Dateline: Iraq

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How American journalists try to get inside the minds of an occupied people

In May of last year, as Iraqis began adjusting to the chaotic status quo of gunfire, occasional suicide attacks, and failed electricity that followed the American arrival in their country, The Weekly Standard's Jonathan Foreman sent back a letter from Baghdad cheerily titled "You Have No Idea How Well Things Are Going." Foreman described smiling little girls and "women old and young" flirting "outrageously with GIs." Iraqis in his account could not stop what he called "love bombing" the Americans with such cheers as "Mike Tyson, Mike Tyson," good-naturedly directed at some African American soldiers. The American presence, Foreman reassured his readers, inspired "no fury" among Iraqis.

Around the same time, Nir Rosen, writing for The Progressive, painted a far bleaker picture of Baghdad, one in which 5-year-olds played amid unexploded cluster bombs, and AK-47s and grenade launchers were sold in open-air markets. "Already, there is nostalgia for the old regime," he observed. "At least there was a regime, people say."

What do Iraqis feel and think about the American occupation? Many liberal and conservative writers have had no problem answering that question over the past year, though with starkly different conclusions. That opinion journals might paint the situation in black and white is perhaps understandable. The American discussion about Iraq is not just about the country and its people. It's about competing prescriptions for what America's role in the world should be, and ideologically driven writers tend to choose evidence that fits their point of view.

Reporters have a different job. They don't build a case; they've got to grasp the ambiguities and find a way to learn what Iraqis really think. Since the occupation began, experienced reporters say that figuring out Iraqi sentiment has become one of the most complex journalistic endeavors in years.

Beyond the standard obstacles for foreign correspondents -- uneven translators, brutal deadlines, finding sources -- postwar Iraq poses additional problems. The fear of being targeted by Iraqi insurgents keeps journalists from venturing into the marketplaces and streets to meet ordinary Iraqis. When reporters do speak to Iraqis, the skewed power dynamic enters into every interview and interaction. In the eyes of many Iraqis, an American journalist is just an extension of the conquering army.

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