--- description: Two veterans of the war in Iraq--from very different professions--return to find continued danger but a fragile sort of progress title: Back to Baghdad image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [World](/section/world/) # Back to Baghdad by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) Oct 25, 2010 4:00 AM CUT by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) Oct 25, 2010 4:00 AM CUT Formerly a captain in the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division, Nate Rawlings, now studying at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, came to TIME as an intern this summer. In 2006 and again in 2008-09, Rawlings spent yearlong tours in Iraq. When TIME’s former Baghdad bureau chief Bobby Ghosh was preparing to make a trip back to Iraq to assess progress there, he invited Rawlings to join him. They found a country where security and peace are still fragile but one that has changed for the better since the darkest days of the insurgency in 2006-07\. [Their dispatches:](http://www.time.com/baghdad "undefined") **U.S. soldiers dubbed it Route Irish, and Iraqis called it the Highway of Death. The seven miles (11 km) from the airport into the city was once the most dangerous road on the planet.** **RAWLINGS**: Stuffed into the backseat of the station wagon, I clenched my fists to make sure my hands weren’t shaking. The first time I drove this road was in 2006; my first glimpse of Baghdad was from the commander’s hatch of a Bradley fighting vehicle. After that day, I led or participated in more than 400 missions and patrols. We would lurch down the highways and through Baghdad’s neighborhoods, sucking on cigarettes and praying that the roadside garbage didn’t hide improvised explosive devices that would suddenly erupt. [(See pictures of Iraq’s fragile progress.)](http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2025546,00.html "undefined") Now returning as a civilian, I looked out the car window and saw the familiar landmarks: rows of squat, tan houses behind concrete blast walls and Iraqi-army checkpoints. They added to my growing anxiety. I couldn’t wish away the feeling that I was back in Iraq. **GHOSH**: Baghdad’s roads are a lot safer now than in 2006\. Back then, I would have refused to bring Nate along for the ride—not just because he’s a soldier but also because he’s so obviously a foreigner. My Indian origins allow me to pass for a local, but I was never more frightened than when traveling with an American or European colleague. These days, there are places in Baghdad that foreigners can visit, as long as they exercise appropriate caution. **The parks on Abu Nuwas Street, on the banks of the Tigris, are a favored picnic spot for Baghdad residents. Children have room to frolic, and at night, restaurants serve masgouf—flame-roasted river carp, a local delicacy.** **GHOSH**: After the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, the U.S. military restricted access to the corniche, lest militants use it to mount attacks on the Green Zone across the river. The Iraqi government reopened it in the fall of 2007\. The parks were spruced up, and new restaurants were opened. But the event was greeted by Baghdadis with an ironic shrug. Who, they asked, would care to picnic on the river when their city was still racked by sectarian violence? At the time, I shared the skepticism. [(See pictures of Robert Gates in America’s War Zones.)](http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2016541,00.html "undefined") **RAWLINGS**: As the sun set over the city, families and bands of teenagers strolled along the river. Children too young to remember the war played in a large pool, racing one another in bumper boats. We ordered masgouf at one of the restaurants and watched it being cooked. When the waiter brought it to the table, I hesitated. Carp is a bottom feeder, and the Tigris is teeming with industrial refuse and sewage. “It’s actually quite good,” Bobby said, “so long as you don’t think too hard about where it came from.” **Mahmudiyah, a half-hour drive south of Baghdad, was the heart of what the U.S. military called the Triangle of Death. Sunni insurgents there fought fierce battles against military patrols.** **RAWLINGS**: My welcome to combat came during the very first patrol I led on a stretch of highway near Mahmudiyah. On a cold January night, I was in charge of a section of two Bradley fighting vehicles. We crossed a canal bridge and suddenly drove into a wall of machine-gun fire. I ordered my driver to push forward to get a better angle on the attackers when an insurgent peeked over a mound of dirt and fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the back of my Bradley. It skimmed off the back of the vehicle and exploded into the wall of an Iraqi-army compound nearby. The entire fight lasted two minutes. They ducked into the canal, and we were powerless to chase them. [(See The Toll of Iraq.)](http://www.