Iraqi bloggers road trip report to Basra with pics

Back from Basrah Got back the day before yesterday. We spent two days there and we should be back next monday. Basrah is truly wonderful and unlike anything I expected. The weather is warm, electric power is available 24/7, mobile phones have already flourished, clean streets, IP everywhere, very little traffic jams, no endless queues at petrol stations, and most importantly the security situation is much stable. I didn't hear a single gunshot during my two days stay, whereas in Baghdad gunfire and sudden explosions have become the background of everyday activity. It was almost as if we had left Iraq and visited another country.

We started the journey from Al-Nahdha garage in central Baghdad. We chose to rent a '91 Caprice (nicknamed dolphin by Iraqis) and took the Baghdad-Kut-Ammarah-Basrah road. the whole trip took 7 hours counting several stops en route for lunch and refueling.

In itself the road the was really interesting albeit exhaustive. For me it was the first time to visit the south, I've been to Karbala and Hilla and have also visited most of northern Iraq. So the prospect was a bit exciting as we were going to see new places.

First thing we witnessed was the extent of damage the power grid has sustained. We drived by hundreds and hundreds of fallen towers or poles carrying high tension cables between Baghdad and Basrah. Miles over miles of discontinuation in power lines. I took several pictures of these. As you can see there are small tents beneath undamaged towers, these are for guards recruited by the ministry of electricity to protect the power lines from saboteurs and looters. It was an ugly sight and I got depressed pondering the amount of time and money to fix all this mess.

Another thing which caught my attention was the sheer poverty many people along the road were living in, particularly in both the Wasit (Kut) and the Maysan (Ammarah) governorates. Villages were composed of scattered mud huts surrounded by vast wastelands. Even their schools were built of mud. Interesting though that you would find some of these with satellite dishes on their roofs. I'm thinking of moving into one of these mud huts myself just for the luxury of continous electricity and the peace and quiet.

We also passed through about 20 IP checkpoints between Baghdad and Basrah (good), but very few coalition soldiers were to be seen. I saw what looked like Polish or Ukrainian soldiers near Kut and a few convoys of Brits in both the Maysan and Basrah governorates.

It was a bit depressing to realize that all the postwar problems and much of the violence were concentrated in the capital. The farther we went from Baghdad, the more we felt secure and safer. Life in Basrah looked pretty normal. British soldiers wandered freely around town with very little protection. The Brits use Land Rovers for patrolling and soldiers don't wear bullet-proof vests. It was obvious that they were facing less troubles there than American troops in the northern and central Iraq.

The taxi driver who took us to the hotel looked bewildered when we were telling him about the situation in Baghdad. He was whining about the electricity situation and said that during some days they would experience 2 or 3 hours of outages due to maintenance. When we enlightened him that we were suffering from 16 hours of outage a day in Baghdad he almost cried out of pity for us.

Basrawis are a very simple and friendly people. They bore the brunt of all of the wars Iraq had gone through over the last two decades. And it isn't hard to understand why they fervently hate Saddam and the Ba'ath. It was very evident from the slogans and graffiti all over town. Basrah residents are mostly Shi'a, but there are Sunni families and a sizeable Christian community as well.

Another thing we noticed was the absence of road blocks and concrete barriers which have infested Baghdad. IP stations were unprotected, and you would find only barbed wire surounding British military camps.

Of course we didn't have much free time to tour the whole city, but I guess we will after having settled down in our next visit. There is much to see. We encountered some problems at the Basrah Health Directorate. The person who was supposed to assign us to a dental center turned out to be a grumpy rude man. He said that they didn't need any additional dentists in Basrah and that they had enough already. When we handed him the ministerial order he almost told us to shove it up our *. He reverted after a while and took it telling us to return on tuesday. Luckily we found an influential acquaintance in Basrah who promised that he would look into the matter and get us a good dental center there.

You can check out some pictures of Basrah and from the road in the Basrah album on the sidebar under Photo blogs. I also arranged the albums of last weeks demonstrations since many newcomers are having a hard time finding them.

http://iraqataglance.blogspot.com

Saturday, December 20, 2003 Something about UK troops.. ## First of all I want to let you know that we came to Baghdad yesterday. I reached home at about 7:00 PM. We completed our application there, but they told us to get back there on Tuesday, we will try to phone someone in Basrah in order to inform us the news about when shall we start working without getting there.

## second, I want to talk about the UK troops in Basrah. Basrah is a safe city and the UK troops are in a stable situation, no bombs, no explosions and no attacks as the situation here in Baghdad. The people are kind, quiet and polite, here the opinions of The people we’ve met in Basrah: - “ the British soldiers are very polite and always trying to help us”. - “ many days ago, the British soldiers passed across the road when they saw a broken pipeline of water, they stopped at once, got down from their cars and repaired it, the British are very tidy people”. - “ in the ‘Eid’, the British soldiers gave many many gifts to the people here in Basrah, all of us are very happy with them”. - “Thank God, we are not in Baghdad ! the electric power is very good here, and the petrol is available”. And the funniest comment was by a taxi driver : “ Ahh.. the British soldiers… they are very beautiful..”!! also all the people we’ve met hate Saddam and happy when he’s been arrested, Basrah is the most governerate whom suffered because of Saddam, the people endured three wars and the city is destroyed especially in Iraq-Iran war.

So the people there are very willing to peace and happy with the progress, the progress is going on in fast steps. As a result the British troops feel the safety, I saw them during the their patrols, their situation is different from the Americans, I noticed the following: Their patrol vehicles are different from the Americans, British soldiers are standing in their vehicles and their bodies are clearly seen, in spite of that, they are not afraid, because the city is safe. Whereas the poor Americans are sitting inside their humvees and avoid staying in clear situations to avoid the possible attacks.

In addition, the British soldiers are walking in Basrah during their patrols, I saw some of the soldiers were sitting in front of a hotel talking and laughing, then they stood up and continued their duty. While the Americans were doing that, but now they don’t, they are usually inside the humvees paying attention even for simple things. Due to the safe environment, Basrah will be a great city and I see those are the first steps on the way of prosperity.

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