WP: In Jaded, Perilous Capital, A Collision of Perceptions (Baghdad)

[Pirate Smile]

In Jaded, Perilous Capital, A Collision of Perceptions
Life in Baghdad Looks Greener Inside the Zone

By Ellen Knickmeyer and Naseer Nouri
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, July 29, 2005; Page A14Nearby, a man stood in the middle of the street holding a gun to the head of another man in a car. Other drivers steered around them. No one stopped to help, or looked that carefully. After more than two years of war, Baghdad's people have learned to choose their battles, and this one didn't qualify.

On the city's streets, the daily reality involves death, random violence and routine deprivations for people who are beyond anger. But a different view has been presented in the Green Zone, the concrete-barricaded headquarters for U.S. troops, diplomats and contractors, and the interim Iraqi government. There, the situation is described as progressing toward a gradual handover from U.S. forces to Iraqi control.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/28/AR2005072802061.html

BAGHDAD, July 28 -- At 11 a.m. in the Iraqi capital, the popping of automatic-weapons fire broke out from one end of a Tigris River bridge to another. Pedestrians jaded by gunfire walked for cover. It was Baghdad's equivalent of a car horn -- guards shooting into the air to clear the way for some dignitary.

Across the Tigris, gray smoke billowed over the city from a bomb. Under the bridge, ski-masked Shiite Muslim commandos cruised through checkpoints in pickups mounted with machine guns.

[Pirate Smile]

1. more

"Americans said they feared postponement would heighten the perception that insurgents, rather than government officials, hold the momentum, and would discourage Iraqis. But outside the Green Zone, Iraqis are already discouraged.

"The Americans' statements are always untrue," said Ali Abed, 50, a taxi driver standing in a 1 1/2 -mile-long line for gas. "We are fed up.

"They destroyed the country, and now they say they want to leave," Abed said. "Let them go to hell, not to their home."

Many Iraqis complain about the continuing hardships here. Because of power outages that the Iraqi government blames on insurgent attacks, electrical power is turned on in Baghdad 30 minutes at a time, four times a day. "Electricity is like medicine in Iraq now," a much-repeated joke on Iraq's al-Sharqiya TV declared this week. "You get it every six hours."

[wli]

2. before you edited it I thought you meant Washington, D.C.

[Pirate Smile]

3. LOL. That is so true. It would apply to the entire country.

[grytpype]

4. We are nowhere close to a handover.

But we are going to have to leave because we are running out of soldiers.

So next Spring it is going to be "declare victory and go home" time.