It's a cold, dark evening in Baghdad. Deathly quiet too, especially in this hotel. I'm the only guest. Surprised by my unexpected visit, a couple of hotel staff are trying to get the electricity working. Internet is meant to be the next step.
But what does it matter? I'm back, in the city which until two years ago I so much liked to visit.
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But OK, at least they were there. And hopefully they didn't do what a Scandinavian journalist told me - he was even proud of it. He had everything staged. An item on the refuse collection service, for instance, featured a garbage truck doing a round of the blocked off road outside his hotel…
Personally, since being in Iraq as an 'unembedded' journalist during the invasion five years ago, I've often had the feeling I was seriously pushing my luck. Or I had the feeling thrust upon me, sometimes by other Iraq-goers, more and more of whom were quitting.
Indeed, when my interpreter was killed a couple of years ago, beheaded by extremists, I also nearly quit. But then Iraq kept calling me.
The death of Martin Adler, a Swedish journalist I once knew from Bagdad, worried me more. Although it wasn't in Iraq but in Somalia he was shot.
And at a certain point I decided to give Baghdad a miss. Until today.
On a plane full of mercenaries I arrived from Jordan in the early afternoon at Baghdad International Airport. The flight was perhaps the most dangerous part of the journey. The mercenaries ("contractors" the Americans call them) from countries like South Africa, Bosnia and the United States, weren't so happy about the video I was making on board. Although none of their faces were shown, they came to protest loudly. "If I have so much as my nose on YouTube, I'll lose my job," said one of them.
And so I was very glad when the plane landed and I was able to go into town with my interpreter, who has returned specially from the United States. We drove round Baghdad for hours. I've been shopping, visited people's homes, and I'm thoroughly enjoying my work.
Baghdad seems safer, also for journalists. I'm hardly afraid here at all. And the uneasiness you feel about coming here in the safety of the Netherlands is something you have to shake off immediately. Otherwise before you know it you'd be making your own fear the subject of a report. And that usually produces curious results. Perhaps I'd rather order the garbage truck again for an extra round…
* RNW translation (mb)
Tags: Baghdad, beheaded, blogging, contractors, Hans Jaap Melissen, Iraq, Saddam Hussein, surge, weblog