Over at the website of The American Prospect, I have an essay today that grows out of a book by The New York Times' Dexter Filkins, as well as an interview with him, in which I mount an argument for the use of more intimate, less straitlaced war reporting in US newspapers. Despite an interesting conversation with Filkins, relatively little of our discussion made it into the piece, so I'm posting the transcript here. It's been slightly edited for space through the removal of some discrete, less interesting exchanges, but it's basically all here. Enjoy.
What do you think about the sophistication of the commentary on Iraq in the US, as someone who has been there and seen it up close?
It depends on who you're talking about. I think if you're talking about blogs and the internet generally, it's pretty bad. It's just bad in the sense that it's not informed with a kind of fingertip feel. You know, it's shrill, a lot of it -- and whether it's on the right or the left. But that's not to say it's all that way. Some of the commentary is pretty good.
I think the person who's written the best commentary on the war is my colleague Roger Cohen. Roger's been there a few times, and he's sort of gone out there, and I don't think that's any mistake, because -- I think it was Lawrence Kaplan writing for The New Republic once, and this was about maybe '05, he said when you land, get off the plane, and look around, all the arguments melt away. And they do -- they melt away. Because it's just in the face of the reality, which is so overwhelming and so intense and so dramatic, it's just chatter, you know? You're just confronted with it. You're sitting there -- in wherever, Baquba -- it doesn't really matter if you were opposed to the war starting. It already started, you know? And at this point it's five and a half years old. So in that sense, you're just overwhelmed by the now.
I want to talk a little bit about the challenges of reporting from Iraq -- reporting both for the Times and for the book, which drew largely from your dispatches for the paper. One of the key passages in the book describes "two conversations" -- a conversation between Iraqis and Americans, and a conversation amongst Iraqis themselves. As an American reporter, how do you move between those conversations? How do you get access to that conversation among Iraqis?
That's a good question. Well, you do the best you can. I think as a reporter, even in a place like that, and as a noncombatant, and as somebody who tries to observe events very closely, I was often privy to things which combatants were not privy to. For example, there's a scene in the book where I'm driving in a Humvee with these soldiers, and they're making repairs on dams along the Euphrates. The Americans are doling out the money, and the Iraqis are taking the money. Everything is hunky-dory. And then the American went back to his Humvee, and I stayed behind and talked to the Iraqis, and basically they told me that we hate these guys, and we're gonna do everything we can to get rid of them. That's not a question that probably the Americans are going to ask usually; it's not one the Iraqis are going to answer to them. But they might to me because I don't have a gun; I don't have a uniform on. So that's part of it.
The other part is I relied on, and was the beneficiary of, really, really good Iraqis, who I trusted and became, in some instances, really, really close to. And in other cases, they saved my life many times. The scene kind of opened for them in a way -- the conversation -- because it was obvious I didn't speak the language. The one Iraqi would say to my interpreter something that he had no idea my interpreter would then turn around and tell me, like, for example, "He wants to kidnap you." So in that sense, I was able to see a lot of these things. But a lot of this stuff is like anything -- it's just right in front of your nose. You just have to jump on it.
There's also a scene in the book where you're speaking to a commander for the Volcano Brigade. He tells you that they haven't been killing anyone [but you find out later from your interpreter that he was told by a member of the brigade, in Arabic and at the very same time, that they had killed dozens of people].
Yeah. There's a bunch of different permutations of that. There's another scene in the book -- it's a scene I remember in real life -- there's an Iraqi speaking English to me, and he's surrounded by Iraqis who don't speak English. So we're having a very frank conversation about things, and nobody around him can understand, so he feels safe telling me. So there's a lot of variations of the "two conversations." But there's a lot of different ways to access that, or there were.
Even with an interpreter, though, you have to feel like your presence distorts the conversation a little.
It does a lot. It does. You're absolutely right. Not always. In some cases more than others. For example, when the commander of the Volcano Brigade said to me, "My friends, we've never killed anybody, we've never even fired our weapons," that was pretty clearly nonsense, based on other things that I knew. But yeah, he was making nice for the American.
It's not really that kind of conversation. It's much more of a -- you were there and I was there, and we both share something that most people don't really understand. It's more like that. It's more of a gut thing than, "I saw your story last Tuesday and I thought it sucked." [Laughter]
The book is episodic and not linear, by design. Why did you write this book?
I felt like I've seen a lot over the past eight or nine years, and I've been very fortunate, so I kind of felt like most of the Iraq books -- even the really, really good ones, and there have been a lot of really good ones -- have been kind of from 10,000 feet. They're broad, they make an argument, they're about policy, whether in Washington or Iraq, and so it's stuff seen from a distance. And I experienced the war from six inches away, so I wanted to convey some of that. I wanted to write a visceral book. I wanted to write a book about what it feels like in every way to be in the middle of something like that. I felt I could do that. I felt that I had that to contribute.
