“My neighbour comes and knocks at the door and says ‘the Americans are here, they’re here down in the street’.”
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad tells Michael Safi about life as an Iraqi when US tanks rolled into Baghdad in April 2003.
“It’s a very strange sensation, because suddenly an invading army is down your own street, in front of your house, and they look so movie-like with their guns and wraparound glasses and helmets,” he says. Ghaith says that any relief that the Saddam Hussein era was over was “followed instantly by the apprehension of what is next”.
“Chaos reigned, tanks driving in the middle of the street, looting, burning, no electricity, no water, sewage flowing into the rivers. All that chaos. People couldn’t believe that the Americans had no plan. They had no idea. The whole thing was constructed in their heads as a dream invasion that will support itself.”
Ghaith, now an award-winning journalist and the author of A Stranger in Your Own City, became a reporter after a chance encounter with James Meek in Baghdad, who was there reporting for the Guardian. In this episode, they reflect on what it was like to report on the invasion, which has cast a long shadow in the 20 years since.
Photograph: Ramzi Haidar/AFP/Getty Images
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