"In the Arab world, they view this as the Americans destroyed an Arab country." [View All]

[BurtWorm]

From an interview with former LA Times Baghdad bureau chief Borzou Daragahi, who gives Brian Lamb of C-SPAN a very pessimistic (i.e., honest) view of the war and the "surge" as reported in Editor & Publisher:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003583815"

Former 'LA Times' Baghdad Chief Says Iraqis Are 'Humiliated'

By Joe Strupp

Published: May 10, 2007 3:40 PM ET



Daragahi, a Pulitzer finalist in 2005, admits to deceiving his family, and editors, on some occasions about life in the war zone: "You know, there was no planning of, OK, I'm going to deceive my wife, I'm going to deceive my family. It was just, you know, you're in this crush of news and trying to get the story out....in addition to that, I had all these bureaucratic duties, because I became bureau chief. I had all these managerial duties - finances and safety issues and logistics, and so on. And so, the pressure, the amount of work was so intense that you end up perhaps sacrificing some facts when you're recounting your day to your family or your spouse, and even your editors."
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Highlights of the interview, from a C-SPAN transcript, are below:

--On why he believes the military surge won't work:

"Because there is not - even according to General Petraeus' own guidebook for fighting counterinsurgencies, they're not using soldiers, they're not using enough troops to accomplish their goals...But also, more fundamentally, I don't think that they can do this militarily. I don't think the fundamental problems in Iraq right now are military problems."

-- On why Iraqis feel humiliated:

"Iraqis are rather hostile and feel humiliated. And that's the key thing that maybe some of our policymakers don't understand. The presence of the U.S. soldiers is very humiliating to the Iraqis. Even those who, in their minds know that it's necessary to have the soldiers there, at least some kind of force there preventing an all-out civil war from getting even worse...I don't think they appreciate American culture."

-- On charges that the press is too negative on Iraq:

"Well, I would just say, show me those goods."

...

"And I think, in the Arab world – and this is a really disastrous thing, they basically view this is as, you know, the Americans came in and they destroyed an Arab country. And I don’t think they’ll ever forgive us for that."

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