The book is intentionally apolitical. In many ways, you're probably better positioned to offer opinions about Iraq than other people. Most of the people in the US press who offer opinions on Iraq have never been there and know very little about it.
[Laughter]
Why did you draw that line in your head?
I think it's generally true that people's certainty about Iraq -- and particularly Iraq, because it's been this kind of blank slate for so many people -- I think people's certainty about that conflict tends to increase with their distance from the place. And all you have to do is turn on the TV for that and listen to some retired colonel sitting in a TV studio telling you what's happening in Iraq. Which is practically offensive to me. I think the closer you get to Iraq or Afghanistan, but particularly Iraq, the less sure one is about anything except what's immediately in front of them, and that which you can sort of grasp and feel and talk to. And I felt that way there. I felt that way about questions large, and questions small, and moral questions -- all those questions. Everything there to me was basically ambiguous and uncertain.
The truth is I'm not bursting with opinion about it. I think, first of all, if you talk about why we went in and all the obvious questions -- they've all been done. They've been done very well. And whether or not the surge has been working. I think people are exhausted by that. I'm certainly exhausted by that -- whether it was the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do, or how did we get into it. It just doesn't get my blood flowing.
I felt like I've seen a lot over the past eight or nine years, and I've been very fortunate, so I kind of felt like most of the Iraq books -- even the really, really good ones, and there have been a lot of really good ones -- have been kind of from 10,000 feet. They're broad, they make an argument, they're about policy, whether in Washington or Iraq, and so it's stuff seen from a distance. And I experienced the war from six inches away, so I wanted to convey some of that. I wanted to write a visceral book. I wanted to write a book about what it feels like in every way to be in the middle of something like that. I felt I could do that. I felt that I had that to contribute.
The book is intentionally apolitical. In many ways, you're probably better positioned to offer opinions about Iraq than other people. Most of the people in the US press who offer opinions on Iraq have never been there and know very little about it.
[Laughter]
Why did you draw that line in your head?
I think it's generally true that people's certainty about Iraq -- and particularly Iraq, because it's been this kind of blank slate for so many people -- I think people's certainty about that conflict tends to increase with their distance from the place. And all you have to do is turn on the TV for that and listen to some retired colonel sitting in a TV studio telling you what's happening in Iraq. Which is practically offensive to me. I think the closer you get to Iraq or Afghanistan, but particularly Iraq, the less sure one is about anything except what's immediately in front of them, and that which you can sort of grasp and feel and talk to. And I felt that way there. I felt that way about questions large, and questions small, and moral questions -- all those questions. Everything there to me was basically ambiguous and uncertain.
The truth is I'm not bursting with opinion about it. I think, first of all, if you talk about why we went in and all the obvious questions -- they've all been done. They've been done very well. And whether or not the surge has been working. I think people are exhausted by that. I'm certainly exhausted by that -- whether it was the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do, or how did we get into it. It just doesn't get my blood flowing.
What do you think about the sophistication of the commentary on Iraq in the US, as someone who has been there and seen it up close?
It depends on who you're talking about. I think if you're talking about blogs and the internet generally, it's pretty bad. It's just bad in the sense that it's not informed with a kind of fingertip feel. You know, it's shrill, a lot of it -- and whether it's on the right or the left. But that's not to say it's all that way. Some of the commentary is pretty good.
I think the person who's written the best commentary on the war is my colleague Roger Cohen. Roger's been there a few times, and he's sort of gone out there, and I don't think that's any mistake, because -- I think it was Lawrence Kaplan writing for The New Republic once, and this was about maybe '05, he said when you land, get off the plane, and look around, all the arguments melt away. And they do -- they melt away. Because it's just in the face of the reality, which is so overwhelming and so intense and so dramatic, it's just chatter, you know? You're just confronted with it. You're sitting there -- in wherever, Baquba -- it doesn't really matter if you were opposed to the war starting. It already started, you know? And at this point it's five and a half years old. So in that sense, you're just overwhelmed by the now.
I want to talk a little bit about the challenges of reporting from Iraq -- reporting both for the Times and for the book, which drew largely from your dispatches for the paper. One of the key passages in the book describes "two conversations" -- a conversation between Iraqis and Americans, and a conversation amongst Iraqis themselves. As an American reporter, how do you move between those conversations? How do you get access to that conversation among Iraqis?
