Donna Mulhearn, Baghdad
It all happened so fast as we turned the corner.
The US humvee seemed to come out of nowhere. It drew close to the car, aimed its machine gun at us and forced the car off the road.
A checkpoint heavy with Iraqi soldiers was right in front. We had no choice but to slow to a halt. As we did, the soldiers, their faces covered with black balaclavas, surrounded the car and pointed their guns at us.
An ever optimistic Hardie called out the window to the soldier in the humvee: "If you just move a touch, then I can turn around and get out of your way?"
I grinned in the back seat, hoping the innocence of the request would get us out of trouble.
The US soldier on top of the humvee gave an angry hand signal and shouted some orders to the Iraqi officer in charge. We weren't going anywhere.
We were in the dusty, smelly al Saydia neighbourhood of Baghdad. My Iraqi colleagues Hardie, Leith and I were driving around checking out possible locations for future children's projects.
It is a highly populated residential area, a poor area with few facilities and — with a high level of insurgent attacks — a sensitive area.
A few days before, a government building in the main street was blasted by a brazen missile attack and badly damaged. Since that day, a 24-hour checkpoint of nervous Iraqi soldiers, under US supervision, guards the building from across the road.
We hadn't seen the checkpoint yet, so when Leith offered to take a picture of the damaged building I thought it was a great idea. I was keen to capture images of suburban Baghdad that weren't coming through the mainstream media.
The US soldier in the Humvee who spotted Leith taking the photo apparently did not agree. After forcing us off the road and passing on orders, he continued on his way and left the Iraqi officer to deal with us.
The officer barked at Leith in Arabic to hand over the digital camera immediately.
I cringed inside as he did so, thinking of all the valuable pictures we'd just taken of some poor areas of Baghdad. The officer barked some more and pointed to the video camera on the back seat.
I picked up the camera, put it at my feet, and politely replied, "No, you're not taking this camera. Thanks, we'll be on our way now".
His face went blank for a moment. Hardie and Leith's went white.
But I could see in their eyes they knew why I was doing this.
The officer, with a large 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' badge on his shoulder, shouted at the boys some more. I remembered Raid and his friends telling me the day before how so many people resented the new Iraqi army because its soldiers like to use their new-found power to humiliate other Iraqis.
I stayed firm and gently replied, "Sorry, no".
The fact is I know what happens when the coalition forces confiscate anything of value.
You never see it again.
When houses are raided by US forces, often all the cash in the house is taken, which can be many thousands of dollars because using banks is not an option. Any valuable electrical appliances, the wedding jewellery, the family silver, often walk out the door in the hands of soldiers and their translators.
Iraqis are afraid to question this blatant theft for fear of retribution, but the ones who do are generally told: "Don't worry. It will be returned to you."
It never is.
One family in al Adimiya lost US$20,000, an old man's life savings. Other stories are heart-breaking. But the media has not picked up this ugly side of the occupation, in the same way they dismissed the stories of torture at Abu Graib before the photos were revealed.
This issue is a scandal, unreported by the timid corporate media, despite dozens of well-documented cases.
So I knew that anything confiscated by the coalition ends up in a black hole.
This Iraqi officer told us he wanted to take the two cameras, hand them to the US base and then have us check in a few days to see if we were allowed to have them back.
The video camera did not belong to me. I knew if US soldiers saw the footage in the camera they would probably destroy the film. Just minutes before, I taped an innocent, but powerful conversation between Hardie and Leith about how most Iraqis prefer Saddam Hussein's rule to the US occupation and why. Exactly the message the US forces do not want to reach the television sets of the outside world.
I knew I had to protect the camera.
"If you don't hand over the camera I will arrest you", the officer cried. "I have orders from the Americans!"
I stretched out my arms and put one wrist over the other and told him I was ready for the handcuffs without a fight. He called for his men to bring them.
There are times when illegitimate authority ought to be challenged. Just then, an outburst of shouting erupted from the nervous soldiers.
"Ogof, Ogof!" (Stop, stop) they screamed at a car that was heading towards the checkpoint.
Most cars were forced to slow down and stop, but this one did not heed the warnings. On the contrary, the rusty orange Passat began accelerating.
As the soldiers screamed hysterically and aimed their guns at the car, I braced myself for what might come next.
Every part of my body engaged in a simultaneous reaction: my heart pounded, my jaw tightened, my teeth clenched, my stomach churned: I was either going to witness a death, or I was going to die.
As I ducked and covered my head with my arms, I heard someone from the front seat say: "It's okay."
I looked up to see that the driver of the car, an old man, had slowed down and looked around as if to ask what all the fuss was about. I breathe a massive sigh of relief. Not just for myself but for him.
Leith spoke aloud what I was thinking: "If they were American soldiers, this man would be dead."
The dramatic distraction meant I could begin a new negotiation with the Iraqi officer about the cameras he was determined to confiscate. It's amazing how a brush with death can immediately alter your perspective.
I felt that he was trapped in this awful, violent, illegal-occupation power-play that only hurts and manipulates everyone involved.
"Okay", I said to him as Hardie translated. "Let's look at the digital camera together and we can delete any pictures of the building, and others if you want", figuring that was a good compromise. I tucked the video camera under the seat hoping for a case of "out of sight out of mind".
He didn't seem so impressed with that suggestion, so I put another one.
"How about you accompany us in the car and we go to the American base, I can give them the cameras and deal direct with the Americans, then you don't have to worry about it anymore."
The officer felt there was something I didn't understand. "We must do what the American soldiers say", he declared as Hardie translated. "Ohh, no, we don't", I said.
I offered another compromise that I hoped would break the deadlock, have him maintain his dignity and have me keep my cameras.
"I will give you the video camera, but only if you agree to take it to the base right now and we can follow your car and then I can speak with the soldier directly and sort it out today. We can go there right now."
He had originally planned to send the cameras with a messenger, but after he consulted with some others, he agreed to this proposal.
A few minutes later, he came back to the car with both cameras.
He knelt by the window and proceeded to give a long speech in Arabic, of which I only got bits and pieces in translation along the lines of: "I am giving back the cameras to you now because I can see you are two good Iraqi men and she is a strong woman who is wearing Muslim dress, and I respect that so much."
When he finished his speech, he sent us on our way. We were all locked into a silent shock for a few moments as Hardie carefully drove out of al Saydia neighbourhood.
A moment ago we were close to being arrested and/or bombed. Now we were driving away with our lives, two cameras intact and without a single picture deleted!
The officer had decided not to obey the US soldier's order.
And — he liked my outfit! So much so that he let us go without even a rap over the knuckles.
Fuelled by adrenalin we chatted, de-briefed and joked about the incident as we drove through the traffic. "Which sensitive checkpoint should we go to disturb next?" Leith asked. "The airport one or straight to the Green Zone? A few pictures at either of those should get us arrested properly next time!"
Sometimes in Iraq all you can do is laugh at the surreal-ness of some situations.
"You know what..." said Hardie after a while. "All the time that I thought that I might be arrested or killed, all I could think about was my fianc‚. But before I was engaged, I didn't think about my life at all. Death is everywhere here. It is all around us every day.
"It happens so often, it has become normal."
He paused and lifted his hand from the wheel into the air to make his next point: "If there's one thing that is cheap today in Iraq ... it is life."
[Donna Mulhearn is an Australian aid worker working in Iraq.]
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, December 15, 2004.
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