Boy this better have been worth it. I’m sure that’s what a lot of people are thinking.  About the G20 summit that is.     Never have I seen London so turned on its head.   Convoy after convoy of top leaders whisking around the city.    As my cameraman Olaf asked, “Where the heck did they get all those motorcycles?”

The big newsmaker of course was not the twenty most important people in the world deciding the fate of our future.    It was four thousand scruffy kids and aging hippies making noise and a bit of mayhem.

I was rooted to my Buckingham Palace live shot position, so was spared most of the up close and personal of that.  But it seemed as pointless and anarchic as ever.

Except maybe not completely pointless.      The hooligans made a point of hitting out at the Royal Bank of Scotland branch for a reason.   It and its exiting CEO were beneficiaries of a massive UK bank bailout.  A practice even law-abiding folks in the States are getting a bit steamed up over.

No, as mentioned, I was on Queen watch.   President Obama and Michelle met Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh to be exact.    As I said in my live shot, it was arguably the high point of the Obamas’ visit.

He was actually early for a change and sneaked in without us barely noticing.  The video of the meeting has since been carefully scrutinized.   He gave her a two handed handshake. Ouch.  And she clasped hers behind her back.   Eeeek.   And an ipod as a gift?     Hopefully the greatest hits of Queen not included.

So here I sit overlooking the Excel Center as the G20 leaders wrap up their deliberations.     We already know what’s going to be in the final document.    A little bit of money and little bit of verbiage to appease everybody.   More or less.

And oh yes, one more chance for another scruffy bunch of protesters to keep a few thousand policemen occupied.

Hmmmm. Worth it?   Next time I recommend G20 Twitter.

It was appropriate we were in Iraq for the “end of the war”. Or at least, President Obama declaring he would start to end the Iraq conflict.

We were there at the beginning six years ago. Racing across the desert to find a Baghdad with no Saddam and a lot of chaos.

And we were there for the middle when U.S. troops were successfully fighting back the insurgents.

And then when the militants and sectarian violence got the upper hand.

And now post-surge and the hope for ramp down.

And now… the beginning of the end.

It was an interesting trip.  In terms of what we call in the business “bang bang”, far less than in the past.   That’s a good thing of course.

In all the places we visited, Basra, Mosul, Kirkuk, and Bagdad, the Americans were trying to fine tune their way out of war and into a bunch of political settlements.

While not the most dangerous, this is arguably the hardest part.  And the one that is already quickly losing the interest of the American public.

With the tsunami of news concerning our desperate economy, it’s no wonder it was a bit of a strain getting our stories on the channel.

But most have gone on, and we were helped by some good timing with the Obama withdrawal speech coinciding with our interview with Gen. Odierno.

I was also helped on this trip, as always, by a lot of people, and I’d like to thank some them.  My crazy cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski, producer Marcia Biggs, Bureau Chief Dragan et al.

And the good folks with the US military who helped us in our travels around Iraq.

We’re posting two videos.  Then and now.  The first, a look at Fallujah five years ago when we went in with the Marines in an effort to clean out a terror den.  The second, a look at our visit this time around the country. A very different picture… and hopefully for the Iraqis, an improving picture.

Five Years Ago:

done

And Now…

done

Kirkuk is one of those situations that just make my viewers’ eyeballs roll back into themselves.  It’s a crisis that threatens to take this whole “Iraq as new democracy” experiment down with it into a cesspool of sectarian strife. Or it won’t make much difference at all.

First of all, it involves the Kurds. Now, explaining the Kurds in a two minute story is  not easy. No, we’re not talking about cottage cheese or whey (as in “curds and….”)   No, they’re a big sprawling ethnic group which already has its own autonomous fiefdom and wants more. Read that Kirkuk.

Then, there’s the Arabs. Sunni’s really. Who want Kirkuk too, but just to remain in Iraq.  They’re not fussy.

Then, there’s another group of Arabs. They would be Shia’s. They pretty much run Baghdad and the Iraqi Army. Who in this instance have found common ground with their usual Sunni rivals to try to beat back the Kurds.

Throw in a group called the Turkmans, with their own Turkish ties. Mix in some Christians. And… you get the picture.

Oh, and I forgot one other thing.  Oil.  Barrels and barrels of it.  Under and around Kirkuk. Iraq’s second biggest reserve. One of the biggest pools of oil in the world. No wonder everybody is interested.

Now that things have died down in many parts of Iraq, the stuff that was only potentially dangerous rather than out and out dangerous is getting more attention. Like Kirkuk.

**Photo credit: Marcia Biggs

We were told by many US military officials that this is the flash point to watch.   Vice President Biden went there in January. Commanding US General Odierno went there when we were there. And the US military has quadrupled its presence there in the last few months.

Except there’s not too much to do there except play interlocutor to the various groups, watch the various factions and armies (the Kurds’ militia, the Peshmerga and the Iraqi Army) move around the region, and just hold your breath hoping no one lights a match near this political tinderbox.

We were told that outsiders are the ones who want to stir this up and the folks in Kirkuk are just happy to live together.

We asked people on the street if they could live together, and they said yes. Then we asked them how they’ d like to live together, and everybody had a different idea about what state Kirkuk should belong to.

