Authors: Roy David
So he had his fingers crossed on his free hand, a coffee in the other, as he pressed the remote to raise the volume ready for the live broadcast. Then the President appeared, walking confidently to the dais on the flight deck.
Now in a plain dark suit, white shirt, red tie, he strode past the tiered rows of sailors standing attentively. Kowolski noted that those with the coloured bibs were now carefully positioned at strategically-spaced intervals, once more adding colour to the occasion. ‘Great theatre, boys, keep it up,’ he said to the television screen.
The President mounted the step to the platform. Suddenly, Kowolski’s mouth dropped. His eyes focussed on the banner behind the President, plainly visible and hanging pristinely from the vessel’s giant superstructure.
He guessed it must have been 30-feet wide and several feet deep. Two words of giant white capital letters, the first word on a blue-starred background of the American flag, the second word set against the red and white of the stripes.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
‘What the hell…’ he blurted at the screen. ‘Goddam mission accomplished? Who the fuck came up with that piece of bullshit?’
The President spoke: ‘Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed…’
* * *
Thirty minutes later Kowolski was still tormenting himself over the spectacle. He was furious, convinced it would have widespread negative repercussions. He called his colleague again. ‘Well, my friend, you and your bunch certainly shot themselves in the goddam foot with that stupid fuckin’ banner.’
‘Pardon me?’
‘Listen, you can tell those jumped-up White House press people of yours to get their big fat asses out of Washington and down to Baghdad – and then you can ask them if it is ‘‘Mission Accomplished’’. It’s a fuckin’ hell-hole down here and it’ll be that way for a long time to come.’
He slammed down the phone so violently he almost broke the cradle. And his hands were still shaking when he switched on his computer and opened the first of many emails.
He stared at the screen after opening the attachment. His blood pressure went up another two points. Before him was a picture, with a lengthy caption, from an Australian daily. His eyes devoured every word.
The headline screamed:
GRIEF OF AN IRAQI MOTHER
A heartbroken mother cradles her dead son’s head in her lap on a Baghdad street after the young man was shot dead by US troops who accused him of ‘suspicious surveillance’ of an army patrol. It seems they mistook him as a ‘spotter’ for insurgents as he drove his car around the same street several times. Witnesses claimed the man was a student at Baghdad University and was merely waiting to pick up a fellow student who was late for the ride. A US Army spokesman said he was unable to confirm the incident.
The picture told a whole lot more; the mother’s eyes, deep buckets of sorrow, the angle of her head as she looked out accusingly towards the camera, the drained, helpless posture of her shoulders. It was in colour, too, so that the blood on her outstretched hand, which gestured palm outwards in appeal, heightened the dramatic impact full pitch.
‘Shit,’ he shouted, reaching for the telephone. ‘This is all we need right now.’ He punched in a number to the army’s Baghdad Press Office, got through to the assistant chief, a guy he knew well and who sounded tired.
‘I’ve just sent over a piece with picture from the wonderful land of Oz. Put out a denial on it straight away, beef up the suspicious line – make it that the guy was acting extremely suspiciously, wouldn’t stop when challenged, that sort of thing. Send out a memo everywhere that anyone using it without this new official army quote will have their people taken off the embed programme immediately.’
Still seething, he fired off a round robin email to all the editors on his list, which was extensive, reiterating the rules of embedded journalists to clear anything of a contentious nature with the Press Office before being sent for publication.
There was absolutely no room in his book for the alternative view, and definitely no place for nuance.
Next, he set to work in an effort to trace the source of the picture and the words. He knew it might be difficult to go directly to a foreign publication. The Aussies could be bolshie customers and he had little clout with them. But he had contacts worldwide and the piece would very quickly be offered for syndication around the globe. A flick of a switch, the press of a key, was all it took. Sooner or later he would find out.
And there would be hell to pay.
8
Alex watched the broadcast from the media centre at the Palestine Hotel among a scattering of journalists.
Angered by the President’s vacuous speech, she sat stunned, repeatedly turning her phone in her hand, an absent-minded worry bead. She’d been relieved to find her mobile unused, where she’d left it in her room. To an unseen honest maid, Alex uttered an apology.