That's a good question. Well, you do the best you can. I think as a reporter, even in a place like that, and as a noncombatant, and as somebody who tries to observe events very closely, I was often privy to things which combatants were not privy to. For example, there's a scene in the book where I'm driving in a Humvee with these soldiers, and they're making repairs on dams along the Euphrates. The Americans are doling out the money, and the Iraqis are taking the money. Everything is hunky-dory. And then the American went back to his Humvee, and I stayed behind and talked to the Iraqis, and basically they told me that we hate these guys, and we're gonna do everything we can to get rid of them. That's not a question that probably the Americans are going to ask usually; it's not one the Iraqis are going to answer to them. But they might to me because I don't have a gun; I don't have a uniform on. So that's part of it.
The other part is I relied on, and was the beneficiary of, really, really good Iraqis, who I trusted and became, in some instances, really, really close to. And in other cases, they saved my life many times. The scene kind of opened for them in a way -- the conversation -- because it was obvious I didn't speak the language. The one Iraqi would say to my interpreter something that he had no idea my interpreter would then turn around and tell me, like, for example, "He wants to kidnap you." So in that sense, I was able to see a lot of these things. But a lot of this stuff is like anything -- it's just right in front of your nose. You just have to jump on it.
There's also a scene in the book where you're speaking to a commander for the Volcano Brigade. He tells you that they haven't been killing anyone [but you find out later from your interpreter that he was told by a member of the brigade, in Arabic and at the very same time, that they had killed dozens of people].
Yeah. There's a bunch of different permutations of that. There's another scene in the book -- it's a scene I remember in real life -- there's an Iraqi speaking English to me, and he's surrounded by Iraqis who don't speak English. So we're having a very frank conversation about things, and nobody around him can understand, so he feels safe telling me. So there's a lot of variations of the "two conversations." But there's a lot of different ways to access that, or there were.
Even with an interpreter, though, you have to feel like your presence distorts the conversation a little.
It does a lot. It does. You're absolutely right. Not always. In some cases more than others. For example, when the commander of the Volcano Brigade said to me, "My friends, we've never killed anybody, we've never even fired our weapons," that was pretty clearly nonsense, based on other things that I knew. But yeah, he was making nice for the American.
One of the benefits of your ability to access that conversation was to get a sense of how the war has affected Iraqis themselves, which is a perspective that is not always forefront in the US media. How do you think the media has done capturing the sentiment of real Iraqis in all of their complexity? In a way, the question itself is very reductive.
It is, but -- I hate generalizing about the media, because it's a many-headed thing, and I don't see a lot of it -- but for example, if I talk about my own paper. We try really hard. It's really, really hard -- it's like the hardest thing that we do. Because we gotta protect ourselves, they gotta protect themselves, neighborhoods increasingly were completely sealed off to us, people didn't want us coming over because it put them in danger, we didn't want to go over because we were in danger. Are they being frank with us and are they being honest with us? God, you know, that's another question. It's really, really difficult. And of course, I think it's fair to say that we generally write about the war from an American perspective. You know, this is an American sort of project.
And so how did we do? I think we did pretty well. I mean, I think The New York Times did really well -- I think. I mean, I think generally speaking -- and reasonable people can disagree -- but I think people are pretty well-informed about the war. I don't think there's any enormous reality that we're missing. I think we're missing a lot of details and we're missing a lot of events. The country is opening up again; I'm talking about mostly the last couple years. So I think we've done a pretty good job -- I mean under the circumstances.
It is, but -- I hate generalizing about the media, because it's a many-headed thing, and I don't see a lot of it -- but for example, if I talk about my own paper. We try really hard. It's really, really hard -- it's like the hardest thing that we do. Because we gotta protect ourselves, they gotta protect themselves, neighborhoods increasingly were completely sealed off to us, people didn't want us coming over because it put them in danger, we didn't want to go over because we were in danger. Are they being frank with us and are they being honest with us? God, you know, that's another question. It's really, really difficult. And of course, I think it's fair to say that we generally write about the war from an American perspective. You know, this is an American sort of project.
And so how did we do? I think we did pretty well. I mean, I think The New York Times did really well -- I think. I mean, I think generally speaking -- and reasonable people can disagree -- but I think people are pretty well-informed about the war. I don't think there's any enormous reality that we're missing. I think we're missing a lot of details and we're missing a lot of events. The country is opening up again; I'm talking about mostly the last couple years. So I think we've done a pretty good job -- I mean under the circumstances.
I want to talk a little about the Iraqis who worked for the Times. One of the things that comes through in this book that isn't something a casual reader can pick up from the paper is how integral --
Yes.
-- the Iraqi employees at the Times are to the operation.
That's a good point.
Do you think you could've done what you did in Iraq with lesser people?
