Mission Accomplished: Langan in Iraq
90 min 00 sec
[12 August 2004]
00:00
START
00:17
LANGAN VO
My first night in Baghdad, seven months after Bush declared the end of the war. From where I was standing that seemed a bit premature. According to the US government though I had nothing to fear, they were still claiming there was no such thing as a resistance, just a bunch of dead enders.
LANGAN PTC
Im glad none of the foreign press corps are here to see this, just run into the bathroom there’s quite a lot of firing going on.
01:54
How are you?, how are you? Its more friendly here, less road rage. People very friendly.
LANGAN
Why is there so much traffic in Baghdad?
(Man on street)
Because basically the streets are closed.
LANGAN
The Americans have closed the streets?
MOS
yes
LANGAN VO
I went to Baghdad to find out if resistance was a real threat, or just the remnants of a fallen regime. In the months before my arrival there had already been a massive wave of suicide attacks on major targets in Baghdad, and early signs of an armed Sunni resistance in the surrounding countryside.
2:58
LANGAN PTC
That was an american patrol on traffic duty driving around the streets of Baghdad, and with a tannoy telling people to drive on the right hand side of the road, to queue up properly at the petrol stations and not to buy black-market petrol. And when I say traffic duty this being Baghdad someone just called out in front of them and they opened fire.
LANGAN VO
The war had been won thanks to careful planning. But seven months into the US occupation and Iraq’s infrastructure was crumbling. Unfortunately America’s plans hadn’t extended to winning the peace.
3:30
LANGAN PTC
This petrol queue stretches back hundreds of metres. We’re just by one of the central mosques here in Baghdad. The biggest danger in Baghdad is from being run over, not from getting shot at.
LANGAN
Are you waiting here for petrol?
MOS
Yes there is no gas, no power, no oil because of electricity – there is no electricity.
4:02
LANGAN VO
The continuing shortage of petrol in what was the world’s second largest supplier of oil is perhaps the biggest testiment to the failure of the coalition’s reconstruction efforts. But it isn’t just petrol that’s scarce, there’s a shortage of nearly all basic necessities.
4:28
LANGAN PTC
Well that’s one way to beat the traffic!
MOS
USA, USA USA good
LANGAN
Yes
MOS
USA good - freedom – USA, USA good, no Saddam, USA good, freedom, USA..
LANGAN
Good
4:45
LANGAN PTC
I was just driving to the coalition provisional authority centre, and the road’s been blocked. And they found a mortar device.
LANGAN
Hello, how are you? … Do they live around here?
MOS
yes
LANGAN
What’s the situation like around here?
MOS (Translation)
Thing’s were better before. now there’s no security at all. The Americans haven’t done anything. Even when we were at war everything was available. Gas was 250 Dinar, now it’s 5000. We used to be able to go outside. Now we all have to go around in groups for security.
5:35
LANGAN
Well it’s getting dark now so I’ll let them go.
MOS (Translation)
We have to be home by 7pm
5:55
LANGAN VO
Despite the problems I had expected most Iraqi’s to welcome their new life of freedom. But then, whats the point of freedom if it’s not even safe to walk the streets. It’s not only a lack of basic necessities in Iraq. There’s no effective rule of law, no accountability and no democracy. I could understand the frustrations, but there was something far more sinister afoot. Something I couldn’t understand.
Voice of Iman preaching from Mosque (translation)
Fight the enemy…. until god consumes their bodies with fear and terror.
LANGAN VO
The Iman was calling on Iraqi’s to rise up and kill the american occupiers, just a few blocks down the road from the headquarters of the American led coalition authorities.
6:45
AMERICAN SOLDIER
Sorry, can I take your film
LANGAN
British press, I’m recording this Iman - Whats wrong?
AMERICAN SOLDIER
LANGAN
I’m making a documentary about the situation here in Baghdad.
Sorry, what’s the problem? Yes, alright then.
Voice of Iman (translation)
The Israeli occupation forces have come to rob this land based upon lies and deceit.
7:15
LANGAN VO
Like a lot of Iraqi’s the Iman seemed to think that the American forces and the Israelis were one and the same thing. A month later the Iman was in prison for inciting violent insurection.
Apart from the sound of gunfire and the occasional bomb, people in Baghdad seemed to be getting on with their lives. But outside Baghdad I’d heard it was a different story.
LANGAN PTC
Today I’m heading out to Ramarde, West of Baghdad. The towns like Ramade and Faluhah, in the so called Sunni triangle West and North of Baghdad where the resistance has been strongest.
Just coming up to AbuGadab prison, which was the biggest prison in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. But the American’s have now moved in, rather like they moved into Saddam’s former palaces they are now in Saddam’s former prisons.
LANGAN VO
Like the rest of the world it would be months before I was to know what was going on behind those walls.
8:45
LANGAN VO
On the main highway leading West out of Baghdad it felt like I was entering a different, much more dangerous world. Many Westerners chose to travel on this road in heavily armed convoys, but I thought it was safer to keep a low profile.
LANGAN PTC
We’re just arriving in Ramade but the road ahead’s been closed by an American patrol.
Have they closed the street?
The policeman just handed out a leaflet as we were driving into Ramade, and it’s announcing a new curfew.
What does it say?
9:30
Translator
It says the curfew starts from 11 evening, till 4 morning.
LANGAN
Who’s it from -who signed it?
Translator
From the CPA
The CPA have the authority to shoot any people
LANGAN
It says that….where?
Translator
Yes. ‘The CPA have the authority to shoot anyone. Thankyou for your cooperation’.
9:58
LANGAN VO
The american’s already considered Ramade a resistance stronghold. I was a little wary of getting out of the car. But even though I was mobbed, I was made to feel really welcome.
LANGAN PTC
It’s very difficult to walk on the streets. But everytime I set my camera up it gets mobbed.
MOS (translation)
What we all hoped was that after they got rid of Saddam and the cruelty and suffering of the last 35 years we would have democracy, freedom of speech, people would be free and the young could fulfil their dreams.
MOS (translation)
They broke into our homes and took 14 people
What have they done wrong?
And they’ve stolen money and jewellery. Is this the freedom that George Bush talks about? Where is the freedom?The young people don’t have jobs- I don’t have a job. Where is the freedom Bush talks of?
10:59
LANGAN PTC
It’s like the whole street is stopping to tell me their grievances.
MOS (translation)
When someone does something wrong, the Americans take it all out on us. They shoot indiscrimately. It’s random. If one person does something, they target 100 people or more
LANGAN VO
The anger and resentment in Ramade was far more intense than anything I’d encountered in Baghdad. But I was also surprised by their willingness to share their frustration with an outsider like myself. I would have stayed longer but I got a call that there was an attack taking place in a nearby town.
11:42
LANGAN PTC
Well we were just filming on the streets of Ramade, and then the local journalist we were with told us they had a telephone call that an american black hawk helicopter has been shot down in the nearby town of Faluhja.
MOS (Translation)
A helicopter’s come down by the Faluhja dam. Go straight on, then left then left.
12:18
LANGAN PTC
I think we’re nearing the site now. Everyone in Faluhja, this town, has been pointing us which direction to go. But now I can see two other American helicopters flying overhead. And I’m laughing because I just saw two little children laughing and pointing and telling me which direction to go. It’s a bizarre scene to enter the town where this is obviously the biggest excitement of the day.
MOS (translation)
Straight on!
(translation)
Three people died. It was hit by an RPG.
Any mother****** that comes here gets killed.
13:17
LANGAN
Do they think it’s good news?
MOS (translation)
Yes, it’s good news. God willing, we’ll all be fighting Jihad
It’s all that smoke over there
LANGAN
Yes
MOS (translation)
This is Falluhja! Where people die!
14:00
LANGAN VO
If Baghdad felt like a city under occupation, out here in the fields surrounding Fallujha it felt more like a war zone.
LANGAN PTC
What’s happening? What’s the bang?
He’s not sure if the American’s are coming under attack because there were two further
explosions.
MOS (translation)
We don’t want the Jews here. We are moslems, we don’t want the jews here. Whenever they’re attacked they shoot indiscriminately, even at innocent people and at cars and houses. Petrol’s scarce, nothing’s available, everything’s in crisis. WE don’t want the jews in Iraq. Get them out of here.
MOS (translation)
Most of these people aren’t Saddam’s supporters. We’ve all these helicopters flying over our houses. People have dignity. We don’t accept this. My brother was killed – he was unarmed and wasn’t involved in any trouble. Now his kids pray to God to destroy America. What had he done? Was he a terrorist? Where was his weapon?
MOS (translation)
They’ve done nothing but destroy our country for the last eight months. A month ago I lost my son – He was 17. God willing, we’ll kick them out with our own shoes. God willing, we’ll revenge our martyrs whose lives were taken for nothing.
15:43
LANGAN VO
The locals claimed they had seen a helicopter shot down, but the official report claimed it was a crash landing. Ths US military had made similar denials before which then turned out to be untrue. I was begginning to think the American’s were trying to cover up the extent of the inturgency war.
16:49
LANGAN VO
The US authorities were telling the media everything was going according to plan. But here in Ramade, away from the briefings, the first infantry division were confronted by open defiance under armed resistance.
US soldier
Ten years ago in desert storm, they came out here and they knew who the enemy was but we come out here and we drive through the city and we don’t know who’s going to open up on us or we don’t know who’s going to blow us up, you know. So it really sucks for us because its all..
LANGAN
Can I ask you then, what do you think of the locals then?
Soldier
The locals, I don’t know, I mean, I’ve grown to hate them. When I first got here, you know it was all like, we’re driving through the desert, and its like this is so cool, we’re in Iraq. But then you kind of get complacent, that’s the word for it, you get complacent. You’re kind of like these guys aren’t so bad, but then boom you know – somebody blows you up, and then you’re like screw these guys. You get all pissed off about it. And now after about 4 or 5 months of being out here you can’t trust them so you gotta hate them, you know.
17:58
LANGAN
Was this all worth it?
Soldier
Yes and no. Cause honestly what I believe is that these people don’t want to be free. They’ve been run like this for so many generations and its going to just work out right away, its going to take a long process of time to get used to being free and whatever.
Soldier
The people who are your side have to decide whether they want to be free or in bondage to someone else. Because they are …
LANGAN
What if they start to say, we want to be free of America?
18:43
LANGAN VO
The people in Ramade had told me all about how Americans break down doors in the middle of the night, so I asked to go on a raid to see how they did things for myself. Tonight’s mission was to apprehend one of the bad guys. And I was told to expect trouble.
LANGAN
We’re getting out here.
LANGAN VO
We had the name and address of the suspected insurgent. But as we walked off into the darkness we immediately hit trouble.
19:41
LANGAN
Who was firing?
US Soldier
What’s up?
LANGAN
It’s Shaun the reporter
Soldier
Hey tell them they need to get somebody up here to pull my rear, because I can’t pull rear security.
Soldier
Who the **** are these people shooting?
Hey man, watch the house to the ****ing one o’clock
You, standing on the roof! Stop!
Stop! Put your hands up or they’ll Shoot!
Get the **** in there and get in hard!
You can kill anything you want to
20:42
LANGAN VO
The platoon had spotted two men running in the dark but they had managed to get away.
LANGAN (translation)
I’m a Journalist.
LANGAN PTC
It’s the first time I’ve been to a home in Iraq without taking off my boots.
21:19
LANGAN VO
Local tradition and custom barrs men from entering women’s bedrooms but I could see these soldiers had a job to do. And with armed men on the loose they had to take every precaution.
Soldier
Coming in!…
Boom, boom, boom…
She just said one, you have one? Ok fine…
Soldier
There’s a gate over here Alfie. Get on the base and cover the flank. And watch that house over there on the left. OK spread out and go up the hill
LANGAN VO
There were men out there with guns and the soldiers protecting me had wandered off into the dark.
Soldier
About 30 bucks, 25 bucks, and that serves the same purpose
Soldier
No I have expensive tastes that’s why, that’s what I’m saying, so if I get it its because of the suspense of it
Ok, ok, and your point is?
But the thing is, the thing is …
LANGAN
Guys, are you talking about sneakers?
Soldier
Yes
LANGAN
And we’re ..
Soldier
And we are here – just like to pass the time along
LANGAN
Because I heard a big argument, and I thought is this two professional well paid soldiers talking about is there a sniper to my left, better check it, and no your talking about sneakers.
That’s comforting. Are you the two protecting my rear?
