Exclusive Look at New Book on Iraq By 'WSJ' Reporter Who Penned Shocking Email
It was the e-mail read 'round the world. Nearly four years ago in September 2004, Farnaz Fassihi -- an Iranian-American correspondent in Iraq for The Wall Street Journal -- sent a brutally frank, private e-mail to friends that somehow leaked out to fellow journalists and various bloggers, who posted much of its contents on numerous Web sites. "Iraq remains a disaster," she wrote, and that was just for starters. It was not widely known until the e-mail, for example, that, as Fassihi revealed, foreign correspondents in Baghdad were "under virtual house arrest."
She described the hardship of the forgotten Iraqi citizens caught in the middle of "a raging, barbaric guerilla war," and lamented countless abductions, including that of her friend Georges, "the French journalist snatched on the road to Najaf."
It caused a sensation. Some readers charged the U.S. media with keeping the true nature of horrid conditions in Iraq from them -- was it suitable only for airing to friends? -- while others charged that Fassihi, based on the e-mail, must be providing the Journal with "biased" reporting.
Fassihi's editors stuck by her. She remained on assignment in Iraq for another full year -- and, coincidentally or not, the tone of a lot of reporting from Iraq by others did start to focus more on average people as conditions, for many months, went from bad to worse.
In the afterword, written in May 2008, she says that violence has declined after 18 months of the "surge," but notes: "Five years have passed since the United States led a military invasion into Iraq and George Bush declared a mission accomplished. But America's proposed goals remain elusive: Iraq's fragile stability hinges on deals brokered with Sunnis and Shiites. Iraqis caught in the midst of open-ended war struggle to survive." Her final words: "I keep asking myself: What justifies the enormous costs of this war and the wounds it has inflicted? I am at a loss for an answer. This is the story of war."
LinkHere
She described the hardship of the forgotten Iraqi citizens caught in the middle of "a raging, barbaric guerilla war," and lamented countless abductions, including that of her friend Georges, "the French journalist snatched on the road to Najaf."
It caused a sensation. Some readers charged the U.S. media with keeping the true nature of horrid conditions in Iraq from them -- was it suitable only for airing to friends? -- while others charged that Fassihi, based on the e-mail, must be providing the Journal with "biased" reporting.
Fassihi's editors stuck by her. She remained on assignment in Iraq for another full year -- and, coincidentally or not, the tone of a lot of reporting from Iraq by others did start to focus more on average people as conditions, for many months, went from bad to worse.
In the afterword, written in May 2008, she says that violence has declined after 18 months of the "surge," but notes: "Five years have passed since the United States led a military invasion into Iraq and George Bush declared a mission accomplished. But America's proposed goals remain elusive: Iraq's fragile stability hinges on deals brokered with Sunnis and Shiites. Iraqis caught in the midst of open-ended war struggle to survive." Her final words: "I keep asking myself: What justifies the enormous costs of this war and the wounds it has inflicted? I am at a loss for an answer. This is the story of war."
LinkHere
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 3:07 PM
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