No, of course not. They're everything. They're like your eyes and ears and guides and your friends and your protectors. I mean, they're everything. They're absolutely indispensable.
You write at one point in the book that "if we had tried to understand the pressures the Iraqis were working under, we would have left the country." What does that mean?
That was a bit of hyperbole. But I think -- and correct me if I'm wrong here -- but that line follows this long, unbelievably convoluted thing where the drivers came to us and said, "These insurgents are threatening us and the insurgents want us to bring one of you guys to them, etc., etc." The pressures those guys were working under were just mind-blowing. It was incomprehensible. I think what I meant by that was just that. There was no way we could -- whatever we were going through was just ten percent of what they were going through. They had to go home every night. We got to hunker down behind the blast walls. And so, that's just basically a way of tipping my hat to them as much as anything.
When you're reporting at the Times, you're in the moment. And this book offers you a chance to look back, either at your notebooks or on your dispatches. What does the view look like when you're looking back [at your stories for the Times]?
Well, it depends on the story, you know?
Do you look back at any period of time and think, "I thought something was like this, and now I know, four years later, it was 180 degrees the other way."
[Laughter] Sure, of course. Some things, I was sort of better in discerning than others. What's the most interesting part to me, and it's been written about by everybody, but I was there right in the beginning in '03, and that first year was when everything was going catastrophically wrong, and the bottom fell out. You know, you can see it happening, you can just feel it, in every way and every day. But at the same time, you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. For reporters there -- reporters generally, but reporters there particularly -- are constantly being asked, "What's gonna happen? What's gonna happen tomorrow?" And you know, I don't want to go down that road. None of us do, and I don't think it's a good idea to do that. So I've tried to be careful and cautious and responsible in my judgments. But for me looking back, it was just more interesting than anything, because I got to relive some of this stuff. Just because it was such an extraordinary time, and I had an acute sense of -- when I was reliving it -- just how extraordinary it was and how it'll never -- it's gone. It was here, and I saw it, and now it's gone. So in that sense, I'm really happy I wrote the book. The book was sort of an attempt to recapture it and get down.
You said "it's gone." Do you think that it's --
The moment's gone. And what I mean by that -- you can't -- take a really obvious example. I write about it in the book. I remember this sort of amazing moment, when they had these caucus elections in Falluja. Well, it was an extraordinary moment. And I knew it was extraordinary at the time, but of course only in retrospect do I know everything that I know now. But the city was destroyed eight months later or whatever. It was razed. And you know, what happened to those people? What happened to the city? I didn't know that then. But that whole world is just vanished -- it's gone forever. I was sort of part of the story in this book, because I was going back in time. And it's just a really weird feeling -- to have seen something and to know that it's gone.
One of the opportunities the book affords you is to provide a lot more detail concerning some episodes that you reported on before.
That's true, yeah.
And to allow yourself to be a part of the story --
Yeah.
-- in a way that when you report in the Times, you're not able to do.
That's right.
I think the most dramatic and affecting example is what happens in Falluja. Why wait to tell the story of what happened to Corporal Miller?
Well I didn't, I don't think. I wrote a story in which Miller's death was reported.
I mean the full context [of his death], and really it was a very visceral, emotional story.
I mean, I don't know. Maybe there was a reason to do it then; I didn't do it. I think, you know, a newspaper's a different animal than a book; it's just a different form, you know? And I think our primary purpose in the paper, obviously, is to try to inform our readers to make judgments about public life. So in that sense, it's important and it's dramatic, but ... I don't know, I don't remember at the time about that particular story. Could I have written more? Sure. I mean, the book does give you a kind of -- newspapers generally and the Times particularly have -- you write in a particular way. I think it's extremely useful, and it's very, very vital, and I'm glad to be a part of it, but in many ways, it's constricting. It just is.
That's a little bit of what I wanted to get at. In some ways, the Times during the Iraq war has provided outlets for reporters to be a little bit more informal. Pieces in the Week in Review are a little bit more reflective.
It's true [laughing]. It's true; it's true. And that's extremely useful. It's true. I've thought about these same things. Because I think back and I think -- particularly in something like that. It's the biggest story I've ever covered. It's probably the biggest one I ever will. But more important, it was a story in which there were so few people that were actually there -- I mean among reporters, and of course the numbers even dwindled more -- that the vantage point that you had was so extraordinary, that it was very satisfying whenever I could sort of share the more subjective feelings that I had. Which I still try to be careful about. We're always informed by reporting and observations and all that, but yeah -- it's a good question.
