What was your best experience in the field covering this story?
The only part of Iraq where I was able to travel in relatively normal conditions was in the north, the Kurdish homeland. Everywhere else it was imprudent to move without armored vehicles and armed guards.
So it was a relief to stash my 30-pound (14-kilogram) body armor and neck-straining ceramic helmet in the trunk of a Toyota sedan, lower the windows, and drive out of the capital city of Erbil. The only weapon aboard was my red Swiss Army keychain knife.
Shakir, a Kurdish aid worker, drove while I enjoyed the simple pleasures of a road trip. Traffic was fairly heavy, much of it construction vehicles rumbling between the numerous building projects that freckle the green hillsides and valleys. Roadside markets were crammed with fresh food and everything from clothing to computers.
In small towns and bustling cities, we stopped at kebab stands and white-linen restaurants. We stayed at hotels ranging from very basic to somewhat fancy. I interviewed people and snapped their photos in their homes and on the streets. What made the trip so pleasant was its very ordinariness.
A few days after I returned to Baghdad, a suicide bomber blew himself up in Erbil, killing 60 others and injuring 150. Even in those parts of Iraq where things may look sunny, security is a myth.
What was your worst experience in the field covering this story?
The small plane that flew me from Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad corkscrewed into the airport early one afternoon. The South African pilot warned that the quick stomach-heaving descent might be uncomfortable, but that it was necessary to avoid heat-seeking missiles.
Bound for the relative security of the walled-in Green Zone, just five miles (eight kilometers) away, I was first assigned to wait—for hours, it turned out—with two dozen others in a large tent. For security reasons, our departure time was kept secret.
At 3 a.m. a sergeant with a bullhorn voice flicked on the tent lights and told us to put on our body armor and helmets. Three "rhino" buses—painted desert-tan and heavily steel-plated on all surfaces—were lined up outside, and 90 of us, mostly GIs and civilian contractors, boarded. Three armed Humvees preceded us. Three followed. Overhead fluttered three Blackhawk helicopters. This was the only way the U.S. Army could assure our arriving in one piece.
The realization was stunning: If two and a half years into a war you don't control the only road linking your military airport to your headquarters, you don't control anything.
What was your quirkiest experience in the field covering this story?
The graffiti soldiers have left behind since at least the Roman Legions have provided history with an inimitable rough draft of war's effects on ordinary people. They're keeping the tradition going in Iraq.
On the green plastic wall of a portable toilet at Baghdad's military airport, I read the following, obviously scrawled by a civilian contract employee awaiting his flight back to the States: "14 months. $200,000. I'm out of here. F___ you Iraq." Beneath it was a disgruntled response from the ranks: "12 months. $20,000. What the f____ is going on here?"
Most soldiers with whom I spoke said they believed in their mission. But many expressed irritation over the perception that the Donald Rumsfeld Pentagon was waging the war on the cheap. This maxim, they complained, applies only to them, while private contractors grow rich.