn from Iraq, I heard him reply: "I don't want to get into a date. I wouldn't even want to go there, wouldn't even want to go there."

I heard Colonel Stephen Davis, Commander of Marine Regimental Combat Team 2, tell a group of Iraqis that the US was not leaving: "We're not going anywhere. Some of you are concerned about the attack helicopters and mortar fire from the base. I will tell you this: those are the sounds of peace." I heard General George Casey say, nevertheless, that the insurgency "is failing. We are more relentless in our progress than those who seek to disrupt it."

I heard General John Abizaid say: "The insurgency doesn’t have a chance for victory."

I heard Condoleezza Rice say: "We have made significant progress."

I heard Major General Rick Lynch, chief military spokesman in Iraq, say: "Zarqawi is on the ropes." As the Administration celebrated the approval of the long-delayed Constitution, I heard Safia Taleb al-Suhail– the daughter of a man who was executed by Saddam Hussein and who, in a staged moment during the State of the Union address, embraced the mother of an American soldier killed in Iraq– say: "When we came back from exile, we thought we were going to improve rights and the position of women. But look what has happened– we have lost all the gains we made over the last 30 years. It's a big disappointment."

I heard an Iraqi Shi’ite sergeant say: "Just let us have our Constitution and elections in December and then we will do what Saddam did– start with five people from each neighborhood and kill them in the streets and then go from there."

* * *

I heard Melvin Laird, Secretary of Defense under Nixon during the Vietnam War, call for the withdrawal of troops. I heard him say about the President: "His West Texas cowboy approach– shoot first and answer questions later or do the job first and let the results speak for themselves– is not working. When troops are dying, the Commander in Chief cannot be coy, vague, or secretive."

I heard Brent Scowcroft, National Security Adviser and close friend to Bush Sr., say: "I thought we ought to make it our duty to help make the world friendlier for the growth of liberal regimes. You encourage democracy over time, with assistance and aid, the traditional way. Not how the neocons do it." They "believe in the export of democracy, by violence if that is required. How do the neocons bring democracy to Iraq? You invade, you threaten and pressure, you evangelize." I heard him say that America is now "suffering from the consequences of this brand of revolutionary utopianism."

I heard Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff at the State Department, say that foreign policy had been "hijacked" by the "Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal." I heard him say that Rumsfeld was "given carte blanche to tell the State Department to go screw itself in a closet somewhere." I heard him say: "If something comes along that is truly serious, something like a nuclear weapon going off in a major American city, or something like a major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaration of Independence."

* * *

I heard that 2,000 US soldiers had been killed in Iraq; 15,220 had been wounded in combat, including more than 7,100 who were "injured too badly to return to duty," and that thousands more had been "hurt in incidents unrelated to combat."

I heard that a spokesman for the US military in Iraq, Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan, had sent an e-mail to journalists asking them to downplay the marker of 2,000 dead: "When you report on the events, take a moment to think about the effects on the families and those serving in Iraq. The 2,000 service members killed in Iraq supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom is not a milestone. It is an artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives."

I heard that 68% of Americans now believed that the Iraq war was based on falsified information; only 40% considered the President "honest and ethical" and only 22% considered Dick Cheney "honest and ethical." I heard the President say: "Anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. The stakes in the global War on Terror are too high, and the national interest is too important, for politicians to throw out false charges. These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will."

I heard Dick Cheney say: "The suggestion that's been made by some US Senators that the President of the United States or any member of this Administration purposely misled the American people on pre-war intelligence is one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city."

A few days later, I heard Dick Cheney complain that the "liberal" media had distorted his remarks. As evidence, I heard him cite a headline that read "Cheney says war critics ‘dishonest,’ reprehensible.’" Then, in the same speech, I heard him say: "I will again say [it] is dishonest and reprehensible. This is revisionism of the most corrupt and shameless variety."

* * *

I heard Congressman John Murtha, Democrat from Pennsylvania, a Marine colonel decorated in the Korean and Vietnam wars, and prominent military hawk, with tears in his eyes call for the withdrawal of US troops within six months. I heard Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, say: "It is baffling that he is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing."

I heard Congressman Geoff Davis, Republican from Kentucky, say: "Ayman Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy, as well as Abu Musab Zarqawi, have made it quite clear in their internal propaganda that they cannot win unless they can drive the Americans out. And they know that they can't do that there, so they've brought the battlefield to the halls of Congress."

I heard Congresswoman Jean Schmidt, Republican from Ohio, say: "Cowards cut and run. Marines never do."

I heard the President say: "Some contend that we should set a deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces. Let me explain why that would be a serious mistake. Setting an artificial timetable would send the wrong message to the Iraqis, who need to know that America will not leave before the job is done."

I heard that, at an extraordinary "meeting of reconciliation," one hundred Shi’ite, Sunni, and Kurdish leaders had signed a statement demanding "a withdrawal of foreign troops on a specified timetable."

I heard that their statement also said: "National resistance is a legitimate right of all nations."

I heard Congresswoman Jean Schmidt say: "The big picture is that these Islamic insurgents want to destroy us. They don't like us. They don't like us because we're black, we're white, we're Christian, we're Jew, we're educated, we're free, we're not Islamic. We can never be Islamic because we were not born Islamic. Now, this isn't the Islamic citizens. These are the insurgents. And it is their desire for us to leave so they can take over the whole Middle East and then take over the world. And I didn't learn this just in the last few weeks or the last few months. I learned this when I was at the University of Cincinnati in 1970, studying Middle Eastern history."

* * *

I heard that, in Fallujah and elsewhere, the US had employed white phosphorus munitions, an incendiary device, known among soldiers as "Willie Pete" or "shake and bake," which is banned as a weapon by the Convention on Conventional Weapons. Similar to napalm, it leaves the victim horribly burned, often burning through to the bones. I heard a State Department spokesman say: "US forces have used them very sparingly in Fallujah, for illumination purposes. They were fired into the air to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters." Then I heard them say that "US forces used white phosphorous rounds to flush out enemy fighters so that they could then be killed with high explosive rounds." Then I heard a Pentagon spokesman say that the previous statements were based on "poor information," and that "it was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants." Then I heard the Pentagon say that white phosphorus was not an illegal weapon, because the US had never signed that provision of the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

I heard that US troops had accidentally come across an Interior Ministry bunker in Baghdad with more than 170 Sunni prisoners who had been captured by Shi’ite paramilitary groups and tortured, some with electric drills. I heard Hussein Kamal, Deputy Interior Minister say: "One or two detainees were paralyzed and some had their skin peeled off various parts of their bodies." I heard State Department spokesman Adam Ereli say: "We don't practice torture. And we don't believe that others should practice torture."

I heard that the Senate, after an hour of debate, voted to deny habeas corpus protection to prisoners in Guantanamo. The last time the US suspended the right to trial was during the Civil War.

