"... people were really starting to hate the Americans they'd 'welcomed' a short time earlier. It didn't matter that I was a journalist and not a soldier. I was still an American."
Natalie Pompilio covers West Philadelphia for the Philadelphia Inquirer. She's written about crime, business, community life and politics. From May to July 2003, she was a Knight-Ridder correspondent in Iraq.
A graduate of the University of Maryland Graduate School of Journalism, Pompilio first joined the Inquirer in 1995 as a two-year intern. She was a reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune from 1997 to 2002 (she was a 2001 Dart Fellow), rejoining the Inquirer in November 2003. In an e-mail interview with the Dart Center, Pompilio discusses the challenges of reporting in Iraq.
Q. How did you prepare for your stint in Iraq?
Pompilio: To prepare, I contacted a reporter who was already over there and she sent me a list of things I needed to buy, from a sleeping bag to water purifiers to a head lamp (which was actually very, very handy because the power kept going out in our hotel and it was good to have it on to read my notebook.) And Knight Ridder sent me to a one-week long hostile environment training course in England. Wea learned emergency first aid, were "kidnapped," which was terribly disorienting even though we knew it was fake, and learned how to get out of a mine field armed only with a barbecue skewer.
Q. What were your expectations before leaving?
Pompilio: Before I left, I was nervous because so much was up in the air: I had to get from Jordan to Baghdad, and yet I wasn't exactly sure where to go once I got there. I didn't know if I'd have a place to stay. I didn't know exactly where I was going to be assigned.
Q. What was most surprising during your first several days "on the ground"?
Pompilio: Most surprising at first: How hard it was to get information. How hard it was to get around. I got to the hotel where the other KR reporters were and they were already up and running, with translators and drivers in place. I had to find a driver and a translator and try to get my bearings, and it wasn't easy. With the Army blocking off parts of the city and no real maps to look at, I was often lost. I could never be alone, because I didn't speak the language and people were really starting to hate the Americans they'd "welcomed" a short time earlier. It didn't matter that I was a journalist and not a soldier. I was still an American. By the end of my stay, my translator was no longer telling people I was American. He would say I was Italian. Kinda true, but it still made me uncomfortable. (They still knew I was a journalist.) I felt better when I learned from the translators that my friends were also lying about their nationality.
Q. Your story (written with Dana Hull, read it here) about the death of Mohammed Al-Kubaysi, a 12-year-old boy shot by a U.S. soldier, contained lots of detail, and outlined the difficulties faced by the troops and the Iraqis. How did you go about reporting this story?
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| Mustafa
Al Kubaisi, 12, sits on the lap of
his father Subhi Hassan Al-Kubaysi in Al Yarmook,
west of Baghdad, Iraq, on Saturday, June 28,
2003. Mustafa's twin brother Mohammed Al-Kubaysi
was killed by an American soldier patrolling
the neighborhood. |
Pompilio: That story is one of my favorites. It's the one I think I'm most proud of. Here's how we got it:
We'd heard from one of the Arab journalists that the US soldiers had killed a 12 year old boy. (They had an advantage: They could watch and understand the television news, they could read the newspapers.) We didn't know where or when, though. So Dana and I, and our respected translators, split up. Mansour, my translator, and I headed for the pocket of the city where we thought it might have happened. Then Mansour started talking to the cigarette vendors. There are such vendors at so many corners in Baghdad, and we used to joke they were like the Iraqi internet because of the way information flowed from them. The first vendor we hit told us where the house was. We went to the house, and neighbors told us the family was sitting in mourning at another relative's. So off we went to that location.
There, the male family members were sitting out front. We sat and talked to them first. As was usual in every Iraqi home I visited, they brought hot tea with sugar in tiny glasses. The father was distraught, not hiding it. Some of his male relatives were more angry. The surviving twin came outside and sat on his father's lap. He was so lifeless and sad it was hard to look at him. We talked to the father and son, and then I went inside where the women were. They were all sitting on the floor in one room, wailing. I took off my shoes and sat with them. The problem was usually, men aren't allowed in this room. But I needed Mansour to translate, and they let him in. He told me what everyone was saying. We spent, oh, I don't remember. A few hours there. Then we went back to the house where the boy was shot and a brother let us in. He showed us where his brother died, and he was just crying the entire time. Then we talked to the neighbors and got those quotes!
Dana showed up at the house where the funeral had been after I'd already been there. So she also did interviews there before going to the military to get their comment. That day, it was remarkably easy because the spokesman for that unit happened to be there. Usually, it wasn't that simple. Usually, we made tons of requests and got little information.
Q. Was it hard working through a translator?
 Pompilio: It was weird to work with a translator, and to be so reliant on him. I jokingly called my translator "The Mayor of Baghdad" because he seemed to know everyone. And he was arrogant, in your face, and not afraid. I felt safe with him around. He was a big man and would do a good job controlling the crowds that would sometimes gather around me. But still, someone would reply to one of my questions for two minutes and Mansour would say, "He says yes, he knows that man." I was always like, "Mansour, he said a lot more than that." Mansour would insist that was all there was. And you realize that whoever is your translator, you're going to get your quotes filtered through them. I don't mean in a bad way. I mean they're going to use the words they know even if other words might be more appropriate. Like Mansour lived in England for years so he would say "flat" for "apartment" and he always said, "This guy" instead of "This man." Just little things.
Still, I felt like I was in good hands. We still email at least weekly.
Q. What has he been telling you about the situation there lately?
Pompilio: Mansour is a tough guy: he says everything's fine, a little crazier, but he's OK. I worry about him ... Mansour has three children, a wife, and his parents and a sister live with him. I worry about them, too.
Q. You've covered your share of violent stories here in the U.S. How does reporting a local shooting compare with covering a violent incident in Iraq?
Pompilio: It's difficult to compare things here and there. For one, there's a language barrier for a reporter like me. I need to use the translator for everything. Here, I can take care of myself, go where I want to. There, the Army might limit might access or I have to wait for my translator and I don't have that feeling of freedom.
Also, there, it's more difficult to find out where something happened. Here, we listen to police radios and hear them say what's going down where. There, we're anxiously trying to find out where things are happening.
Here, we have public information officers who will give us information by the end of the day. There, the military's PIOs are happy to keep you waiting for days. You desperately check the AP wires and listen to the BBC to find out where the hot spots are.
Q. Would you return to Iraq or to another war zone?
Pompilio: I will probably return to Baghdad this summer. I gave it a lot of thought before saying I'd go back — I've told my editors that I would be willing to go back for a six week stint beginning in late June. It's dangerous: A woman I knew there who freelances for the New York Times was kidnapped and held for about three hours the other week, then released. That's not something you take lightly.
But I think I'll be OK. In sha'allah.
© 2003 Knight Ridder/Tribune Media Services.
Used with permission.
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