Remember, this war has been -- I mean, things have gotten a little quieter in Iraq, but also in the United States -- this war, from 2003 to 2007, really just until recently, it's been this extraordinarily polarizing event. You know, it tore the country apart. And so, I think we -- and I -- wanted to be really, really careful. We wanted to get it right. And we wanted to be responsible about that, and not to have irresponsible people run off with the things that we said. It's all the more reason to be really really careful in your reporting and in your judgments. So remember the context, which was crazy. I just remember the angry e-mails I used to get.
I actually want to talk a little bit about that.
[Laughter]
Not the angry e-mails in particular. One important data point in the story of the press's --
Farnaz.
-- yeah, Farnaz Fassihi's e-mail. It was this glimpse that she offered into her own perspective and --
Actually, before you ask a question. Farnaz is a good friend of mine, and I think she's a wonderful human being. That event was mystifying to anyone who had spent time in Iraq. Because everyone just thought, "Duh. No kidding." So Farnaz sent an e-mail saying Iraq's gone to pieces. Duh. But the fact that she said "I can't leave my hotel room," just resonated in this kind of unbelievable way. And it was really weird. And I remember that particular moment very well. Farnaz's e-mail came out. I don't think I even read the e-mail -- I mean, I heard about it. What I did hear was that there was like a backlash against Farnaz. And I felt terrible about that. I just felt like, "My God. What she said was completely obvious to anybody who spent any time here," so I ran off and wrote my own piece five days later saying, "Yes, absolutely what she said in there is of course absolutely right."
Anyway, you were gonna ask a question. [Laughter]
Well, to take it a step further: It seemed obvious to you and all the reporters thought what she was saying was true, but doesn't it say something that it came as such a surprise to people in the states?
Well, yes and no. I think the question you're asking -- correct me if I'm wrong -- is whether the American public would've been better served if we could've written more personal stuff. You know, maybe. But I think at the same time, the public would've been better served if it would've informed itself better on the conflict day to day. And what I mean by that is that everything in Farnaz's e-mail had been reported. Now, maybe people didn't see it or read it, and maybe it was kind of written in this kind of dry style that isn't super-palatable. But it's all there, if people really, really wanted to know.
Her e-mail actually became something of a political football.
Yeah, I mean I'm not aware of all that because I was there most of the time, but I know generally know that that happened.
I think this came to a head in 2006, but a lot of people -- principally commentators on the right -- used that e-mail and used the stories that were being reported to say that the press in Iraq had, to some extent an agenda to not report on good news, and to some extent were practicing "hotel journalism."
Yes, but the left and the right have said the latter. I think the person who coined that phrase was Robert Fisk. I could be wrong; I know he used that in a column as well. So I mean this is sort of right and left, you're talking about.
We live an age of pervasive criticism --
Yes.
-- nonstop media criticism --
[Laughter]
-- and you get a lot of it. You get it in your e-mail inbox. Have you seen anything that you felt has been accurate? Or that has resonated with you? Or that has pointed to a limitation of the coverage of Iraq that you think is real?
That's a very good question. Let me just say, I think some of it's been -- I think most of the media criticism about Iraq ... There's been some good points raised, you know. I think the prewar stuff, there's been a lot of good points raised. I'm sort of speaking of the war after it started. Most of it is trying to make some other point about the war. So, you know, people beat up on the messenger. Whether it's "you're practicing hotel journalism" or "you're not reporting about the good news," what's the larger point there? The larger point is, it's really not as bad as they say it is, or whole Iraqi towns are being butchered by the American military, and the reporters don't see it because they sit in their hotel rooms staring out the balcony.
But I think a lot of it for me has missed the really, really much larger and more important question about the media coverage in a place like Iraq, which is -- there aren't that many reporters that are doing it. So you have this kind of phenomenon where you've got 50 reporters in Iraq, and then you have like 10,000 people writing about the 50 reporters in Iraq. So you have this kind of really small number of facts, and then like everybody interpreting them and crunching them and arguing over them. And it's like, we'd all be better served of course if there were 500 reporters in Iraq, like there were in Vietnam, but there aren't. That to me is the much larger question. I guess it's been said, not so much about Iraq, but it's been said generally about journalism, which is -- journalism is this kind of embattled vocation. And so whereas in July of 2003, there were probably 5,000 reporters in Iraq, or in April 2003, thousands, now there's almost no one. Now there's like 50. That to me is really -- that's the most important story that you can write about the media. I don't know if that's a criticism of the media, but that to me -- it's like, a lot of the media criticism sort of misses the larger point. It's sort of looking at this tiny group of 50 people and trying to discern their motives -- it's kind of a worthless endeavor.
The families of the soldiers you're with -- you're in touch with a lot of those families, still. Do they give you feedback on the work you do for the paper?