I heard that a human rights organization, Christian Peacemaker Teams, was distributing a questionnaire to inmates released from Iraqi prisons. Those surveyed were asked to check "yes" or "no" after each question: Stripped of your clothing (nude)? Beaten by hand (punches)? Beaten by stick or rod? Beaten by cables, wires or belts? Held at gunpoint? Hooded? Had cold water poured on you? Had a rope tied to your genitalia? Called names, insults? Threatened or touched by dogs? Dragged by rope or belt? Denied prayer or wudhu [ablution]? Forced to perform sexual acts? Were you raped or sodomized? Did someone improperly touch your genitalia? Did you witness any sexual acts while in detention? Did you witness any rapes of men, women, or children? Urinated on or made to touch feces, or had feces thrown at you? Denied sleep? Denied food? Witnessed any deaths? Did you witness any torture or mistreatment to others? Forced to wear woman’s clothes? [Question for men only] Were you burned or exposed to extreme heat? Exposed to severe cold? Subjected to electric shock? Forced to act like a dog? Forced in uncomfortable positions for a lengthy period of time? Forced to stand or sit in a painful manner for lengthy periods of time? Lose consciousness? Forced to hit others? Hung by feet? Hung by hands or arms? Threatened to have family killed? Family members detained? Witnessed family members tortured? Forced to sign anything? Photographed? I heard a man who had been in Abu Ghraib prison say: "The Americans brought electricity to my ass before they brought it to my house."

* * *

I heard that the Lincoln Group, a public-relations firm in Washington, had received $100 million from the Pentagon to promote the war. As well as bribing Iraqi journalists, often with monthly stipends, The Lincoln Group was writing its own articles and paying Iraqi newspapers to publish them. I heard the articles, intending to have local appeal, had titles such as "The Sands Are Blowing Toward a Democratic Iraq" and "Iraqi Forces Capture Al-Qaeda Fighters Crawling Like Dogs." I heard a Pentagon spokesman, Major General Rick Lynch, say: '"We do empower our operational commanders with the ability to inform the Iraqi public, but everything we do is based on fact, not based on fiction." I heard him quote the al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri: "Remember, half the battle is the battlefield of the media."

I heard that the average monthly war coverage on the ABC, NBC and CBS evening newscasts, combined, had gone from 388 minutes in 2003, to 274 in 2004, to 166 in 2005.

I heard that 2,110 U.S. troops had died in Iraq and over 15,881 had been wounded. 94% of those deaths had come after the "Mission Accomplished" speech, the first two sentences of which were: "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." I heard there were now an average of a hundred insurgent attacks a day and an average of three American soldiers dying, the highest violence and casualty rates since the war began.

I heard that the President, in response to the increasing criticism, was going to reveal a new strategy for Iraq. On November 30, 2005, the Administration issued a 35-page report: "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq." On a page titled "Our Strategy Is Working," I read that, on the "Economic Track," "Our Restore, Reform, Build, strategy is achieving results"; on the "Political Track," "Our Isolate, Engage, and Build strategy is working"; and on the "Security Track," "Our Clear, Hold, and Build strategy is working." General goals would be achieved in the "short," "medium," or "long" term. The report ended with "The Eight Strategic Pillars" ("Strategic Pillar One: Defeat the Terrorists and Neutralize the Insurgency; Strategic Pillar Two: Transition Iraq to Security Self- Reliance. . .") like the Five Pillars of Islam or Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I heard that the "Strategy" contained few specific details because it was the "public version of a classified document." Then I heard that there was no classified document. That same day, I heard the President address the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. I heard him say: "We will never back down. We will never give in. And we will never accept anything less than complete victory." I heard him say: "To all who wear the uniform, I make you this pledge: America will not run in the face of car bombers and assassins so long as I am your Commander in Chief." In a front of a huge sign that read "PLAN FOR VICTORY," he stood at a podium bearing a huge sign that read "PLAN FOR VICTORY." I wondered whether "plan" was a verb. That same day, I heard that members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams had been kidnapped by members of the Swords of Islam. 4 December 2005 Eliot Weinberger: What I Heard about Iraq Die vollständige deutsche Übersetzung (Eike Schönfeld) des Textes erschien im Frühjahrsheft 2005 von "Lettre International" / Berlin, Nr.68

***

In 1992, a year after the first Gulf War, I heard Dick Cheney, then secretary of defense, say that the US had been wise not to invade Baghdad and get ‘bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq’. I heard him say: ‘The question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is: not that damned many.’ In February 2001, I heard Colin Powell say that Saddam Hussein ‘has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours.’ That same month, I heard that a CIA report stated: ‘We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction programmes.’ In July 2001, I heard Condoleezza Rice say: ‘We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.’ On 11 September 2001, six hours after the attacks, I heard that Donald Rumsfeld said that it might be an opportunity to ‘hit’ Iraq. I heard that he said: ‘Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.’

I heard that Condoleezza Rice asked: ‘How do you capitalise on these opportunities?’

I heard that on 17 September the president signed a document marked top secret that directed the Pentagon to begin planning for the invasion and that, some months later, he secretly and illegally diverted $700 million approved by Congress for operations in Afghanistan into preparing for the new battle front. In February 2002, I heard that an unnamed ‘senior military commander’ said: ‘We are moving military and intelligence personnel and resources out of Afghanistan to get ready for a future war in Iraq.’ I heard the president say that Iraq is ‘a threat of unique urgency’, and that there is ‘no doubt the Iraqi regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised’.

I heard the vice president say: ‘Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.’

I heard the president tell Congress: ‘The danger to our country is grave. The danger to our country is growing. The regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year.’

I heard him say: ‘The dangers we face will only worsen from month to month and from year to year. To ignore these threats is to encourage them. Each passing day could be the one on which the Iraqi regime gives anthrax or VX nerve gas or, some day, a nuclear weapon to a terrorist ally.’

I heard the president, in the State of the Union address, say that Iraq was hiding materials sufficient to produce 25,000 litres of anthrax, 38,000 litres of botulinum toxin, and 500 tons of sarin, mustard and nerve gas. I heard the president say that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium – later specified as ‘yellowcake’ uranium oxide from Niger – and thousands of aluminium tubes ‘suitable for nuclear weapons production’. I heard the vice president say: ‘We know that he’s been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.’

I heard the president say: ‘Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans, this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known.’

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent. I would not be so certain.’

I heard the president say: ‘America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof – the smoking gun – that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.’ I heard Condoleezza Rice say: ‘We don’t want the “smoking gun” to be a mushroom cloud.’ I heard the American ambassador to the European Union tell the Europeans: ‘You had Hitler in Europe and no one really did anything about him. The same type of person is in Baghdad.’

I heard Colin Powell at the United Nations say: ‘They can produce enough dry biological agent in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people. Saddam Hussein has never accounted for vast amounts of chemical weaponry: 550 artillery shells with mustard gas, 30,000 empty munitions, and enough precursors to increase his stockpile to as much as 500 tons of chemical agents. Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical-weapons agent. Even the low end of 100 tons of agent would enable Saddam Hussein to cause mass casualties across more than 100 square miles of territory, an area nearly five times the size of Manhattan.’

I heard him say: ‘Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.’

I heard the president say: ‘Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas.’ I heard him say that Iraq ‘could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given’. I heard Tony Blair say: ‘We are asked to accept Saddam decided to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd.’ I heard the president say: ‘We know that Iraq and al-Qaida have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. We’ve learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaida members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraq regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.’ I heard the vice president say: ‘There’s overwhelming evidence there was a connection between al-Qaida and the Iraqi government. I am very confident there was an established relationship there.’ I heard Colin Powell say: ‘Iraqi officials deny accusations of ties with al-Qaida. These denials are simply not credible.’

