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Dahr Jamail’s MidEast Dispatches

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 07:00:00 PST

In 2003, Dahr Jamail decided that he was tired of just listening to news reports on Iraq and packed his bag to see exactly what was going on. The independent U.S. reporter then added to the overall coverage of the war with his published reports, photos, and videos about just what was happening in Iraq.

We first wrote about Dahr Jamail's MidEast Dispatches in August, 2006. Since then, his job has expanded beyond his site to include a new book, "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq." Despite his increasing popularity, Dahr found time to chat with us about his experience in Iraq and his belief about the necessity of unbiased information...

Before this site, what work did you do as a journalist?

Prior to beginning my work reporting from Iraq, I lived in Alaska and spent my summers working as a mountain guide and volunteer rescue ranger on Denali. I mention climbing because just before autumn of 2001, I was on a climbing trip in Pakistan near K2. After our climb, a few of us headed to the border of Afghanistan where we snapped photos of Taliban without really knowing what we were photographing. I returned home with these photos, along with a book about U.S. policy in that country during the Soviet occupation of the 1980s.

I was doing some freelance journalism for a weekly newspaper in Anchorage, and my stories focused primarily on mountaineering trips until the events of September 11th. At that time I began writing about U.S. involvement in Afghanistan during the Reagan administration—how billions of dollars were covertly funneled into the Afghan mujahideen who were fighting the Soviet military. This was the closest thing to war reporting that I experienced prior to venturing to Iraq.

What made you decide to pack up and travel to Iraq to report on the war?

The mainstream media did an excellent job of parroting the lies the Bush administration used to sell the war against Iraq to the American people. I believe the job of a journalist entails holding those in power to account; asking tough questions and demanding proof be provided to the general public, particularly regarding claims made to justify a war. I saw very little of this being done in the mainstream media during the build up to the invasion of Iraq.

Today it is common knowledge that there were no weapons of mass destruction nor links between Saddam Hussein and those responsible for the events of 11 September 2001. It is astonishing to me that millions of people in the U.S., including myself, knew this before the invasion took place, yet the opposite was reported by most of the mainstream media.

Would you call yourself a pacifist?

Let me be clear, I am not a pacifist. But when the war was launched and I watched the coverage provided by most mainstream outlets, it felt like I was watching a weapons manufacturing show. I saw jet fighters and missiles portrayed with computer graphics on the television, and embedded reporters acting like cheerleaders for the soldiers they were theoretically reporting about. The media was essentially cheerleading the war, instead of showing what war really is. When I went to Iraq I saw quickly that war is nothing but suffering, fear, chaos, and death. It is vile, repulsive, confusing, and inhumane. There is nothing proud or honorable about it.

Yet none of this was being shown as the war was launched—instead we saw the fireworks display of "shock and awe" and not the dead bodies of the thousands of Iraqis and scores of American soldiers who died during the invasion.

So your first-hand account was an attempt to report without any bias?

A journalist should report accurately on what he/she is covering—and the so-called coverage of the invasion and the beginning of the occupation was a gross misrepresentation of what was actually happening on the ground.

I knew this by comparing what I was seeing in the U.S. mainstream media to what I was reading online in both foreign and alternative media outlets. The disparity between the mainstream media coverage in the U.S. compared to much of the overseas coverage was so great it was as if two different wars were being reported. It was this disparity that made me decide to go to Iraq and write about what I saw first-hand.

We rely on the media to tell all of us back home about what's really happening in a war zone. What's the worst thing you've seen?

There have been many terrible things to witness in Iraq. I visited the morgue at Baghdad's Yarmouk hospital during January 2005 and found it literally overflowing with bodies, halves of bodies, and body parts. There wasn't enough electricity to keep the temperature below 32 degrees, so you can imagine the stench, as some of the bodies were weeks old.

Another instance I should mention occurred in Fallujah during the April 2004 siege of the city. I was at a makeshift clinic inside the city and watched a 10-year-old boy die who had been shot in the head by a U.S. marine sniper. For two days I sat in this clinic and watched person after person brought in from different parts of the city, all claiming to have been shot by U.S. military snipers. Either it was a city-wide conspiratorial lie, or it was the truth... so this was a difficult thing to witness as a U.S. citizen.