Soldier
Yeah
LANGAN
Ok
23:14
LANGAN
Right, we’re going back to base now, yeah?
Soldier
I have to say no, we found the guy’s house but he got tipped off, we’ve got to go out and get more information, and we usually do that during the day. And for the nighttime we do stuff like this, go out and find them, stir up trouble and what not.
LANGAN VO
We return to base empty handed and having lost a few more hearts and minds. It’s a classic insurgency tactic, to and frustrate and attack the enemy and then turn on the people who then support the insurgents.
LANGAN VO
Having been shot at by gunmen, I now wanted to hear what they had to say. I went back to baghdad and spent the next few weeks trying to set up a meeting.
24:22
LANGAN PTC
Well I’m sitting in the back of a car, in a backstreet, somewhere in Baghdad. Waiting for a man, who can manage to help me find the resistance. This is my third or fourth attempt and everytime I do it I have a sleepless night, I wake up stressed out, drink lots of coffee, smoke cigarrettes and then spend hours sitting in the back of a car with an acid stomach because of the stress. It’s a really unpleasant experience.
LANGAN VO
I waited all day, but no one showed up.
25:09
TV NatSot
“Welcome to BBC World News, I’m Mike Enmer. We start with the news just coming in as we go on air. The US military in Iraq is saying its killed at least 46 Iraqi’s and wounded at least 18 others as they attempted to ambush two US military convoys in the city of Sumarra. The spokesman is saying that 5 US troops and a civilian were wounded by the attack”.
LANGAN VO
The killing of so many insurgents was being portrayed by the americans as their biggest success to date. There were conflicting accounts as to what had actually taken place, so I decided to go to Sumarra to see for myself.
26:02
LANGAN PTC
Well the American’s have got a checkpoint up ahead, and they’ve pretty much cordoned off Sumarra.
LANGAN
What’s it been like this week? What’s been happening here?
MOS (translation)
This week the American’s have come into Sumarra in force and have blocked all the roads going into Sumarra. Anyone going in must now queue for at least 5 hours.
LANGAN
Have they been searching people’s houses?
MOS (translation)
They’ve been raiding houses and have demolished some of them and have arrested lots of people.
26:50
LANGAN
British TV
US Soldier
Have you got some ID?
LANGAN
Yeah
Soldier
Hi guys, how you doing?
LANGAN
There’s quite a few journalists in here though I think
Soldier
I think if we can’t make it work here then we’re in trouble.
27:17
LANGAN
Look, look
MOS
He says you have to come back
LANGAN VO
This driver had turned back at the roadblock after the Iraqi police tried to search his boot.
The atmosphere is incredibly tense made worse by the presence of Iraqi police in hoods, worn for their own protection so that the locals couldn’t recognise them.
The name of this operation was Ivy Blizzard and like previous operations Ironhammer and Bulldog mammoth, and my own personal favourite ivy cycone parts one and two. It seemed the Americans had borrowed the name from some obscure heavy metal album. Their tactics however seemed to be borrowed from the Israeli defence force a town sealed off, followed by house to house searches.The idea was to root out insurgents.
28:29
LANGAN
What’s been happening in this town this week?
MOS (translation)
Since the capture of the previous president, the resistance hasn’t died out and what happened this week was that there were a couple of confrontations with the occupiers. Two tanks were burnt out so afterwards they made widespread raids throughout Sumarra.
MOS (translation)
The problem is that if someone takes a pot-shot at them then the Americans just open up randomly
29:10
US Soldier
Who are you with?
LANGAN
British television
Soldier
Really
LANGAN
How is it here?
Soldier
Not too bad
LANGAN
Are you searching for anyone in particular?
Soldier
I’m not searching, I’m patrolling
LANGAN VO
It was bizarre but the presence of the Americans didn’t stop the locals airing their grievances right under the soldier’s noses.
MOS (translation)
Listen, I’ll give you an example. We’re asleep in our homes and they come and break down the doors and take people away but we don’t have anything they’re after- no gunmen, no weapons, nothing. They take our sons away, we can’t go out to the shops, we can’t go out to work. Wherever we go, they’re there. How can we live like this?
30:04
LANGAN PTC
Really bizarre – there’s an American patrol all around us croching down. Some of the American’s are talking to some of the people I’ve just been chatting to.
LANGAN
This is quite a tense bizarre situation
Soldier
Not something we were trained for. I mean, we were trained for it, but you know….this is insane
LANGAN
Your challenging people and there’s patrolling going on at the same time, it’s a bit difficult and I don’t know whether I feel very relaxed standing here.
Soldier
It kinda gives you a false sense of security to be around these people. It’s not a very secure area.
31:00
LANGAN VO
The claim that 46 insurgents had been killed turned out to be false. The American command was now claiming operation Ivy Blizzard was a resounding success, and would deliver a deadly blow to the resistance but it also seemed to have successfully alienated the entire town.
32:00
LANGAN VO
I went back to Fallujha but this time on patrol of the 82nd division airbourne, one of the American’s most battle hardened divisions. They weren’t really designed for winning hearts and minds. Fighting a counter-insurgency war takes political tact and military precision, or you can do what the 82nd do and kick ass. Some months before they’d inflamed local opinion by opening up on a demonstration in the town and killing 14 people. They had a bad reputation amongst the locals but the feeling was mutual. As far as the 82nd were concerned Fallujha was their enemies stronghold, they’d lost another helicopter the day before and were now expecting the worst.
LANGAN
Do you feel like your being watched all the time?
Soldier
Oh, of course. There’s a guy on the roof over there standing up and sitting down. Makes you nervous. A lot of RP’s do get attacked by cowboys and stuff like that. You got to keep your eye out.
Soldier
Wow, we got a flare
LANGAN VO
A green flair shot in the sky, which
is the kind of signal used by insurgents before an attack.
LANGAN
So those flairs are warning signs?
Soldier
Yeah, but I don’t think that one was
Soldier
They were originally I believe but right now its more likely to alert us to their presence in the area. To say hey, we’re here.
Soldier
You know, if you actually look at it, it’s a fact. America has never gone to war with a country that has a McDonalds.
LANGAN
That has a McDonalds?
Soldier
That hasn’t got it.
You see if they had a McDonalds we wouldn’t have to mess with them.
LANGAN
Do you think in Bosnia, Serbia, did they have McDonalds?
Soldier
Now they do. They got a McDonalds, and a Taco Bell and a Pizza Hut in Frikkin’Kuwait, it will only be a matter of time until they get it out here.
LANGAN
Right. Well it’s a good thing that we’ve got Burger King in London,
Soldier
I love Burger King
LANGAN
I actually prefer Burger King to McDonalds. I think its better food. But..
Soldier
I like McDonald’s fries, but Burger King hands down beats it for a Chicken Royale
Soldier
Its all about the Whopper!
34:33
Soldier
On this strip alone, you slap about 4 or 5 McDonalds restaurants and people would be happy.
What they need here is a Pizza Hut.
It’s hard to believe that this area here was once considered the birthplace of civilisation, because you look at it now and it just doesn’t at all seem that way.
35:45
LANGAN PTC
I now wish I hadn’t come on patrol. I can hear mortar fire and heavy machine gun.
MOS
Get back! Get back!
LANGAN VO
There appeared to be just one casualty who was an Iraqi policeman. A rocket propelled grenade had landed just a few feet from where he’d been standing. A new policeforce have borne the brunt of the insurgency war, they are targeted for collaborating with the Americans who often replace them out on the front line or out on patrol. Fortunately the injury didn’t look too serious.
36:38
LANGAN
Did they get the guys firing?
Soldier
They haven’t done anything
LANGAN
Right. And to think I was worried about dying of lung cancer.
Soldier
Thankgod they didn’t aim over here. Because one of them could take us out easily
LANGAN
Really, cause some guy just told me I was safe
Soldier
Well your safe if you get behind that …., and they’ll protect you, but it’ll take this out really. They’re pretty powerful.
LANGAN
Don’t take it personally guys but Im going to stand over there by that Humpbridge
37:20
LANGAN VO
The attack didn’t stop the 82nd from getting on with their counter-insurgency mission. A bulldozer was laying waste to the central barrier and tearing up the street looking for IED’s , improvised explosive devices. The americans had setup roadblocks either end of the road so that the bulldozers could go in.
LANGAN
The locals are going to be taking it the wrong way aren’t they?
Soldier
Yeah, I think they will be. We’ve been getting mortared about every other night for the last week and I think it’s a retaliation for us taking all of their weapons away.
LANGAN
Right
Soldier
I’m pretty sure it will probably happen again tonight.
LANGAN
Yeah now you’ve taken their barrier away
Soldier
Well its just an eyesore, period. And they keep sticking IED’s in here so we’ll just take it away. They give it, we take it.
Soldier
Everytime we’ve been attacked its been quick and then they take off.
Soldier
They’re chickens. they’ll shoot at us and then they run away.
Soldier
Yeah, every now and then there will be a couple who will stand ground. They are the real hardcore extremists, the Fujahadhims – how do they say it? Yeah the Fahim’s and the Bathe party guys. Some of them will actually stay and fight. But most of the time its just locals getting their kicks off. Just trying to, you know, slow us down from what we’re doing.
LANGAN
What are you trying to do?
Soldier
Trying to change these people’s way of …I don’t know. Just trying to help out a country that’ been beat down for so long. You’ve always got your hard heads, Falluhjas’ one of them, Sumarras’ another, Eventually they’ll figure it out, and figure –hey- we’re here to help and we’re not here to hurt.
39:27
LANGAN
We’ve just heard to expect another attack.
Soldier
Yes. We’re feeling bad about staying stationary and not moving for a long period of time because we’re more susceptible to stuff like that
LANGAN
I’ve decided I don’t really want to be on patrol with you guys, can I er.. it’s a late to leave isn’t it
LANGAN VO
We settled down to wait for another attack. I could see how their tactics were losing hearts and minds but I also now knew what it felt like to be a GI on the receiving end of hostile fire and I viewed every local with suspicion.
40:02
Soldier
I think we should just demolish all the Mosques, personally. Yeah it’s a church but that’s where we always get shot at from.
LANGAN
Really? But if you get shot at from a Mosque you can hit back can’t you - you can return fire?
Soldier
It’s kind of like one of those touchy subjects ‘cos its like their religious temple, or whatever.
LANGAN PTC
We’re under attack
LANGAN
Are they firing it here?
Soldier
They’re firing just a little further up this way – at us. It sounds like RPG’s.
41: 08
LANGAN
Well we’re just getting ready to leave and we’re coming under fire again.
Soldier
One of the Bradley vehicles got hit and they said its leaking fuel, so I guess they’re going to go check it out.
41:30
LANGAN VO
It had been a long day – the American’s had knocked down a barrier, and the insurgents had knocked out a Bradley tank, mission accomplished. I thought now would be a good time to get out of town
LANGAN
Those were Bradley’s protecting our rear, yeah?
Soldier
Yeah, those were two of them, the other two already left and then there was the one that got hit.
LANGAN
Now would be a good time for us to leave
Soldier
Yeah
42:04
LANGAN VO
We were all set to go when somebody spotted two wires protuding from the ground, an IED that could be set off at any moment by remote control. I took cover behind a Humbie and waited for the Americans to blow the bomb.
LANGAN PTC
That stuff just landed behind me! It’s a very different experience being in Falluhja on patrol with the Americans. We’ve been here 4 or 5 hours and we’ve been told to leave at last. But I haven’t really met any of the locals. They’re across the road there but there’s no communication, we’re being looked at through the end of a barrel.
LANGAN VO
It was time to withdraw. A few months later after the Americans launched a full scale attack on Falluhja killing more than 1000 civilians they pulled out altogether. Today Falluhja is in the hands of the insurgents.
44:18
Well Im in the middle of Baghdad, somehow, I’m not sure where, the curtains are drawn. And I’m waiting to meet a man on the resistance who’s hopefully going to answer some of my questions because for 9 months there have been almost daily attacks by insurgents against the American forces. IED’s, RPG attacks on convoys, suicide bombs, numerous helicopters have been downed, and now 9 months since the end of wht Bush declared was the end of major combat, the end of the war, and even now after the capture of Saddam Hussein the attacks continue and yet this is a resistance without a name, a resistance without a voice. No one claims responsibility for any of the attacks, they don’t talk to the media and I don’t know if it’s a unique situation but theres a full-scale gorilla war going on in Baghdad and the surrounding areas West of Baghdad
45:37
LANGAN VO
This is the area commander of a local group, an ex-officer in the Iraqi guard, made redundant when the Americans disbanded the Iraqi army, another man stood guard at the door
LANGAN
Tell me why he joined the Macalmer, and what are their aims?