I heard Condoleezza Rice say: ‘There clearly are contacts between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein that can be documented.’
I heard the president say: ‘You can’t distinguish between al-Qaida and Saddam.’

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘Imagine a September 11th with weapons of mass destruction. It’s not three thousand – it’s tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children.’

I heard Colin Powell tell the Senate that ‘a moment of truth is coming’: ‘This is not just an academic exercise or the United States being in a fit of pique. We’re talking about real weapons. We’re talking about anthrax. We’re talking about botulinum toxin. We’re talking about nuclear weapons programmes.’

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people.’

I heard the president, ‘bristling with irritation’, say: ‘This business about more time, how much time do we need to see clearly that he’s not disarming? He is delaying. He is deceiving. He is asking for time. He’s playing hide-and-seek with inspectors. One thing is for certain: he’s not disarming. Surely our friends have learned lessons from the past. This looks like a rerun of a bad movie and I’m not interested in watching it.’

I heard that, a few days before authorising the invasion of Iraq, the Senate was told in a classified briefing by the Pentagon that Iraq could launch anthrax and other biological and chemical weapons against the eastern seaboard of the United States using unmanned aerial ‘drones’.

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say he would present no specific evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction because it might jeopardise the military mission by revealing to Baghdad what the United States knows.

*

I heard the Pentagon spokesman call the military plan ‘A-Day’, or ‘Shock and Awe’. Three or four hundred cruise missiles launched every day, until ‘there will not be a safe place in Baghdad,’ until ‘you have this simultaneous effect, rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, not taking days or weeks but in minutes.’ I heard the spokesman say: ‘You’re sitting in Baghdad and all of a sudden you’re the general and thirty of your division headquarters have been wiped out. You also take the city down. By that I mean you get rid of their power, water. In two, three, four, five days they are physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted.’ I heard him say: ‘The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never contemplated.’

I heard Major-General Charles Swannack promise that his troops were going to ‘use a sledgehammer to smash a walnut’.

I heard the Pentagon spokesman say: ‘This is not going to be your father’s Persian Gulf War.’

I heard that Saddam’s strategy against the American invasion would be to blow up dams, bridges and oilfields, and to cut off food supplies to the south so that the Americans would suddenly have to feed millions of desperate civilians. I heard that Baghdad would be encircled by two rings of the elite Republican Guard, in fighting positions already stocked with weapons and supplies, and equipped with chemical protective gear against the poison gas or germ weapons they would be using against the American troops.

I heard Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby tell Congress that Saddam would ‘employ a “scorched earth” strategy, destroying food, transportation, energy and other infrastructure, attempting to create a humanitarian disaster’, and that he would blame it all on the Americans.

I heard that Iraq would fire its long-range Scud missiles – equipped with chemical or biological warheads – at Israel, to ‘portray the war as a battle with an American-Israeli coalition and build support in the Arab world’.

I heard that Saddam had elaborate and labyrinthine underground bunkers for his protection, and that it might be necessary to employ B61 Mod 11 nuclear ‘bunker-buster’ bombs to destroy them.

I heard the vice president say that the war would be over in ‘weeks rather than months’.

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.’

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say there was ‘no question’ that American troops would be ‘welcomed’: ‘Go back to Afghanistan, the people were in the streets playing music, cheering, flying kites, and doing all the things that the Taliban and al-Qaida would not let them do.’

I heard the vice president say: ‘The Middle East expert Professor Fouad Ajami predicts that after liberation the streets in Basra and Baghdad are “sure to erupt in joy”. Extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of jihad. Moderates throughout the region would take heart. And our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced.’

I heard the vice president say: ‘I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators.’

I heard Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi foreign minister, say: ‘American soldiers will not be received by flowers. They will be received by bullets.’

I heard that the president said to the television evangelist Pat Robertson: ‘Oh, no, we’re not going to have any casualties.’

I heard the president say that he had not consulted his father about the coming war: ‘You know he is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher father that I appeal to.’

I heard the prime minister of the Solomon Islands express surprise that his was one of the nations enlisted in the ‘coalition of the willing’: ‘I was completely unaware of it.’

I heard the president tell the Iraqi people, on the night before the invasion began: ‘If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you. As our coalition takes away their power we will deliver the food and medicine you need. We will tear down the apparatus of terror. And we will help you build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free. In a free Iraq there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbours, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near.’

I heard him tell the Iraqi people: ‘We will not relent until your country is free.’

*

I heard the vice president say: ‘By any standard of even the most dazzling charges in military history, the Germans in the Ardennes in the spring of 1940 or Patton’s romp in July of 1944, the present race to Baghdad is unprecedented in its speed and daring and in the lightness of casualties.’

I heard Colonel David Hackworth say: ‘Hey diddle diddle, it’s straight up the middle!’

I heard the Pentagon spokesman say that 95 per cent of the Iraqi casualties were ‘military-age males’.

I heard an official from the Red Crescent say: ‘On one stretch of highway alone, there were more than fifty civilian cars, each with four or five people incinerated inside, that sat in the sun for ten or fifteen days before they were buried nearby by volunteers. That is what there will be for their relatives to come and find. War is bad, but its remnants are worse.’

I heard the director of a hospital in Baghdad say: ‘The whole hospital is an emergency room. The nature of the injuries is so severe – one body without a head, someone else with their abdomen ripped open.’

I heard an American soldier say: ‘There’s a picture of the World Trade Center hanging up by my bed and I keep one in my Kevlar. Every time I feel sorry for these people I look at that. I think: “They hit us at home and now it’s our turn.”’

I heard about Hashim, a fat, ‘painfully shy’ 15-year-old, who liked to sit for hours by the river with his birdcage, and who was shot by the 4th Infantry Division in a raid on his village. Asked about the details of the boy’s death, the division commander said: ‘That person was probably in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

I heard an American soldier say: ‘We get rocks thrown at us by kids. You wanna turn around and shoot one of the little fuckers, but you know you can’t do that.’

I heard the Pentagon spokesman say that the US did not count civilian casualties: ‘Our efforts focus on destroying the enemy’s capabilities, so we never target civilians and have no reason to try to count such unintended deaths.’ I heard him say that, in any event, it would be impossible, because the Iraqi paramilitaries were fighting in civilian clothes, the military was using civilian human shields, and many of the civilian deaths were the result of Iraqi ‘unaimed anti-aircraft fire falling back to earth’.

I heard an American soldier say: ‘The worst thing is to shoot one of them, then go help him,’ as regulations require. ‘Shit, I didn’t help any of them. I wouldn’t help the fuckers. There were some you let die. And there were some you double-tapped. Once you’d reached the objective, and once you’d shot them and you’re moving through, anything there, you shoot again. You didn’t want any prisoners of war.’ I heard Anmar Uday, the doctor who had cared for Private Jessica Lynch, say: ‘We heard the helicopters. We were surprised. Why do this? There was no military. There were no soldiers in the hospital. It was like a Hollywood film. They cried “Go, go, go,” with guns and flares and the sound of explosions. They made a show: an action movie like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan, with jumping and shouting, breaking down doors. All the time with cameras rolling.’

