A Stranger in Your Own City: Travels in the Middle East’s Long War by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

by Kate · Published May 31, 2023 · Updated May 31, 2023

This year (2023) marks the 20^th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and there is no better way to learn about this event than to read A Stranger in Your Own City: Travels in the Middle East’s Long War by award-winning Baghdad-born Iraqi journalist and author Ghaith Abdul-Ahad. The author was born in Baghdad in 1975 and was working as an architect there (his pencil and watercolor sketches illustrate the book) when the U.S. invaded his country in 2003. Soon after he was asked by The Guardian to serve as a translator for their reporters. He remained at The Guardian as both photographer and writer and has since also written for The Washington Post and published photographs in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, The Times (London), and other media outlets. He has won the Martha Gelhorn Prize for Journalism, The Press Award’s Foreign Reporter of the Year, the James Cameron Memorial Trust Award, and the Orwell Prize for Journalism as well as two News and Documentary Emmy Awards.

For twenty-eight years since his birth there, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad rarely left Baghdad. He believed he knew the flat, open city well; when he was growing up, he walked everywhere; his school was in one part of the city while his family was in another, his friends were in both the east and west of the city. At that time, there were no boundaries within the city itself. When he returned in 2005, after the occupation by U.S. forces, he didn’t recognize his birthplace it had changed so much. He could not travel anywhere in the city without at least one escort and often several because he never knew what kind of militia would be in charge of the checkpoints. He was a stranger in the city that he loved. He writes:

As always in times of upheaval, Baghdadis reverted to smaller structures to survive, clustering around clans in secure neighborhoods or the mahalas. When the state failed to protect or provide for its citizens, the “tribe,” “family” and sect emerged as alternative power structures and a replacement of the larger state. Even before the Americans had installed walls separating districts, terrified locals had barricaded their own streets with tree trunks, barrels and concrete blocks, turning neighborhoods into small isolated communities to better protect themselves. A few young men, often the tough street kids, stood guard, wielding Kalashnikovs and pistols to stop strangers from entering their areas. They clustered around the local mosque or the clan. A cleric, a former officer or a well-known thug became a “Leader” and led these gangs of toughs. The locals simply referred to them as the “gunman.” The role of these “gunmen” evolved from protecting the neighborhood against outsiders to purifying it of the enemy within. They pointed out the “strangers” living in their midst, and “collaborators” were denounced, killed or driven from their homes. Cleansing a neighborhood of collaborators expanded to the expulsion of all who belonged to the other sect. The process spread throughout the city, dividing along sectarian lines to be negotiated with extreme caution. A family name could help you pass a checkpoint or get you kidnapped and killed. [p. 112]

The Americans, who like all conquerors aimed to simplify their occupation of a society by breaking it into components, later used one component (Shia) to fight the insurgency of the other (Sunni), thus exacerbating the problem of sectarianism. [p. 113]

Neighborhoods in east and west Baghdad fell under the de facto control of militias and insurgents respectively. Each area had a distinct identity, expressed with its own symbols, posters and slogans, and its martyrs. You did not need to cross a checkpoint or a physical barrier to know if you were in a Sunni or a Shia district, but it became crucial, even for local Baghdadis like myself, to arrange for someone to vouch for you or to accompany you before visiting one of these areas: outsiders were not welcome. I started collecting letters of accreditation from different organisations and rebel groups with such august names as Supreme Council, the Army of Muhammad, the Battalions of 1920 Revolution. [p. 113]

One of the many instructive and interesting aspects of A Stranger in Your Own City is the account the author gives us of his years living in Baghdad before the U.S. occupation and the context in which this country became involved in the lives of the Iraqi people. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad was five years old when the eight-year Iraq-Iran War began in 1980. During this time, the militarization of Iraq intensified. Uncles, cousins and neighbors were continually taken to the front lines and every spring you would see the streets in Baghdad covered in black cloth announcing the death of soldiers conscripted. During this time Saddam Hussein was supported by the West, given both weapons and intelligence. In August 1990, Hussein invaded oil-rich Kuwait and the U.S. turned on him. After initial vacillation, President George Bush formed an international coalition to oppose Iraq and in January 1991, he commenced “Operation Desert Storm” which devastated Iraq mostly with an impressive air war that destroyed Iraqi infrastructure and morale. In late February, Bush unleashed the ground war, which forced a massive Iraqi retreat from Kuwait and ended the war in just 100 hours. Then came the sanctions.

Contrary to statements by politicians like Bill Clinton and Madeline Albright, the author asserts that everything that has happened in Iraq in the last thirty years through the rise of Saddam Hussein, his unleashed power, the deaths and destruction brought on by his regime, the occupation that followed, and the sectarian politics, through all this, it was the sanctions that destroyed Iraqi society. The sanctions against Iraq following Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait were a comprehensive financial and trade embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). They began August 6, 1990, four days after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and stayed largely in force until May 22, 2003 (after Saddam Hussein was forced from power). The author states:

If a million men were killed and injured on the front lines in the eight years of war with Iran, and the first American Gulf War destroyed buildings and bridges and decimated the infrastructure, then the thirteen years of UN sanctions—Sanawat al-Hisar—humiliated the nation and brought it to its knees. Proud families sold their possessions just to survive from one month to the next. [p. 24]

Those who could afford to were leaving the country in droves, seeking work elsewhere; those who couldn’t survived through the aid and remittances sent by those who had already escaped, hustled black market goods, or worked three jobs. Infant mortality more than doubled, and 500,000 children died because of the sanctions, according to a UNICEF study conducted in 1999. [p. 24]

Corruption was consuming the state from the inside, turning it into a hollow putrid shell devoid of legitimate authority and unworthy of respect. When a teacher’s salary was reduced to $2 a month and that of a police officer was $5, and when pilots and tank commanders drove taxis to make a living, corruption and embezzlement became a way of life. [pp. 24-25]

The author tells us that ironically, during the sanctions, Saddam Hussein (“the Leader”) and his private Clique did not suffer. He and his clan remained wealthy; in fact, they controlled the Black Market; they were the only gate through which any source of income could be generated. While punishing the people of Iraq, the sanctions left Saddam Hussein with even more power than he had before invading Kuwait. The author provides examples of Saddam Hussein’s power and ruthlessness during the sanctions.

