Letter from Baghdad

Contractor John C. Walsh on the Iraqi army, sandstorms and a close call with a cavalcade of humvees.

As we reached the U-turn today during the late afternoon rush hour, I noticed a Police SUV stopped in one of the lanes of the highway. It was full of cops and all of them were leaning out their windows with their AK-47's and looking very mean and threatening. Suddenly, a guy on the street who was not in a police uniform but was carrying a pistol ran up to the SUV. My very first thought was... My God! I am going to see my first suicide bombing!! I was wrong. The guy jumped in the back of the vehicle. Since he was not instantly shot dead and the SUV did not blow up, I have to assume he was among friends.

Once he was safely inside, all three cops leaning out the windows (I thought one guy would fall out!) started to fire their weapons at about a 20-degree angle straight down the highway!! I shouted to our driver (not Khattab, my regular driver) to watch out since the SUV was only about 20 meters from us and, quite frankly, I did not know whether the cops were friend or foe. There are lots of soldiers and police wearing stolen uniforms in Baghdad, and that has been a serious problem.

It turned out the police were simply trying to clear a lane through traffic and did so by firing at least 50 (a guess) rounds right down the road! The bullets probably came down a mile away and went right through some unfortunate guy's back window!

What I find incredible about this is that when I got back to the compound and told the local folks what had happened, not one of them had any objection to the police firing indiscriminately down the road. Their point was simply: How else are they going to clear a way through traffic?