Iraqi Dissident
We’re resisting the occupation, the American occupation of our country. IN the past our country was occupied by Britain and now it’s occupied by the Americans. We resist this occupation. You are British – if your country was occupied and you and you resisted occupation would that mean that you were some kind of troublemaker or just that you wanted to rid your country of occupation?We want to rid our country of the occupation. We didn’t cross the ocean and go to America to makre trouble. This I our country. So we’re resisting – to end the occupation. The resistance are not terrorists. The resistance is to liberate the country. America came to liberate the country from Saddam Hussein - but now Saddam Hussein has gone -they’ve captured him. So why don’t they get out of this country?
-Please, I’ve nearly finished – There’s one more thing I’d like to say. Let America know that its occupation of Iraq is going to teach her a hard lesson – harder than the one she got. in Vietnam. Thankyou.
47:41
LANGAN VO
American losses were rising steadily but the US authorities were still trying to downplay the extent of the insurgency, but it wasn’t always possible to get the exact figures for the number of combat casualties. Most of the injured were brought here, to the 28 combat hospital unit, part of the secure zone in the centre of Baghdad.
Hospital Worker
OK, that’s fine. If we could move out that later to bed 9 or 8…
48:28
LANGAN
What has this man been brought in with?
Hospital Worker
He had an I.D. to his chest, which means a piece of shrapnel which went through the left side of his chest and he’s got something in his neck, so we’ve got to operate on him.
LANGAN VO
The US government was trying to paper over the cracks by bringing their wounded back to America under the cover of darkness, and banning media coverage of funerals.
LANGAN
I’ve just arrived here and ten minutes later there’s two helicopters arriving, is this what its like every day?
Soldier
It goes up and down. The last couple of days has been a lot of casualties coming through
Soldier
A lot of injuries but not as much being reported on as the soldiers being killed. I don’t want to get myself in trouble here, but I do believe that a little bit are being misled
LANGAN
Is that more people arriving?
Soldier
Yes, I believe so
49:42
LANGAN VO
The wounded were accompanied by their platoon buddies who waited by their sides until the moment arrived when they could be taken back home.
LANGAN
How long have you been out here for? …out here in Iraq?
Injured Soldier
In Iraq? -Since April 1
LANGAN
Since the begginning – without a leave back home?
Soldier
Yeah, I went back to bury my best friend. A colonel and two other soldiers of ours got killed in the fight, but I was selected to take them back
LANGAN
The leave you had was to take buddies back from here back to be buried in the States?
Soldier
That was a way that I could take him back to fulfil the wishes of him and his wife.
50:29
LANGAN
Let’s go and ask P.J – because you at blast site, you were saying….and do you remember what happened?
Soldier
Eh, just a white pick-up comes in the gate and just as it passed me, it blew up – and that’s all I can remember.
LANGAN
And what did the doctor say? You’ve got scrapnel…
Soldier
They pulled some scrapnel in my right leg, and I’ve got some scrapnel damage, and nerve damage to my left hand and arm, and I got a hole in my left ear and a gash in the back of my head.
51: 12
LANGAN VO
I bumped into a G.I who had been attacked near Sumarra. I’d been trying to set up a meeting with the resistance there, so I asked a soldier what had happened to him
Soldier
We were not quite to the Sumarra bypass and a vehicle come up by us and started firing into our rear vehicle and into the next vehicle and knocked us off the road. And there were people waiting in the ditch also and we got caught in like a crossfire. And then our hired security got us out of there, luckily, but we lost 2 people and had 4 people wounded.
LANGAN
And when was this?
Soldier
That was Christmas Eve afternoon
LANGAN
Right – and you got shot that bullet by that kelanfikof – just by your – was that just a flesh wound, or..
Soldier
No actually they pulled the bullet out, I’ve got it for a souvenir. I just have an extremely hard head fortunately.
LANGAN
So there was that operation Ivy Blizzard in Sumarra, where they picked up a hundred people and yet you got attacked just after that.
Soldier
Heck, after World War Two you there were things going on after every conflict there are things going on for a good amount of time, this is no different.
LANGAN
Do you feel this is after the conflict, or this is the conflict?
Soldier
Oh that’s hard to answer, I don’t really have an answer for it
52:36
LANGAN PTC
Just hearing on the radio another helicopter coming in with new patients.
LANGAN
That’s another lot coming in now? ..with the helicopter?
Soldier
Yeah, gunshot wound to the head
LANGAN
Another gunshot wound to the head, ok
53:18
LANGAN
How long have you been out here?
Hospital Worker
I’ve been out here for almost 5 months now, so, its been a very big eye-opener. Back in the States, you heard about people dying but you didn’t hear about the casualties. The casulaties are actually the big eye-opener.
LANGAN
Right – what’s it like, when your working here?
Hospital Worker
Its very stressful, its hard, sad, especially when you’ve got these people who’ve lost their limbs, or you’re trying to get them back to their families you know , or just the thought of what these people are going through waiting for their family member to return, that’s kind of a burden on you, but the fact that we can help – that’s the nice thing about it.
54:10
LANGAN PTC
I wasn’t expecting this to be so traumatic. I’ve been in the hospital all day now, and those helicopters have been landing every few hours. It’s very easy to read the newspapers and to watch TV about Americans doing this and doing that, and American policy, the American president. Until you meet a person face to face who’s been injured, who’s suffering - and its shocking. But the things people are saying to me away from the camera are even more shocking. But its really this, that what you read in the newspapers doesn’t really do justice to what’s happening here.
55:28
LANGAN VO
The resistance group in Sumarra had agreed to meet. I drove to the outskirts of the town, where I a was met by some men and switch cars. They drove me through the backstreets avoiding American patrols. I was a bit worried that I could be attacked at any moment, either by the Americans or these men themselves.
The men assured me I was in safe hands. When they introduced me to their commander, I was surprised to learn that not only had he led the attack on the US convoy on Christmas Eve he also claimed to have actually fired a shot through the window of the vehicle belonging to the G.I I’d met in the hospital, who’d been shot in the head.
LANGAN
Can you tell me about Christmas Eve, when they attacked the three S.U.V’s, the Sports utility vehicles, the jeeps – because I met one of the Americans who was in the vehicles, who was shot in the head.
Resistance Commander (translation)
From our investigations it was revealed that some top men and members of their intelligence service were invited to a party in Baghdad. An ambush was set for them with explosives and thanks to Allah we were able to harm them and kill eight of their people.
We joined the resistance straight after the fall of Baghdad because we became aware of America’s decit. The first thing the American’s did was start destroying the country. How can you trust someone who comes to destroy your country? So we’re aware of American intentions towards Iraqi’s – and they’re not good.
LANGAN
Do the resistance have any American prisoners of war?
Commander (translation)
Of course we’re holding Americans and if the United States doesn’t own up to the fact that we have prisoners, we’ll deal with them in our own way. We could either exchange prisoners, or kill them or put them on video as proof of America’s wrong-doing. In the end that will be a decision that will be taken in the interests of the Resistance. Whereas American decisions are taken just to serve the interests of their election campaign.
58:26
LANGAN VO
The next week a bomb went off in Sumarra. I knew the Resistance Commander I had met was also a bomb maker and I wondered if this was his handiwork. Both myself and my driver were now feeling the stress.
LANGAN PTC
Well Salman my driver is a fan of Hulio Englesias, I’m not sure if that makes me more relaxed or less? It makes you relaxed?
Salman
Yes
LANGAN
good.
59:06
LANGAN PTC
There’s a tank pointing right at us.
LANGAN VO
Sumarra was sealed off again and we had to ask special permission to enter the town.
US Soldier
There’s no vehicles allowed after this point except for the Iraqi police and the ICDC.
LANGAN
I can walk?
Soldier
Yeah, you can walk
59:37
LANGAN VO
Operation Ivy Blizzard had been hailed as a resounding success by the US forces, but I now knew the operation had failed to deter the resistance. I had already met the Resistance leader in town, and now a suicide bomber had detonated a car bomb narrowly missing a nearby American patrol. All the victims were Iraqis.
LANGAN PTC
I don’t know what kind of bomb, but there’s one, two, three, four, seven cars completely destroyed.
Iraqi Officer (translation)
This is a Hyundai Escort.
LANGAN
Is that the car?
Officer
This car was first car
LANGAN
That the suicide bomber’s
MOS (translation)
At 10:20 this morning a car bomb exploded . A lot of people were hurt and cars got burnt out. 37 people were injured. Four were martyred – a police officer and three of his men. My car over here got burnt out and my other car over there also got damaged.
1:01:05
Iraqi Officer
In this one the driver died but the passenger wasn’t even touched. Not even a scratch!
LANGAN
ICDC?
Officer
Not ICDC
(translation) He was just an ordinary citizen just sitting there, poor guy. What has he done to deserve that?
1:1:35
LANGAN PTC
They’ve found a man who was killed in this car
Iraqi Officer
One leg was blown off. His guts out on the ground. He was in pieces.
LANGAN PTC
I’m standing in the blood of the man who died in this car and theres actually blood all around me, and mud, and I’ve been spending months trying to make contact with the people who are responsible for this kind of thing, and I’ve spoken to some of these people even here in Sumarra. This is very difficult to stomach, when you see the effects, it makes it very difficult to sympathise.
LANGAN VO
A young American Lieutenant was in charge at the scene but she wasn’t able to communicate properly with the Iraqi civil defence corps under her command.
LANGAN
This is my translator sorry
US Lieutenant
Ok thankyou very much– if you could ask them I would like this group of ICEC to stay until the other group of Americans get here and if they could stay along the sidewalk.
Tell them to keep all people away from them – they can take pictures but no one should be touching.
1:3:36
LANGAN
Salman, who are you working for – me or the American army!
Salman
Sorry
LANGAN
I’ve lost my translator – he fancies the American soldier.
Were you here when it happened?
Lieutenant
Yes. Knocked me right off my feet.
LANGAN
Really - Hows your hearing?
Lieutenant
Its alright. My parents would probably say I listened to too much rock music anyway.
LANGAN
Where are you from?
Lieutenant
Im from Florida
LANGAN
I mean, apart from this morning have you come under attack?
Lieutenant
Yes
LANGAN
Quite often?
Lieutenant
Yes. My platoon especially – just bad luck or whatever, but we’ve got mortared when we lived in that building and had 6 casualties. We had RPG attacks, long armed attacks, 5 ID’s and direct hits to vehicles.
1:4:29
LANGAN VO
These soldiers had been given a weeks training by the Americans, but after the official handover they are now expected to take on the Resistance.
LANGAN
Thanks a lot Lieutenant
Lieutenant
No Problem.
LANGAN
Goodluck
Lieutenant
Goodluck. Stay safe…Thankyou for your help translating.
4:45
LANGAN PTC
Bizarre – standing in blood, surrounded by devastation - and yet laughter, and flirtation.
LANGAN VO
A few month later a part of the local defence corps went over to the side of the insurgents and like Falluhja, Sumarra is now in the hands of the Resistance.
Back in Baghdad the security situation had deteriorated and the number of attacks on US forces had increased. Damaged buildings were being cleared but there were no other signs of the much vaunted reconstruction effort the coalition governments had promised. Everything from sewage pipes to electricity plants had broken down. The only building work being done was for security measures. Baghdad was dissapearing behind concrete walls and fences.
LANGAN PTC
There are some workers back there erecting a fence and these fences have been going up all over Baghdad over bridges to stop attacks on patrols below.
6:00
LANGAN VO
And here was something else you see a lot in Baghdad, a dead body being taken to the Morgue. This coffin belonged to an Iraqi policeman killed in his car, run over by an American tank.
MOS (translation)
I swear to God, we’ll resist them and the police and political parties will turn against them. Let the whole world hear. I’ll be the first – and I’m a policeman! I’ll be the first to resist them!
6:52
LANGAN PTC
Well its quarter to six and an hour ago some contacts of mine had a meeting with someone I met – I was about to say I was waiting to hear back from someone who was in the Resistance – so hopefully this is it.
Iraqi Crowd (translation)
‘Hey America, down with Bush!’