Some of 'em; some of 'em. Let me think for a second about that...
Yes.
-- the Iraqi employees at the Times are to the operation.
That's a good point.
Do you think you could've done what you did in Iraq with lesser people?
No, of course not. They're everything. They're like your eyes and ears and guides and your friends and your protectors. I mean, they're everything. They're absolutely indispensable.
You write at one point in the book that "if we had tried to understand the pressures the Iraqis were working under, we would have left the country." What does that mean?
That was a bit of hyperbole. But I think -- and correct me if I'm wrong here -- but that line follows this long, unbelievably convoluted thing where the drivers came to us and said, "These insurgents are threatening us and the insurgents want us to bring one of you guys to them, etc., etc." The pressures those guys were working under were just mind-blowing. It was incomprehensible. I think what I meant by that was just that. There was no way we could -- whatever we were going through was just ten percent of what they were going through. They had to go home every night. We got to hunker down behind the blast walls. And so, that's just basically a way of tipping my hat to them as much as anything.
When you're reporting at the Times, you're in the moment. And this book offers you a chance to look back, either at your notebooks or on your dispatches. What does the view look like when you're looking back [at your stories for the Times]?
Well, it depends on the story, you know?
Do you look back at any period of time and think, "I thought something was like this, and now I know, four years later, it was 180 degrees the other way."
[Laughter] Sure, of course. Some things, I was sort of better in discerning than others. What's the most interesting part to me, and it's been written about by everybody, but I was there right in the beginning in '03, and that first year was when everything was going catastrophically wrong, and the bottom fell out. You know, you can see it happening, you can just feel it, in every way and every day. But at the same time, you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. For reporters there -- reporters generally, but reporters there particularly -- are constantly being asked, "What's gonna happen? What's gonna happen tomorrow?" And you know, I don't want to go down that road. None of us do, and I don't think it's a good idea to do that. So I've tried to be careful and cautious and responsible in my judgments. But for me looking back, it was just more interesting than anything, because I got to relive some of this stuff. Just because it was such an extraordinary time, and I had an acute sense of -- when I was reliving it -- just how extraordinary it was and how it'll never -- it's gone. It was here, and I saw it, and now it's gone. So in that sense, I'm really happy I wrote the book. The book was sort of an attempt to recapture it and get down.
You said "it's gone." Do you think that it's --
The moment's gone. And what I mean by that -- you can't -- take a really obvious example. I write about it in the book. I remember this sort of amazing moment, when they had these caucus elections in Falluja. Well, it was an extraordinary moment. And I knew it was extraordinary at the time, but of course only in retrospect do I know everything that I know now. But the city was destroyed eight months later or whatever. It was razed. And you know, what happened to those people? What happened to the city? I didn't know that then. But that whole world is just vanished -- it's gone forever. I was sort of part of the story in this book, because I was going back in time. And it's just a really weird feeling -- to have seen something and to know that it's gone.
One of the opportunities the book affords you is to provide a lot more detail concerning some episodes that you reported on before.
That's true, yeah.
And to allow yourself to be a part of the story --
Yeah.
-- in a way that when you report in the Times, you're not able to do.
That's right.
I think the most dramatic and affecting example is what happens in Falluja. Why wait to tell the story of what happened to Corporal Miller?
Well I didn't, I don't think. I wrote a story in which Miller's death was reported.
I mean the full context [of his death], and really it was a very visceral, emotional story.
I mean, I don't know. Maybe there was a reason to do it then; I didn't do it. I think, you know, a newspaper's a different animal than a book; it's just a different form, you know? And I think our primary purpose in the paper, obviously, is to try to inform our readers to make judgments about public life. So in that sense, it's important and it's dramatic, but ... I don't know, I don't remember at the time about that particular story. Could I have written more? Sure. I mean, the book does give you a kind of -- newspapers generally and the Times particularly have -- you write in a particular way. I think it's extremely useful, and it's very, very vital, and I'm glad to be a part of it, but in many ways, it's constricting. It just is.
That's a little bit of what I wanted to get at. In some ways, the Times during the Iraq war has provided outlets for reporters to be a little bit more informal. Pieces in the Week in Review are a little bit more reflective.
It's true [laughing]. It's true; it's true. And that's extremely useful. It's true. I've thought about these same things. Because I think back and I think -- particularly in something like that. It's the biggest story I've ever covered. It's probably the biggest one I ever will. But more important, it was a story in which there were so few people that were actually there -- I mean among reporters, and of course the numbers even dwindled more -- that the vantage point that you had was so extraordinary, that it was very satisfying whenever I could sort of share the more subjective feelings that I had. Which I still try to be careful about. We're always informed by reporting and observations and all that, but yeah -- it's a good question.
