|
SPEAKING AT BARNARD BOOKS ETC ., NPR'S ANNE GARRELS DESCRIBES A "COALITION OF THE INEPT" IN IRAQ WAR
 In a talk opening the fall Books Etc . series, National Public Radio Correspondent Anne Garrels said the situation in Iraq today is unraveling and likely to lead to civil war. She described the so-called "Coalition of the Willing," as the "Coalition of the Willing, but Inept," and said most troops from countries other than the United States are providing little or no support for the American-led military campaign.
"Salvadorans, Hundurans, Poles, Bulgarians--most of them hide in their barracks," said Garrels, who returned from assignment in Iraq in August. "I watched the Ukrainians come in; they had tennis shoes on and were pushing their vehicles because they had broken down. They hadn't even gotten to their base."
In a talk to 200 people, Garrels described scenes from Iraq that have not been widely reported by the news media.
For example, she said the pictures on American television of Iraqis pulling down the statue of Saddam Hussein created a false impression. "There were some people celebrating," Garrels said, "but there were far more standing around in shock, wondering what would happen next. Indeed, there were so few people celebrating that the Marines had to pull down the statue for them."
With the mounting violence and attacks on American troops, Garrels said reporters can no longer safely walk the streets of Baghdad to speak with average Iraqis. When she leaves her residence, she said, she wears a hijab and a shador and sits in the back seat of a chauffeur-driven car in order to appear to be an Iraqi, rather than an American. When a male, blond, blue-eyed colleague arrived in Baghdad, she and her colleagues urged him to dye his hair a dark shade, and the drivers encouraged him to lie down in the back seat when he ventured out. "At first it was in jest," she said. "But now it is deadly serious."
 The Iraqi translators who work with her and other news organizations are also at risk, she said. "One of my translators three weeks ago was threatened and had to quit," she said. In fact, one of the reasons the NPR correspondents have rented a private home is to ensure the safety of their translators. When they deliberated staying at the Palestine Hotel, in the four-mile "Green Zone," the translators said to her, "It is safe there. But they will follow us when we go home every night." Garrels added that 40 translators working for international media have been killed to date.
For average Iraqis, the emergence of satellite television has been an eye-opener and she said the most popular program broadcast every evening with Arabic subtitles is the Oprah Winfrey show. "Life stops on the farm," she said. "All the women and all the men, they all watch." Noticing the disconnect between the Iraqis, wearing long veils, sitting in a room with no furniture, and an Oprah episode about an American couple with mounting credit card debt, Garrels said: "It was like watching Martians." Asking an Iraqi family what appealed to them about the Oprah show, she was told: "There is always hope at the end [of the show]."
--Elissa Matsueda
|