‘I wondered if you’d like a coffee,’ the man said, offering a polystyrene cup. ‘It’s black and hot – that’s about all you can say for it.’
Alex looked up. It was the reporter she’d met while waiting for the lift when she first arrived.
‘Charles Toller, London.’
‘Oh, hi. I guess I never introduced myself before. Alex Stead, freelance photographer, New York.’
He sat down beside her, somewhat wearily, mopping his brow with the same polka-dot handkerchief. Alex guessed he was late fifties, overweight, unfit.
‘So, what d’you think of your President’s spectacular?’
‘Bullshit – and it’s got me more worried about everything than before.’
‘Mission accomplished – that was a good one!’ he laughed. ‘Have them all back home thinking that some five or six weeks later it’s all over bar the shouting. Marvellous. What do they say? History tells us that we never learn from history. Bloody good PR for the masses – they’d soak it up, I’m sure.’
He waved his coffee cup in the air, spilling drops on his trousers. ‘But you mark my words, young lady, this is another Vietnam, and that was America’s longest war. The generals
predicted then that it wouldn’t last more than a few months – Harkin, Westmoreland, all hot-air merchants who didn’t have a clue about guerrilla warfare.’
Alex felt her shoulders stiffen as he spoke. Another Vietnam? Surely to God not.
‘Your government seriously underestimated the vagaries of human nature then – the assassinations, regime changes, the chaos, the political power struggle. D’you know, Kennedy sent in over sixteen thousand military advisers to help the Vietnamese Army overcome the guerrilla insurgents – that was a couple of years before the US even entered the war and started the bombing in 1965. Soon had over half a million soldiers there, half of them on dope.’
She wanted to hear more, at the same time feeling her anxiety rising. This was becoming a horror story, like watching one of those films through the gaps in your fingers and with your hands covering your face in futile protection.
‘Lyndon Johnson misled the public, too, just like this clown. Got Congress to back him on military operations in SE Asia without actually declaring war – all based on selective evidence from the available intelligence. No different to this.’
He spread his arms in a gesture of futility then looked at her, a trace of apology in his face at the outburst. ‘You wouldn’t be around then, of course.’
‘And you were?’
‘A young, impressionable and somewhat naïve twenty-two year old reporter back in 1968 when I first went out. I must admit, compared to this, it was a bloody holiday camp the way we were allowed to operate.’
Alex gulped at her coffee. ‘How come?’
‘Well, try as they might to keep a lid on things – I do believe that was a direct order from LBJ himself – there were very few restrictions on the press. You could visit a CIA post, hang out with the guys, move on to an aid agency or mix with different branches of the military – the sort of stuff that would give you a
real down-to-earth overview of the situation. You could even arrange a short spell with the VC army.’
Alex shook her head, amazed. It shocked her to compare eras. Kowolski and his cohorts wouldn’t allow journalists that sort of freedom now.
‘This lot here, they learned their lesson from ’Nam. Now, well it’s just a one-sided take on events, isn’t it? Most of the editors and the news desks have been conditioned to accept the status quo so they don’t bother asking for the sort of copy they would have done in those days… still, less pressure for the likes of us, I suppose.’
‘But in ’Nam, it still took eighteen months or so for the Mai Lai massacre story to break – so that was a pretty good lid,’ Alex said.
He eyed her, taken aback. He was unused to young people knowing such facts. He’d once brought up the subject at a party back home when the pretty young thing he was trying to impress had asked him if the Mai Lai massacre was a pop group.
‘Extenuating circumstance, methinks. Band of brothers and all that crap. Only one or two good guys among the whole damn bunch. Hats off to Seymour Hersh, though, a Pulitzer prize for eventually breaking the story.’
‘Why aren’t you back in England anyway, sort of taking life a mite easier?’
‘Ah, don’t ask. Three broken marriages, a couple of spells with the bottle – all the right qualifications for a war correspondent.’
Alex got up to go. He touched her arm, leaning close, shot her a quick, nervous, smile. ‘I don’t want to worry you but you really must watch your step. You’re most unlikely to read it in any newspaper, but, take it from me, the streets are definitely getting meaner out there – in fact, pretty bloody.’
