Iraq War Diary – January 30, 2005: Election Day; Birthday in Mosul

01.30.05 - U.S. troops take cover from sniper fire near a polling station in Mosul.

Happy Birthday to me! I survived the first Iraqi elections.

I’ve been up for 18 hours and I’m too jittery to sleep. Plus, I am still waiting for my roommate, a photographer from another wire service, to return. I’ve been using his power supply for my satellite modem for several days now – since mine was destroyed by a power surge, the second time that happened this year – and now I think he might need to use some of my gear.

When I saw him last, at one of the polling stations today, I learned that he and another colleague had survived, unharmed, after a roadside bomb struck their Stryker. Yet, when bailing out under the threat of a coordinated ambush, there just isn’t time to grab your gear.

Thus, they had both been unable to transmit their pictures when last I saw them. I had the same problem in Sadr City last September, and it took about 12 hours to get reunited with my stuff. Man, I’m feeling their pain.

(Oops. I just stalled in mid-sentence as mortars began falling nearby, the closest to my hooch during this embed. Ok, I think they stopped. Anyway; back to the diary.)

It’s 10:23 p.m. Iraq time now; so, I’m definitely 44 years old. I remember my mom telling me I was born at 2:22 but I don’t remember if it was a.m. or p.m., but I’ve gone around the bend either way now, even with the eight-hour time difference.

I’m glad I made it, too. I was pretty nervous when I got up at 4 a.m. today, knowing I’d be on the street for 12 to 14 hours, unlike the two-to-four hours I spend in the field most days.

Before we rolled, I actually found myself kneeling in prayer next to my rack, something I’ve done maybe a dozen times in my adult life, so there’s a clue to what I thought I might be facing today. In other words, everybody was expecting the insurgents to “Rock the Vote,” and not in an MTV-way. The night before, I also found myself gazing at the stars and asking for peace, something that worked for a couple of days in Najaf once.

And something apparently worked this time too, for not only am I well, but Mosul was surprisingly peaceful. There were a bunch of bombing in Baghdad, with 44 killed, so I guess it could have gone better down there, but in the most selfish sense, it went well enough.

There was a hot breakfast ready before dawn, and a Sgt. Major was talking to other soldiers about how you always know there is “a push on” when they take good care of you like this.

Next, I went in the battalion TOC – short for tactical operations center I think – and waited for the commanders to get rolling. It was quiet and they were drinking coffee and telling stories about their wives giving birth when we heard the first explosion of the day in the distance.

They got into their body armor pretty quickly and made for the Strykers, where the crews were ready to roll. There was a quick briefing – reminding soldiers to try not to shoot the voters if fighting broke out near a poll – and I learned that our convoy was also tasked as first responders to any mass casualty incident.

Car bombs were unlikely today, since “no-roll” enforcement, communicated on local television and radio and in newspapers, meant that nobody would be driving besides the Army and the Iraqi forces, thus making it pretty hard for insurgents to roll up on a site unnoticed. Still, barricades, barbed wire and lots of other secret military ops would have made it impossible to get close to the polls for anybody who tried.

I learned that the first boom was a rocket strike on the east side of the Tigris, the other half of Mosul which is out of my battalion’s AO, or area of operation. Mortars soon began falling on both sides.

I heard – on the military radio on the Stryker – that they had the first two voters at one site, then three more. Soldiers offered to take our Iraqi interpreter in to vote, but he passed. A commander joked that troops should detain anyone who voted Sunni, since he was probably just in the polling station to recon the site for an insurgent attack.

The polls opened at 7a.m., and by 8, our AO had just 22 voters – and 25 mortar impacts, though there were no casualties. A soldier in my Stryker said something about this being a big day, and I said “yeah, the whole world is watching.” “Except my mother,” he replied.

The convoy stopped at a combat outpost which had a nearly adjacent polling station, and I went in to take pictures. U.S. troops were not allowed even inside the outer security perimeter of the polls today, but there were Iraqi national soldiers inside and out, plus the U.S. outpost had “overwatch” or “eyes on;” so. there was no risk of me getting dragged away. Of course there was some risk of snipers and suicide bombers, but it didn’t feel much worse than any other day.

Before I walked off, the commander walked over to a wall to relieve himself, and his personal security detail followed close, not knowing where he was headed – and leading him to quip “Give me a three-man detail, to shake!”
Inside the polling center, the few voters I saw trickling through would first present IDs and then went through what looked like a simple on-the-spot registration process. They took their ballots to little cardboard booths, made their mark, and then folded their ballots and put them in clear plastic tubs which were sealed with wire ties to prevent tampering.