I heard Private Jessica Lynch say: ‘They used me as a way to symbolise all this stuff. It hurt in a way that people would make up stories that they had no truth about.’ Of the stories that she had bravely fought off her captors, and suffered bullet and stab wounds, I heard her say: ‘I’m not about to take credit for something I didn’t do.’ Of her dramatic ‘rescue’, I heard her say: ‘I don’t think it happened quite like that.’

I heard the Red Cross say that casualties in Baghdad were so high that the hospitals had stopped counting.

I heard an old man say, after 11 members of his family – children and grandchildren – were killed when a tank blew up their minivan: ‘Our home is an empty place. We who are left are like wild animals. All we can do is cry out.’ As the riots and looting broke out, I heard a man in the Baghdad market say: ‘Saddam Hussein’s greatest crime is that he brought the American army to Iraq.’ As the riots and looting broke out, I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘It’s untidy, and freedom’s untidy.’ And when the National Museum was emptied and the National Library burned down, I heard him say: ‘The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over, and over, and over, and it’s the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it twenty times, and you think: “My goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?”’

I heard that 10,000 Iraqi civilians were dead.

*

I heard Colin Powell say: ‘I’m absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We’re just getting it now.’

I heard the president say: ‘We’ll find them. It’ll be a matter of time to do so.’

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad, and east, west, south and north, somewhat.’

I heard the US was building 14 ‘enduring bases’, capable of housing 110,000 soldiers, and I heard Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt call them ‘a blueprint for how we could operate in the Middle East’. I heard that the US was building what would be its largest embassy anywhere in the world.

I heard that it would only be a matter of months before Starbucks and McDonald’s opened branches in Baghdad. I heard that HSBC would have cash machines all over the country.

I heard about the trade fairs run by New Bridges Strategies, a consulting firm that promised access to the Iraqi market.

I heard one of its partners say: ‘Getting the rights to distribute Procter & Gamble would be a gold mine. One well-stocked 7-Eleven could knock out 30 Iraqi stores. A Wal-Mart could take over the country.’ On 1 May 2003, I heard the president, dressed up as a pilot, under a banner that read ‘Mission Accomplished’, declare that combat operations were over: ‘The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on 11 September 2001.’ I heard him say: ‘The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We’ve removed an ally of al-Qaida, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: no terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more. In these 19 months that changed the world, our actions have been focused and deliberate and proportionate to the offence. We have not forgotten the victims of 11 September: the last phone calls, the cold murder of children, the searches in the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got.’ On 1 May 2003, I heard that 140 American soldiers had died in combat in Iraq. I heard Richard Perle tell Americans to ‘relax and celebrate victory’. I heard him say: ‘The predictions of those who opposed this war can be discarded like spent cartridges.’

I heard Lieutenant-General Jay Garner say: ‘We ought to look in a mirror and get proud and stick out our chests and suck in our bellies and say: “Damn, we’re Americans.”’ And later I heard that I could buy a 12-inch ‘Elite Force Aviator: George W. Bush’ action figure: ‘Exacting in detail and fully equipped with authentic gear, this limited-edition action figure is a meticulous 1:6 scale re-creation of the commander-in-chief’s appearance during his historic aircraft carrier landing. This fully poseable figure features a realistic head sculpt, fully detailed cloth flight suit, helmet with oxygen mask, survival vest, G-pants, parachute harness and much more.’

I heard that Pentagon planners had predicted that US troop levels would fall to 30,000 by the end of the summer.

*

I heard that Paul Bremer’s first act as director of the Coalition Provisional Authority was to fire all senior members of the Baath Party, including 30,000 civil servants, policemen, teachers and doctors, and to dismiss all 400,000 soldiers of the Iraqi army without pay or pensions. Two million people were dependent on that income. Since America supports private gun ownership, the soldiers were allowed to keep their weapons.

I heard that hundreds were being kidnapped and raped in Baghdad alone; that schools, hospitals, shops and factories were being looted; that it was impossible to restore the electricity because all the copper wire was being stolen from the power plants.

I heard Paul Bremer say, ‘Most of the country is, in fact, orderly,’ and that all the problems were coming from ‘several hundred hard-core terrorists’ from al-Qaida and affiliated groups. As attacks on American troops increased, I heard the generals disagree about who was fighting: Islamic fundamentalists or remnants of the Baath Party or Iraqi mercenaries or foreign mercenaries or ordinary citizens taking revenge for the loss of loved ones.

I heard the president and the vice president and the politicians and the television reporters simply call them ‘terrorists’.

I heard the president say: ‘There are some who feel that conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is: bring them on! We have the force necessary to deal with the situation.’

I heard that 25,000 Iraqi civilians were dead.

I heard Arnold Schwarzenegger, then campaigning for governor, in Baghdad for a special showing to the troops of Terminator 3, say: ‘It is really wild driving round here, I mean the poverty, and you see there is no money, it is disastrous financially and there is the leadership vacuum, pretty much like California.’

I heard that the army was wrapping entire villages in barbed wire, with signs that read: ‘This fence is here for your protection. Do not approach or try to cross, or you will be shot.’ In one of those villages, I heard a man named Tariq say: ‘I see no difference between us and the Palestinians.’

I heard Captain Todd Brown say: ‘You have to understand the Arab mind. The only thing they understand is force – force, pride and saving face.’

I heard that the US, as a gift from the American people to the Iraqi people, had committed $18.4 billion to the reconstruction of basic infrastructure, but that future Iraqi governments would have no say in how the money was spent.

I heard that the economy had been opened to foreign ownership, and that this could not be changed. I heard that the Iraqi army would be under the command of the US, and that this could not be changed. I heard, however, that ‘full authority’ for health and hospitals had been turned over to the Iraqis, and that senior American health advisers had been withdrawn.

I heard Tommy Thompson, secretary of health and human services, say that Iraq’s hospitals would be fine if the Iraqis ‘just washed their hands and cleaned the crap off the walls’.

I heard Colonel Nathan Sassaman say: ‘With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them.’

I heard Richard Perle say: ‘Next year at about this time, I expect there will be a really thriving trade in the region, and we will see rapid economic development. And a year from now, I’ll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad named after President Bush.’

*

I heard about Operation Ivy Cyclone. I heard about Operation Vigilant Resolve. I heard about Operation Plymouth Rock. I heard about Operation Iron Hammer, its name taken from Eisenhammer, the Nazi plan to destroy Soviet generating plants.

I heard that air force regulations require that any airstrike likely to result in the deaths of more than 30 civilians be personally approved by the secretary of defense, and I heard that Donald Rumsfeld approved every proposal.

I heard the marine colonel say: ‘We napalmed those bridges. Unfortunately, there were people there. It’s no great way to die.’

I heard the Pentagon deny they were using napalm, saying their incendiary bombs were made of something called Mark 77, and I heard the experts say that Mark 77 was another name for napalm.

I heard a marine describe ‘dead-checking’: ‘They teach us to do dead-checking when we’re clearing rooms. You put two bullets into the guy’s chest and one in the brain. But when you enter a room where guys are wounded, you might not know if they’re alive or dead. So they teach us to dead-check them by pressing them in the eye with your boot, because generally a person, even if he’s faking being dead, will flinch if you poke him there. If he moves, you put a bullet in the brain. You do this to keep the momentum going when you’re flowing through a building. You don’t want a guy popping up behind you and shooting you.’

