Country

Iraq

Iraq: Death of a Nation?

black smoke billows into a starless sky.

we were the ones who dried the canals and planted death in the river bank - powder and steel among the reeds. smallpox in a dakota blizzard. boot leather on the slave-bricked streets.

custer's 7th cavalry dismounts in fallahat.a hand pressed to the heart, just above his 9.

black points float in clear blue irises.her rank is missing from her uniform.

why does nothing taste good?

Custer's cavalry

Richard Rowley, for the Pulitzer Center
Iraq

black smoke billows into a starless sky.

we were the ones who dried the canals and planted death in the river bank -
powder and steel among the reeds.
smallpox in a dakota blizzard.
boot leather on the slave-bricked streets.

custer's 7th cavalry dismounts in fallahat.
a hand pressed to the heart, just above his 9.

black points float in clear blue irises.
her rank is missing from her uniform.

why does nothing taste good?

TSD

David Enders, for the Pulitzer Center
Iraq

Kid

I filmed this kid after a car bombing on Sunday. He died at the hospital later of internal injuries.

In the country of death, we are always embedded

David Enders, for the Pulitzer Center
Iraq

The break in blogging is due to Rick and I being on an embed and not having the time to blog or a regular internet connection. But as we come off the embed, I want to address that subject. Some people still maintain it is impossible to tell an accurate story embedded, I see it as the only way possible to find out what's going on with the military.

Iraqi Tribes Reach Security Accord

U.S. forces have brokered an agreement between Sunni and Shi'ite tribal leaders to join forces against al Qaeda and other extremists, extending a policy that has transformed the security situation in western Anbar province to this area north of the capital.

The extremists struck back yesterday with a suicide car bomb aimed at one of the Sunni tribes involved in the deal, killing three militiamen and wounding 14.

To Najaf

Richard Rowley, for the Pulitzer Center
Iraq

land smears into sky without a seam
diesel generators shudder and spit
tar softens in the cracked streets
women, habayas billowing black, carry water over the river of sewage in shola
poison leaches into the ground.

headed south
the tigris rolls slowly to basra
bloated with corpses,

Mohajereen

David Enders, for the Pulitzer Center
Iraq

Sabieh Fayhaa walks half a kilometer for clean water in Chikook, a neigborhood that is home to about 650 displaced families in western Baghdad. People in the neighborhood say they have no access to schools and medical care and that they have received no aid from the government or organizations such as the Iraqi Red Crescent.

Watched

David Enders, for the Pulitzer Center
Iraq

When I ask Baghdadis about whether their neighborhoods are safe, they do not say, "It is okay, the Iraqi police or army are there." They don't mention the US military. The only ones who have told me it is safe have said that things are okay "because of the Jeish al-Mehdi." This goes for an increasing number of neighborhoods, especially in Rusafa (East Baghdad).

'some day, this war will be over.'

Richard Rowley, for the Pulitzer Center
Iraq

until i picked up a camera, i didn't know how to see.

pupils dilate in this strange early dusk.
a damp taste to the air behind the sand storm.
in the shallows of my focus the world deepens into texture.
color rushes in like bruises blossoming in pale skin.
reds and greens.

blue camouflage - the color of twilight among the date-palms.
he waves us off the road.
gun metal clicks against safety-glass.
tattered papers pushed through the window.