Remember, this war has been -- I mean, things have gotten a little quieter in Iraq, but also in the United States -- this war, from 2003 to 2007, really just until recently, it's been this extraordinarily polarizing event. You know, it tore the country apart. And so, I think we -- and I -- wanted to be really, really careful. We wanted to get it right. And we wanted to be responsible about that, and not to have irresponsible people run off with the things that we said. It's all the more reason to be really really careful in your reporting and in your judgments. So remember the context, which was crazy. I just remember the angry e-mails I used to get.
I actually want to talk a little bit about that.
[Laughter]
Not the angry e-mails in particular. One important data point in the story of the press's --
Farnaz.
-- yeah, Farnaz Fassihi's e-mail. It was this glimpse that she offered into her own perspective and --
Actually, before you ask a question. Farnaz is a good friend of mine, and I think she's a wonderful human being. That event was mystifying to anyone who had spent time in Iraq. Because everyone just thought, "Duh. No kidding." So Farnaz sent an e-mail saying Iraq's gone to pieces. Duh. But the fact that she said "I can't leave my hotel room," just resonated in this kind of unbelievable way. And it was really weird. And I remember that particular moment very well. Farnaz's e-mail came out. I don't think I even read the e-mail -- I mean, I heard about it. What I did hear was that there was like a backlash against Farnaz. And I felt terrible about that. I just felt like, "My God. What she said was completely obvious to anybody who spent any time here," so I ran off and wrote my own piece five days later saying, "Yes, absolutely what she said in there is of course absolutely right."
Anyway, you were gonna ask a question. [Laughter]
Well, to take it a step further: It seemed obvious to you and all the reporters thought what she was saying was true, but doesn't it say something that it came as such a surprise to people in the states?
Well, yes and no. I think the question you're asking -- correct me if I'm wrong -- is whether the American public would've been better served if we could've written more personal stuff. You know, maybe. But I think at the same time, the public would've been better served if it would've informed itself better on the conflict day to day. And what I mean by that is that everything in Farnaz's e-mail had been reported. Now, maybe people didn't see it or read it, and maybe it was kind of written in this kind of dry style that isn't super-palatable. But it's all there, if people really, really wanted to know.
Her e-mail actually became something of a political football.
Yeah, I mean I'm not aware of all that because I was there most of the time, but I know generally know that that happened.
I think this came to a head in 2006, but a lot of people -- principally commentators on the right -- used that e-mail and used the stories that were being reported to say that the press in Iraq had, to some extent an agenda to not report on good news, and to some extent were practicing "hotel journalism."
Yes, but the left and the right have said the latter. I think the person who coined that phrase was Robert Fisk. I could be wrong; I know he used that in a column as well. So I mean this is sort of right and left, you're talking about.
We live an age of pervasive criticism --
Yes.
-- nonstop media criticism --
[Laughter]
-- and you get a lot of it. You get it in your e-mail inbox. Have you seen anything that you felt has been accurate? Or that has resonated with you? Or that has pointed to a limitation of the coverage of Iraq that you think is real?
That's a very good question. Let me just say, I think some of it's been -- I think most of the media criticism about Iraq ... There's been some good points raised, you know. I think the prewar stuff, there's been a lot of good points raised. I'm sort of speaking of the war after it started. Most of it is trying to make some other point about the war. So, you know, people beat up on the messenger. Whether it's "you're practicing hotel journalism" or "you're not reporting about the good news," what's the larger point there? The larger point is, it's really not as bad as they say it is, or whole Iraqi towns are being butchered by the American military, and the reporters don't see it because they sit in their hotel rooms staring out the balcony.
But I think a lot of it for me has missed the really, really much larger and more important question about the media coverage in a place like Iraq, which is -- there aren't that many reporters that are doing it. So you have this kind of phenomenon where you've got 50 reporters in Iraq, and then you have like 10,000 people writing about the 50 reporters in Iraq. So you have this kind of really small number of facts, and then like everybody interpreting them and crunching them and arguing over them. And it's like, we'd all be better served of course if there were 500 reporters in Iraq, like there were in Vietnam, but there aren't. That to me is the much larger question. I guess it's been said, not so much about Iraq, but it's been said generally about journalism, which is -- journalism is this kind of embattled vocation. And so whereas in July of 2003, there were probably 5,000 reporters in Iraq, or in April 2003, thousands, now there's almost no one. Now there's like 50. That to me is really -- that's the most important story that you can write about the media. I don't know if that's a criticism of the media, but that to me -- it's like, a lot of the media criticism sort of misses the larger point. It's sort of looking at this tiny group of 50 people and trying to discern their motives -- it's kind of a worthless endeavor.
