We are Considered Infidels: Covering War in Iraq
By Bassam Sebti Posted Apr 6 2010
While working as a reporter for the Washington Post, Bassam Sebti photographed Christian worshipers fleeing the site of a car bomb in Baghdad in August 2004.
Photo: Bassam Sebti
It was around 9 p.m. on a warm September evening in 2005 when I realized I was running from my desk toward the office door. The hissing sound of the explosion was playing in my ears and the images of people running away were very clear. It took me a minute to absorb that the hotel floor where our Washington Post bureau resided had been attacked by a Katyusha rocket. The Ishtar Sheraton Hotel where some Western media outlets stayed was under attack by insurgents.
I was running like the others, leaving whatever I was working on back in the office. Smoke was coming out of the burned room. Breathing became even harder when the U.S. soldiers broke the room door to rescue whomever was inside. Luckily the soldier who lived there was out on duty.
The attack was a recurring incident that Western news organizations had to deal with, as most of them are headquartered in the red zone’s hotel compound, which was a target insurgents loved to attack continually.
Working for the Washington Post as a translator first and then a special correspondent, the risk I took was bigger than I expected and in some cases, like in the Sheraton attack; it was almost fatal.
Iraqi journalists, translators and fixers face grave danger every day and not just from rocket attacks. The insurgents and militias who once controlled vast areas in Iraq consider Iraqi journalists to be spies for the U.S. occupation or the government. Working for an Iraqi news agency is dangerous enough, but working for a U.S. media outlet puts you in double jeopardy. In the insurgents’ eyes, we are collaborators with the “infidels.”
Working for the Washington Post wasn’t a plan I pursued. It all happened by accident. I was drawn to journalism as the security situation worsened. I started as an interpreter in 2003, first for an American freelance reporter and then with the Post. As the Post came to trust my work, editors gave me increasing reporting responsibilities.
When insurgents and militias escalate their attacks against civilian Americans, Western news organizations have come to rely a lot on their Iraqi staff-—particularly in dangerous areas—simply because they speak the language and know the culture.
In 2007, The Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ), in partnership with the Washington D.C.-based public policy think tank, the Pew Research Center, released a report called “Journalists in Iraq: A survey of reporters on the front lines.” In Iraq, the report details, local staffers fill the role of reporters, writers and translators. They are the people who know whether a Western journalist can safely visit a given destination, how best to travel there and who might be best to interview. But more often then not, these Iraqis are doing the reporting themselves. Six out of 10 of the journalists surveyed said that Iraqi staffers do all or most of the street reporting outside the Green Zone.
But being an Iraqi was not always a guarantee you can protect yourself even if you are from the country and you can blend in with the people when danger arrives. In September 2004, I was assigned to go to the Al Amil neighborhood to cover a horrific suicide bombing attack that targeted people gathering to celebrate the opening of a water treatment plant. The bombing killed 34 children who were receiving sweets from U.S. soldiers.
After I interviewed a group of the neighborhood residents and some eye witnesses, I headed to shoot some pictures of the children’s remains and shoes until a young man in his 20s approached me angrily and grabbed me by my collar, screaming words I couldn’t understand at first. My eyes met his. They were blood-red and scary. I tried to defend myself by pushing him but he was much stronger, not because he was bigger than me, but because he was outraged by something. I tried to kick him but I couldn’t. I was losing breath and he was screaming in my face, “you’re here to take advantage of my little brother’s death. I’m going kill you. I’m going to kill you.” I thought this was going to be the end of my life. I became very weak. My notebook and pen fell on the floor. No one was around to help me. Until my eyes caught three men running toward us pulling the young man away from me. He fell on the floor and started sobbing. The men looked at me and asked me to leave the neighborhood because the neighborhood people were extremely angry.
I told these stories every day over dinner to my parents who begged me to quit. By then, it was too late. I was addicted to this job. I took the risk every day to accomplish something positive in the non-stop negative atmosphere.
To continue working for the Post with no or little harm, I had to be very discrete about my job. No one in my neighborhood knew where I really worked. They thought I was running my own business, an internet café in a remote area in Baghdad. If people had known the truth, word might have reached bloodthirsty insurgents who wait for a chance to add another name to their death lists.
But that was not enough. I always feared and expected I was going to be killed at any moment. I never let my guard down. Stress became my companion. Even when I slept, my senses stayed alert to defend myself in case I was attacked at home.
By mid-2006, the horror reached its peak, forcing me to consider leaving the country. No human being on earth could endure the mayhem Iraqis were going through. Seeing dead bodies everyday was not something my eyes were meant to get used to. I tried to forget the frequent visits to the morgue where piles of tortured and dead men and women laid, but in vain. Finally, I got the chance to leave. I decided to pursue my graduate studies and I was offered a scholarship at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia where I received a master’s degree in writing studies in 2008.
People ask me a simple question, one word, “why?” My love for Iraq was the reason why I took that risk. I wanted to be involved in informing the international community about what was happening in my beloved Iraq, and so did my fellow Iraqis who worked for Western news organizations.