George Packer discussed his new non-fiction bestseller, “The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq,” to a standing room-only crowd at Russell House last Wednesday evening. The talk, part of the Annie Sonnenblick Lecture Series, centered on the author’s numerous trips to the Middle East over the past three years. During this time, he traced the attitudes of Iraqis and Americans alike.
In both his book and lecture, Packer stressed that the Iraq War is still worth winning. He feels that America’s lack of a definite exit plan turned the country into a “vacuum in which everything fell apart.” This chaos created a situation that America cannot leave unattended.
“What’s happening in Iraq is an intra-Arab fight for the future of the country,” he said.
Packer spoke of Iraq as a country plagued with fear. The Iraqis face a reality in which their towns lie on the front lines. A Christian Iraqi psychiatrist whom Packer interviewed for his book has had many of his friends killed in the struggle. A suicide bomber’s blast maimed his daughter. These situations have become the norm.
Descending into this fear has caused many Iraqis to identify themselves along tribal lines and to seek the shelter of town militias or gangs. This has spurred a vigilante state marred by violence.
“The war never ended,” said one Iraqi interviewed in Packer’s book. “It’s still going on.”
From the Iraqi viewpoint, there is much confusion as to how they found themselves in their current situation. According to Packer, the fact that America cannot get Iraq back on course bewilders the Iraqi citizens. In the three months following the Americans deposal of Saddam Hussein, there was a net loss in the number of Iraqi homes receiving electricity. What many Iraqis want is a cultural reformation, and they are upset that the United States is not facilitating it.
To one Iraqi with whom Packer spoke, the American occupation initially gave him hope that it would transform Iraq into “a second Europe.” However, with each passing month, the Iraqis are becoming increasingly doubtful.
Journalists in Iraq face an equally dangerous and tumultuous situation. Packer’s first trip to Iraq was as a journalist for The New Yorker.
“I can’t make you begin to think how frightening it is to be a journalist in Iraq,” Packer said.
Packer cited successful terrorist campaigns as inspiring the most fear in journalists. The battlefields in Iraq have become the streets of the cities, and Iraqi insurgents hunt and kill the media as vehemently as they do American soldiers.
“Daily reporting involves war tactics,” said Packer.
These tactics include hiring armed bodyguards, never taking the same route to and from an interview and only staying at interviews for a short period of time.
Despite these precautions, there have been a great number of media casualties. According to Packer, insurgents have killed more journalists in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein than during the whole of the Vietnam War.
The Vietnam comparisons did not end there.
“This war is more polarizing than Vietnam,” he said.
With the creation of blogs, cable news, and talk radio, Packer believes the Iraq War acts as a catalyst for other “poisonous political wars.”
“The Iraq War is a proxy for other wars back home that have nothing to do with Iraq,” he said.
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