Briefly, a Field of Dreams
The afternoon was growing darker as evening approached. Friday prayers had ended hours before. But the streets of Baghdad remained eerily quiet. No car bombs booming. No echoing rounds of small arms fire. And, most unusually, no reports of deadly IED's, mass kidnappings, or summary executions. In fact, there was not even ONE story slugged VIOLENCE--IRAQ--WRITETHROUGH on the news wires. Something was afoot.
Some of us thought it had to do with the weekly four-hour curfew on all vehicles that the government recently imposed, the result of massive loss of life after a string of Friday suicide bombings, timed to mid-day prayers in Baghdad's Sunni and Shiite mosques. Still, in previous weeks, the explosions, and killing, would quickly recommence. Mortars and rockets would destroy like clockwork - after prayers and despite the curfew. No, something was truly afoot.
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Please silence cells, and beware of snipers
I’m not sure there’s anywhere else in the world you’d hear the normal reminder to guests to turn off cell phones followed by: "In the unlikely event of sniper or indirect fire please follow the instructions of the usher for further guidance."
It didn’t seem to faze any of the guests assembled at one of Saddam Hussein’s former lakeside palaces for the ceremony transferring authority for ground forces in Iraq to a new U.S. general.
The sniper announcement was new. But if you spend enough time here, almost everything reminds you rather poignantly of something similar.
At the ceremony, the U.S. Army band played the Iraqi National Anthem –- it is a sovereign country after all. I remembered after the fall of Baghdad, what remained of Iraq’s national orchestra after all those difficult years held their first concert. Iraqis, beautifully dressed for the occasion, stood and wept. Now they weep for different reasons.
And I have to wonder how many of them still allow themselves to believe in an anthem of one, unified country.
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Remembering Saddam's Capture
On Dec. 13, 2003, the U.S. military caught up with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein who had been in hiding since the beginning of the U.S. invasion. NBC News' Richard Engel recounts his tour of Saddam's "spider hole" and the tiny farmhouse where he lived in squalor for the Daily Nightly blog's special series "Real To Reel."
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Winning hearts and minds in Iraqi Kurdistan
Laughing children and smiling soldiers welcomed grateful members of the local community to the opening of a brand-new school -- the scene was the very essence of the how the Iraqi reconstruction program was supposed to look according to its proponents three years ago.
However, the children are Kurds, the soldiers are South Korean and the community is in the north of Iraq, far from the car bombings and sectarian violence plaguing much of the rest of the country. 
The 2,200 members of the Zaytun Division of the Republic of Korea (ROK) Army have spent the last two years conducting what they call "civil-military operations" out of Irbil, in the Kurdish region of Iraq.
Our first indication of how different things are up north was when we were put aboard an un-armored bus for the trip from Irbil's airport to the Zaytun Base.
Our second indication was the greeting on the bus.
"In Baghdad, we understand you hear a lot of explosions," said a smiling Lt. Lee, a ROK Army officer. "All you hear in Irbil is the sound of smiles and children."
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Iraqis welcome report findings
From high in the corridors of power to the dangerous streets of Baghdad, many Iraqis appear to be reacting favorably to at least some of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group report, especially those that encourage Iraqis to take more control over events in their country and lead to a reduction in the number of U.S. troops in Iraq.
"There is a need for declaring a conditional withdrawal," said Tariq al Hashimi Thursday. Hashimi, a Sunni, is one of Iraq's three Vice-Presidents. "This study in fact has been focused on this issue and came up with a solution which could be practical, could be workable and I am happy for that."
Hashimi believes it may take a "couple" of years to turn Iraq's military into a competent, professional force. After that, he said, American troops should be re-united with their families as soon as possible.
Ready to solve their own problems
People we spoke with on the streets of central Baghdad believed the commission's recommendations, if enacted, would enable the Iraqis to begin to solve their problems.
