Naked in Baghdad: The Iraq War and the Aftermath as Seen by NPR's Correspondent Anne Garrels (Paperback)

by Anne Garrels (Author), Vint Lawrence (Contributor) "Well hello again, Just when we were all getting used to the idea that our Annie was going to be more or less gainfully employed..." (more)
Key Phrases: sat phone, satellite phone, Information Ministry, United States, Saddam Hussein (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
It is hard not to admire Garrels. Enduring everything from bombing raids and artillery barrages to bad food, corrupt officials and aggressive border guards, this veteran war correspondent continued to report for NPR from her perch at the Palestine Hotel throughout the coalition drive toward Baghdad. After all the major television networks pulled out their staffs, Garrels stayed in the middle of it, painting with words the only picture available to most Americans of what was going on in the center of Iraqi power and in the hearts and minds of the frightened and confused residents. Though she writes in the same clear, straightforward prose familiar to radio listeners, the powerful stuff of her live broadcasts translates poorly to the written page in this day-by-day account of her experience. She admits her limited purview, restricted in what she could see by the Iraqi Information Ministry and later by the hazards of the battlefield, and with the manuscript completed only months after her return, the reader is left feeling that reflection is not Garrels's strong suit. There are some nice details, like an Information Ministry staffer asking Garrels for batteries for his shortwave radio so he can "find out what's really going on." But her off-the-cuff impressions of the response of ordinary Iraqis to the war, which rang so true at the time, come off now as obvious and overly simple. This account works well as a personal narrative of courage under fire, suffering and survival, but unfortunately, it lacks in insightful commentary and summing up of events.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist
NPR correspondent Garrels, on assignment in Iraq from October 2002, before the war, until April 2003, after the war, offers an inside look at the conflict. She intersperses her reports and reflections with e-mails her husband sent to friends and family, which provide secondary color on the life of a news correspondent. New to Iraq, Garrels focuses on the perils of a new assignment, gathering reliable sources, shepherding all the technology needed for modern radio reporting, and coping with "minders," who^B monitor interviews with Iraqis. She is frank about her uncertainty of how "to tackle this complicated story in a country I don't know." This book is a fascinating look at how she manages, as one of only 16 unembedded reporters in Iraq, with the help of her driver-minder, who becomes a confidant, to cover the build-up to the war and the war itself. Readers looking for details and background on the war will appreciate Garrels' account. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Picador (August 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312424191
• ISBN-13: 978-0312424190
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #581,423 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent account of war-reporting's vagaries, September 6, 2003

By	Ron Franscell, Author of 'The Darkest Night' - See all my reviews

This review is from: Naked in Baghdad: The Iraq War as Seen by NPR's Correspondent Anne Garrels (Hardcover)

In some ways, Anne Garrels had a extraordinary advantage over print and television reporters who covered the Iraq war last spring.

She had no cameras, no tell-tale articles that could be hunted on the Internet by suspicious secret police, no bulky notebooks to mark her as a reporter in a crowd. Only a tape recorder the size of a cigarette pack ... and the sounds of war. She traveled lightly and discreetly, just under the radar of the gatekeepers.

Now, "Naked in Baghdad" chronicles Garrels's Iraq assignments between October 2002 and she left after the war in April 2003 -- from under-the-table visa negotiations, to swimming in a stagnating hotel pool to work off stress, to explaining the haunted life of normal Iraqis to normal Americans nine hours behind her.

"Naked" is intimate, authentic and blunt, without much literary decoration. It's a simple account that offers a real glimpse inside a foreign reporter's life -- and of the grander canvas upon which world events are being painted.

Unlike many of the wet-eared young correspondents dispatched to Iraq, Garrels is a hardened veteran, earning her stripes covering conflicts in the West Bank, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Time zones, border crossings, badge-heavy bureaucrats, language barriers, blood and death are her office furniture.

Garrels's account is scrupulously impartial. She openly discusses her skepticism about a war based on suspicions about weapons of mass destruction, but bluntly explains Saddam's intolerable degradations. Garrels is, as one might hope, ultimately fair and balanced. Her goal is to capture the nuances and the ripple-effects of war among people who are directly splashed by it -- and such people rarely dictate the spin of news.

"Naked in Baghdad" certainly adds the most intimate war-reporting in a conflict that changed many of the rules for journalists.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful Memoir, October 2, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Naked in Baghdad: The Iraq War as Seen by NPR's Correspondent Anne Garrels (Hardcover)

Anyone who listened to NPR during the 2003 Gulf War probably heard many of Anne Garrels' reports from Baghdad. She could be heard two or three times a day reporting on events before, during, and after the bombing campaign and subsequent invasion of the city. Garrels reported primarily from the Palestine Hotel, calling in on an illegal satellite phone that she managed to keep hidden from the constant Iraqi security sweeps.

The book is a fascinating account of Garrels' time in Baghdad, told through her own journal entries and email updates sent to friends by her husband. It is more about the experiences of a veteran war correspondent than the war itself. As one of only a few American reporters who decided to remain in Baghdad when the bombing campaign began, Garrels displayed remarkable bravery and ingenuity in continuing to file her reports to NPR from a city under seige.

I often found myself listening to her reports during the war and wondering what in the world it must be like to be hiding in a hotel room while broadcasting halfway around the world to NPR - and hoping you don't get caught (or killed) while doing so. After reading Naked in Baghdad, it sounds like that wasn't even the most difficult part of her job. The risks she took in going out into the streets to collect the information in order to have something to report every day sounds comparably more difficult.

It sounds like Garrells has many more stories to tell from other wars zones (Afghanistan, Chechnya, Pakistan, etc). I look forward to reading more from this reporter.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling Personal Account Takes You Right There, June 16, 2004

By	A. Marks (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Naked in Baghdad: The Iraq War as Seen by NPR's Correspondent Anne Garrels (Hardcover)

First off, the few reviews that slam this book for liberal bias, are far more guilty of prejudging than is Garrells; one wonders if they've even read her work. Her portrait of life under Sadam Hussein is sympathetic only to the citizens who live in terror of speaking freely, not of his repressive regime.

As mentioned by other reviewers, Garrells really keeps her focus on the the Iraqi's personal experiences and on her own difficulties try to do her job in a corrupt and dangerous enivronment, not on the politics surrounding the war. Before it even starts, both she and the Iraqis seem to view the war as a virtually unavoidable certainty.

The book is also a very compelling portrait of what it's like to be an international journalist, specifically a female international journalist. Additionally, Garrells makes compelling comparissions to her experience in Iraq to her experiences covering another repressive regime, the Soviet Union.

If I'd read this book when I was in high school, I might have seriously considered a career in internaitonal journalism. While she doesn't make it seem like a glamorous, safe or easy job, it does come across as one of the most challanging and rewarding.

Ms. Garrells is a terrific writer, and this nearly contemporaneous account of the build-up to the Iraq invasion helps flesh out the portrait of a time and place on the brink of war.