I heard the president say: ‘We’re rolling back the terrorist threat, not on the fringes of its influence but at the heart of its power.’ When the death toll of American soldiers reached 500, I heard Brigadier-General Kimmitt say: ‘I don’t think the soldiers are looking at arbitrary figures such as casualty counts as the barometer of their morale. They know they have a nation that stands behind them.’

I heard an American soldier, standing next to his Humvee, say: ‘We liberated Iraq. Now the people here don’t want us here, and guess what? We don’t want to be here either. So why are we still here? Why don’t they bring us home?’

I heard Colin Powell say: ‘We did not expect it would be quite this intense this long.’

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘We’re facing a test of will.’

I heard the president say: ‘We found biological laboratories. They’re illegal. They’re against the United Nations resolutions, and we’ve so far discovered two. And we’ll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong, we found them.’

I heard Tony Blair say: ‘The remains of 400,000 human beings have been found in mass graves.’ And I saw his words repeated in a US government pamphlet, Iraq’s Legacy of Terror: Mass Graves, and on a US government website which said this represented ‘a crime against humanity surpassed only by the Rwandan genocide of 1994, Pol Pot’s Cambodian killing fields in the 1970s and the Nazi Holocaust of World War Two’.

*

I heard the president say: ‘Today, on bended knee, I thank the Good Lord for protecting those of our troops overseas, and our Coalition troops and innocent Iraqis who suffer at the hands of some of these senseless killings by people who are trying to shake our will.’

I heard that this was the first American president in wartime who had never attended a funeral for a dead soldier.

I heard that photographs of the flag-draped coffins returning home were banned. I heard that the Pentagon had renamed body bags ‘transfer tubes’.

I heard a tearful George Bush Sr, speaking at the annual convention of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, say that it was ‘deeply offensive and contemptible’ the way ‘elites and intellectuals’ were dismissing ‘the sowing of the seeds of basic human freedom in that troubled part of the world’. I heard him say: ‘It hurts an awful lot more when it’s your son that is being criticised.’

I heard the president’s mother say: ‘Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?’

I heard that 7 per cent of all American military deaths in Iraq were suicides, that 10 per cent of the soldiers evacuated to the army hospital in Landstuhl, Germany had been sent for ‘psychiatric or behavioural health issues’, and that 20 per cent of the military was expected to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

I heard Brigadier-General Kimmitt deny that civilians were being killed: ‘We run extremely precise operations focused on people we have intelligence on for crimes of violence against the Coalition and against the Iraqi people.’ And later I heard him say that marines were being fired on from crowds containing women and children, and that the marines had fired back only in self-defence.

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say that the fighting was the work of ‘thugs, gangs and terrorists’.

I heard General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, say: ‘It’s not a Shiite uprising. Muqtada al-Sadr has a very small following.’

I heard that an unnamed ‘intelligence official’ had said: ‘Hatred of the American occupation has spread rapidly among Shia, and is now so large that Mr Sadr and his forces represent just one element. Destroying his Mehdi Army might be possible only by destroying Sadr City.’ Sadr City is the most populated part of Baghdad.

I heard that, among the Sunnis, former Baath Party leaders and Saddam loyalists had been joined by Sunni tribal chiefs.

I heard that there were now thirty separate militias in the country. I heard the television news reporters routinely refer to them as ‘anti-Iraqi forces’.

I heard that Paul Bremer had closed down a popular newspaper, Al Hawza, because of ‘inaccurate reporting’. As Shias in Sadr City lined up to donate blood for Sunnis in Fallujah, I heard a man say: ‘We should thank Paul Bremer. He has finally united Iraq – against him.’

I heard the president say: ‘I wouldn’t be happy if I were occupied either.’

*

I heard Tony Blair say: ‘Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a bit.’

I heard General Myers say: ‘Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we’re interrogating, I’m confident that we’re going to find weapons of mass destruction.’

I heard the president say: ‘Prisoners are being taken, and intelligence is being gathered. Our decisive actions will continue until these enemies of democracy are dealt with.’

I heard a soldier describe what they called ‘bitch in a box’: ‘That was the normal procedure for them when they wanted to soften up a prisoner: stuff them in the trunk for a while and drive them around. The hoods I can understand, and to have them cuffed with the plastic things – that I could see. But the trunk episode – I thought it was kind of unusual. It was like a sweatbox, let’s face it. In Iraq, in August, it’s hitting 120 degrees, and you can imagine what it was like in the trunk of a black Mercedes.’

I heard a National Guardsman from Florida say: ‘We had a sledgehammer that we would bang against the wall, and that would create an echo that sounds like an explosion that scared the hell out of them. If that didn’t work we would load a 9mm pistol, and pretend to be charging it near their head and make them think we were going to shoot them. Once you did that they did whatever you wanted them to do basically. The way we treated these men was hard even for the soldiers, especially after realising that many of these “combatants” were no more than shepherds.’

I heard a marine at Camp Whitehorse say: ‘The 50/10 technique was used to break down EPWs and make it easier for the HET member to get information from them.’ The 50/10 technique was to make prisoners stand for 50 minutes of the hour for ten hours with a hood over their heads in the heat. EPWs were ‘enemy prisoners of war’. HETs were ‘human exploitation teams’.

I heard Captain Donald Reese, a prison warden, say: ‘It was not uncommon to see people without clothing. I was told the “whole nudity thing” was an interrogation procedure used by military intelligence, and never thought much about it.’

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘I have not seen anything thus far that says that the people abused were abused in the process of interrogating them or for interrogation purposes.’

I heard Private Lynndie England, who was photographed in Abu Ghraib holding a prisoner on a leash, say: ‘I was instructed by persons in higher rank to stand there, hold this leash, look at the camera, and they took pictures for PsyOps. I didn’t really, I mean, want to be in any pictures. I thought it was kind of weird.’ Detainees 27, 30 and 31 were stripped of their clothing, handcuffed together nude, placed on the ground, and forced to lie on each other and simulate sex while photographs were taken. Detainee 8 had his food thrown in the toilet and was then ordered to eat it. Detainee 7 was ordered to bark like a dog while MPs spat and urinated on him; he was sodomised with a police stick while two female MPs watched. Detainee 3 was sodomised with a broom by a female soldier. Detainee 15 was photographed standing on a box with a hood on his head and simulated electrical wires were attached to his hands and penis. Detainees 1, 16, 17, 18, 23, 24 and 26 were placed in a pile and forced to masturbate while photographs were taken. An unidentified detainee was photographed covered in faeces with a banana inserted in his anus. Detainee 5 watched Civilian 1 rape an unidentified 15-year-old male detainee while a female soldier took photographs. Detainees 5 and 7 were stripped of their clothing and forced to wear women’s underwear on their heads. Detainee 28, handcuffed with his hands behind his back in a shower stall, was declared dead when an MP removed the sandbag from his head and checked his pulse.

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘If you are in Washington DC, you can’t know what’s going on in the midnight shift in one of those many prisons around the world.’

