The Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama [141]
In the afternoon we had an opportunity to have lunch with some of the troops in the huge mess hall just off the swimming pool of what had once been Saddam’s presidential palace. They were a mix of regular forces, reservists, and National Guard units, from big cities and small towns, blacks and whites and Latinos, many of them on their second or third tour of duty. They spoke with pride as they told us what their units had accomplished—building schools, protecting electrical facilities, leading newly trained Iraqi soldiers on patrol, maintaining supply lines to those in far-flung regions of the country. Again and again, I was asked the same question: Why did the U.S. press only report on bombings and killings? There was progress being made, they insisted—I needed to let the folks back home know that their work was not in vain.
It was easy, talking to these men and women, to understand their frustration, for all the Americans I met in Iraq, whether military or civilian, impressed me with their dedication, their skill, and their frank acknowledgment not only of the mistakes that had been made but also of the difficulties of the task that still lay ahead. Indeed, the entire enterprise in Iraq bespoke American ingenuity, wealth, and technical know-how; standing inside the Green Zone or any of the large operating bases in Iraq and Kuwait, one could only marvel at the ability of our government to essentially erect entire cities within hostile territory, self-contained communities with their own power and sewage systems, computer lines and wireless networks, basketball courts and ice cream stands. More than that, one was reminded of that unique quality of American optimism that everywhere was on display—the absence of cynicism despite the danger, sacrifice, and seemingly interminable setbacks, the insistence that at the end of the day our actions would result in a better life for a nation of people we barely knew.
And yet, three conversations during the course of my visit would remind me of just how quixotic our efforts in Iraq still seemed—how, with all the American blood, treasure, and the best of intentions, the house we were building might be resting on quicksand. The first conversation took place in the early evening, when our delegation held a press conference with a group of foreign correspondents stationed in Baghdad. After the Q&A session, I asked the reporters if they’d stay for an informal, off-the-record conversation. I was interested, I said, in getting some sense of life outside the Green Zone. They were happy to oblige, but insisted they could only stay for forty-five minutes—it was getting late, and like most residents of Baghdad, they generally avoided traveling once the sun went down.
As a group, they were young, mostly in their twenties and early thirties, all of them dressed casually enough that they could pass for college students. Their faces, though, showed the stresses they were under—sixty journalists had already been killed in Iraq by that time. Indeed, at the start of our conversation they apologized for being somewhat distracted; they had just received word that one of their colleagues, a reporter with the Christian Science Monitor named Jill Carroll, had been abducted, her driver found killed on the side of a road. Now they were all working their contacts, trying to track down her whereabouts. Such violence wasn’t unusual in Baghdad these days, they said, although Iraqis overwhelmingly bore the brunt of it. Fighting between Shi’ites and Sunnis had become widespread, less strategic, less