In typical Iraqi government confusion, I saw voters dipping their fingers in ink to mark the ballots, but I read everywhere else that the finger-inking was supposed to be the last task, preventing voters from coming in more than once. A handwritten sign on one of the cardboard booths was translated for me: “For you Iraq, we participate in the elections,” and I have to admit I was honestly moved.

I mean, I’m the most cynical guy I know, and I still don’t think this mission, if ever it may succeed, will have been worth the human toll of well over 1,000 American and 100,000 Iraqi lives so far, but it was still truly heartwarming to see Iraqis bravely come out and vote in the face of constant death threats, plus the immediate risk of attack.
At the same time, huge machine-gun holes on one wall, and smaller bullet holes in a door were just a small reminder of what usually goes on around here.

I saw the first voter come and go, but then another ten came in the next 15 minutes. I saw a steady trickle all day, and heard on tactical Army radio that there were lines of hundreds in a few places later in the day.
When we got rolling again, the interpreter called out in Arabic on a megaphone from inside the Stryker, encouraging Iraqis to vote, saying things like: “Face the terrorists; We are here to secure you. We shall be free today; do not be afraid.” Not so convincing from a guy in an armored vehicle if you ask me, but I felt that he really meant what he was saying.

Small arms fire was being reported here and there, including reports of celebratory fire on the east side.
I was so sleepy, not just from the early start, but also because I never sleep well before an important, early-morning event, mostly because I’m so scared that I’ll oversleep. I even set my spare watch-alarm this time, and I still couldn’t relax.

Next, we dismounted and went on a little foot patrol in central Mosul, where the commander talked with shopkeepers and others, encouraging them to vote, chatting about local prices, while mildly interrogating them. I noticed smoke for a trash fire starting about a block away, and worried that it was a signal for insurgent mortar targeting, or just to spread the word that the convoy was nearby, but nothing came of it.

When we hit the road again, one of the soldiers looked at my notebook while I was writing and asked “Is that Arabic?” I laughed, but it did make me wonder if even military intelligence folks could even decipher my lifelong personal shorthand at this point.

From inside the vehicle, I could see the crowds on the street – via the video monitor used for targeting the RWS, or remote weapons system – and they looked somehow unusually festive to me, no kidding; maybe because of the way they were more often gathered together in groups today, or because they were closer to the street, not hanging back in doorways like they often do. Of course this all changes when they’re on camera, because when you point the RWS lens, you are also pointing the remote 50cal machine gun their way too.

Meanwhile, by 1030, I was feeling almost surprised that there hadn’t been a mass casualty incident, but I wasn’t complaining. It’s just that I expected it earlier, to discourage voting.

I had learned the night before that the local Mosul stringer for another agency had been contacted by insurgents, threatening him if he covered the elections, but telling him it would be ok to cover “the bombings.” Chilling, I thought at the time.
Just before 11 am, we got a radio report of a small arms attack on a polling station, and later learned that Iraqi soldiers had engaged an insurgent sniper, but no casualties were reported.

A few minutes later, the convoy stopped and the ramp dropped without warning, as it often does; our signal to dismount. I figured it was another polling station – and to be honest, I was just looking for a place to pee – when I saw this Iraqi staggering toward us, completely covered in blood.

As U.S. and Iraqi soldiers moved to help him, I saw that he had been shot in the face, just under the eye, and was somehow still walking. The sniper got him, right near the polls, but I never fond out for sure if he was on his way to or from there, because he was clearly in shock.

That reminds me, every time someone asks where somebody was shot, the clear response you always get is “do you mean anatomically or geographically?” Well, you know both answers for this one already. Just a thought.

He was still walking and they sat him down on the edge of the Stryker when two more shots followed. The sniper was still at work and we took cover behind some barriers while the medic – in this case it was a surgeon traveling with the commander today – looked him over and arranged transport to a local hospital in another Stryker.

The poor guy was a mess, and a cup’s worth of blood would gush from his nose and mouth every few seconds, but he was expected to survive. Amazingly, the medic said it appeared that the round entered behind his head and came out under his eye, but had whipped around under the skin but outside the skull. Lucky; very lucky. I made some pictures of the guy but had no idea if they would make any sense, for I still had no clue whether or not it would be a bloody day in the main story, or not.

I thought next about a conversation I had a few nights ago with another photographer. He said that he had noticed that he had covered the three main post-war events in Iraq; the capture of Saddam, the handover of sovereignty, and now the elections, and that none of them had any meaning. I responded that none of them had led to any decent pictures either, but now I was feeling differently about this election day on both counts, for better and worse.