*

I heard that the Red Cross had to close its offices because it was too dangerous. I heard that General Electric and the Siemens Corporation had to close their offices. I heard that Médecins sans Frontières had to withdraw, and that journalists rarely left their hotels. I heard that, after their headquarters were bombed, most of the United Nations staff had gone. I heard that the cost of life insurance policies for the few remaining Western businessmen was $10,000 a week.

I heard Tom Foley, director of Iraq Private Sector Development, say: ‘The security risks are not as bad as they appear on TV. Western civilians are not the targets themselves. These are acceptable risks.’ I heard the spokesman for Paul Bremer say: ‘We have isolated pockets where we are encountering problems.’ I heard that, no longer able to rely on the military for help, private security firms had banded together to form the largest private army in the world, with its own rescue teams and intelligence. I heard that there were 20,000 mercenary soldiers, now called ‘private contractors’, in Iraq, earning as much as $2000 a day, and not subject to Iraqi or US military law.

I heard that 50,000 Iraqi civilians were dead.

I heard that, on a day when a car bomb killed three Americans, Paul Bremer’s last act as director of the Coalition Provisional Authority was to issue laws making it illegal to drive with only one hand on the steering wheel or to honk a horn when there was no emergency.

I heard that the unemployment rate was now 70 per cent, that less than 1 per cent of the workforce was engaged in reconstruction, and that the US had spent only 2 per cent of the $18.4 billion approved by Congress for reconstruction.

I heard that an official audit could not account for $8.8 billion of Iraqi oil money given to Iraqi ministries by the Coalition Provisional Authority.

I heard the president say: ‘Our Coalition is standing with responsible Iraqi leaders as they establish growing authority in their country.’

I heard that, a few days before he became prime minister, Iyad Allawi visited a Baghdad police station where six suspected insurgents, blindfolded and handcuffed, were lined up against a wall. I heard that, as four Americans and a dozen Iraqi policemen watched, Allawi pulled out a pistol and shot each prisoner in the head. I heard that he said that this is how we must deal with insurgents. On 28 June 2004, with the establishment of an interim government, I heard the vice president say: ‘After decades of rule by a brutal dictator, Iraq has been returned to its rightful owners, the people of Iraq.’ This was the military summary for an ordinary day, 22 July 2004, a day that produced no headlines: ‘Two roadside bombs exploded next to a van and a Mercedes in separate areas of Baghdad, killing four civilians. A gunman in a Toyota opened fire on a police checkpoint and escaped. Police wounded three gunmen at a checkpoint and arrested four men suspected of attempted murder. Seven more roadside bombs exploded in Baghdad and gunmen twice attacked US troops. Police dismantled a car bomb in Mosul and gunmen attacked the Western driver of a gravel truck at Tell Afar. There were three roadside bombings and a rocket attack on US troops in Mosul and another gun attack on US forces near Tell Afar. At Taji, a civilian vehicle collided with a US military vehicle, killing six civilians and injuring seven others. At Bayji, a US vehicle hit a landmine. Gunmen murdered a dentist at the Ad Dwar hospital. There were 17 roadside bomb explosions against US forces in Taji, Baquba, Baqua, Jalula, Tikrit, Paliwoda, Balad, Samarra and Duluiyeh, with attacks by gunmen on US troops in Tikrit and Balad. A headless body in an orange jumpsuit was found in the Tigris; believed to be Bulgarian hostage Ivalyo Kepov. Kirkuk air base attacked. Five roadside bombs on US forces in Rutbah, Kalso and Ramadi. Gunmen attacked Americans in Fallujah and Ramadi. The police chief of Najaf was abducted. Two civilian contractors were attacked by gunmen at Haswah. A roadside bomb exploded near Kerbala and Hillah. International forces were attacked by gunmen at al-Qurnah.’

*

I heard the president say: ‘You can embolden an enemy by sending a mixed message. You can dispirit the Iraqi people by sending mixed messages. That’s why I will continue to lead with clarity and in a resolute way.’ I heard the president say: ‘Today, because the world acted with courage and moral clarity, Iraqi athletes are competing in the Olympic Games.’ Iraq had sent teams to the previous Olympics. And when the president ran a campaign advertisement with the flags of Iraq and Afghanistan and the words ‘at this Olympics there will be two more free nations – and two fewer terrorist regimes,’ I heard the Iraqi coach say: ‘Iraq as a team does not want Mr Bush to use us for the presidential campaign. He can find another way to advertise himself.’ I heard their star midfielder say that if he weren’t playing soccer he’d be fighting for the resistance in Fallujah: ‘Bush has committed so many crimes. How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women?’ I heard an unnamed ‘senior British army officer’ invoke the Nazis to describe what he saw: ‘My view and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans’ use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They don’t see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as Untermenschen. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life. As far as they are concerned, Iraq is bandit country and everybody is out to kill them. It is trite, but American troops do shoot first and ask questions later.’ I heard Makki al-Nazzal, who was managing a clinic in Fallujah, say, in unaccented English: ‘I have been a fool for 47 years. I used to believe in European and American civilisation.’

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘We never believed that we’d just tumble over weapons of mass destruction.’

I heard Condoleezza Rice say: ‘We never expected we were going to open garages and find them.’

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘They may have had time to destroy them, and I don’t know the answer.’

I heard Richard Perle say: ‘We don’t know where to look for them and we never did know where to look for them. I hope this will take less than two hundred years.’

*

I heard the president say: ‘I know what I’m doing when it comes to winning this war.’

I heard the president say: ‘I’m a war president.’

I heard that 1000 American soldiers were dead and 7000 wounded in combat. I heard that there was now an average of 87 attacks on US troops a day.

I heard Condoleezza Rice say: ‘Not everything has gone as we would have liked it to.’

I heard Colin Powell say: ‘We did miscalculate the difficulty.’

I heard an unnamed ‘senior US diplomat in Baghdad’ say: ‘We’re dealing with a population that hovers between bare tolerance and outright hostility. This idea of a functioning democracy is crazy. We thought there would be a reprieve after sovereignty, but all hell is breaking loose.’

I heard Major Thomas Neemeyer say: ‘The only way to stomp out the insurgency of the mind would be to kill the entire population.’

I heard the CNN reporter near the tomb of Ali in Najaf say: ‘Everything outside of the mosque seems to be totalled.’

I heard Khudeir Salman, who sold ice from a donkey cart in Najaf, say he was giving up after marine snipers had killed his friend, another ice-seller: ‘I found him this morning. The sniper shot his donkey too. Even the ambulance drivers are too scared to get the body.’

I heard the vice president say: ‘Such an enemy cannot be deterred, cannot be contained, cannot be appeased, or negotiated with. It can only be destroyed. And that is the business at hand.’ I heard a ‘senior American commander’ say: ‘We need to make a decision on when the cancer of Fallujah needs to be cut out.’

I heard Major-General John Batiste, outside Samarra, say: ‘It’ll be a quick fight and the enemy is going to die fast. The message for the people of Samarra is: peacefully or not, this is going to be solved.’

I heard Brigadier-General Kimmitt say: ‘Our patience is not eternal.’

I heard the president say: ‘America will never be run out of Iraq by a bunch of thugs and killers.’

I heard about the wedding party that was attacked by American planes, killing 45 people, and the wedding photographer who videotaped the festivities until he himself was killed. And though the tape was shown on television, I heard Brigadier-General Kimmitt say: ‘There was no evidence of a wedding. There may have been some kind of celebration. Bad people have celebrations, too.’