LANGAN VO
The meeting was set up with the Resistance in Ramarde but in the three months since my last visit the mood in the town had become a lot more militant.
LANGAN PTC
Just bumped into a demonstration against the americans on the streets of Ramadi and im actually supposed to be meeting somebody in the resistance. I thought I’d tell you that now while I’m in a crowd. It’s all going on in Ramadi and it is now taking on more of an open resistance against the Americans.
MOS (translation)
Today the people of Ramadi have come out on the streets filled with Nationalism and Honour, to fight this plague. Acting as one and with one voice. We don’t want the Americans in our city or in Iraq. They pollute our land. They’re jews - non believers. We’re Moslems. We don’t accept the Jews coming into our land. They’re traitors.
MOS (translation)
This demonstration is against terrorism – American terrorism. The Americans arrest and kill women and children. They insult the elderly and kill young men. America is terrorism! Terrorism is America! Where is the freedom? Its rotten and demeaning American terrorism.
Iraqi Crowd (translation)
‘Bush is the shoe and Blair is the laces!’
MOS (translation)
The resistance belongs to us. I consider myself a terrorist. The brother next to me is a terrorist. Everyone here is a terrorist. If that’s what the Americans want to call Terrorism then the whole of Ramadi are terrorists.
1:9:23
LANGAN VO
A man in the crowd came forward who is holding a grenade.
Man with Grenade (translation)
We don’t accept the Americans coming into our land. We’re Moslems and we’re Majahideen. God willing we’ll stay Majahideen. We won’t let them kill our women and children and invade us. We don’t accept this, we won’t let them come here! We’ll declare jihad until we die. We’ll sacrifice our lives!
Iraqi Crowd (translation)
‘We’ll make Jihad, and we’ll die for Islam’
LANGAN VO
I wasn’t sure if he was going to pull the pin but I didn’t really want to wait to find out. I decided to call it a day. But as I walked off the crowd began to follow me, a few of them started kicking me and throwing things. The crowd was beginning to morph into a mob so someone grabbed me and pulled me into a shop for my own safety.
LANGAN
I’m ok!
Shopkeeper
Close the shop! Close the door!
LANGAN PTC
Ok, let’s calm…the mob turned on me – there’s a guy with knives, and grenades and I’m now waiting here and the mob is still outside.
1:11:08
LANGAN
Why are they against me?
Shopkeeper
..Five minutes..
MOS
Do you have a car?
LANGAN VO
One of the men pulled out a gun and told me to follow him. Another armed man walked behind me.
MOS
He’s a journalist. Make way for him! Make way for him! Don’t film, don’t film.
LANGAN VO
The men cleared a path through the crowd and walked me to my car. Later it struck me as somewhat ironic. My life may have been saved by members of the Resistance.
12:10
LANGAN PTC
Let’s go, lets go, quickly…
Wow - they had grenades. The mob turned on me. Well half of them were and half of them were helping me, but it all went a bit pear-shaped when a guy pulled out a grenade and was trying to take out the pin in front of me, and was talking about Islam. And then the bizarre thing was the men who were getting me out of there I’d interviewed before and they were saying hello to me but one of them..anyway – there were people pulling out guns, there werepeople pulling out grenades and I wasn’t sure who was going to protect me. But I was getting kicked a bit.
Well as I said the anger, the resentment in Ramadi is spilling out into the streets now.
13:19
LANGAN VO
In the three months since my first visit to Ramadi the streets had turned from resentment to open resistance. The American occupation now had a popular uprising on their hands. But a new, more sinister threat has emerged, my meeting with the Resistance has been set up in a house somewhere outside Ramadi. This group although Iraqi had no ties to the old Saddam regime. They owed their allegiance to the resurgent strain of militant Islam now spreading across Iraq. The American occupation, somewhat ironically, has turned the once secular state into a country where religion now defines the debate.
Masked Resistance man (translation)
In the name of god the merciful, we will consume their hearts with fear. O truthful Almighty God we’ll fight them wherever they are to get them out of the land of the prophets and the holy men. We shall make their days full of misery and hardship. And we pray to God for victory and success.Defeat will be inflicted upon the Americans and the spies and infidels who conspire with them. We shall kill them everywhere, wherever they are, with the power of Almighty God. Let them know that righteous Iraqi muslims will not desert their land of honour in favour of the infidel, spiteful and cowardly Americans. God is great, God is great. Victory for the faithful and the army of Mohammed.
God willing, they’ll die in this land. Let the Muslims know, let the whole world know that the fathers and mothers of these non believers will not see their sons and daughters after this day. We’ll promise god and his country that we’ll be martyrs and we’ll feed the land of this beloved country with our blood – the country we were brought up in, the country of the honourable prophets.
1:15:38
LANGAN VO
But the Americans aren’t only faced by home-grown Islamic insurgents. I passed this bridge every day and made friends with the platoon manning it below. We didn’t know it at the time but a number of them were going to die at the hands of foreign militants.
LANGAN
Shaun, what’s your name?
Soldier
Aran
Soldier
Eric
LANGAN
Eric, nice to meet you guys
Soldier
Kenny
LANGAN
Nice to meet you
Soldier
Lopez
1:16:05
LANGAN
Nice to meet you. Ruddy. How long have you been under the bridge this time?
Soldier (Aran)
Today?
LANGAN
Yes
Soldier (aran)
yesterday at four in the afternoon.
LANGAN
And nothings happened since then? And this is where you sleep here under the bridge?
Soldier (Eric)
Yeah, kind of like a homeless person
LANGAN
I’m not giving you any money!…
I’m just wondering what its like you know – the daily ..putting up with this every day?
Soldier (Eric)
You just handle it in your stride, you know everyday is a new day. You just keep going. Talk about family, talk about things that you used to do back home, and pretty much just take it with salt.
1:16:48
LANGAN VO
A week after my visit a suicide bomber drove a lorry full of explosives under the bridge. The bomb had belonged to the terrorist group led by the Jordanian Al Shacazi an Al Quaida operative and America’s most wanted man in Iraq. The man responsible for beheading an American contractor on video and who claimed responsibility for an attack on the UN building in Baghdad.
Insurgent
How can I rest while sanctities are being violated the country is ravaged, and the non-believers roam the country. Abusing our religion –the only source of our strength.How can I go on living, ad how can others live when our sisters are in their prisons?
Crowd (singing)
The loved ones of the martyr pray for him and a stranger says farewell to a stranger.
1:17:46
US Soldier
If you look across its like you hear all of the chanting and that or the praying and its kind of like that movie
LANGAN
Black Hawk Down?
Soldier
Yes, with the Rangers.
LANGAN
What other movies have you seen-war movies?
Soldier
Oh man, I’ve seen a lot –Platoon - I’’ve seen them all, um
LANGAN
Platoon – Apocalypse now?
Soldier
Apocalpse Now..that’s a good one
Crowd (singing)
I Make this plea – take me
LANGAN
Is that required military reading?
Soldier
Yeah, yeah it is –it passes the time!
1:18:28
LANGAN
I notice none of you have mentioned Rambo?
Soldier
Rambo – we saved the best to last – I was about to mention that but you just jumped – but its ok.
In the name of Allah the Merciful this is all there is to it – one button by which the name of Allah will be exalted. Keep praying for me I’ll miss you.
LANGAN VO
A week after the attack I returned to the bridge one last time and said my goodbyes to the platoons.
LANGAN
Have you seen enough of this bridge to last a lifetime
Soldier
Right ..difficult times, pretty bad.
LANGAN
That last week, that presumably must have been one of the harder ones.
Soldier
Which one? Carbomb?
LANGAN
Carbomb
Soldier
…that was one of my friends, my closes friends – I don’t really like talking about it either.
LANGAN
Yeah don’t worry about it you don’t need to - don’t talk about anything you don’t want to.
Soldier
1:19: 39
It means more to us and we actually know the people, and it really hits hard because we see them every day. We’ll get home eventually, but I don’t know how soon.
1:20:42
LANGAN VO
The American and British were told by their own intelleligence services that the invasion of Iraq would spread terrorism and not contain it. Contrary to the claims of Bush and Blair, Saddam had no real links with Al Quairda, but as a consequence of the occupation, Iraq is now the new frontline in the war on terrorism. Most of the victims are innocent Iraqis. For my last day I decided to stop outside Abu Grabe. Like the bridge I had passed it almost every day and seen the queues of people outside grow.
LANGAN PTC
Im just coming up to the edge of Abu Grabe prison and every day I see the queues grow longer. The Americans have detaining more people, they estimate that something like 10 000 Iraqi’s are being held.
Iraqi woman (translation)
My son was taken from right in front of our house. They’re refusing to release him. He’s a student -in his final year I’ve been coming here again and again but they refuse to let me see him.
Talk, Auntie, talk!
Iraqi woman (translation)
I can’t talk
Iraqi woman (translation)
And my son works in a bakery. He has two children. I haven’t seen him for four months. Where is their conscience? They took him from right in front of our house. He’s a university student. He didn’t have a rifle or anything. Its been four months now.
1:22:36
Iraqi woman (translation)
I have five sons in here. Two are students, two are university student and the other works in the foreign ministry. And their father, who’s 65 years old – he’s very ill. What have we done? What sins have we committed? Is this the freedom they talked about? They took them from their beds. They even took their money – the money I saved up to go to Mecca fpr Hajj. They say we are terrorists but we aren’t, they are! They are the one’s who came into our country and attacked it!. God is my witness I’ve been looking for my children and my husband for two months. I’ve got cancer. I’m ill with cancer and left alone in the house. Is this the humanity that they talk about? Have they come to liberate the Iraqi people or to persecute us?I submit them to God.
MOS (translation)
Please, you have to show this on TV. Show that the Iraqi’s aren’t a walkover. The Americans don’t have any feelings, if they had, they wouldn’t have here. They don’t respect our women. They have a grudge against us. You have to tell Bush this. Tell Bush, in God’s name, not to lie to the world. We know the truth about Bush. We know it here in Iraq.
LANGAN VO
A woman approached me and asked if she could talk, but she was too scared to show herself to the camera. She worked as a translator in the prison.
Prison translator
Inside the prison there is sexual, physical and psychological torture. The food is awful – I’ve seen it for myself. Some people have died, I knew some of them. They torture them in small cells. The cells are freezing and there’s no decent clothes. And they’ve no beds to sleep on only very thin mats and very thin blankets. I’ve been in and seen it for myself.
Soldier
155. 155, 806
1:24:51
LANGAN VO
Some of those waiting had been handed tickets and the guards were now calling out numbers to allow the lucky few to visit their relatives held inside.
Iraqi woman (translation)
I’ve been waiting for seven months!
US Official
No filming!
MOS
Why can’t he film this? Let him film!
Let him film whats going on
US Official
Did you ask for this?
LANGAN
Eh
US Official
First you never asked, second you are not allowed to have this debate. You cannot be here, you are filming without our permission.
LANGAN
Ok
US Official
…Forward position, forward position, this is Sergeant Perry,over…
1:26:00
LANGAN VO
I had been told to stop filming and ordered to leave by the Americans. But at the perimeter fence I was introduced to a man who was desperate to talk.
MOS (translation)
I was a prisoner here. I only got out four days ago. They bring us here without any reason.
LANGAN
Could you tell me about the conditions?
MOS
Up until the day I left, the food was awful. It’s always out of date. The chicken’s rotten, the eggs are rotten. We complain about it and then they shoot us with plastic bullets.
LANGAN
What’s this?
MOS
They shoot them with these bullets inside the prison, plastic bullets.
MOS (translation)
Two men died because of these plastic bullets!
MOS (translation)
They put a hood on my head and moved me around and handcuffed my wrists and ankles. I didn’t know what was happening. I was beaten at least six or seven times, with a stick or with their hands. You even have to eat when you’ re handcuffed. You even go to the toilet cuffed – if they let us go. If they don’t want to let you go, they don’t let you. So people were wetting themselves. They ask you if you want to eat, then they don’t give you any food. You want to drink – they just throw the water in front of you. Or they send a female officer to abuse you or swear at you. These things im mentioning are just a small part of it. And what’s it all for? Nothing.
1:27:30
LANGAN VO
The relatives already knew what was happenning to their loved ones inside. They were being tortured amd raped in the name of freedom. A fact that would later shock the world, and did more than anything to turn the Iraqis against the occupation. Bush may have declared victory back in 2003 but I couldn’t help feeling that the real war had only just begun.
