Legal Village

Some final thoughts

Posted 16/04/2008 by Ben Hallman

Not even Borat can make me laugh at 6am. I spent the night on a metal bench in the hanger that serves as a terminal on the military side of Baghdad International Airport. The authorities there leave the television turned on, at full blast, 24/7. I woke up to the scene of Borat racing naked through a hotel. The armed forces programming director has some nerve. I’m writing now from Kuwait, nearly 24 hours after the latest leg of my journey began.

Waiting around for something to happen (or not happen) in Iraq can be incredibly frustrating, but I’ve also found it's a great opportunity to strike up chance conversations with those stuck in the same boat. Last night, for example, while waiting for the bus to take me to the airport, I talked with a Navy SEAL who was retiring after 22 years in the service. He had spent the past nine months training Iraqi army forces.

I’ve heard no shortage of complaining about everything since I’ve been here but I’ve also noticed that most people, after venting, end on a positive note. The most popular analogy floating around today is that American freedom wasn’t won easily, either — see wars Revolutionary and Civil — and that we shouldn’t expect miracles overnight. Or even after five years. The Navy officer was different.

“This was a war about oil,” he bluntly stated. “And now it’s all about money.” He pointed to the KBR private security people who run the shuttle to the airport and so much else in Iraq.

I had read about the outsourcing of functions once handled by the Army (from cooking to convoy security) but I never appreciated to what extent the military is reliant on independent contractors until I got here. KBR, in particular, seems like a fifth branch of the armed services.

KBR workers are everywhere, and they make far more (in some cases) than their military counterparts. A convoy driver, I’m told, is paid between $6,000 and $8,000 a month. The officer told me the SEALs had to dramatically boost their re-enlistment bonus to staunch defections to the private side.

At the other end of the spectrum, a Peruvian guard, also employed by KBR, told me he makes about $1,200 a month. The guard told me he is leaving soon, after two years in Baghdad.

“Baghdad, too much muerte,” he told me, pantomiming a rocket flying into the Green Zone. Iraqi army soldiers are also paid far less than senior KBR and US military personnel. My conclusion: there is an inverse relationship here between a guard/soldier’s exposure to danger and his salary.

On my last afternoon in Baghdad, another reporter and I tried to get into the monument to the fallen soldier. Two lonely Iraqi army soldiers at the gate apologised and said it was closed. Then they asked for water. I told the Navy SEAL about this and he said Iraqi soldiers are issued one bottle a day, never mind that it was easily 95 degrees. (Our escort, a National Guard soldier from the media unit, bought the two Iraqis some water.)

Tonight is my last one in military custody. Tomorrow I’m picking up my passport and heading to Kuwait City for a night in a hotel before flying back to New York on Thursday. Some final thoughts before I resign my post as editor in chief and senior correspondent of The American Lawyer’s Baghdad bureau.

• I had hoped to do more blogging about rule of law issues while I was here. This is my first experience blogging while reporting a story at the same time — my first time blogging, in fact — and I didn’t appreciate that the two aims of reporting and blogging can be at odds. I chose to withhold most of what I learned about rule of law here for the simple reason that I didn’t want to undermine my own story. I tried to make up for the lack of reporting substance with regular personal hygiene updates. Speaking of which...
• I’m not saying I need to wash my clothes, but my socks just created their own rudimentary digestive system.
• If you were supposed to manage my fantasy baseball team while I was away and for some bizarre reason failed to start Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte on what would be his best day of the season, and this contributed to my crushing defeat, you are dead to me.
• Buying one of those U-shaped neck pillows at JFK before I left was one of the best decisions I made on the entire trip. Another good buy: a Skype plug-in headset at the PX in Baghdad, which allowed me to make cheap calls over the internet. And, of course, one needs a good book. I finished Den of Thieves by James Stewart on the plane today. I know I’m nearly 20 years late to this book but I was surprised at how relevant the subject matter is to today’s market. The story, essentially, is that of the invention of the mortgage-backed security market in the US by a group of larger-than-life bond traders at Salomon Brothers. If you want to know more about collateralised loan obligations (and who doesn’t?), add this to your reading list.
• Finally, I want to thank friends, family and colleagues who wrote to offer their support. Your emails were great.

Thanks for reading.