Barefoot in Baghdad by Manal Omar

Author:Manal Omar
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2010-08-14T22:00:00+00:00

I celebrated the new year in Baghdad by looking for a doghouse.

During one of my random altercations at a checkpoint outside the Green Zone, a U.S. soldier questioned me about my living arrangements. When he discovered that I lived in the “Red Zone” (which was pretty much all of Iraq except for the four square miles that made up the Green Zone), he immediately launched into a long speech about personal safety. I told him that no mortar rounds had fallen over my house in the last week. Could he say the same for the Green Zone?

He laughed and agreed that the Green Zone was not the safest place to stay either. There had already been two attacks on the Al Rasheed Hotel, and mortar attacks had become an evening ritual.

Still, his words had some truth. I was now one of the only U.S. civilians living without armed protection in an Iraqi neighborhood. A guard dog couldn’t hurt.

Attitudes in 2004 were shifting dramatically. For the first six months, the coalition force was convinced that the insurgency would end with the capture of Saddam Hussein. Saddam had been caught in December 2003, but the insurgency continued. Frustration that this prophecy went unfulfilled was reflected in the attitudes of the soldiers. In 2003, U.S. soldiers were thrilled to see the Iraqi civilians. They would joke with me about the fusion of my perfect English and my “local” dress code. They would ask me about Iraqi cuisine and beg me to bring them kebabs.

I found my attitude toward the soldiers melting. These were good guys. Over time I began to recognize most of them at the various checkpoints, and they always remembered me. They would offer me security tips, and each time I was struck by how young they were. More important, though, was how eager they were to learn and understand the country in which they were now living. As we all moved into 2004, this attitude shifted. The soldiers who had entered as an army of liberation rotated out, and a new wave of even younger soldiers, spotted with acne, rotated in.

The locals did not greet these soldiers with roses and tea. Instead, they bombarded them with questions about electricity, water, and employment. These soldiers were frightened and became infamous for being trigger-happy kids ready to raise their weapons at the slightest noise. They eyed me with suspicion every time I ventured into the Green Zone, and they looked at all Iraqis with disdain. This was a manifestation of the bigger picture: the transformation of the U.S. Army from liberators to occupiers in the eyes of the Iraqi people.

A friend who worked in the Green Zone was escorting me in and overheard my conversation with the soldier about getting a dog. The next day she arranged for a tour of the Iraqi zoo, which was still closed to the public.

Dogs are extremely unpopular in most of the Arab world. Iraqi children would abuse any stray dogs they found roaming the streets, so the soldiers would collect stray dogs and shelter them at the zoo.

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