What about the most inspiring thing you've witnessed in Iraq?

The dignity, strength, and generosity of the Iraqi people. I've traveled much in my life, and have never encountered warmth and generosity like I have in Iraq. This, in addition to a few instances with U.S. soldiers at checkpoints—seeing that under horribly stressful conditions some troops were able to maintain their humanity and sense of humor.

How much do you rely on interpreters in your work?

I rely heavily on interpreters, since I have only picked up a small amount of the Arabic language. However, working as a journalist in a place like Iraq, they (interpreters) do more than just interpret the language. I relied on my interpreters to arrange interviews with people, as well as government officials. I counted on them to transport me safely through the dangerous streets of Baghdad and Fallujah, and oftentimes to "fix" situations which had spiraled out of control.

Needless to say, there is a lot of trust required to work with someone in that capacity—where they literally are putting their life on the line just to work with a westerner... and me and as a journalist trusting them enough to watch my back.

I remain very close friends with the interpreters I worked with in Iraq, although most of them have had to flee their country due to the violence and chaos.

What are some of your daily reads online?

I often read Le Monde Diplomatique, Electronic Iraq, Foreign Policy in Focus, the United Nations Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), Inter Press Service, Al-Jazeera English, Al-Jazeera Arabic (translated), Iraq Coalition Casualties, Yahoo! news headlines, The Washington Post and The New York Times. Some of these I read for valuable information, others I read more to monitor what the American people are being told.

Besides your daily reads, what are some of your favorite blogs or sites about Iraq and the Middle East?

Most of these would be the same as my daily reads, although I would add The Dreyfuss Report, Foreign Press Review, Middle East Online, The Independent, and the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

Your mailing list is a popular source of information about the region. Is there anything that's surprised you about running it? Anything you regret?

The volume of subscribers has surprised me, in addition to the volume of traffic my website receives. I hired someone to design and manage the website, as I'm not technically proficient with Web design and website management. A fantastic job was done, but I would say my only regret is not knowing how to handle more of the technical aspects of the website myself.

How has this site changed things for you?

The website has been a tremendous help in getting information and my reports about Iraq out to a larger audience. Both my site and the Internet allowed me to do an end-run around the standard accepted model of journalism—having to get hired by an established media outlet, writing only what editors or corporate owners of that outlet dictate—and I can instantly publish weblogs and photos showing exactly what I'm seeing on the ground.

In addition to that, the website has enabled media outlets around the globe to find and contact me to do radio interviews with them, or write stories for them. The brunt of my work would simply not have ever been possible without both the internet and having my own web site.

That said, what has been amazing to me is how much demand there was for the work I was doing—demand in the sense of an extremely large audience of readers who wanted my reports. I did not go to Iraq with the intention or goal of working as a journalist. I had 130 email addresses of friends back home, mostly in Alaska, who were curious to read and see photos of what I saw when I went to Iraq. So the first few weeks in Baghdad, I simply wrote dispatches to send in emails to these folks.

This then transformed into posting these dispatches on the web site Electronic Iraq, which was where I began to be picked up by outlets like the BBC and New Standard News for paid reporting... and the rest, as they say, is history.

What's the most important thing you want people to know about the war?

Two things. First, the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq has generated 655,000 Iraqi deaths, according to the most recent and only scientific study (aside from the first study done by the same group, also published in The Lancet) done on the matter. I think every American should read the full report.

Second, that the invasion and occupation of Iraq is but a small part of U.S. foreign policy in the region. I'll be shocked if Iran is not attacked before this administration leaves office. I say that to encourage people to educate themselves about what their governments' policy actually is for that volatile region by reading two documents: the U.S. National Security Strategy, March 2006 and the U.S. Department of Defense Quadrennial Defense Review Report.

See for yourself what the policy is, and decide if that is what you want your country to be doing abroad.

Thanks, Dahr! We hope your new book sells big—and you stay safe.

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