She watched him shamble out of the room towards the lobby, a sinking feeling in her heart. If he was right, the future was too depressing to contemplate.
* * *
The patrol entered al-Mutanabi Street. Hordes of booksellers fussed over their colourful volumes, neatly laid out on rugs and mats and old blankets on the broken sidewalks. On edge, Alex went to work.
Some people among this mass of Baghdad intelligentsia gave them a curt nod, the occasional smile. Others avoided their gaze. Suddenly, a bearded trader stepped forward, straight into Alex’s path as she lined up a shot.
‘Pardon me,’ she said, sidestepping the robed figure.
Each time she moved, he positioned himself in the way. Without warning, he lunged at her, his hand outstretched to grab the camera, shouting in Arabic at the top of his voice. Alex screamed and stepped back.
P.J. dashed forward and pulled the man away. ‘Fuck you, Arab,’ he yelled into the man’s face, yanking him back to his stall.
Continuing his non-stop jabbering, the man appeared to be appealing to his fellow traders. One or two replied to him, others bowed their heads.
McDermott appeared with the interpreter. ‘What’s happening here?’ He turned to Alex. ‘You okay?’ Only shaken, but not far from tears, she nodded.
‘The guy thinks they should be paid for having their picture taken,’ the interpreter said.
‘Tell him the US budget doesn’t stretch that far,’ McDermott said. ‘And tell him to mind his manners or we’ll be back to press charges.’
Checking Alex was indeed okay, he ordered his men to move on.
They turned into al-Rasheed Street and on to a narrow stretch of unmade road, tall paint-flaked buildings either side. Some façades flaunted pock-marked masks of crumbling stucco. Alex stepped in behind the sporadic line of the lieutenant’s group, rattling off a few pictures of the backs of the men, the
shutter speed set to take in the whole of the vista to give the frames more depth.
‘I don’t like the look of this, too quiet. Stay close,’ McDermott half-whispered to her, scanning the vicinity.
Suddenly, a shot rang out, ear-splitting in the confines of the street. Then another two in quick succession. The rounds whistled off nearby walls, creating splintered puffs of cement dust. Alex froze. Engulfed in panic, she stood stock-still not knowing what to do, where to turn.
McDermott glanced back, saw her. A standing target. Taking half a dozen measured running strides, he launched himself at her, grabbing her jacket and dragging her backwards into a doorway. A second later, another two rounds hit the ground where she’d been standing. She saw the mud dancing where they hit the earth.
‘Stay here, don’t move,’ he said firmly, shielding her.
‘A fix, anyone,’ he shouted.
Fear choking her, she gasped for breath in short bursts, pressing backwards into the opening. He was up against her, so close she could smell the faint musk of his deodorant, could see the droplets of sweat that ran down his shirt from the nape of his neck. Squinting with one eye closed, she was able to follow the line of sight of his rifle as he scanned the buildings opposite. Now, she hardly dared breathe.
Suddenly, she was aware of his hand reaching behind him. It touched her. Jesus, what was he doing? She shrieked.
‘Alex, I’m searching for a door knob – see if you can open this door.’
‘I’ve tried already – there’s nothing there,’ she said.
Over his shoulder she could see the men had fanned out, two of them crouching against a wall, several more in doorways, another lying prone behind a refuse bin. Bunching together would have given the perpetrator the best chance of a hit. Worse still, a grenade would have taken several of them out.
Her knees began to tremble at the vision of the dust flying off the ground. McDermott had saved her life.
He took several steps forward, glanced back at her. She gave him a thin, nervous half-smile as he radioed Bobby-Jo to bring the Bradley round to the far end of the street. And to ‘stop at nothing’.
‘Anyone hit?’
‘Negative, Lieutenant,’ came back several replies in ragged succession.
Sgt Rath jogged backwards from his forward position to join McDermott. Alex noticed the consternation in the sergeant’s face.
What a picture
.
‘I’d say the source was over there, Lieutenant,’ he said, pointing to an old building with a brown door, a shop front now boarded up.