Baghdad Bulletin: Dispatches on the American Occupation

July 2003

We didn’t expect them to start killing journalists until October. —A U.S. lieutenant, upon hearing that Richard Wild had been killed July 2003 The Guardian 7.8.03 From “Murdered at the museum” By Libby Brooks Sitting in the lounge of Baghdad’s Palestine hotel last week, in the company of six veteran war correspondents, the 24-year-old novice reporter Richard Wild was understandably overawed. “He seemed quite quiet,” recalls Jason Burke, the Observer’s chief reporter, and one of the group. “But we talked about how things were going, and from the small number of contacts he had he seemed to be doing well. He didn’t ask me for any help, which impressed me. He wasn’t in the business of free-loading.” Burke last saw the young freelance on Friday morning, when he dropped off a tape for Burke to pass on to Channel 4 on his return to the U.K. “He was very excited about a visit he’d made to a Palestinian refugee camp in the city. He’d filmed the whole thing himself, and he thought it was going to be his big break.” Wild was shot dead outside Baghdad’s natural history museum on Saturday morning, as he stood on a traffic island trying to hire a 38 taxi. His killer approached through a crowd of students, drew out a pistol and fired it into the base of his skull, before fleeing in the confusion that followed. It remains unclear whether Wild was targeted because he was a reporter, although he was not carrying his video camera at the time. He is the 17th journalist to be killed in Iraq since the conflict began, and the first to die since U.S. forces entered the capital in April, sparking a growing wave of guerrilla resistance. On Sunday his parents Robin and Daphne spoke of their vain attempts to stop him from making the trip. “The whole family tried their utmost to stop him going. But they seem to take least notice of their parents.” His mother said that she thought the venture foolhardy. It is certainly the case that freelancers, working alone, are always at a disadvantage without the backup and staff of an international news agency. And it remains uncertain whether Wild’s inexperience rendered him especially vulnerable. Baghdad 7.5.03 The soldiers come down the stairs carrying most of Richard’s belongings. Mark and I have been waiting in the front room of the house where Richard had been staying. It’s nearly curfew, but after hearing that Richard had been shot, we ran into a driver I knew who agreed to bring us here. Michael Burke, an independent British ‹lmmaker, has already identi‹ed the body. No one’s exactly sure what happened . There are different accounts. Richard was walking alone, nothing to identify him as a journalist. Richard had been talking to American troops. He was dressed in a “military” style. He was in a crowd. He was standing by himself. He was walking. He was trying to hail a cab. What is certain is that he was shot once in the back of the head. Some people say that Iraqi witnesses ran to a nearby troop detachment, thinking that Richard was a soldier, but that Richard was only taken to the hospital ninety minutes later, by a taxi driver and some men from the street. JULY 2003 39 Mark and Richard had mutual friends in the U.K. I had only corresponded with him over e-mail. Ever since the Bulletin got coverage on the BBC, CNN, and NPR, we’ve been ›ooded with e-mails from people, mostly our age, who want to come to Baghdad . The messages come with resumes attached: “I’m tired of my life in corporate media. If I quit my job at CBS in New York, can I work for you? I’ll pay my way to Baghdad.” Mark and I begin to fear we’ve created a small movement, that people don’t really understand the situation out here, and that, because they’re largely no different from us, they’ll decide to come out. The thing is, they really aren’t any different: most of them probably have as much experience as I do. We’ve been downplaying the risks all along. Richard came to Iraq in part because he was “inspired” by...