1:27:50
FINISH
90 min 00 sec
[12 August 2004]
00:00
START
00:17
LANGAN VO
My first night in Baghdad, seven months after Bush declared the end of the war. From where I was standing that seemed a bit premature. According to the US government though I had nothing to fear, they were still claiming there was no such thing as a resistance, just a bunch of dead enders.
LANGAN PTC
Im glad none of the foreign press corps are here to see this, just run into the bathroom there’s quite a lot of firing going on.
01:54
How are you?, how are you? Its more friendly here, less road rage. People very friendly.
LANGAN
Why is there so much traffic in Baghdad?
(Man on street)
Because basically the streets are closed.
LANGAN
The Americans have closed the streets?
MOS
yes
LANGAN VO
I went to Baghdad to find out if resistance was a real threat, or just the remnants of a fallen regime. In the months before my arrival there had already been a massive wave of suicide attacks on major targets in Baghdad, and early signs of an armed Sunni resistance in the surrounding countryside.
2:58
LANGAN PTC
That was an american patrol on traffic duty driving around the streets of Baghdad, and with a tannoy telling people to drive on the right hand side of the road, to queue up properly at the petrol stations and not to buy black-market petrol. And when I say traffic duty this being Baghdad someone just called out in front of them and they opened fire.
LANGAN VO
The war had been won thanks to careful planning. But seven months into the US occupation and Iraq’s infrastructure was crumbling. Unfortunately America’s plans hadn’t extended to winning the peace.
3:30
LANGAN PTC
This petrol queue stretches back hundreds of metres. We’re just by one of the central mosques here in Baghdad. The biggest danger in Baghdad is from being run over, not from getting shot at.
LANGAN
Are you waiting here for petrol?
MOS
Yes there is no gas, no power, no oil because of electricity – there is no electricity.
4:02
LANGAN VO
The continuing shortage of petrol in what was the world’s second largest supplier of oil is perhaps the biggest testiment to the failure of the coalition’s reconstruction efforts. But it isn’t just petrol that’s scarce, there’s a shortage of nearly all basic necessities.
4:28
LANGAN PTC
Well that’s one way to beat the traffic!
MOS
USA, USA USA good
LANGAN
Yes
MOS
USA good - freedom – USA, USA good, no Saddam, USA good, freedom, USA..
LANGAN
Good
4:45
LANGAN PTC
I was just driving to the coalition provisional authority centre, and the road’s been blocked. And they found a mortar device.
LANGAN
Hello, how are you? … Do they live around here?
MOS
yes
LANGAN
What’s the situation like around here?
MOS (Translation)
Thing’s were better before. now there’s no security at all. The Americans haven’t done anything. Even when we were at war everything was available. Gas was 250 Dinar, now it’s 5000. We used to be able to go outside. Now we all have to go around in groups for security.
5:35
LANGAN
Well it’s getting dark now so I’ll let them go.
MOS (Translation)
We have to be home by 7pm
5:55
LANGAN VO
Despite the problems I had expected most Iraqi’s to welcome their new life of freedom. But then, whats the point of freedom if it’s not even safe to walk the streets. It’s not only a lack of basic necessities in Iraq. There’s no effective rule of law, no accountability and no democracy. I could understand the frustrations, but there was something far more sinister afoot. Something I couldn’t understand.
Voice of Iman preaching from Mosque (translation)
Fight the enemy…. until god consumes their bodies with fear and terror.
LANGAN VO
The Iman was calling on Iraqi’s to rise up and kill the american occupiers, just a few blocks down the road from the headquarters of the American led coalition authorities.
6:45
AMERICAN SOLDIER
Sorry, can I take your film
LANGAN
British press, I’m recording this Iman - Whats wrong?
AMERICAN SOLDIER
LANGAN
I’m making a documentary about the situation here in Baghdad.
Sorry, what’s the problem? Yes, alright then.
Voice of Iman (translation)
The Israeli occupation forces have come to rob this land based upon lies and deceit.
7:15
LANGAN VO
Like a lot of Iraqi’s the Iman seemed to think that the American forces and the Israelis were one and the same thing. A month later the Iman was in prison for inciting violent insurection.
Apart from the sound of gunfire and the occasional bomb, people in Baghdad seemed to be getting on with their lives. But outside Baghdad I’d heard it was a different story.
LANGAN PTC
Today I’m heading out to Ramarde, West of Baghdad. The towns like Ramade and Faluhah, in the so called Sunni triangle West and North of Baghdad where the resistance has been strongest.
Just coming up to AbuGadab prison, which was the biggest prison in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. But the American’s have now moved in, rather like they moved into Saddam’s former palaces they are now in Saddam’s former prisons.
LANGAN VO
Like the rest of the world it would be months before I was to know what was going on behind those walls.
8:45
LANGAN VO
On the main highway leading West out of Baghdad it felt like I was entering a different, much more dangerous world. Many Westerners chose to travel on this road in heavily armed convoys, but I thought it was safer to keep a low profile.
LANGAN PTC
We’re just arriving in Ramade but the road ahead’s been closed by an American patrol.
Have they closed the street?
The policeman just handed out a leaflet as we were driving into Ramade, and it’s announcing a new curfew.
What does it say?
9:30
Translator
It says the curfew starts from 11 evening, till 4 morning.
LANGAN
Who’s it from -who signed it?
Translator
From the CPA
The CPA have the authority to shoot any people
LANGAN
It says that….where?
Translator
Yes. ‘The CPA have the authority to shoot anyone. Thankyou for your cooperation’.
9:58
LANGAN VO
The american’s already considered Ramade a resistance stronghold. I was a little wary of getting out of the car. But even though I was mobbed, I was made to feel really welcome.
LANGAN PTC
It’s very difficult to walk on the streets. But everytime I set my camera up it gets mobbed.
MOS (translation)
What we all hoped was that after they got rid of Saddam and the cruelty and suffering of the last 35 years we would have democracy, freedom of speech, people would be free and the young could fulfil their dreams.
MOS (translation)
They broke into our homes and took 14 people
What have they done wrong?
And they’ve stolen money and jewellery. Is this the freedom that George Bush talks about? Where is the freedom?The young people don’t have jobs- I don’t have a job. Where is the freedom Bush talks of?
10:59
LANGAN PTC
It’s like the whole street is stopping to tell me their grievances.
MOS (translation)
When someone does something wrong, the Americans take it all out on us. They shoot indiscrimately. It’s random. If one person does something, they target 100 people or more
LANGAN VO
The anger and resentment in Ramade was far more intense than anything I’d encountered in Baghdad. But I was also surprised by their willingness to share their frustration with an outsider like myself. I would have stayed longer but I got a call that there was an attack taking place in a nearby town.
11:42
LANGAN PTC
Well we were just filming on the streets of Ramade, and then the local journalist we were with told us they had a telephone call that an american black hawk helicopter has been shot down in the nearby town of Faluhja.
MOS (Translation)
A helicopter’s come down by the Faluhja dam. Go straight on, then left then left.
12:18
LANGAN PTC
I think we’re nearing the site now. Everyone in Faluhja, this town, has been pointing us which direction to go. But now I can see two other American helicopters flying overhead. And I’m laughing because I just saw two little children laughing and pointing and telling me which direction to go. It’s a bizarre scene to enter the town where this is obviously the biggest excitement of the day.
MOS (translation)
Straight on!
(translation)
Three people died. It was hit by an RPG.
Any mother****** that comes here gets killed.
13:17
LANGAN
Do they think it’s good news?
MOS (translation)
Yes, it’s good news. God willing, we’ll all be fighting Jihad
It’s all that smoke over there
LANGAN
Yes
MOS (translation)
This is Falluhja! Where people die!
14:00
LANGAN VO
If Baghdad felt like a city under occupation, out here in the fields surrounding Fallujha it felt more like a war zone.
LANGAN PTC
What’s happening? What’s the bang?
He’s not sure if the American’s are coming under attack because there were two further
explosions.
MOS (translation)
We don’t want the Jews here. We are moslems, we don’t want the jews here. Whenever they’re attacked they shoot indiscriminately, even at innocent people and at cars and houses. Petrol’s scarce, nothing’s available, everything’s in crisis. WE don’t want the jews in Iraq. Get them out of here.
MOS (translation)
Most of these people aren’t Saddam’s supporters. We’ve all these helicopters flying over our houses. People have dignity. We don’t accept this. My brother was killed – he was unarmed and wasn’t involved in any trouble. Now his kids pray to God to destroy America. What had he done? Was he a terrorist? Where was his weapon?
MOS (translation)
They’ve done nothing but destroy our country for the last eight months. A month ago I lost my son – He was 17. God willing, we’ll kick them out with our own shoes. God willing, we’ll revenge our martyrs whose lives were taken for nothing.
15:43
LANGAN VO
The locals claimed they had seen a helicopter shot down, but the official report claimed it was a crash landing. Ths US military had made similar denials before which then turned out to be untrue. I was begginning to think the American’s were trying to cover up the extent of the inturgency war.
16:49
LANGAN VO
The US authorities were telling the media everything was going according to plan. But here in Ramade, away from the briefings, the first infantry division were confronted by open defiance under armed resistance.
US soldier
Ten years ago in desert storm, they came out here and they knew who the enemy was but we come out here and we drive through the city and we don’t know who’s going to open up on us or we don’t know who’s going to blow us up, you know. So it really sucks for us because its all..
LANGAN
Can I ask you then, what do you think of the locals then?
Soldier
The locals, I don’t know, I mean, I’ve grown to hate them. When I first got here, you know it was all like, we’re driving through the desert, and its like this is so cool, we’re in Iraq. But then you kind of get complacent, that’s the word for it, you get complacent. You’re kind of like these guys aren’t so bad, but then boom you know – somebody blows you up, and then you’re like screw these guys. You get all pissed off about it. And now after about 4 or 5 months of being out here you can’t trust them so you gotta hate them, you know.
17:58
LANGAN
Was this all worth it?
Soldier
Yes and no. Cause honestly what I believe is that these people don’t want to be free. They’ve been run like this for so many generations and its going to just work out right away, its going to take a long process of time to get used to being free and whatever.
Soldier
The people who are your side have to decide whether they want to be free or in bondage to someone else. Because they are …
LANGAN
What if they start to say, we want to be free of America?
18:43
LANGAN VO
The people in Ramade had told me all about how Americans break down doors in the middle of the night, so I asked to go on a raid to see how they did things for myself. Tonight’s mission was to apprehend one of the bad guys. And I was told to expect trouble.
LANGAN
We’re getting out here.
LANGAN VO
We had the name and address of the suspected insurgent. But as we walked off into the darkness we immediately hit trouble.
19:41
LANGAN
Who was firing?
US Soldier
What’s up?
LANGAN
It’s Shaun the reporter
Soldier
Hey tell them they need to get somebody up here to pull my rear, because I can’t pull rear security.
Soldier
Who the **** are these people shooting?
Hey man, watch the house to the ****ing one o’clock
You, standing on the roof! Stop!
Stop! Put your hands up or they’ll Shoot!
Get the **** in there and get in hard!
You can kill anything you want to
20:42
LANGAN VO
The platoon had spotted two men running in the dark but they had managed to get away.
LANGAN (translation)
I’m a Journalist.
LANGAN PTC
It’s the first time I’ve been to a home in Iraq without taking off my boots.
21:19
LANGAN VO
Local tradition and custom barrs men from entering women’s bedrooms but I could see these soldiers had a job to do. And with armed men on the loose they had to take every precaution.
Soldier
Coming in!…
Boom, boom, boom…
She just said one, you have one? Ok fine…
Soldier
There’s a gate over here Alfie. Get on the base and cover the flank. And watch that house over there on the left. OK spread out and go up the hill
LANGAN VO
There were men out there with guns and the soldiers protecting me had wandered off into the dark.
Soldier
About 30 bucks, 25 bucks, and that serves the same purpose
Soldier
No I have expensive tastes that’s why, that’s what I’m saying, so if I get it its because of the suspense of it
Ok, ok, and your point is?
But the thing is, the thing is …
LANGAN
Guys, are you talking about sneakers?
Soldier
Yes
LANGAN
And we’re ..
Soldier
And we are here – just like to pass the time along
LANGAN
Because I heard a big argument, and I thought is this two professional well paid soldiers talking about is there a sniper to my left, better check it, and no your talking about sneakers.
That’s comforting. Are you the two protecting my rear?