Oh, there’s one more hitch to this. The Kurds really like America. We actually left them in the lurch after Gulf War 1, when we encouraged them to rebel against Saddam Hussein.  They did. And then we looked the other way. But after that, we gave them air cover and aid and protection as they established their autonomous fiefdom.

So, needless to say one Kirkuk police colonel we visited proudly displayed a US flag alongside his Iraqi flag, plus pictures of him with various visiting American notables.

And the folklore was that a statue of a medium height fellow in a modern-day business suit with neat parted hair in the center of town was George W. Bush. We found the statue, and we almost thought it was… until we were told it was actually a local guy who looks western.

Anyway, we have to bend over backwards to make it seem like we’re not on the Kurds’ side. And show that we’re helping everybody. Even while everybody is trying to stab everybody else behind in their backs.

The hope is that there will be such a big momentum going forward to make Iraq a successful country that everybody will put aside their differnces and, as I described it in my story, play nice.

That’s the hope anyway. The reality might be different. Who said making new democracies was easy?

Check out the video:

done

It was Sunday and no better day for Pierre, Marcia and myself (along with bodyguards, bullet-proof cars and guns … hey this is Iraq), to take in a museum.

Not just any museum but the National Museum of Iraq.  It was a huge story in April 2003 which I and others covered.    In the wake of the fall of Saddam it was looted, trashed and a vivid symbol of the Donald Rumsfeld axiom of “Stuff Happens” in the new Iraq.

Now after nearly six years it was opening up again.  Kinda.   We missed the actual re-opening a few days prior because we were out of town.   That was full of fanfare … and chaos (again, this is Iraq).

The charge was that Iraqi P.M. Maliki wanted to rush the opening to bolster his line that Iraq is standing again.   Even though the museum itself wasn’t quite ready.

So I suppose we were prepared for the worst when we made our visit to the place but were pleasantly surprised.    The main hall featuring stone carvings and statues dating back several thousand years was really spectacular.    It could stand up to any room in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

**Photo Credit: Marcia Biggs

Keep Reading …

Guess what? US soldiers are still dying in Iraq. For all the talk we heard from President Obama about ending the war, the fact of the matter is the war is still on.

When we got up to the northern Iraqi city of Mosul to report on the situation there, we were confronted with that reality. The whole unit we were with was very upset about the deaths earlier in that week of Lt. Col Garett Derby and three other troops. Their Humvee (yes, they weren’t in the new tough MRAP vehicle) was hit by a car bomb. It happened near a police check point. Some police that should’ve been there, we’re told, weren’t. There were suspicions it was a set-up job.

In fact, much in Mosul is a reminder that there is a way to go in Iraq. I hadn’t been there in a few years. The west side of the city looked as bad as any neighborhood I’d seen in my years covering Iraq. Al Qaeda in Iraq has decided to make Mosul its last stronghold. The buildings along the road soldiers have dubbed the“Highway of Death” bear the scars of countless blasts. The streets are a mess. The residents wary.

**Photo Credit: Marcia Biggs

But as with everything we’ve seen in our travels here in the past month, there is another side to the story. One day we moved around parts of the city with US Army Col Geoff Ellerson who is mentoring the Iraqi National Police. They have been criticized in the past for being in the pocket of central government interests but seem to have gotten their act together.

On this day they had basically shut a whole section of the city down to do house to house searches. Another déjà vu moment.

But now it wasn’t US soldiers annoying residents as they routed through their personal items….it was Iraqi security forces. Progress of a sort.

After seeing the tough west Mosul area we were then brought down into the center of the city, the old town near the Tigris river. It was bustling with activity, shopkeepers, traffic. A real city and what Mosul should be.

Election posters left over from an earlier poll were around as well. Which is another good sign in Mosul. Sunni’s sat the last local elections out. Because of that outsider status, it was thought they were channeling their anger through insurgents. Now it was hoped democracy would steer them a bit more to the straight and narrow.

Our tour of Mosul was cut short that day when we learned that just across the river insurgents had targeted and killed Iraqi soldiers. In fact, every day that week there was trouble.

The next day we toured a few other areas of Mosul with an Iraqi Army General. He had been touted by the Americans as another force for good in the city. I found him to be a bit of a showboat. Literally arresting one Iraqi soldier for not manning a checkpoint properly. Dragging his whole entourage half way across town to preside over some gifts doled out at an orphanage. And then trying to sort out some bad food at another Iraqi army base.

The week after we were there Iraqi security forces backed up by the Americans staged another one of those mass “operations” netting dozens of militant suspects. Again, seen that story before.

The trip actually brought to mind two other past visits to Mosul. The first was in February 2003. My cameraman Pierre on this trip was with me then. We attended a mass march of Saddam’s (he was still in power then) various militias.

The other visit was September 2003. Saddam was gone and things had loosened up. We even had a lovely dinner at an open air restaurant along the river with other Mosul residents. Of course then we all know what happened. Those folks who were marching back in February and were laying low in September then decided take up arms again, against the U.S.

Which brings us back to Lt.Col. Derby and the others who gave their lives. Six years later, Americans are still dying, still trying to make this whole thing work. And they won’t be the last to die either I think it’s unfortunately safe to say. No wonder the folks here are straining to hear something that sounded like working toward “victory” in President Obama’s speech. It’s only human.

Here’s the exclusive video:

done