Next, we got a radio report that intelligence had been gathered, predicting a rash of attacks at 1300, just after the noon prayers in area mosques. So, we dashed back to the base to “refit,” basically to get fuel and a bite. I scooted to my hooch to recharge my camera batteries a little, as they have been performing poorly of late, and also to grab extra cards, forgotten in the sleepy start of my day.

I grabbed an MRE too, “Beef Teriyaki,” which basically tastes like dog food, but which I have learned always comes with a bag of chow mein noodles, and for some reason, four desserts: Tootsie Rolls, M&Ms or Skittles, cheese and peanut butter crackers, and a bigass cracker with jelly. I tossed the main dish aside and ate the rest, a tradition called “rat-fucking” an MRE.

I should write more about the Army vernacular sometime, but they have no better term than rat-fucking; it usually applies MREs but can also describe what happens when you leave your packs around where “Joes” from other units can loot them, and I think it’s a wonderful word for our business, for what editors do to us sometimes.

We hit the road back into the city and it wasn’t long before our commander called out that he could see that first yellow, then red smoke canisters had been ignited from a rooftop position; red being the signal that you need a medic.

As we rolled up on the building, loud shots rang out but proved to be “friendlies,” the soldiers on the roof firing on an enemy position with (high-explosive) “H-E” rounds. Insurgent mortars simultaneously started falling on a nearby polling center, but again there were no casualties. Eventually, we learned that the rooftop smoke was not a call for help, but confusion resulting from some poorly communicated plan to target the enemy, and those involved got pretty well chewed for it before we carried on.

Moments later, while more small arms fire was being reported around the brigade, we heard another boom – an IED that struck another Stryker nearby, probably the one that later proved to be full of photographers.

As we rolled toward it, we were brought to a stop when the commander noticed an unexploded artillery shell in our path, probably thrown from the nearby IED but without detonating. Another responding Stryker drove pretty much right over it, without harm, but it led to another public ass-chewing on the radio – and it felt like the battalion was falling apart for a few minutes, but they bottomed out there and soon pulled it together for the rest of the day.

At 245 p.m., we dismounted by another polling station, and except for the usual Iraqi garbage and sewage filth and stink, it was like a whole different place, very peaceful and quiet, with lots of kids playing nearby and soon gathering around the soldiers, looking for candy and soccer balls.

In case I never mentioned it, I think the US has handed out soccer balls to every third Iraqi kid by now, all part of the old “hearts & minds” mission from before everything fell apart, and if you ask me, this nation should be the global soccer powerhouse in a decade or so, if only because they have soccer balls and nothing else to do when they’re not running for their lives.

I still needed to whiz so badly from before, and tried to quietly relieve myself against a wall when the battalion commander yelled “hey somebody take a picture of the photographer pissing on the mosque!”

Technically, it was the outer wall of a mosque complex, but it was so far from the buildings, and surrounded with garbage, that I honestly hadn’t noticed – maybe because I was also distracted by the mortars falling in the distance again.

At 4pm, we had an hour until the polls would close, but got another radio call, this one reporting that the Army had “very reliable intel on a suicide bomber” hitting a specific polling station in the next 60 minutes. Damn, I just wanted this day to be over, but the 1pm attacks had never materialized, and so I hoped this one would pass too.

At 430pm, we went to one more polling station, where, under duress from the troops, our interpreter, the one code-named “George Bush,” finally got out to vote. I went in to the poll with him, hoping to make a few last pictures, and mostly looking out for that suicide bomber, but we came and went without a problem. There was one distant explosion, and the last few guys in the place just made “tsk-tsk,” sounds, the usual, subdued Iraqi response in recent times.

It later proved to be another IED hitting another battalion, with one casualty that had to be med-evac’d, but I never got more details.
After the polls closed, and without that last attack – thank God – I was stuck out there for another two hours while the battalion commanded visited a few more sites to check on security as the ballots were transported and the sites were broken down and reconstructed into schools and mosques again.

I was really sweating because I had been on the run all day while two of my competitors had planned instead to work entirely from one polling station, but it was when I found them on the last stop that I learned that they had been stranded without their gear after the IED attack – and that they had also yet to send pictures.
When we got back to the TOC, I noticed that all of the guys who ride in the hatches all day – and always come back filthy – were covered in some kind of green shit today, but I didn’t mention it, too busy myself, trying to blow a day’s worth of God-knows-what out of my own nose again.
So, I popped into the hooch and un-tucked my shirt the way I always do when I’m under pressure – though I really have no idea why – and I sent a bunch of pictures, and now I’m done.

I wish there was someplace to go celebrate.
Jim