Soldier
Yeah
LANGAN
Ok
23:14
LANGAN
Right, we’re going back to base now, yeah?
Soldier
I have to say no, we found the guy’s house but he got tipped off, we’ve got to go out and get more information, and we usually do that during the day. And for the nighttime we do stuff like this, go out and find them, stir up trouble and what not.
LANGAN VO
We return to base empty handed and having lost a few more hearts and minds. It’s a classic insurgency tactic, to and frustrate and attack the enemy and then turn on the people who then support the insurgents.
LANGAN VO
Having been shot at by gunmen, I now wanted to hear what they had to say. I went back to baghdad and spent the next few weeks trying to set up a meeting.
24:22
LANGAN PTC
Well I’m sitting in the back of a car, in a backstreet, somewhere in Baghdad. Waiting for a man, who can manage to help me find the resistance. This is my third or fourth attempt and everytime I do it I have a sleepless night, I wake up stressed out, drink lots of coffee, smoke cigarrettes and then spend hours sitting in the back of a car with an acid stomach because of the stress. It’s a really unpleasant experience.
LANGAN VO
I waited all day, but no one showed up.
25:09
TV NatSot
“Welcome to BBC World News, I’m Mike Enmer. We start with the news just coming in as we go on air. The US military in Iraq is saying its killed at least 46 Iraqi’s and wounded at least 18 others as they attempted to ambush two US military convoys in the city of Sumarra. The spokesman is saying that 5 US troops and a civilian were wounded by the attack”.
LANGAN VO
The killing of so many insurgents was being portrayed by the americans as their biggest success to date. There were conflicting accounts as to what had actually taken place, so I decided to go to Sumarra to see for myself.
26:02
LANGAN PTC
Well the American’s have got a checkpoint up ahead, and they’ve pretty much cordoned off Sumarra.
LANGAN
What’s it been like this week? What’s been happening here?
MOS (translation)
This week the American’s have come into Sumarra in force and have blocked all the roads going into Sumarra. Anyone going in must now queue for at least 5 hours.
LANGAN
Have they been searching people’s houses?
MOS (translation)
They’ve been raiding houses and have demolished some of them and have arrested lots of people.
26:50
LANGAN
British TV
US Soldier
Have you got some ID?
LANGAN
Yeah
Soldier
Hi guys, how you doing?
LANGAN
There’s quite a few journalists in here though I think
Soldier
I think if we can’t make it work here then we’re in trouble.
27:17
LANGAN
Look, look
MOS
He says you have to come back
LANGAN VO
This driver had turned back at the roadblock after the Iraqi police tried to search his boot.
The atmosphere is incredibly tense made worse by the presence of Iraqi police in hoods, worn for their own protection so that the locals couldn’t recognise them.
The name of this operation was Ivy Blizzard and like previous operations Ironhammer and Bulldog mammoth, and my own personal favourite ivy cycone parts one and two. It seemed the Americans had borrowed the name from some obscure heavy metal album. Their tactics however seemed to be borrowed from the Israeli defence force a town sealed off, followed by house to house searches.The idea was to root out insurgents.
28:29
LANGAN
What’s been happening in this town this week?
MOS (translation)
Since the capture of the previous president, the resistance hasn’t died out and what happened this week was that there were a couple of confrontations with the occupiers. Two tanks were burnt out so afterwards they made widespread raids throughout Sumarra.
MOS (translation)
The problem is that if someone takes a pot-shot at them then the Americans just open up randomly
29:10
US Soldier
Who are you with?
LANGAN
British television
Soldier
Really
LANGAN
How is it here?
Soldier
Not too bad
LANGAN
Are you searching for anyone in particular?
Soldier
I’m not searching, I’m patrolling
LANGAN VO
It was bizarre but the presence of the Americans didn’t stop the locals airing their grievances right under the soldier’s noses.
MOS (translation)
Listen, I’ll give you an example. We’re asleep in our homes and they come and break down the doors and take people away but we don’t have anything they’re after- no gunmen, no weapons, nothing. They take our sons away, we can’t go out to the shops, we can’t go out to work. Wherever we go, they’re there. How can we live like this?
30:04
LANGAN PTC
Really bizarre – there’s an American patrol all around us croching down. Some of the American’s are talking to some of the people I’ve just been chatting to.
LANGAN
This is quite a tense bizarre situation
Soldier
Not something we were trained for. I mean, we were trained for it, but you know….this is insane
LANGAN
Your challenging people and there’s patrolling going on at the same time, it’s a bit difficult and I don’t know whether I feel very relaxed standing here.
Soldier
It kinda gives you a false sense of security to be around these people. It’s not a very secure area.
31:00
LANGAN VO
The claim that 46 insurgents had been killed turned out to be false. The American command was now claiming operation Ivy Blizzard was a resounding success, and would deliver a deadly blow to the resistance but it also seemed to have successfully alienated the entire town.
32:00
LANGAN VO
I went back to Fallujha but this time on patrol of the 82nd division airbourne, one of the American’s most battle hardened divisions. They weren’t really designed for winning hearts and minds. Fighting a counter-insurgency war takes political tact and military precision, or you can do what the 82nd do and kick ass. Some months before they’d inflamed local opinion by opening up on a demonstration in the town and killing 14 people. They had a bad reputation amongst the locals but the feeling was mutual. As far as the 82nd were concerned Fallujha was their enemies stronghold, they’d lost another helicopter the day before and were now expecting the worst.
LANGAN
Do you feel like your being watched all the time?
Soldier
Oh, of course. There’s a guy on the roof over there standing up and sitting down. Makes you nervous. A lot of RP’s do get attacked by cowboys and stuff like that. You got to keep your eye out.
Soldier
Wow, we got a flare
LANGAN VO
A green flair shot in the sky, which
is the kind of signal used by insurgents before an attack.
LANGAN
So those flairs are warning signs?
Soldier
Yeah, but I don’t think that one was
Soldier
They were originally I believe but right now its more likely to alert us to their presence in the area. To say hey, we’re here.
Soldier
You know, if you actually look at it, it’s a fact. America has never gone to war with a country that has a McDonalds.
LANGAN
That has a McDonalds?
Soldier
That hasn’t got it.
You see if they had a McDonalds we wouldn’t have to mess with them.
LANGAN
Do you think in Bosnia, Serbia, did they have McDonalds?
Soldier
Now they do. They got a McDonalds, and a Taco Bell and a Pizza Hut in Frikkin’Kuwait, it will only be a matter of time until they get it out here.
LANGAN
Right. Well it’s a good thing that we’ve got Burger King in London,
Soldier
I love Burger King
LANGAN
I actually prefer Burger King to McDonalds. I think its better food. But..
Soldier
I like McDonald’s fries, but Burger King hands down beats it for a Chicken Royale
Soldier
Its all about the Whopper!
34:33
Soldier
On this strip alone, you slap about 4 or 5 McDonalds restaurants and people would be happy.
What they need here is a Pizza Hut.
It’s hard to believe that this area here was once considered the birthplace of civilisation, because you look at it now and it just doesn’t at all seem that way.
35:45
LANGAN PTC
I now wish I hadn’t come on patrol. I can hear mortar fire and heavy machine gun.
MOS
Get back! Get back!
LANGAN VO
There appeared to be just one casualty who was an Iraqi policeman. A rocket propelled grenade had landed just a few feet from where he’d been standing. A new policeforce have borne the brunt of the insurgency war, they are targeted for collaborating with the Americans who often replace them out on the front line or out on patrol. Fortunately the injury didn’t look too serious.
36:38
LANGAN
Did they get the guys firing?
Soldier
They haven’t done anything
LANGAN
Right. And to think I was worried about dying of lung cancer.
Soldier
Thankgod they didn’t aim over here. Because one of them could take us out easily
LANGAN
Really, cause some guy just told me I was safe
Soldier
Well your safe if you get behind that …., and they’ll protect you, but it’ll take this out really. They’re pretty powerful.
LANGAN
Don’t take it personally guys but Im going to stand over there by that Humpbridge
37:20
LANGAN VO
The attack didn’t stop the 82nd from getting on with their counter-insurgency mission. A bulldozer was laying waste to the central barrier and tearing up the street looking for IED’s , improvised explosive devices. The americans had setup roadblocks either end of the road so that the bulldozers could go in.
LANGAN
The locals are going to be taking it the wrong way aren’t they?
Soldier
Yeah, I think they will be. We’ve been getting mortared about every other night for the last week and I think it’s a retaliation for us taking all of their weapons away.
LANGAN
Right
Soldier
I’m pretty sure it will probably happen again tonight.
LANGAN
Yeah now you’ve taken their barrier away
Soldier
Well its just an eyesore, period. And they keep sticking IED’s in here so we’ll just take it away. They give it, we take it.
Soldier
Everytime we’ve been attacked its been quick and then they take off.
Soldier
They’re chickens. they’ll shoot at us and then they run away.
Soldier
Yeah, every now and then there will be a couple who will stand ground. They are the real hardcore extremists, the Fujahadhims – how do they say it? Yeah the Fahim’s and the Bathe party guys. Some of them will actually stay and fight. But most of the time its just locals getting their kicks off. Just trying to, you know, slow us down from what we’re doing.
LANGAN
What are you trying to do?
Soldier
Trying to change these people’s way of …I don’t know. Just trying to help out a country that’ been beat down for so long. You’ve always got your hard heads, Falluhjas’ one of them, Sumarras’ another, Eventually they’ll figure it out, and figure –hey- we’re here to help and we’re not here to hurt.
39:27
LANGAN
We’ve just heard to expect another attack.
Soldier
Yes. We’re feeling bad about staying stationary and not moving for a long period of time because we’re more susceptible to stuff like that
LANGAN
I’ve decided I don’t really want to be on patrol with you guys, can I er.. it’s a late to leave isn’t it
LANGAN VO
We settled down to wait for another attack. I could see how their tactics were losing hearts and minds but I also now knew what it felt like to be a GI on the receiving end of hostile fire and I viewed every local with suspicion.
40:02
Soldier
I think we should just demolish all the Mosques, personally. Yeah it’s a church but that’s where we always get shot at from.
LANGAN
Really? But if you get shot at from a Mosque you can hit back can’t you - you can return fire?
Soldier
It’s kind of like one of those touchy subjects ‘cos its like their religious temple, or whatever.
LANGAN PTC
We’re under attack
LANGAN
Are they firing it here?
Soldier
They’re firing just a little further up this way – at us. It sounds like RPG’s.
41: 08
LANGAN
Well we’re just getting ready to leave and we’re coming under fire again.
Soldier
One of the Bradley vehicles got hit and they said its leaking fuel, so I guess they’re going to go check it out.
41:30
LANGAN VO
It had been a long day – the American’s had knocked down a barrier, and the insurgents had knocked out a Bradley tank, mission accomplished. I thought now would be a good time to get out of town
LANGAN
Those were Bradley’s protecting our rear, yeah?
Soldier
Yeah, those were two of them, the other two already left and then there was the one that got hit.
LANGAN
Now would be a good time for us to leave
Soldier
Yeah
42:04
LANGAN VO
We were all set to go when somebody spotted two wires protuding from the ground, an IED that could be set off at any moment by remote control. I took cover behind a Humbie and waited for the Americans to blow the bomb.
LANGAN PTC
That stuff just landed behind me! It’s a very different experience being in Falluhja on patrol with the Americans. We’ve been here 4 or 5 hours and we’ve been told to leave at last. But I haven’t really met any of the locals. They’re across the road there but there’s no communication, we’re being looked at through the end of a barrel.
LANGAN VO
It was time to withdraw. A few months later after the Americans launched a full scale attack on Falluhja killing more than 1000 civilians they pulled out altogether. Today Falluhja is in the hands of the insurgents.
44:18
Well Im in the middle of Baghdad, somehow, I’m not sure where, the curtains are drawn. And I’m waiting to meet a man on the resistance who’s hopefully going to answer some of my questions because for 9 months there have been almost daily attacks by insurgents against the American forces. IED’s, RPG attacks on convoys, suicide bombs, numerous helicopters have been downed, and now 9 months since the end of wht Bush declared was the end of major combat, the end of the war, and even now after the capture of Saddam Hussein the attacks continue and yet this is a resistance without a name, a resistance without a voice. No one claims responsibility for any of the attacks, they don’t talk to the media and I don’t know if it’s a unique situation but theres a full-scale gorilla war going on in Baghdad and the surrounding areas West of Baghdad
45:37
LANGAN VO
This is the area commander of a local group, an ex-officer in the Iraqi guard, made redundant when the Americans disbanded the Iraqi army, another man stood guard at the door
LANGAN
Tell me why he joined the Macalmer, and what are their aims?