I heard an Iraqi man say: ‘I swear I saw dogs eating the body of a woman.’

I heard an Iraqi man say: ‘We have at least 700 dead. So many of them are children and women. The stench from the dead bodies in parts of the city is unbearable.’

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war.’

*

On the occasion of Iyad Allawi’s visit to the United States, I heard the president say: ‘What’s important for the American people to hear is reality. And the reality is right here in the form of the prime minister.’ Asked about ethnic tensions, I heard Iyad Allawi say: ‘There are no problems between Shia and Sunnis and Kurds and Arabs and Turkmen. Usually we have no problems of an ethnic or religious nature in Iraq.’

I heard him say: ‘There is nothing, no problem, except in a small pocket in Fallujah.’

I heard Colonel Jerry Durrant say, after a meeting with Ramadi tribal sheikhs: ‘A lot of these guys have read history, and they said to me the government in Baghdad is like the Vichy government in France during World War Two.’

I heard a journalist say: ‘I am housebound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people’s homes and never walk in the streets. I can’t go grocery shopping any more, can’t eat in restaurants, can’t strike up a conversation with strangers, can’t look for stories, can’t drive in anything but a full armoured car, can’t go to scenes of breaking news stories, can’t be stuck in traffic, can’t speak English outside, can’t take a road trip, can’t say “I’m an American,” can’t linger at checkpoints, can’t be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling.’

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘It’s a tough part of the world. We had something like 200 or 300 or 400 people killed in many of the major cities of America last year. What’s the difference? We just didn’t see each homicide in every major city in the United States on television every night.’

I heard that 80,000 Iraqi civilians were dead. I heard that the war had already cost $225 billion and was continuing at the rate of $40 billion a month. I heard there was now an average of 130 attacks on US troops a day. I heard Captain John Mountford say: ‘I just wonder what would have happened if we had worked a little more with the locals.’

I heard that, in the last year alone, the US had fired 127 tons of depleted uranium (DU) munitions in Iraq, the radioactive equivalent of approximately ten thousand Nagasaki bombs.

I heard that the widespread use of DU in the first Gulf War was believed to be the primary cause of the health problems suffered by its 580,400 veterans, of whom 467 were wounded during the war itself. Ten years later, 11,000 were dead and 325,000 on medical disability. DU carried in semen led to high rates of endometriosis in their wives and girlfriends, often requiring hysterectomies. Of soldiers who had healthy babies before the war, 67 per cent of their postwar babies were born with severe defects, including missing legs, arms, organs or eyes.

I heard that 380 tons of HMX (high melting point explosive) and RDX (rapid detonation explosive) were missing from al-Qaqaa, one of Iraq’s ‘most sensitive military installations’, which had not been guarded since the invasion.
I heard that one pound of these explosives was enough to blow up a 747 jet, and that this cache could be used to make a million roadside bombs, which were the cause of half the casualties among US troops.

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say, when asked why the troops were being kept in the war much longer than their normal tours of duty: ‘Oh, come on. People are fungible. You can have them here or there.’

*

I heard Colonel Gary Brandl say: ‘The enemy has got a face. He’s called Satan. He’s in Fallujah and we’re going to destroy him.’

I heard a marine commander tell his men: ‘You will be held accountable for the facts not as they are in hindsight but as they appeared to you at the time. If, in your mind, you fire to protect yourself or your men, you are doing the right thing. It doesn’t matter if later on we find out you wiped out a family of unarmed civilians.’

I heard Lieutenant-Colonel Mark Smith say: ‘We’re going out where the bad guys live, and we’re going to slay them in their zip code.’

I heard that 15,000 US troops invaded Fallujah while planes dropped 500-pound bombs on ‘insurgent targets’. I heard they destroyed the Nazzal Emergency Hospital in the centre of the city, killing 20 doctors. I heard they occupied Fallujah General Hospital, which the military had called a ‘centre of propaganda’ for reporting civilian casualties.
I heard that they confiscated all mobile phones and refused to allow doctors and ambulances to go out and help the wounded.

I heard they bombed the power plant to black out the city, and that the water was shut off.

I heard that every house and shop had a large red X spray-painted on the door to indicate that it had been searched.

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘Innocent civilians in that city have all the guidance they need as to how they can avoid getting into trouble. There aren’t going to be large numbers of civilians killed and certainly not by US forces.’

I heard that, in a city of 150 mosques, there were no longer any calls to prayer.

I heard Muhammad Abboud tell how, unable to leave his house to go to a hospital, he had watched his nine-year-old son bleed to death, and how, unable to leave his house to go to a cemetery, he had buried his son in the garden.

I heard Sami al-Jumaili, a doctor, say: ‘There is not a single surgeon in Fallujah. A 13-year-old child just died in my hands.’

I heard an American soldier say: ‘We will win the hearts and minds of Fallujah by ridding the city of insurgents. We’re doing that by patrolling the streets and killing the enemy.’

I heard an American soldier, a Bradley gunner, say: ‘I was basically looking for any clean walls, you know, without any holes in them. And then we were putting holes in them.’

I heard Farhan Salih say: ‘My kids are hysterical with fear. They are traumatised by the sound but there is nowhere to take them.’

I heard that the US troops allowed women and children to leave the city, but that all ‘military age males’, men from 15 to 60, were required to stay. I heard that no food or medicine was allowed into the city.

I heard the Red Cross say that at least 800 civilians had died. I heard Iyad Allawi say there were no civilian casualties in Fallujah.

I heard a man named Abu Sabah say: ‘They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud. Then small pieces fall from the air with long tails of smoke behind them.’ I heard him say that pieces of these bombs exploded into large fires that burned the skin even when water was thrown on it.

I heard Kassem Muhammad Ahmed say: ‘I watched them roll over wounded people in the streets with tanks.’

I heard a man named Khalil say: ‘They shot women and old men in the streets. Then they shot anyone who tried to get their bodies.’

I heard Nihida Kadhim, a housewife, say that when she was finally allowed to return to her home, she found a message written with lipstick on her living-room mirror: FUCK IRAQ AND EVERY IRAQI IN IT.

I heard General John Sattler say that the destruction of Fallujah had ‘broken the back of the insurgency’.

I heard that three-quarters of Fallujah had been shelled into rubble. I heard an American soldier say: ‘It’s kind of bad we destroyed everything, but at least we gave them a chance for a new start.’

I heard that only five roads into Fallujah would remain open. The rest would be sealed with ‘sand berms’, mountains of earth. At the entry points, everyone would be photographed, fingerprinted and have iris scans taken before being issued identification cards. All citizens would be required to wear identification cards in plain sight at all times. No private automobiles would be allowed in the city. All males would be organised into ‘work brigades’ rebuilding the city. They would be paid, but participation would be compulsory.

I heard Muhammad Kubaissy, a shopkeeper, say: ‘I am still searching for what they have been calling democracy.’

I heard a soldier say that he had talked to his priest about killing Iraqis, and that his priest had told him it was all right to kill for his government as long as he did not enjoy it. After he had killed at least four men, I heard the soldier say that he had begun to have doubts: ‘Where the fuck did Jesus say it’s OK to kill people for your government?’

