I have written many articles about the US-led war against Iraq that was launched 20 years ago. On the 20th anniversary of this war, I want to remember those hard days that me and my family passed through as I was a front-line reporter in the war for Reuters! This is the first time I write my experience about the war as a reporter. I reported the war from its start until the American troops invaded Baghdad and beyond. Our losses as Reuters included one of our cameramen killed and three staff severely injured! Fortunately, I missed that attack as I was not in Reuters office at the time in the then Sheraton Hotel in central Baghdad. I was in the lobby talking about some administrative matters with the receptionists.
Those Reuters staff who were severely injured by the US attack against Reuters were Samia Nakhol, senior reporter at that time now I think she is the Reuters’ Middle East and Africa Editor-in-chief based in Dubai, our photographer Faleh Khaiber, no more with Reuters, and a British technician. The three were critically injured in that big attack the Americans launched against the Sheraton Hotel in central Baghdad where Reuters office was in the 15th floor. The American troops thought the cameraman who was killed immediately was a snipper while he was video-picturing the American tanks crossing Al-Jumhouriya (the Republic bridge). The American troops should know that all the international press were moved from the building of the then Iraqi ministry of information to escape US attacks.
The next day the press were moved to the hotel the ministry building was diminished to rubbles! Reuters office in the ministry ground floor was heavily attacked and destroyed! During Saddam‘s rule all the international press should have their small offices like small cabins in the ministry‘s ground. Samia had a fatal injuries and she had bombs shells rested in her head! She was in coma and was very difficult to transfer her to a hospital outside Iraq while the war was escalating and no civilian flights and that she should undergo an immediate surgery, otherwise God forbid, she would have died. I called an imbalance and I took her with other Reuters colleagues to a nearby state-run specialized Nerve hospital in Baghdad where she was checked by an Iraqi doctor educated in the UK and he and other doctors immediately decided to do a head operation for her!
The operation was successful and the Iraqi doctor saved her life! Later on when she managed to go back to London where she used to live, her doctors in London told her that the Iraqi doctor made for her the best operation ever. An Iraqi girl whom Samia knows her from her stay in the Rasheed Hotel in Baghdad, stayed with her over three nights in the hospital and I was shuttling from Sheraton hotel to the hospital though it was too dangerous as the US heavy bombings were continuing. She was later transferred by a US military plane to Amman and from Amman she was flown to London back home.
The photographer Faleh suffered from serious shock and very bad disorder but he recovered. The severely injured British technician was also admitted to a different Iraqi hospital but later he was flown to London as his injury was too bad. I heard later he lost one of his legs. Iraq used to have the best hospitals in the Arab World and the best doctors as most of them educated either in the UK or the USA. After the invasion many of them were killed and the rest left the country!
My family was worried about me and they thought I was killed in that US attack as the news was carried by all television networks that Reuters office was attacked. My wife suffered a big shock trying to find out if I am alive or killed! Until she knew after few hours that I was alive as there weren’t mobile phones or land phones, she suffered a big shock and she was in coma!
Few days later, Reuters Baghdad office asked me to go to Tikrit the hometown of Saddam to cover a story that head of Saddam’s tribe, Ghalib was killed by unknown. After finishing interviewing people in Tikrit and filing the story me and the driver were kidnapped by unknown people and apparently they accused us of being US spies because I was carrying in my pocket a Reuters ID. The armed kidnappers beat us severely and we stayed in their captivity for 5 hours until they released us after they made sure through their bosses whom I never knew, we were press not spies!
Reuters London office at that time, instead of rewarding me for covering the war and covering Iraq during Saddam’s difficult era, and I escaped three times death attempts while reporting the war, they sent the then their Mideast editor Barry Moody to Baghdad a month later after the invasion to tell me that I am no more needed! Because at that time, they can send from London whom they want to send to cover Iraq. I realized that they don’t like to keep the staff who really served Reuters in difficult times!
Suffering from hardship and difficulties after the invasion me and my family, I had to leave my job for unknown reasons and under very harsh treatment! Moody gave me no reason why I should leave! But it was for me and my family a big relief to stop working as a reporter as it was very dangerous to work in Iraq at that time when kidnaping and killing of journalists escalated! During my time many journalists were kidnapped and killed. That doesn’t mean I don’t like Reuters! No! I have very good friends until now working with Reuters! It may be a misjudgment by one person or two. I heard later from colleagues that Reuters regretted it to let me go.
I didn’t stop though. I was hired immediately by The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires to cover Iraq and they treated me much better than Reuters I must say and I worked with them 10 years covering Iraq during difficult times. I learnt a lot from the WSJ and Dow Jones! I thank all their editors and the reporters I worked with! They are very professional people. While working with the WSJ and Dow Jones I found a new job with OPEC as head of communications and PR. At that time I thought it was time to change after working more than 20 years as senior reporter with big names such as Reuters and WSJ. I joined OPEC and worked 9 years with OPEC in Vienna. Now my tenure with OPEC has finished and I am enjoying my time with the family and relaxing and have time to think and may be this is why I wrote this to remember that bad and bloody war that should have been avoided really.
Hasan Hafidh was a senior reporter with Reuters during the war. He is currently a member of Valuechain editorial advisory council.