Iraqi Dissident
We’re resisting the occupation, the American occupation of our country. IN the past our country was occupied by Britain and now it’s occupied by the Americans. We resist this occupation. You are British – if your country was occupied and you and you resisted occupation would that mean that you were some kind of troublemaker or just that you wanted to rid your country of occupation?We want to rid our country of the occupation. We didn’t cross the ocean and go to America to makre trouble. This I our country. So we’re resisting – to end the occupation. The resistance are not terrorists. The resistance is to liberate the country. America came to liberate the country from Saddam Hussein - but now Saddam Hussein has gone -they’ve captured him. So why don’t they get out of this country?
-Please, I’ve nearly finished – There’s one more thing I’d like to say. Let America know that its occupation of Iraq is going to teach her a hard lesson – harder than the one she got. in Vietnam. Thankyou.
47:41
LANGAN VO
American losses were rising steadily but the US authorities were still trying to downplay the extent of the insurgency, but it wasn’t always possible to get the exact figures for the number of combat casualties. Most of the injured were brought here, to the 28 combat hospital unit, part of the secure zone in the centre of Baghdad.
Hospital Worker
OK, that’s fine. If we could move out that later to bed 9 or 8…
48:28
LANGAN
What has this man been brought in with?
Hospital Worker
He had an I.D. to his chest, which means a piece of shrapnel which went through the left side of his chest and he’s got something in his neck, so we’ve got to operate on him.
LANGAN VO
The US government was trying to paper over the cracks by bringing their wounded back to America under the cover of darkness, and banning media coverage of funerals.
LANGAN
I’ve just arrived here and ten minutes later there’s two helicopters arriving, is this what its like every day?
Soldier
It goes up and down. The last couple of days has been a lot of casualties coming through
Soldier
A lot of injuries but not as much being reported on as the soldiers being killed. I don’t want to get myself in trouble here, but I do believe that a little bit are being misled
LANGAN
Is that more people arriving?
Soldier
Yes, I believe so
49:42
LANGAN VO
The wounded were accompanied by their platoon buddies who waited by their sides until the moment arrived when they could be taken back home.
LANGAN
How long have you been out here for? …out here in Iraq?
Injured Soldier
In Iraq? -Since April 1
LANGAN
Since the begginning – without a leave back home?
Soldier
Yeah, I went back to bury my best friend. A colonel and two other soldiers of ours got killed in the fight, but I was selected to take them back
LANGAN
The leave you had was to take buddies back from here back to be buried in the States?
Soldier
That was a way that I could take him back to fulfil the wishes of him and his wife.
50:29
LANGAN
Let’s go and ask P.J – because you at blast site, you were saying….and do you remember what happened?
Soldier
Eh, just a white pick-up comes in the gate and just as it passed me, it blew up – and that’s all I can remember.
LANGAN
And what did the doctor say? You’ve got scrapnel…
Soldier
They pulled some scrapnel in my right leg, and I’ve got some scrapnel damage, and nerve damage to my left hand and arm, and I got a hole in my left ear and a gash in the back of my head.
51: 12
LANGAN VO
I bumped into a G.I who had been attacked near Sumarra. I’d been trying to set up a meeting with the resistance there, so I asked a soldier what had happened to him
Soldier
We were not quite to the Sumarra bypass and a vehicle come up by us and started firing into our rear vehicle and into the next vehicle and knocked us off the road. And there were people waiting in the ditch also and we got caught in like a crossfire. And then our hired security got us out of there, luckily, but we lost 2 people and had 4 people wounded.
LANGAN
And when was this?
Soldier
That was Christmas Eve afternoon
LANGAN
Right – and you got shot that bullet by that kelanfikof – just by your – was that just a flesh wound, or..
Soldier
No actually they pulled the bullet out, I’ve got it for a souvenir. I just have an extremely hard head fortunately.
LANGAN
So there was that operation Ivy Blizzard in Sumarra, where they picked up a hundred people and yet you got attacked just after that.
Soldier
Heck, after World War Two you there were things going on after every conflict there are things going on for a good amount of time, this is no different.
LANGAN
Do you feel this is after the conflict, or this is the conflict?
Soldier
Oh that’s hard to answer, I don’t really have an answer for it
52:36
LANGAN PTC
Just hearing on the radio another helicopter coming in with new patients.
LANGAN
That’s another lot coming in now? ..with the helicopter?
Soldier
Yeah, gunshot wound to the head
LANGAN
Another gunshot wound to the head, ok
53:18
LANGAN
How long have you been out here?
Hospital Worker
I’ve been out here for almost 5 months now, so, its been a very big eye-opener. Back in the States, you heard about people dying but you didn’t hear about the casualties. The casulaties are actually the big eye-opener.
LANGAN
Right – what’s it like, when your working here?
Hospital Worker
Its very stressful, its hard, sad, especially when you’ve got these people who’ve lost their limbs, or you’re trying to get them back to their families you know , or just the thought of what these people are going through waiting for their family member to return, that’s kind of a burden on you, but the fact that we can help – that’s the nice thing about it.
54:10
LANGAN PTC
I wasn’t expecting this to be so traumatic. I’ve been in the hospital all day now, and those helicopters have been landing every few hours. It’s very easy to read the newspapers and to watch TV about Americans doing this and doing that, and American policy, the American president. Until you meet a person face to face who’s been injured, who’s suffering - and its shocking. But the things people are saying to me away from the camera are even more shocking. But its really this, that what you read in the newspapers doesn’t really do justice to what’s happening here.
55:28
LANGAN VO
The resistance group in Sumarra had agreed to meet. I drove to the outskirts of the town, where I a was met by some men and switch cars. They drove me through the backstreets avoiding American patrols. I was a bit worried that I could be attacked at any moment, either by the Americans or these men themselves.
The men assured me I was in safe hands. When they introduced me to their commander, I was surprised to learn that not only had he led the attack on the US convoy on Christmas Eve he also claimed to have actually fired a shot through the window of the vehicle belonging to the G.I I’d met in the hospital, who’d been shot in the head.
LANGAN
Can you tell me about Christmas Eve, when they attacked the three S.U.V’s, the Sports utility vehicles, the jeeps – because I met one of the Americans who was in the vehicles, who was shot in the head.
Resistance Commander (translation)
From our investigations it was revealed that some top men and members of their intelligence service were invited to a party in Baghdad. An ambush was set for them with explosives and thanks to Allah we were able to harm them and kill eight of their people.
We joined the resistance straight after the fall of Baghdad because we became aware of America’s decit. The first thing the American’s did was start destroying the country. How can you trust someone who comes to destroy your country? So we’re aware of American intentions towards Iraqi’s – and they’re not good.
LANGAN
Do the resistance have any American prisoners of war?
Commander (translation)
Of course we’re holding Americans and if the United States doesn’t own up to the fact that we have prisoners, we’ll deal with them in our own way. We could either exchange prisoners, or kill them or put them on video as proof of America’s wrong-doing. In the end that will be a decision that will be taken in the interests of the Resistance. Whereas American decisions are taken just to serve the interests of their election campaign.
58:26
LANGAN VO
The next week a bomb went off in Sumarra. I knew the Resistance Commander I had met was also a bomb maker and I wondered if this was his handiwork. Both myself and my driver were now feeling the stress.
LANGAN PTC
Well Salman my driver is a fan of Hulio Englesias, I’m not sure if that makes me more relaxed or less? It makes you relaxed?
Salman
Yes
LANGAN
good.
59:06
LANGAN PTC
There’s a tank pointing right at us.
LANGAN VO
Sumarra was sealed off again and we had to ask special permission to enter the town.
US Soldier
There’s no vehicles allowed after this point except for the Iraqi police and the ICDC.
LANGAN
I can walk?
Soldier
Yeah, you can walk
59:37
LANGAN VO
Operation Ivy Blizzard had been hailed as a resounding success by the US forces, but I now knew the operation had failed to deter the resistance. I had already met the Resistance leader in town, and now a suicide bomber had detonated a car bomb narrowly missing a nearby American patrol. All the victims were Iraqis.
LANGAN PTC
I don’t know what kind of bomb, but there’s one, two, three, four, seven cars completely destroyed.
Iraqi Officer (translation)
This is a Hyundai Escort.
LANGAN
Is that the car?
Officer
This car was first car
LANGAN
That the suicide bomber’s
MOS (translation)
At 10:20 this morning a car bomb exploded . A lot of people were hurt and cars got burnt out. 37 people were injured. Four were martyred – a police officer and three of his men. My car over here got burnt out and my other car over there also got damaged.
1:01:05
Iraqi Officer
In this one the driver died but the passenger wasn’t even touched. Not even a scratch!
LANGAN
ICDC?
Officer
Not ICDC
(translation) He was just an ordinary citizen just sitting there, poor guy. What has he done to deserve that?
1:1:35
LANGAN PTC
They’ve found a man who was killed in this car
Iraqi Officer
One leg was blown off. His guts out on the ground. He was in pieces.
LANGAN PTC
I’m standing in the blood of the man who died in this car and theres actually blood all around me, and mud, and I’ve been spending months trying to make contact with the people who are responsible for this kind of thing, and I’ve spoken to some of these people even here in Sumarra. This is very difficult to stomach, when you see the effects, it makes it very difficult to sympathise.
LANGAN VO
A young American Lieutenant was in charge at the scene but she wasn’t able to communicate properly with the Iraqi civil defence corps under her command.
LANGAN
This is my translator sorry
US Lieutenant
Ok thankyou very much– if you could ask them I would like this group of ICEC to stay until the other group of Americans get here and if they could stay along the sidewalk.
Tell them to keep all people away from them – they can take pictures but no one should be touching.
1:3:36
LANGAN
Salman, who are you working for – me or the American army!
Salman
Sorry
LANGAN
I’ve lost my translator – he fancies the American soldier.
Were you here when it happened?
Lieutenant
Yes. Knocked me right off my feet.
LANGAN
Really - Hows your hearing?
Lieutenant
Its alright. My parents would probably say I listened to too much rock music anyway.
LANGAN
Where are you from?
Lieutenant
Im from Florida
LANGAN
I mean, apart from this morning have you come under attack?
Lieutenant
Yes
LANGAN
Quite often?
Lieutenant
Yes. My platoon especially – just bad luck or whatever, but we’ve got mortared when we lived in that building and had 6 casualties. We had RPG attacks, long armed attacks, 5 ID’s and direct hits to vehicles.
1:4:29
LANGAN VO
These soldiers had been given a weeks training by the Americans, but after the official handover they are now expected to take on the Resistance.
LANGAN
Thanks a lot Lieutenant
Lieutenant
No Problem.
LANGAN
Goodluck
Lieutenant
Goodluck. Stay safe…Thankyou for your help translating.
4:45
LANGAN PTC
Bizarre – standing in blood, surrounded by devastation - and yet laughter, and flirtation.
LANGAN VO
A few month later a part of the local defence corps went over to the side of the insurgents and like Falluhja, Sumarra is now in the hands of the Resistance.
Back in Baghdad the security situation had deteriorated and the number of attacks on US forces had increased. Damaged buildings were being cleared but there were no other signs of the much vaunted reconstruction effort the coalition governments had promised. Everything from sewage pipes to electricity plants had broken down. The only building work being done was for security measures. Baghdad was dissapearing behind concrete walls and fences.
LANGAN PTC
There are some workers back there erecting a fence and these fences have been going up all over Baghdad over bridges to stop attacks on patrols below.
6:00
LANGAN VO
And here was something else you see a lot in Baghdad, a dead body being taken to the Morgue. This coffin belonged to an Iraqi policeman killed in his car, run over by an American tank.
MOS (translation)
I swear to God, we’ll resist them and the police and political parties will turn against them. Let the whole world hear. I’ll be the first – and I’m a policeman! I’ll be the first to resist them!
6:52
LANGAN PTC
Well its quarter to six and an hour ago some contacts of mine had a meeting with someone I met – I was about to say I was waiting to hear back from someone who was in the Resistance – so hopefully this is it.
Iraqi Crowd (translation)
‘Hey America, down with Bush!’