The families of the soldiers you're with -- you're in touch with a lot of those families, still. Do they give you feedback on the work you do for the paper?
Some of 'em; some of 'em. Let me think for a second about that...
Or even the soldiers themselves.
It's not really that kind of conversation. It's much more of a -- you were there and I was there, and we both share something that most people don't really understand. It's more like that. It's more of a gut thing than, "I saw your story last Tuesday and I thought it sucked." [Laughter]
You just recently wrote about the handover of control over the Anbar province to Iraqi forces. Is that an event that you feel is provisional, or do you feel like this is one of those events that's really a watershed?
I think everything's provisional there -- whether it turns out good or bad. All the stuff they're doing now -- I think that was an interesting moment. It was a very hopeful moment. I was in that same place, as I think I indicated in the piece, two years ago, and it was unbelievably violent. And not just for me, and not just for Americans. The city was destroyed. And it was just emptied out, and people had left, and it was a dead city. And it's not anymore. So in that sense it's very encouraging. All of the calm now is very encouraging. It's just a nice thing to see. But I think it's very provisional. I mean it's sort of, like, okay. But it's almost of necessity, it's like arrangements rather than institutions, because there aren't any institutions. I mean, there are tribes and that sort of thing, but yeah -- I think everybody involved, whether it's Iraqi or American, will tell you that they're just trying to keep it going as long as they can.
You left Iraq after 2006.
Yeah, I went back in '07.
What was your time back in the US like, after spending so much time there? And did you sort of feel like you had to go back?
No. My time -- it was very difficult. It's like, I was breathing pure oxygen for four years, or actually seven, and then suddenly I wasn't. I mean, if you're fortunate enough, as I was, to be involved in a story that large, that gigantic, that dramatic and that important, and then suddenly you're not, it's just -- you know, your metabolism slows down a lot. [Laughter] You know, it's very jarring -- I went from Baghdad to Cambridge, Massachusetts, so it was this extraordinarily violent place to the most quiet. So it was hard; it was really hard. You know, I had the book to write, so at least I had something to do.
No, I didn't have any burning need to go back, I really didn't. And you know it's strange because you can't go home again, I think really, at the end of the day. I kind of went back this last time -- it was interesting; I was glad to see it, and glad to see some people I hadn't seen in a long time -- but I didn't have any ... I think I was able to detox.
Is there something that you want people to take away from the book that you think has been missing or not exactly there in all of the literature written about the war?
There's no one thing. I'd just say: The hope, whether it's ten years from now or five or twenty, when people ask, "What was it like on the ground?", the book will help.
I think everything's provisional there -- whether it turns out good or bad. All the stuff they're doing now -- I think that was an interesting moment. It was a very hopeful moment. I was in that same place, as I think I indicated in the piece, two years ago, and it was unbelievably violent. And not just for me, and not just for Americans. The city was destroyed. And it was just emptied out, and people had left, and it was a dead city. And it's not anymore. So in that sense it's very encouraging. All of the calm now is very encouraging. It's just a nice thing to see. But I think it's very provisional. I mean it's sort of, like, okay. But it's almost of necessity, it's like arrangements rather than institutions, because there aren't any institutions. I mean, there are tribes and that sort of thing, but yeah -- I think everybody involved, whether it's Iraqi or American, will tell you that they're just trying to keep it going as long as they can.
You left Iraq after 2006.
Yeah, I went back in '07.
What was your time back in the US like, after spending so much time there? And did you sort of feel like you had to go back?
No. My time -- it was very difficult. It's like, I was breathing pure oxygen for four years, or actually seven, and then suddenly I wasn't. I mean, if you're fortunate enough, as I was, to be involved in a story that large, that gigantic, that dramatic and that important, and then suddenly you're not, it's just -- you know, your metabolism slows down a lot. [Laughter] You know, it's very jarring -- I went from Baghdad to Cambridge, Massachusetts, so it was this extraordinarily violent place to the most quiet. So it was hard; it was really hard. You know, I had the book to write, so at least I had something to do.
No, I didn't have any burning need to go back, I really didn't. And you know it's strange because you can't go home again, I think really, at the end of the day. I kind of went back this last time -- it was interesting; I was glad to see it, and glad to see some people I hadn't seen in a long time -- but I didn't have any ... I think I was able to detox.
Is there something that you want people to take away from the book that you think has been missing or not exactly there in all of the literature written about the war?
There's no one thing. I'd just say: The hope, whether it's ten years from now or five or twenty, when people ask, "What was it like on the ground?", the book will help.
