plover
Dec1-04, 08:14 AM
Reporter Dahr Jamail has a reflection on the changes in Iraq since he arrived there "this time last year (http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000139.php)".
[Abu Talat] has two cars—and we use the older one for our work. It is horribly beat up and dirty, but makes for good cover. This is the car that someone offered him $3,000 for not long ago because they said it would make a good bomb.
So now this is referred to as “the bomb car.” Abu Talat tells me, “Come on, we’ll take the bomb car and go to this interview I’ve fixed.”
This time last year I arrived in Iraq for the first time. I never thought I would look back on that time as one of relative calm compared to Iraq one year later. Where a car bomb a day is the norm, heavy fighting occurring in at least five cities a day, the threat of kidnapping very real and the infrastructure worse now than a year ago.
[Abu Talat] has two cars—and we use the older one for our work. It is horribly beat up and dirty, but makes for good cover. This is the car that someone offered him $3,000 for not long ago because they said it would make a good bomb.
So now this is referred to as “the bomb car.” Abu Talat tells me, “Come on, we’ll take the bomb car and go to this interview I’ve fixed.”
This time last year I arrived in Iraq for the first time. I never thought I would look back on that time as one of relative calm compared to Iraq one year later. Where a car bomb a day is the norm, heavy fighting occurring in at least five cities a day, the threat of kidnapping very real and the infrastructure worse now than a year ago.