SEPTEMBER 2008

IRAQ today
Working the ‘Road of Hell’
with Iraq’s Army
BY SUDARSAN RAGHAVAN
Hachim Al-Sultan, Iraq/Washington Post
Over 24 hours, I learned that in this
place, your next step could easily be
your last.
So there I was, with a colleague, staring
at the gaping hole in the wall. On the other
side was the school — rigged with explosives,
we were told.
In such situations, a moment can seem like
eternity — more so when you have watched a
man dying in front of you or when you have
come close to meeting death yourself. I had
experienced both, less than 24 hours earlier.
The day before, I was walking on a dusty,
rugged strip that local villagers called the
Road of Hell. I was with Washington Post
photographer Andrea Bruce and our Iraqi
translator, Zaid Sabah. On that August day,
we were embedded with the Iraqi army and
had arrived with Gen. Ali Ghaidan, their top
commander in Diyala province. The road was
clogged with U.S. and Iraqi vehicles. The
bomb sweepers were working. The sun was
burning like a furnace.
Gen. Ghaidan and his entourage walked
up and down the road. Then he left, leaving
us with the Iraqi Army’s 1st Division, 3rd
Battalion. Less than a half hour later, the
explosions began. There was the detonated
one, near where Ghaidan stood. Maj. Adil
Muhammed, the head bomb sweeper, found
it and quickly disposed of it.
Then there was the blast nobody expected.
An American armored bulldozer had run
over an anti-tank mine in a stretch of road that
was supposedly clear. Minutes earlier, I had
walked by that spot a couple of times, contemplating
whether to interview the American
soldier seated inside the bulldozer. I didn’t.
When the explosion happened, Zaid and I
were about 30 feet away. Andrea was inside
a Humvee on the other side of the bulldozer.
My first thought was that Andrea had been
hit, and later Maj. Muhammed informed us
that he and his men had thought the same. I
ran toward the black column of smoke as
injured Iraqi soldiers emerged. Fortunately,
Andrea was unharmed.
“We saw a piece of tire fly into the air, and
we thought she was killed,” said Sgt. Hassan
Shegas, 31, another bomb sweeper.
About an hour later, a white flatbed truck
drove fast across the barren plains, bouncing
like a boat on the high seas, heading toward
the road. In the bed was Nazar Ayed, an Iraqi
soldier in his 20s. A sniper had shot him.
When the truck reached the tangle of vehicles
on the road, Ayed was motionless. His
feet were yellow from a lack of blood. His comrades
thought he was dead and left him on the
stretcher. Ten minutes later, someone noticed
that his heart was faintly beating and
informed the Americans.
As Muhammed and other Iraqis
watched, a group of U.S. soldiers
quickly huddled around Ayed, struggling
to revive him. They inserted an IV
into his arms and closed his wound.
Their leader, 1st Lt. Jeffery Wright,
was not satisfied. The tall, wide-shouldered
Georgia native urged his men to
focus on keeping Ayed breathing.
Two U.S. Blackhawk helicopters
landed in a patch of sand and shrubs.
Iraqi and American soldiers carried
Ayed on a stretcher to the lead aircraft,
then walked backed in silence,
covered in dust. He died later.
At the wall of the school, these memories
were speeding through my mind,
mingling with concern of the unknown.
Andrea was there, too, motionless.
A few minutes earlier, the last
remaining residents of this wisp of a village
that looked like a Spaghetti
Western set had told us that they had seen
insurgents walk into the school carrying explosives.
Muhammed and Shegas had hopped
over a wall a few feet away, instead of rushing
through the opening. We thought surely that
was a sign the school had been mined.
But then an Iraqi soldier ran through the
opening and made his way to the school
buildings. Then Zaid did the same. As he
walked, he looked back at us.
Saddam’s
luxury
train to
return to
service
BY SAMEER N. YACOUB
Baghdad/AP
Saddam Hussein’s private
luxury train, equipped with
chandeliers and Italianmade
curtains, is being put into
public service next month to help
ease a train shortage, Iraqi rail
officials said.
Motionless, we stared at him. Crazy Iraqi
translator, I thought.
“Come on, don’t you want to do your
reporting?” Zaid asked me.
Andrea and I looked at each other, our
pride taking over.
We stepped into the compound.
Reprinted courtesy of the Assyrian International
News Agency, www.aina.org.
The 23-carriage French-built
train was kept in a secret location
for three decades and shielded
from the widespread looting that
followed the U.S.-led invasion of
Iraq in 2003.
Starting this month, the train will
ferry passengers between
Baghdad and the southern city of
Basra, said Karim al-Tamimi, a
spokesman for Iraq’s rail system.
He said the train, which also has
three locomotives, was moved
recently from a rail yard in Baghdad
to the city’s main railway station.
Saddam used the train only
once in the late 1970s, shortly after
becoming president, for a trip to
Basra, said Khadum Abdul-Wahid,
the head of the Basra railway
branch.
The train’s carriages are airconditioned
and equipped with TV
screens, officials said. Windows
An Iraqi army
soldier from the
3rd Battalion,
2nd Brigade
5th Iraqi Army
Division
are draped with Italian-made curtains
and chandeliers hang from
the ceilings. Some compartments
served as offices, including a
library, while others were furnished
as living rooms. The train also has
several restaurants and luggage
compartments.
It was not immediately clear
whether some of the expensive fixtures
would be removed before the
public uses the train. Al-Tamimi
said the train is in good shape and
only requires simple maintenance.
Currently, the Baghdad-Basra
train runs only once a day, with three
carriages. Al-Tamimi said railway officials
are now considering reinstating
train service between Baghdad to
the northern city of Mosul.
Iraq has suffered a train shortage
because of years of U.N. economic
sanctions and looting following
the U.S.-led invasion.
PHOTO BY STAFF SGT. MARK WOJCIECHOWSKI
28 CHALDEAN NEWS SEPTEMBER 2008