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,1598594,00.html "undefined") **GHOSH**: The last time I was in this area, in early 2005, my main fear was being killed by someone like Nate. I’d been brought to a secret meeting of tribal sheiks who were discussing feuds between insurgent groups. It was a furtive, hurried affair: everyone was concerned that a squad of American soldiers would come crashing through the date palms and begin a firefight that could only have had one outcome. Now Highway 1 is so safe, there are makeshift shacks along the road selling snacks and cold drinks. Wherever we stopped to talk to villagers, their recollections of the Americans were mixed: some remembered the late-night raids, doors broken down and menfolk hauled off to prison without explanation; others spoke of friendlier encounters with soldiers after the surge of 2007. [See Rawlings and Ghosh’s video of their time in Baghdad.](http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,636617058001%5F2025623,00.html "undefined") **The very name** **_Fallujah_** **evokes images of brutal fighting. Two bloody battles in 2004 put this otherwise nondescript town in Anbar province on the world stage.** **GHOSH**: The city is now mostly placid, and few signs remain of the terrible battles. The insurgency was co-opted in 2007, when the military poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the so-called Awakening campaign, recruiting former militants to fight against al-Qaeda. Many of those collaborators have gone on to win reconstruction contracts. Our host, a powerful tribal sheik, said the lesson Fallujah had taught the world was that “if you fight the Americans long enough, they will eventually pay you to stop shooting at them.” [(See pictures of Iraq going forward.)](http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2015858,00.html "undefined") **RAWLINGS**: We asked the sheik whether, given the scale of U.S. aid now pouring into the city, Fallujis would one day call Americans their friends. No, he said. There had been too much violence, too many killed, for Fallujis ever to trust the Americans. I was saddened by his answer. The perfect Arab host, he had tended to our every need all day, knowing full well that I am an American and that we write for an American magazine. And yet he could not bestow forgiveness for the blood and destruction we had brought to his town. I bet if you asked the same question to the families of the hundreds of Marines and soldiers who died here, you’d get the same answer. Some wounds can’t be healed by money or time. **Few Americans have heard of Hamdiyah, a cluster of hamlets near Anbar province’s capital, Ramadi. But this was the heart of al-Qaeda country from 2004 to 2007, before the tribes, with American support, expelled the terrorists.** **GHOSH**: As elsewhere in Anbar, the insurgents in Hamdiyah were led by former Baathists and officers from Saddam Hussein’s army. But some in this community of 2,500 souls also signed up with al-Qaeda and gave shelter to foreign fighters. In time, this group grew dominant. They used date-palm orchards to hide training camps. Suicide bombers were brought here for indoctrination before their final mission. Al-Qaeda even had a prison here, a converted chicken coop where captives suffered brutal torture. Their screams could be heard at night by villagers living half a mile away. Near the former prison, we found the remains of a human jawbone. In keeping with Muslim tradition, our translator immediately buried it. [(Watch TIME’s video “A Journalist and a Soldier Return.”)](http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,636617058001%5F2025623,00.html "undefined") **RAWLINGS**: According to the American narrative, enlightened U.S. military commanders co-opted the insurgents, persuading them to point their guns away from us and toward al-Qaeda. But the story is told differently here: Sheik Abdel Jabbar al-Feydawi, leader of the Albu Fahed tribe, rallied his people against al-Qaeda because the terrorists murdered his brother. He did it with little assistance from the Americans and took none of their reconstruction money. What appears to be a Rashomon story may actually be two sides to the same narrative. The anti-al-Qaeda movement was already taking hold in Anbar when the U.S. military brass woke up and realized you can’t kill your way out of an insurgency. [See pictures of Iraq’s fragile progress](http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2025546,00.html "undefined") **The American combat mission may be over, but there are still 50,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Most are confined to their bases, where the main threat is boredom.