*

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘I don’t believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons.’

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘The Coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. We acted because we saw the evidence in a dramatic new light, through the prism of our experience on 9/11.’

I heard a reporter say to Donald Rumsfeld: ‘Before the war in Iraq, you stated the case very eloquently and you said they would welcome us with open arms.’ And I heard Rumsfeld interrupt him: ‘Never said that. Never did. You may remember it well, but you’re thinking of somebody else. You can’t find, anywhere, me saying anything like either of those two things you just said I said.’

I heard Ahmed Chalabi, who had supplied most of the information about the weapons of mass destruction, shrug and say: ‘We are heroes in error . . . What was said before is not important.’

I heard Paul Wolfowitz say: ‘For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, as justification for invading Iraq, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.’ I heard Condoleezza Rice continue to insist: ‘It’s not as if anybody believes that Saddam Hussein was without weapons of mass destruction.’

I heard that the Niger ‘yellowcake’ uranium was a hoax legitimised by British intelligence, that the aluminium tubes could not be used for nuclear weapons, that the mobile biological laboratories produced hydrogen for weather balloons, that the fleet of unmanned aerial drones was a single broken-down oversized model airplane, that Saddam had no elaborate underground bunkers, that Colin Powell’s primary source, his ‘solid information’ for the evidence he presented at the United Nations, was a paper written ten years before by a graduate student.

I heard that, of the 400,000 bodies buried in mass graves, only 5000 had been found.

I heard Lieutenant-General James Conway say: ‘It was a surprise to me then, and it remains a surprise to me now, that we have not uncovered weapons. It’s not from lack of trying.’

I heard a reporter ask Donald Rumsfeld: ‘If they did not have WMDs, why did they pose an immediate threat to this country?’ I heard Rumsfeld answer: ‘You and a few other critics are the only people I’ve heard use the phrase “immediate threat”. It’s become a kind of folklore that that’s what happened. If you have any citations, I’d like to see them.’ And I heard the reporter read: ‘No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people.’ Rumsfeld replied: ‘It – my view of – of the situation was that he – he had – we – we believe, the best intelligence that we had and other countries had and that – that we believed and we still do not know – we will know.’

I heard Saadoon al-Zubaydi, an interpreter who lived in the presidential palace, say: ‘For at least three years Saddam Hussein had been tired of the day-to-day management of his regime. He could not stand it any more: meetings, commissions, dispatches, telephone calls. So he withdrew . . . Alone, isolated, out of it. He preferred shutting himself up in his office, writing novels.’

*

I heard the president say that Iraq is a ‘catastrophic success’.

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘They haven’t won a single battle the entire time since the end of major combat operations.’

I heard that hundreds of schools had been completely destroyed and thousands looted, and that most people thought it too dangerous to send their children to school.

I heard there was no system of banks.

I heard that in the cities there were only ten hours of electricity a day and that only 60 per cent of the population had access to drinkable water.

I heard that the malnutrition of children was now far worse than in Uganda or Haiti. I heard that none of the 270,000 babies born after the start of the war had received immunisations.

I heard that 5 per cent of eligible voters had registered for the coming elections.

I heard General John Abizaid say: ‘I don’t think Iraq will have a perfect election. And, if I recall, looking back at our own election four years ago, it wasn’t perfect either.’

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘Let’s say you tried to have an election and you could have it in three-quarters or fourfifths of the country. But some places you couldn’t because the violence is too great. Well, so be it. Nothing’s perfect in life.’

I heard an Iraqi engineer say: ‘Go and vote and risk being blown to pieces or followed by insurgents and murdered for co-operating with the Americans? For what? To practise democracy? Are you joking?’

I heard General Muhammad Abdullah Shahwani, the chief of Iraqi intelligence, say that there were now 200,000 active fighters in the insurgency.

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘I don’t believe it’s our job to reconstruct that country. The Iraqi people are going to have to reconstruct that country over a period of time.’

I heard him say that, in any event, ‘the infrastructure of that country was not terribly damaged by the war at all.’

I heard that the American ambassador, John Negroponte, had requested that $3.37 billion intended for water, sewage and electricity projects be transferred to security and oil output.

I heard that the reporters from the al-Jazeera network were indefinitely banned. I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: ‘What al-Jazeera is doing is vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable.’ I heard that Spain left the ‘coalition of the willing’. Hungary left; the Dominican Republic left; Nicaragua left; Honduras left.

I heard that the Philippines had left early, after a Filipino truck driver was kidnapped and executed. Norway left. Poland and the Netherlands said they were leaving. Thailand said it was leaving. Bulgaria was reducing its few hundred troops. Moldova cut its force from 42 to 12.

I heard that the president had once said: ‘Two years from now, only the Brits may be with us. At some point, we may be the only ones left. That’s OK with me. We are America.’

I heard a reporter ask Lieutenant-General Jay Garner how long the troops would remain in Iraq, and I heard him reply: ‘I hope they’re there a long time.’

I heard General Tommy Franks say: ‘One has to think about the numbers. I think we will be engaged with our military in Iraq for perhaps three, five, perhaps ten years.’

I heard that the Pentagon was now exploring what it called the ‘Salvador option’, modelled on the death squads in El Salvador in the 1980s, when John Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras and when Elliott Abrams, now White House adviser on the Middle East, called the massacre at El Mozote ‘nothing but Communist propaganda’. Under the plan, the US would advise, train and support paramilitaries in assassination and kidnapping, including secret raids across the Syrian border. In the vice presidential debate, I heard the vice president say: ‘Twenty years ago we had a similar situation in El Salvador. We had a guerrilla insurgency that controlled roughly a third of the country . . . And today El Salvador is a whale of a lot better.’

I heard that 100,000 Iraqi civilians were dead. I heard that there was now an average of 150 attacks on US troops a day.

I heard that in Baghdad 700 people were being killed every month in ‘non-war-related’ criminal activities. I heard that 1400 American soldiers had been killed and that the true casualty figure was approximately 25,000.

I heard that Donald Rumsfeld had a machine sign his letters of condolence to the families of soldiers who had been killed. When this caused a small scandal, I heard him say: ‘I have directed that in the future I sign each letter.’

I heard the president say: ‘The credibility of this country is based upon our strong desire to make the world more peaceful, and the world is now more peaceful.’

I heard the president say: ‘I want to be the peace president. The next four years will be peaceful years.’

I heard Attorney General John Ashcroft say, on the day of his resignation: ‘The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.’

I heard the president say: ‘For a while we were marching to war. Now we’re marching to peace.’

I heard that the US military had purchased 1,500,000,000 bullets for use in the coming year. That is 58 bullets for every Iraqi adult and child.

I heard that Saddam Hussein, in solitary confinement, was spending his time writing poetry, reading the Koran, eating cookies and muffins, and taking care of some bushes and shrubs.

I heard that he had placed a circle of white stones around a small plum tree.

11 January

Eliot Weinberger's What I Heard about Iraq, which first appeared in the LRB in February, has been published as a book by Verso; 9/12 is published by Prickly Paradigm; What Happened Here: Bush Chronicles is forthcoming from New Directions.

From the LRB letters page: [ 17 February 2005 ] Judith Crosher [ 17 March 2005 ] Margret Powell-Joss.