….Infinite Obedience to the Leader was valued above all, and to that end, he wouldn’t hesitate to use violence even against his own family. When his son-in-law defected in 1996 after a feud with his son, and fled to Jordan, he was lured back and then shot and killed alongside many of his relatives.

The Leader and his men sapped the life from the country and turned Iraq into a nation of hustlers, selling a carton of smuggled cigarettes for a few dollars on the Black Market, or just withering in poverty. A fraudulent, fabricated narrative of history served as the backdrop for his brutality, which fossilized social, artistic and economic development and caused a developing emerging society to regress. [p. 30]

Later in the book, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad describes how difficult it was to tell the true story of what was happening in Iraq during the start of the American invasion when life was just as intolerable, and sometimes even more so, than during Saddam Hussein’s reign of power.

The reality of life in Baghdad was much worse than anything we could portray in snippets of news and articles. The real misery and bewilderment of the people could never be captured and translated into words. Journalists themselves were regularly getting killed—I woke one morning in Beirut to read about the kidnapping of an American journalist. The translator was shot and killed; there was a picture of his feet sticking out of the back of a pickup truck, an image that will haunt me for the rest of my life. He was a childhood friend, a father, who loved Western music. I was as angry at him as his killers—why did he have to do this dangerous job? The euphoria and excitement of working with Western journalists in the early days of the war was gone, replaced by paralysing fear. As for the son of the prominent Sunni politician who lured them into the ambush, I have never wished for someone to be punished as I wished it for him.

Later, when the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq climbed to 1,000, there was a flurry of coverage in the Western media. A critical benchmark had been reached, they declared, but what was the critical benchmark for the number of Iraqi civilians killed? How many had died by then? To this day there is not accurate number, of those killed through the sanctions, in the war and in the violence that followed. [pp. 90-91]

Instead of freedom from Saddam’s predictable tyranny, the U.S. invasion delivered violent anarchy: extrajudicial killings, torture, warrantless detention, and the destruction of Iraq’s basic infrastructure. Much of this havoc was catalyzed by foreign soldiers and mercenaries. The author notes that individuals were often openly racist toward the people they claimed they were liberating. With no one in charge, save for a trigger-happy foreign occupier with no plan to restore basic services, Iraq slowly descended into “Mad Max”-style chaos.

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad took his life in his hands to acquire interviews that offer a wide array of different perspectives on Iraq’s history for the last forty years. Miraculously, he was able to speak with those from all walks of life. Some are in security or intelligence; among others are former exiles returning to Iraq; members of al-Tawhid and al-Jihad a precursor to al-Qaeda in Iraq; a militia boss turned philanthropist in Sadr City; and an insurgent who fled the war in Basra to fight the Americans in Baghdad and who marveled at how a group of farmers and peasants could stand up to the all-powerful American army.

From Rami, a Sunnis arms dealer in 2007, we learn of the pervasive corruption and lack of leadership brought to the country during the American occupation.

“We buy ammunition from the [American] officer in charge of the warehouses; a small box of AK-47 bullets costs $450. If the guy sells a thousand boxes, he can get rich and leave the country.” His [Rami’s] point of contact was an Iraqi interpreter working for the US army in Baghdad. “He had a deal with an American officer. We bought new AKs and ammunition from them. The American officer would divert a small truck loaded with weapons when it came across the border from Jordan before it even reached an Iraqi base.” [p. 143]

Ustad Ali, a devout Shia and school principal is just one of the many individuals providing valuable details of Iraq post-American occupation. As a teacher he reminded his students that Iraq was not by nature a sectarian country, even as their militia-appointed headmaster preached the opposite. He knew that many of his failed students had joined the militias. Their role was to uphold the new Iraq against any dissenters, including their teachers. He tells the author:

“For thirty-five years we lived under the tyranny of Saddam. I was living in fear for all my life, whispering and looking around. When we were liberated from Saddam, we breathed air freely. But we didn’t know that the price was the occupation, and after that, the turbaned clerics using the name of Imam Ali came and climbed to power over our shoulders. We are an ignorant nation led like sheep by the edict of clerics.” [p. 150]

The author then tells us the consequences of Ustad Ali’s opposition to his country’s leadership.

When we left the school after our interview, Ustad Ali was surrounded by three young teachers for protection. Because a year earlier, when he was walking out of the school in the afternoon, a black car with four gunman drove by. They shot him three times, twice in the back and once in the leg. He spent months in his house recuperating, and realized that someone must have heard him air his criticisms. Still limping, he stood at the threshold, looked around nervously before hopping along a path of bricks laid across the sewage-and-mud lake in front of his school. He jumped into his car and drove away quickly.

Another day of teaching done. [p.150]

I can’t praise this masterpiece of reporting enough! It covers the years both before and after Saddam Hussein including the aftermath of the U.S. invasion in both Iraq and Syria and, whether we want to or not, it forces us to live through these years of one disaster after another. It took a boatload of courage to write this book and I thank Ghaith Abdul-Ahad for being fearless enough to do so.