LANGAN VO
The meeting was set up with the Resistance in Ramarde but in the three months since my last visit the mood in the town had become a lot more militant.
LANGAN PTC
Just bumped into a demonstration against the americans on the streets of Ramadi and im actually supposed to be meeting somebody in the resistance. I thought I’d tell you that now while I’m in a crowd. It’s all going on in Ramadi and it is now taking on more of an open resistance against the Americans.
MOS (translation)
Today the people of Ramadi have come out on the streets filled with Nationalism and Honour, to fight this plague. Acting as one and with one voice. We don’t want the Americans in our city or in Iraq. They pollute our land. They’re jews - non believers. We’re Moslems. We don’t accept the Jews coming into our land. They’re traitors.
MOS (translation)
This demonstration is against terrorism – American terrorism. The Americans arrest and kill women and children. They insult the elderly and kill young men. America is terrorism! Terrorism is America! Where is the freedom? Its rotten and demeaning American terrorism.
Iraqi Crowd (translation)
‘Bush is the shoe and Blair is the laces!’
MOS (translation)
The resistance belongs to us. I consider myself a terrorist. The brother next to me is a terrorist. Everyone here is a terrorist. If that’s what the Americans want to call Terrorism then the whole of Ramadi are terrorists.
1:9:23
LANGAN VO
A man in the crowd came forward who is holding a grenade.
Man with Grenade (translation)
We don’t accept the Americans coming into our land. We’re Moslems and we’re Majahideen. God willing we’ll stay Majahideen. We won’t let them kill our women and children and invade us. We don’t accept this, we won’t let them come here! We’ll declare jihad until we die. We’ll sacrifice our lives!
Iraqi Crowd (translation)
‘We’ll make Jihad, and we’ll die for Islam’
LANGAN VO
I wasn’t sure if he was going to pull the pin but I didn’t really want to wait to find out. I decided to call it a day. But as I walked off the crowd began to follow me, a few of them started kicking me and throwing things. The crowd was beginning to morph into a mob so someone grabbed me and pulled me into a shop for my own safety.
LANGAN
I’m ok!
Shopkeeper
Close the shop! Close the door!
LANGAN PTC
Ok, let’s calm…the mob turned on me – there’s a guy with knives, and grenades and I’m now waiting here and the mob is still outside.
1:11:08
LANGAN
Why are they against me?
Shopkeeper
..Five minutes..
MOS
Do you have a car?
LANGAN VO
One of the men pulled out a gun and told me to follow him. Another armed man walked behind me.
MOS
He’s a journalist. Make way for him! Make way for him! Don’t film, don’t film.
LANGAN VO
The men cleared a path through the crowd and walked me to my car. Later it struck me as somewhat ironic. My life may have been saved by members of the Resistance.
12:10
LANGAN PTC
Let’s go, lets go, quickly…
Wow - they had grenades. The mob turned on me. Well half of them were and half of them were helping me, but it all went a bit pear-shaped when a guy pulled out a grenade and was trying to take out the pin in front of me, and was talking about Islam. And then the bizarre thing was the men who were getting me out of there I’d interviewed before and they were saying hello to me but one of them..anyway – there were people pulling out guns, there werepeople pulling out grenades and I wasn’t sure who was going to protect me. But I was getting kicked a bit.
Well as I said the anger, the resentment in Ramadi is spilling out into the streets now.
13:19
LANGAN VO
In the three months since my first visit to Ramadi the streets had turned from resentment to open resistance. The American occupation now had a popular uprising on their hands. But a new, more sinister threat has emerged, my meeting with the Resistance has been set up in a house somewhere outside Ramadi. This group although Iraqi had no ties to the old Saddam regime. They owed their allegiance to the resurgent strain of militant Islam now spreading across Iraq. The American occupation, somewhat ironically, has turned the once secular state into a country where religion now defines the debate.
Masked Resistance man (translation)
In the name of god the merciful, we will consume their hearts with fear. O truthful Almighty God we’ll fight them wherever they are to get them out of the land of the prophets and the holy men. We shall make their days full of misery and hardship. And we pray to God for victory and success.Defeat will be inflicted upon the Americans and the spies and infidels who conspire with them. We shall kill them everywhere, wherever they are, with the power of Almighty God. Let them know that righteous Iraqi muslims will not desert their land of honour in favour of the infidel, spiteful and cowardly Americans. God is great, God is great. Victory for the faithful and the army of Mohammed.
God willing, they’ll die in this land. Let the Muslims know, let the whole world know that the fathers and mothers of these non believers will not see their sons and daughters after this day. We’ll promise god and his country that we’ll be martyrs and we’ll feed the land of this beloved country with our blood – the country we were brought up in, the country of the honourable prophets.
1:15:38
LANGAN VO
But the Americans aren’t only faced by home-grown Islamic insurgents. I passed this bridge every day and made friends with the platoon manning it below. We didn’t know it at the time but a number of them were going to die at the hands of foreign militants.
LANGAN
Shaun, what’s your name?
Soldier
Aran
Soldier
Eric
LANGAN
Eric, nice to meet you guys
Soldier
Kenny
LANGAN
Nice to meet you
Soldier
Lopez
1:16:05
LANGAN
Nice to meet you. Ruddy. How long have you been under the bridge this time?
Soldier (Aran)
Today?
LANGAN
Yes
Soldier (aran)
yesterday at four in the afternoon.
LANGAN
And nothings happened since then? And this is where you sleep here under the bridge?
Soldier (Eric)
Yeah, kind of like a homeless person
LANGAN
I’m not giving you any money!…
I’m just wondering what its like you know – the daily ..putting up with this every day?
Soldier (Eric)
You just handle it in your stride, you know everyday is a new day. You just keep going. Talk about family, talk about things that you used to do back home, and pretty much just take it with salt.
1:16:48
LANGAN VO
A week after my visit a suicide bomber drove a lorry full of explosives under the bridge. The bomb had belonged to the terrorist group led by the Jordanian Al Shacazi an Al Quaida operative and America’s most wanted man in Iraq. The man responsible for beheading an American contractor on video and who claimed responsibility for an attack on the UN building in Baghdad.
Insurgent
How can I rest while sanctities are being violated the country is ravaged, and the non-believers roam the country. Abusing our religion –the only source of our strength.How can I go on living, ad how can others live when our sisters are in their prisons?
Crowd (singing)
The loved ones of the martyr pray for him and a stranger says farewell to a stranger.
1:17:46
US Soldier
If you look across its like you hear all of the chanting and that or the praying and its kind of like that movie
LANGAN
Black Hawk Down?
Soldier
Yes, with the Rangers.
LANGAN
What other movies have you seen-war movies?
Soldier
Oh man, I’ve seen a lot –Platoon - I’’ve seen them all, um
LANGAN
Platoon – Apocalypse now?
Soldier
Apocalpse Now..that’s a good one
Crowd (singing)
I Make this plea – take me
LANGAN
Is that required military reading?
Soldier
Yeah, yeah it is –it passes the time!
1:18:28
LANGAN
I notice none of you have mentioned Rambo?
Soldier
Rambo – we saved the best to last – I was about to mention that but you just jumped – but its ok.
In the name of Allah the Merciful this is all there is to it – one button by which the name of Allah will be exalted. Keep praying for me I’ll miss you.
LANGAN VO
A week after the attack I returned to the bridge one last time and said my goodbyes to the platoons.
LANGAN
Have you seen enough of this bridge to last a lifetime
Soldier
Right ..difficult times, pretty bad.
LANGAN
That last week, that presumably must have been one of the harder ones.
Soldier
Which one? Carbomb?
LANGAN
Carbomb
Soldier
…that was one of my friends, my closes friends – I don’t really like talking about it either.
LANGAN
Yeah don’t worry about it you don’t need to - don’t talk about anything you don’t want to.
Soldier
1:19: 39
It means more to us and we actually know the people, and it really hits hard because we see them every day. We’ll get home eventually, but I don’t know how soon.
1:20:42
LANGAN VO
The American and British were told by their own intelleligence services that the invasion of Iraq would spread terrorism and not contain it. Contrary to the claims of Bush and Blair, Saddam had no real links with Al Quairda, but as a consequence of the occupation, Iraq is now the new frontline in the war on terrorism. Most of the victims are innocent Iraqis. For my last day I decided to stop outside Abu Grabe. Like the bridge I had passed it almost every day and seen the queues of people outside grow.
LANGAN PTC
Im just coming up to the edge of Abu Grabe prison and every day I see the queues grow longer. The Americans have detaining more people, they estimate that something like 10 000 Iraqi’s are being held.
Iraqi woman (translation)
My son was taken from right in front of our house. They’re refusing to release him. He’s a student -in his final year I’ve been coming here again and again but they refuse to let me see him.
Talk, Auntie, talk!
Iraqi woman (translation)
I can’t talk
Iraqi woman (translation)
And my son works in a bakery. He has two children. I haven’t seen him for four months. Where is their conscience? They took him from right in front of our house. He’s a university student. He didn’t have a rifle or anything. Its been four months now.
1:22:36
Iraqi woman (translation)
I have five sons in here. Two are students, two are university student and the other works in the foreign ministry. And their father, who’s 65 years old – he’s very ill. What have we done? What sins have we committed? Is this the freedom they talked about? They took them from their beds. They even took their money – the money I saved up to go to Mecca fpr Hajj. They say we are terrorists but we aren’t, they are! They are the one’s who came into our country and attacked it!. God is my witness I’ve been looking for my children and my husband for two months. I’ve got cancer. I’m ill with cancer and left alone in the house. Is this the humanity that they talk about? Have they come to liberate the Iraqi people or to persecute us?I submit them to God.
MOS (translation)
Please, you have to show this on TV. Show that the Iraqi’s aren’t a walkover. The Americans don’t have any feelings, if they had, they wouldn’t have here. They don’t respect our women. They have a grudge against us. You have to tell Bush this. Tell Bush, in God’s name, not to lie to the world. We know the truth about Bush. We know it here in Iraq.
LANGAN VO
A woman approached me and asked if she could talk, but she was too scared to show herself to the camera. She worked as a translator in the prison.
Prison translator
Inside the prison there is sexual, physical and psychological torture. The food is awful – I’ve seen it for myself. Some people have died, I knew some of them. They torture them in small cells. The cells are freezing and there’s no decent clothes. And they’ve no beds to sleep on only very thin mats and very thin blankets. I’ve been in and seen it for myself.
Soldier
155. 155, 806
1:24:51
LANGAN VO
Some of those waiting had been handed tickets and the guards were now calling out numbers to allow the lucky few to visit their relatives held inside.
Iraqi woman (translation)
I’ve been waiting for seven months!
US Official
No filming!
MOS
Why can’t he film this? Let him film!
Let him film whats going on
US Official
Did you ask for this?
LANGAN
Eh
US Official
First you never asked, second you are not allowed to have this debate. You cannot be here, you are filming without our permission.
LANGAN
Ok
US Official
…Forward position, forward position, this is Sergeant Perry,over…
1:26:00
LANGAN VO
I had been told to stop filming and ordered to leave by the Americans. But at the perimeter fence I was introduced to a man who was desperate to talk.
MOS (translation)
I was a prisoner here. I only got out four days ago. They bring us here without any reason.
LANGAN
Could you tell me about the conditions?
MOS
Up until the day I left, the food was awful. It’s always out of date. The chicken’s rotten, the eggs are rotten. We complain about it and then they shoot us with plastic bullets.
LANGAN
What’s this?
MOS
They shoot them with these bullets inside the prison, plastic bullets.
MOS (translation)
Two men died because of these plastic bullets!
MOS (translation)
They put a hood on my head and moved me around and handcuffed my wrists and ankles. I didn’t know what was happening. I was beaten at least six or seven times, with a stick or with their hands. You even have to eat when you’ re handcuffed. You even go to the toilet cuffed – if they let us go. If they don’t want to let you go, they don’t let you. So people were wetting themselves. They ask you if you want to eat, then they don’t give you any food. You want to drink – they just throw the water in front of you. Or they send a female officer to abuse you or swear at you. These things im mentioning are just a small part of it. And what’s it all for? Nothing.
1:27:30
LANGAN VO
The relatives already knew what was happenning to their loved ones inside. They were being tortured amd raped in the name of freedom. A fact that would later shock the world, and did more than anything to turn the Iraqis against the occupation. Bush may have declared victory back in 2003 but I couldn’t help feeling that the real war had only just begun.
1:27:50
FINISH