- Driving across Baghdad yesterday, a GMC full of armed
men races past our car, missing it by inches. Along with guns pointed out
their windows at us (and all the other cars), a couple of the men hold
their hands out, waving them down towards the ground in order to instruct
the traffic they are pushing their way through to stay back.
-
- CIA and/or mercenaries always travel like this here.
-
- As the SUV passes a gunman sits behind a metal barrier,
with his machine gun aimed at us. He's flashing a light at us, to underscore
the fact we should stay back.
-
- As a second SUV full of armed men wearing helmets passes
us my friend Ahmed turns to me and says, "We are nowhere here. Iraq
is nowhere now. Look at this life we are living."
-
- The unbearable gas crisis has worsened yet further. Lines
at stations are up to 8 miles long in places, causing people to wait hours,
sometimes days, for fuel. If they are lucky the station won't run out of
gas before they are allowed in to fill their tank.
-
- Petrol on the black market now, if you are lucky enough
to find it, is nearly 1$ per liter!
-
- Generators are now running out of fuel-so people have
no electricityas the power grid for most of Baghdad produces in most places
6 hours of electricity per day. Much of Baghdad has 2 hours per day.
-
- The gas crisis has increased transportation costs, so
the cost of food is skyrocketing, along with cooking fuels like kerosene
and propane.
-
- Of course, it doesn't help that today yet another pipeline
was sabotaged that links the Beji refinery to Baghdad.
-
- I took the day at my hotel to catch up on some writing.
Yet another large explosion nearby rattled the glass of my windows, and
of course there is sporadic automatic weapons fire throughout the capital.
-
- "I hate this f*cking place," says Salam as
he enters my room tonight. He is pissed because he was instructed to be
searched by Iraqi Police by soldiers who are stationed nearby. One of the
IP's told him, "The soldiers are stupid motherf*ckers, so just let
us search you. We know you come here all the time, even though they can't
remember. We have to do our job."
-
- It didn't help his disposition any yesterday when he
was at an internet café and a tank could not make it past his car
as it was parked on a narrow street. An Iraqi policeman found Salam in
the internet café nearby and told him, "The soldiers told you
to move your car or they will run it over. You'd better do it, because
I've seen them run over a car there before."
-
- Another example of the winning of hearts and minds of
Iraqis is being formulated for the residents of Fallujah. The military
has announced the plans it is considering to use for allowing Fallujans
back into their city.
-
- They will set up "processing centers" on the
outskirts of the city and compile a database of peoples' identities by
using DNA testing and retina scans. Residents will then receive a badge
which identifies them with their home address, which they must wear at
all times.
-
- Buses will ferry them into their city, as cars will be
banned since the military fears the use of them by suicide bombers.
-
- Another idea being kicked around is to require the men
to work for pay in military-style battalions where these "work brigades"
will reconstruct buildings and the water system, depending on the men's
skills.
-
- There will also be "rubble-clearing" platoons.
-
- The intent of the US commanders and Iraqi leaders is
to make Fallujah a "model city."
-
- I wonder if they'll try this in Baghdad. The goal of
crushing the resistance and creating stability by destroying Fallujah has
gone so well that resistance fighters here roamed freely about Haifa street
today hunting for Iraqis collaborating with US forces.
-
- They executed a man they suspected as being a collaborator
in Tahrir Square, and then they moved on to Mathaf Sqare, just 3 blocks
from the "Green Zone" where the interim government and US embassy
are located.
- ____
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