Customer Reviews

Baghdad Bulletin: Dispatches on the American Occupation

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Who are the insurgents? There are radicals, mercenaries, bank looters, conservatives, old government leaders and more. Kurdistan is safer and is already a defacto independent country. Portions of southern Iraq have also set up some beginnings of independence. Most of the turmoil is in central Iraq. The author has written a vital independent book covering the war and insurgency in Iraq. If you want to really know what is going on there, this book is a big plus.

Baghdad Bulletin is a fantastic collection of entries of one journalist's experiences. It provides enlightening insight into current political and military struggles.

The author of this book is our only published source of info. from this angle of the Iraq war, which is so crucial. I appreciate the fact that he is not pretentious like most journalists who try to be erudite human thesauruses, but uses his true, raw but articulate voice to give us a glimpse of what the situation was like. We need more of these insider views of Iraq, especially from those who had the guts to step outside the rope instead of only going where they have to in order to get a basic, vague story. Thanks for putting yourself in the line of fire so the world could understand what it's like.

The title of this book is deceiving. The words "Real Story" implies that the writer at least provides an accurate account about the unfolding events, which he doesn't. The words "the War in Iraq" give the impression that David was there during the last days of the regime when America launched its Operation Iraqi Freedom. He wasn't.
David Enders, a college student in his senior year, went to Beirut to finish his BA but then interrupted his semester to go to Baghdad a month after its liberation and the downfall of the Saddam Hussain regime on April 9, 2003. Deciding to embark on a journalistic project, the little-experienced English Major graduate of the University of Michigan and a group of like-minded, young and in-experienced friends decided to start a publication, the Baghdad Bulletin. David was its editor.
Meeting him in Baghdad at the time, it took me no time to discover that David's background about the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular was minimal. His Arabic was even worse, a fact which made him, like most other foreign reporters in Iraq, depend on native translators with their less-than-average English, in order to get a feel of things.
True David was courageous enough to tour different parts of the country, but at the time when he was able to do that, all other foreign and American journalists where also able to do it. In order to avoid anachronism, we have to keep in mind that violence in Iraq - in its current form of an anti-American insurgency - erupted at least six months after liberation. This makes of the first period of David's stay in Baghdad relatively calm, but not safe of the insecurity due mainly to post April 9 organized crime and looting.
David's lack of background and language made him report on Iraqi events from the perspective of a complete stranger, often copyediting pieces that he published in his magazine rather than editing them for content verification.
David's weakness is evident in his book, Baghdad Buletin, which is more of a reporter's diary, with the exception that the background information provided is often erroneous. A good example is his confusion between Mohammed Baker Al-Sadr, the founder of the Islamic Daawa Party, who the Baathists killed in 1980 and Mohammed Sadeq Al-Sadr, the father of today's famous young cleric Muqtada.
David's style, however, is attractive. If you are into supporting the career of a young, ambitious and adventurous writer, buy this book. If you want a reliable source or a record of the events of that period, don't.