** **RAWLINGS**: I returned to my element with a visit to my old friend Staff Sergeant James Scott, team leader of the War Pigeons of the 162nd Explosives Ordnance Disposal Company, which is biding its time at Saddam’s old Ministry of Defense complex, known to the Americans as Old MoD. As combat tours go, this one’s been underwhelming. The War Pigeons have been here since the end of November and for the most part have little to do. Ironically, though, the majority of the action they’ve seen here came around the time of President Obama’s Aug. 31 declaration that combat operations had ended. First there was the Suicide Pants Bomber. On Aug. 17, he walked into an Iraqi Security Force recruiting drive and blew himself up: the explosive material was under his pants, taped with ball bearings to maximize the carnage. Nearly 60 died. On Sept. 5, five men stormed Old MoD. Two were killed just outside the gates, and a third set off a car bomb. The two who got inside took Iraqi prisoners in a building, beginning a three-hour standoff. In the end, they detonated their explosive vests on the third floor. Seven Iraqi soldiers died. [(See “Return to Baghdad: A Tourist’s Survival Guide.”)](http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2023239,00.html "undefined") Both these incidents took place just 100 yards (90 m) from where Scott’s team sleeps. Each time, they hustled to their trucks with weapons and gear. Then they waited. And waited. Under the Status of Forces Agreement that accompanied the American troop withdrawal, the Iraqis must request the assistance of U.S. soldiers before they can roll into the fray. The Iraqi army did request the help of Scott’s men in both bombings, but hours after the initial fighting. **GHOSH**: We saw U.S. military vehicles just four times in 10 days. On one occasion, three Bradleys were stuck in traffic. In previous years, they’d have blared sirens, fired warning shots, perhaps even pushed aside some Iraqi cars. Now they just sat there with the rest of us. The Iraqi police checkpoint holding up the traffic gave the Americans no special treatment. **Seven months after the general election, Iraq’s politicians have not yet been able to form a new government. The old one is corrupt and inept. The Shi’ite-Sunni civil war has moved from the streets to parliament.** **GHOSH**: Our translator, Ali al-Shaheen, jokes that if every nation on earth sent its worst politician to the Iraqi parliament, “it would immediately become half as corrupt and twice as efficient.” You might say, Well, lots of countries have bad governments; if terrible politicians are Iraq’s biggest problem now, that’s not so dire. But bad leadership could easily push Iraq back to the hell I saw in 2006-07\. That would make a shameful waste of tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars—and the efforts of people like Nate. [(See pictures of life returning to Iraq’s streets.)](http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1863348,00.html "undefined") **RAWLINGS**: Yet while politicians flounder, the Iraqi army appears to be thriving. A captain I helped train in 2008 told us that young officers are highly motivated and proud that they have as much urban combat experience as any military in the world. **For all the improvements, Baghdad remains a dangerous place. Car bombs still go off every week, and crime—especially kidnapping for ransom—has soared.** **GHOSH**: At a kebab restaurant in the busy Karrada area, Ali and I began to notice that people at nearby tables were staring at us with open hostility. Then the restaurant quickly emptied, even though it was the lunchtime peak—not a good sign. Ali, facing the door, saw a couple of men repeatedly peering in. It was time to leave. Once back in our station wagon, we knew from experience what to expect next. Sure enough, two cars began tailing us. One of them drew alongside, and we recognized the driver as one of our wrathful fellow diners. He drove past, then suddenly cut in front. Our driver, Sami, and I started looking in the side-view mirrors for the second car to box us in—the classic snatch maneuver. When Ali and I had been targeted for kidnapping before, we could rely on our chase car—a vehicle with two armed guards, following at a discreet distance—to come to the rescue. But the Iraqi government has made it illegal for citizens to travel with their guns. It was the checkpoints that saved us. It’s hard to go more than a quarter-mile (400 m) without being slowed and often stopped by police or soldiers. Kidnappers need longer stretches of unguarded road to pull off a snatch. Also because of the checkpoints, traffic just crawls, which prevents a quick getaway. As we slowed for the next checkpoint, I noticed the driver of the car ahead was repeatedly checking us out in his mirror. So I fished out the only weapon we had: my camera. I held it up, making sure he saw me take a picture of his car—number plate and all. He got the message. He swiftly changed lanes and accelerated away. The car behind continued to tail us for a while, but the men in it must have figured they didn’t stand a chance against four grown men, armed or not. They slowed and melted into the traffic behind us. **RAWLINGS**: I said to myself, “Of all the ways I thought I might die in Baghdad, who knew it would be weaponless in the slowest car chase in history?” It didn’t come to that, but the close shave reminded me of a lesson I’d learned as a soldier: you take Iraq for granted at your peril. 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