Dragon Soup– Baghdad’s Christians: An island in the sea of Islam (Part 2 of 3)

Major Kirk here- back with the second part of my series on Christians in south Baghdad. (Part 1 here) The truth is- I can’t tell the story in just two parts, so here is the penultimate chapter in my tale, with the final installment to come before you open presents on Christmas morning.

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The L. A. Times correspondent arrived several days after the invitation and we immediately got her out on the ground with the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment’s Destroyer Company, led by Idaho native Capt. Andy Koontz and 1st Sgt. Todd Hood, a fellow Boston Red Sox fan from Andover, Conn. The Destroyers are the “weapons” company of the light infantry battalion out of Fort Carson, Colo., and they were responsible for securing the largest neighborhood of Christians in southern Baghdad.

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We first took the reporter to the Mara Shmuni Church, an Assyrian Catholic Church in north Dora. The church’s doors were not open, but she spoke to the guards. They were candid and honest with her. None of them were from the same neighborhood the church was located in, but they spoke openly about how many Christians from their neighborhood of South Dora (Saha and Mechanix) had been driven out by Shiite and Sunni extremists. The also told her that the priests of the Mara Shmuni Church had left Baghdad for a bigger and more secure congregation and Church community in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

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We next went to Muhalla 808, which is said to have the largest concentrated population of Christians in Baghdad. What immediately stood out to me about the neighborhood was the high blast walls surrounding the area and limiting the access points, but even more important was that unlike some areas of Baghdad, these streets were clean and free of trash and debris. It was a sign of the kind of neighborhood that was not only at peace from a lot of the fighting taking place just several streets to the south- southwest, but that its citizens had a measure of pride in their muhalla (neighborhood).

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Capt. Koontz took us to a house owned by a Christian family. We went inside and met with the residents, a middle aged woman and her elderly father. They were a fascinating pair- both were Assyrian Christians who spoke fluent English, and the father had been a clerk in the British Army during the Second World War. 

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They both told a sad tale of how Christians had lived with Muslims peacefully in Dora for many years, but since the violent attacks of 2004 many had been forced to flee. In time, after meeting others like them in nearby homes, I would find that many in the area told similar tales. Some families had no means to leave and go elsewhere, others believed that it was God’s will for them to persevere. Either way, it said a lot to me about their courage and commitment to their families and homes that they’ stayed.

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As we sat with them in their clean home which contained many religious symbols of their faith around the room and on the walls, they talked about the trials they had faced, ones that had resulted in the man’s wife and woman’s mother, along with several other siblings, having left Iraq to live in Syria. They also said that it would be a mistake to think that the intimidation against the Christian population was any kind of new development (as the L.A. Times had asserted to me via email prior to coming out) and that things were looking up with an improved security situation. We covered a wide gamut of topics, and the father-daughter couple verified that yes, Al Qaeda extremists had stepped up a campaign of intimidation and terror earlier in the winter and spring. However, the insurgents had all but disappeared when the American and Iraqi Army Soldiers had moved into the area and began ferreting out the various terror cells operating there.

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I remember the reporter asking the woman what she thought of the walls around the neighborhood. Her answer will likely remain seared into my memory for the rest of my life.

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 “Sometimes,” the Iraqi woman said quietly. “I feel like a prisoner in my own home.” My heart sank- the intent of the walls was to protect her family, not imprison them. Then, she continued: “But, I wish they had been put up a year ago.”

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Now, at the time we were visiting, there was a debate raging about the temporary barriers being erected throughout the Baghdad neighborhoods as a part of the new surge and security plan. Some media outlets were asserting that the walls were segregating the various sects and ethnicities and that the people wanted no part of them. Her words were providing clear evidence to the contrary, and served as a reminder to the barriers’ effectiveness in keeping the riff raff out, and the residents protected from anyone who could enter the neighborhoods at will.

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The woman’s father then pleaded with everyone in the room: “How is it,” he said in a shaky, but commanding tone, one likely shaped and molded by youthful service in the Royal Army. “That Muslims can go to America and Europe and are free to worship their God in peace, without threat of being killed, yet, in our own country of Iraq, we cannot do the same? You- you must do something. Please help us.”

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It was heart-breaking to hear, but it was reality. While our units had made clear improvements, the situation in Dora was not where it needed to be yet, and we owed it to this family to keep the pressure on the terrorists.

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We figured that the story the L.A. Times would tell was going to be one that related the previous problems and challenges, but that the area was on a path of progress. Instead, the story didn’t run for another three weeks, and when it did, it was not what anybody expected.

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The story’s by-line was that of the individual who had initially contacted me and not the correspondent who  actually came out and spent several days with us. And, the story itself was full of sources who were displaced persons living elsewhere after having fled southern Baghdad.  All of the article’s direct quotes were several months old and told a one-sided tale of horrors for the Christians of Dora. Not one, not one quoted source was a person who was actually living in the area at the time the article was written! While the story did in fact relate the steps taken by the Warrior Battalion to remedy the situation such as the census and walls, that particular paragraph was buried in the middle of the story and had no further attention paid to it.