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Iraqis' main concern is survival
Most Iraqis are unaware of the Iraq Study Group report to be released on Wednesday. Their primary concern is survival, particularly those living in the central part of the country where sectarian violence, unemployment and poor infrastructure make daily life a dangerous and difficult struggle. But among political circles the Iraq Study Group report is a key indicator of future U.S. policy here and is therefore keenly anticipated.
Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish and secularist leaders are all wondering how soon U.S. troop reductions will begin. All are in favor of transferring control of the military forces to Iraqi commanders as soon as possible, and the U.S. military hopes that will be accomplished within the next six months.
But any indication of a desire to withdraw U.S. troops in the near future is something Iraqi politicians would prefer not to hear about now because it would create pressure on them to eliminate corruption, speed up constitutional reform, come up with an equitable plan to distribute oil revenues and rebuild the economy
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Al-Maliki's fragile coalition
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's first task on returning to Baghdad after his summit with President Bush was to convene a press conference and ask Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's political wing in the Iraqi parliament to end their boycott and return to the political process.
Al- Maliki needs them to preserve his fragile coalition of Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and secularists. After a suitable period – days or weeks – al-Sadr's men will probably comply. They cannot continue to run the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health and key government departments forever without government funding.
But al-Maliki has now set himself up to owe al-Sadr a favor, something he'll doubtless be reminded of when under any more pressure from the U.S.-led coalition here to disarm the Mahdi Army, al-Sadr's militia.
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Civil War? Unfortunately, yes
In the Middle East it is not a matter of debate. The Arab media have called the war in Iraq a civil war for about a year.
In Iraq, however, people were slower to call it what in Arabic translates to a "sectarian war." Iraqis simply couldn’t accept that they were killing each other. It has been the bitterest pill to swallow because Iraqis know how serious a "sectarian war" can be -- a war without borders or limits. It is has the potential to involve not just street-to-street fighting, but bedroom-to-bedroom fighting.
Many Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites are intermarried. Many tribes -- powerful family clans that operate almost parallel to the state, providing identity, protection and social support - have both Shiite and Sunni members. Sunnis and Shiites have lived side by side in peace for generations in many Baghdad neighborhoods.
Iraqis have long tried to deny this is changing, even to themselves. It has been much easier, and more comforting, to blame the Americans, foreign fighters, the Israelis, the CIA, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden and other alleged instigators. I have heard them all accused of doing much of the killings.
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Flying the not-so-friendly skies
Long waits at the airport, uncomfortable seats in terminals, lugging around your baggage- taking a business trip in Iraq is much like in the rest of the world, but just a little more so.
On a recent Saturday, videographer Steve O’Neill, audio technician Steve Lomanoco and I left on a U.S. Embassy-sponsored trip to Irbil in northern Iraq to look at reconstruction projects.
We weren’t actually flying out until early Sunday, but because the checkpoints into the Green Zone close at 9 p.m., we had to link up with our embassy escort, also named Steve, by 7 p.m..
He took us to dinner and then to a holding area the military maintains for journalists waiting for embeds. The holding area is actually quite comfortable, and has couches, bunk beds, a large-screen TV and computers connected to the Internet.
Embassy Steve told us he would pick us up at 2:30 a.m. and the other Steves and I tried to grab a couple of hours sleep.
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The Numbers Game
Today the U.N. mission in Iraq released a new report, saying that 3,709 Iraqi civilians were killed in October, the highest monthly toll since the 2003 U.S. invasion. The Iraqi government disputed this number calling it "inaccurate and exaggerated."
Whilst researching the different numbers and talking to various organizations as to how they arrived at their figures I realized that there is no accurate or very reliable way to get an accurate civilian death toll figure.
The true figure probably lies somewhere between the Associated Press count of 1,216 and the U.N one. Does it really matter? The fact of the matter is that innocent Iraqi civilians are getting slaughtered in record numbers and each month it gets worse.
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Slide Show
- Life beyond the violence
Suicide attacks and murders due to sectarian conflict continue around Iraq. See how residents live their lives amid the attacks.
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