Word: baghdad
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...Blackwater and other security contractors are a ubiquitous presence in Iraq. The skies buzz with their single-striped Little Bird helicopters. When I was a correspondent in Baghdad in 2004, Blackwater convoys were notorious for bringing a Wild West mentality to the streets of Baghdad. They were easily identifiable--speeding white suvs with black-tinted windows and automatic weapons pointed at you. Hired guns are even more in evidence at the checkpoints in Baghdad's Green Zone, although there is a hierarchy as to who guards what. The outer gates of compounds are typically guarded by third-country nationals, experienced...
...Driving through Baghdad one afternoon before hostilities started, I pointed to an imposing-looking building and asked my driver what it was. To my surprise, he grew wide-eyed in terror, hit the gas and simultaneously reached across and grabbed my hand, yanking it away from the window. "Don't point at that building, don't even look at it," he said, his voice cracking in fear. "I will explain later." After we had driven out of that neighborhood, he told me the building was the headquarters of the Mukhabarat, the dreaded internal spying agency, and my driver feared that...
...Iraqis still live in fear. The pervasive violence that has wracked Baghdad since the summer of 2003 has killed or injured tens of thousands, and has made random, unpredictable death a fact of Iraqi life. I've lost count of the number of times Iraqis have told me, with biting sarcasm, that it's a little hard to appreciate the benefits of the new education system when schools and schoolbuses are regularly being bombed. They point out, too, that democracy has brought to power leaders who are sectarian partisans or kleptocrats, often both. Other new freedoms are appreciated...
...Will things get better? Experience has taught Iraqis not to be optimistic. In recent weeks, some things have got better - but it is hard to know if they will last. The massive, U.S.-led security operation in Baghdad has brought some relief. The daily death toll, which had risen to 100 last fall, has dropped. Sunni terrorists continue to kill innocent civilians with car bombs and suicide attacks, but at least the Shi'ite militias have melted away. U.S. military commanders see this as a victory, but few Iraqis are so sanguine. They know that the American soldiers will leave...
...They worry, too, that their political leadership remains deeply venal and inept. Corruption has become so endemic, the families of those killed in sectarian violence are sometimes forced to bribe officials at the Baghdad morgue to release the body quickly. An Iraqi may point to a government building now, but it is usually with a finger of accusation...