By Dahr Jamail

The morgues at the hospitals of Baghdad are filling to capacity. At Yarmouk Hospital in central Baghdad, the three freezers reek of decaying bodies, despite the temperature.

The smell rushes out at us as the doors are opened. I’ve smelled the burning bodies on the funeral pires in Nepal…but this is different. This smell… how do I describe it? But it never leaves me, long after we leave the hospital later.

Warning: very graphic photos

By Dahr Jamail

It’s not a new tactic here in Iraq. The US military has been doing it for well over a year now. Last January 3rd, in the Al-Dora rural region on the outskirts of Baghdad, where beautiful farms of date palms and orange trees line the banks of the Tigris, I visited a farm where occupation forces had lobbed several mortars.

The military claimed they had been attacked by fighters in the area, while the locals denied any knowledge of harboring resistance fighters.

Standing in a field full of unexploded mortar rounds a farmer explained, “We don’t know why they bomb our house and our fields. We have never resisted the Americans. There are foreign fighters who have passed through here, and I think this is who they want. But why are they bombing us?”

By Dahr Jamail

I’m typing as mortars are blasting away in the nearby “Green Zone.” Mortars are easy to tell-the higher pitched ‘thunk’ of their launch, then a pause, then a loud boom that echoes through the still night. Blaring sirens wail in the distance, along with the random cracking of gunfire. Nightfall always seems to bring action in this area of central Baghdad-just last night there were many sporadic gun battles out my window.

Earlier today while I was in the al-Adhamiya district of Baghdad the US base there was mortared 8 times. We heard it just after finished huge plates of kebabs at a sidewalk restaurant. After finishing the meal an old woman came to our table and asked if she could take our leftovers.

He took two plastic bags and began dumping our half eaten salads and extra bread into them. She thanked us and blessed us, then began to shuffle off…Abu Talat and I both quickly walked over to her and gave her a small wad of Iraqi Dinars. We walked back to the car not saying a word about it.

Funny that everyone lately is talking about how calm it is here in Baghdad…expecting things to grow so much worse as the election approaches. If this is calm…

Dahr Jamail
Originally post on TomDispatch.com
(A project of The Nation Institute)
7 January 2004

The devastation of Iraq? Where do I start? After working 7 of the last 12 months in Iraq, I’m still overwhelmed by even the thought of trying to describe this.

The illegal war and occupation of Iraq was waged for three reasons, according to the Bush administration. First for weapons of mass destruction, which have yet to be found. Second, because the regime of Saddam Hussein had links to al-Qaeda, which Mr. Bush has personally admitted have never been proven. The third reason — embedded in the very name of the invasion, Operation Iraqi Freedom — was to liberate the Iraqi people.

So Iraq is now a liberated country.

I’ve been in liberated Baghdad and environs on and off for 12 months, including being inside Fallujah during the April siege and having warning shots fired over my head more than once by soldiers. I’ve traveled in the south, north, and extensively around central Iraq. What I saw in the first months of 2004, however, when it was easier for a foreign reporter to travel the country, offered a powerful — even predictive — taste of the horrors to come in the rest of the year (and undoubtedly in 2005 as well). It’s worth returning to the now forgotten first half of last year and remembering just how terrible things were for Iraqis even relatively early in our occupation of their country.

By Dahr Jamail

Already today at least 18 Iraqis have died as violence continues to escalate as the so-called elections approach.

Suicide car bombers are striking Iraqi Police (IP) stations on nearly a daily basis now.

Today’s target was in Tikrit, where U.S. military spokesman Major Neal O’Brien said six were killed when the police headquarters was bombed.

He also said, “As the Iraqi police continue to get stronger, and continue to pose a threat to the insurgents and terrorists, they will be targeted.”

Most Iraqis I’ve spoken with appear to disagree with Mr. O’Brien.