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The on-the-ground correspondent was given attribution at the end of the story, but her contribution ended up being so minute that it was almost laughable. This sleight-of-hand chicanery employed by one of our country’s biggest newspapers was deeply troubling for one simple fact: The L.A. Times was telling you the story of Christians in Dora circa late June/early July, 2007, but the most recent cited source in the article had fled the area on Easter, a full month before the 2-12th Inf. completed their census, put up the walls to keep the terrorists from having a free reign in and out of the neighborhoods, and ultimately captured, killed and drove out those thugs who were making a living intimidating the Christian population. In an environment where the situation can change for the better or worse over the course of several hours or days, to put that kind of story out there without the proper context was something we felt was pretty unfair.

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The unit was furious, and they had every right to be. They had put themselves and the various people they talked to at risk to get the Times a better picture of what was going on. The paper was unapologetic, and one person in a leadership position even told me to “take it up with the writer”. But, I made it clear that the unit felt betrayed and that Andy Koontz and his boys deserved better.

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Only the Times and its editors can provide the real answers as to why they chose not to include the first-person interviews and accounts of the people actually living in Dora gleaned in June when the article ran later that month, but it’s something they never really felt any obligation to explain to me or the brave men of the Warrior Battalion who took a lot of time, energy and resources to give them the opportunity to see for themselves.

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The average Soldier from that battalion looked at what they did to assist the Times in reporting on the situation and then looked at the end result and asked: “Why did we even bother?”

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And you know- to this day I don’t have an answer for him.

Several months later, I got a note that CBS and 60 Minutes wanted to do a feature on Dora’s Christians for a future broadcast of its famous news program. After getting over the initial excitement that 60 Minutes wanted to see us, reality set in.

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Dude, it’s 60 Minutes…they aren’t coming down to pat us on the back for the good job we’re doing, said that little voice in my head. I knew that this was likely one of those proverbial “blood in the water” stories. And so did Col. Gibbs, my brigade commander, and the one who was going to be the one that the news crew would be looking to in order to get some answers about the situation.

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We both thought about it, and agreed that the story was worth telling.

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We set a day trip up for the last Sunday in September, and met 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley at the Crossed Sabers monument in Baghdad. He was extremely personable and likea
ble; he seemed to hit it off with the brigade commander right away. We convoyed to one of our coalition outposts, where we linked up with Capt. Koontz and got a briefing from him on the current situation in his area of operations.
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The plan was to go back to the Mara Shmuni Church and visit with more families in the same neighborhood, then go to a second church, the St. George, which had been bombed and destroyed in 2004 and was sitting abandoned in one of the most Al Qaeda-infested neighborhoods in our area.

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This time, the church was opened to the 60 Minutes crew and I was treated to the surprise of a very clean sanctuary (see the attached photo- that’s me in front of the cross by the pulpit) and a facility in extremely good condition. Pelley interviewed one of the church’s guards, but we didn’t stay long. There wasn’t much of a story, really. The priests were still in Mosul, and while the sanctuary was open to people to come and pray as well as hold impromptu services without the priests present, there was nothing else to see.

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We tried to visit with a Christian family, but they asked not to be filmed or photographed. They told a sad tale of a son murdered several years before by extremists and were trying to live their lives as best they could, by not attracting undue attention to themselves.

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Unfortunately, the visit to the destroyed St. George Church was not to be…the roads in and around the building were believed to be infested with deep-buried improvised explosive devices, and the commander’s assessment was that it was simply too dangerous to risk everyone’s safety to go in.

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So instead, we went to the St. Peter Church, across from the Coalition Outpost Blackfoot (described in Part 1), a Chaldean Catholic Church that had been abandoned.
After the formal interview outside Blackfoot (the seminary building), we entered the church sanctuary, and like the Mara Shmuni, was intact if dirty and dusty.

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The crew filmed a segment inside, and after watching it, my broadcaster, Corporal Ben Washburn, had a good idea of how the final product would look. I’ll save those observations for part three, but I’ll just tell you that he was on the mark with his astute analysis. (Side note- today’s Soldiers are just amazing. Corporal Washburn could easily be my section NCOIC- a position two pay grades higher than his current rank. Yes, he’s that good, and yes, I’m biased, but in this case, I absolutely believe it to be true.)

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We then returned Pelley and crew to the Crossed Sabers and parted ways. I will say that I enjoyed spending the time with him- he and his cameraman and sound guy were all pleasant, professional and we had no real issue with how the day went. The disappointment at not having been able to visit the destroyed church was palpable on Scott’s part- and I certainly understand. It would have been a “money” shot for him to be filmed standing in the middle of the rubble of a bombed-out sanctuary, but it was not to be.

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As we got into our vehicles to make the trip back to Forward Operating Base Falcon, the producer said to me, “I expect this to run in a month, month in a half or so.”

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I nodded and got into the vehicle.

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We pulled away, I took one last glance at the 60 Minutes guys getting into their SUVs and then it hit me: 30-45 days in Baghdad is an eternity! How different would things be here when this piece finally aired stateside?

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I would have my answer soon enough.

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