Baghdad Journal

At the U.N.

I have Abu Abdullah drop me off at the Conference Center where the CPA and Governing Council holds many of its meetings. The new rules are that you must be an hour and a half early to press conferences given by General Sanchez or Ambassador Bremer. Our acquiantance, Hassan Fattah Pasha, a guy raised in Berkeley who started an English weekly paper in post-war Baghdad, was late to one of these meetings and was then arrested -- face on the ground, plastic ties around the wrists behind his back, the whole works -- when he protested. For once, I am on time, but gnash my teeth when I see on the big white board upstairs announcing that all meetings have been cancelled today. Apparently, Sen. John McCain is in town today so Bremer bowed out in deference to the good senator, just in case he wanted to hold a press conference himself. Only problem is that McCain never showed either.

Dejected I walk down the long corridors of the Conference Center and pass a group of Iraqi guys who work for Reuters waiting to interview some CPA honcho on the latest capture in the Ba'athist deck of cards. I give them my condolences about Mazen Dana, the cameraman who was killed by the troops at Abu Ghareb Prison some days ago. Reuters has lost five journalists since the beginning of the war, most of them cameramen.
I go downstairs and am in the middle of buying a coke from soldiers behind a thick pane of glass when I hear a commotion from outside. A soldier in full gear bursts in saying "It was a huge explosion -- We've got at least 100 casualties. We need to evacuate this building NOW."
Grabbing my can of Coke I run up to where the Reuters team is sitting, still waiting for the interview. I tell them what I heard -- but of course I have no idea what got hit or where. One of them tunes into his scanner. "Canal Hotel, that's U.N. Headquarters!" he says. And they grab their gear and rush for the stairs. I ask if I can tag along.
They call themselves the three "-Er"s -- Haider, the reporter, Kander, the cameraman, Mazen Dana's replacement, and the driver, a big guy who accelerates and swerves into oncoming traffic with such zeal that I quickly forget his name and sink low into my seat, praying for a second chance. We see the smoke from a distance. Black Hawks are already circling. Haider is telling me that he was three feet away from the man who was shot and killed by troops in front of the Rabiya. "It was so random, it could just as easily been me," he says. He has been here since the war and has seen everything already. Maybe that's why he's so cheerful.
We stop on the far side of the highway to the Canal, the front of which has collapsed. There's a pedestrian bridge over the highway but Army troops are blocking anyone who tries to pass, including a middle aged woman -- primly dressed in a cream business outfit -- who becomes hysterical. She shouts, she pleads with the soldiers, she falls to her knees, as the three -Ers -- sporting blue flak jackets under their yellow "Reuters" vests -- maneuver around her.
We opt to cross a dirt field between the highway and the hotel. One man from the car shouts as I start to stomp through the dry crumbly mounds of the field. "Don't go! Don't go! Bomb!"
"Yes, I know. Bomb," I say pointing to the smoking remains of the hotel.
"No, no! BOMB." He says, pointing at my feet.
"Oh yeah, this place was probably mined before the war," Haider shrugs as he passes me. "But there isn't really another way."
I follow behind the -Ers, and step by step we make it across to the pandemonium on the other side. A mass of journalists is getting set up along a driveway to the National Spinal Cord Injury Clinic, which is adjacent to the U.N. compound. (To be continued, Abu Abdullah is waiting and we have to go back to the hotel and pack -- leaving tomorrow early for Amman)