The Sadr Rebellion:
A Tale From The Baghdad Sheraton Hotel
By Peter Bussian

    In the early months of 2004 the Shias gathered in groups that grew exponentially from week to week. As I wandered the crowds photographing I was struck by the fervor of their faces and the power in their voices. I was sometimes afraid of the emotion I saw, but I was often deeply moved. I felt like this is what these people really cared about. The demonstrations were held on Friday, the day off, and put on next to the two large hotels in Baghdad: The Sheraton and the Palestine - where most of the journalists and USAID contractors in Baghdad lived. The gatherings were religious – a chance for the Shias to practice openly in ways they were unable to do under Saddam. But as the weeks and months progressed, the words became more and more anti-western and anti-US. Even at the time I recognized this as the beginning of a movement. The media were all in the hotel, rooms away from me, witnessing the same events, but I saw very little being reported.

    The Sheraton was a bizarre place to live: an array of western journalists, United States government (USG) contractors, shady paramilitary types. Halliburton had the choicest real estate – a fancy restaurant on the top floor where only Halliburton and its funders (big-wigs from USG) were allowed to go. I snuck in a few times for ice cream, pool and whiskey.

    My room was next to the FOX mouthpiece Geraldo. I would sit outside my room, working on my computer and watching the activities. Every few days an RPG would hit the building, break glass, shake the building and cause us all to clear the path from our bed to the safer confines of the bathroom. Once a mortar hit the room directly below me, another time right outside my window leaving a car-sized crater. I was working for a USAID contractor as the media director on a country-wide democracy building project. In the early months I was still able to get out on road trips all over the country to photograph and film.

    As the weeks and months progressed I began to feel that the demonstrations were taking on a life of their own. A few journalists covered the demonstrations but I never saw major reports on the big TV outlets. In retrospect I think the journalists were busy covering stories on US troops. But I couldn’t imagine that they didn’t see something brewing in the streets – where masses of people waving signs bearing the image of Moqtada Al-Sadr, a young cleric who mixed Iraqi nationalism with Shia radicalism, were emerging into a force to be reckoned with. Sadr is the youngest son of Muhammed Sadiq Sadr – a senior cleric assassinated in 1999, probably by agents of the Iraqi government.

    Then, the shit hit the fan. I don’t remember the date but I do remember it was the weekend of Good Friday. We got word that Sadr’s people (who are based in the holy city of Najaf) would try to take the Sheraton or Palestine that weekend. I went back to the hotel from the green zone, where I worked, intending to move my things to my trailer sitting inside the green zone. I had been making the trip twice a day between the hotel and the green zone in a three suburban convoy. We raced through the streets to get where we were going as quickly as possible. There were often car bombings on the road. On that Thursday I felt particularly apprehensive. I reached the hotel and began to pack my things when I learned that something had happened on the road and it was now closed. This happened so often that in itself was not a big deal. But it meant I would be stuck in the hotel for the weekend, which starts on Friday in Iraq.

    I slept uneasily that night and the next day the crowd began to assemble around 10 AM. It grew very large – perhaps 10,000. By contrast the hotels were protected by a couple of dozen US troops and two tanks. This was supplemented by maybe a hundred PSDs (Personal Security Details – guards contracted from various western police and militaries). The whole compound was surrounded by a concrete wall garnished with razor wire. I moved between my room and the terrace and watched the mob face off against 2 US soldiers in a single tank. Thoughts invaded my mind of them overtaking the soldiers. If they did we were toast. The guy in my room next to me was special forces (officially doing reconstruction work around Iraq) but he had an arsenal in his room. He gave me an M-16 and a hasty lesson in using it (point and shoot pretty much). I was prepared to use the weapon if I had to.

    I sat in my room hour after hour keeping a watchful eye on the crowd outside and becoming familiar with the machine gun I held. Time stood still. None of us - including the PSDs, many of them with years and years of experience fighting wars all over the world, knew what would happen next. I ran every scenario through my mind. If the crowd rushed the wall they could easily take the hotels – but probably not without losing hundreds of men. I can’t say I got used to the idea that I might well die – but I accepted the reasonable possibility.

    And then without warning the mob began to dissipate. A large contingent of US troops moved in and secured the square. The next day a Hum Vee with a loudspeaker on top eerily cruised the street warning (in Arabic) that Iraqis would be shot on site if they came out at all. They stayed inside.

    However, the outcome in the southern part of Iraq was far different. The weeks that followed saw Sadr’s people close down the offices of the project I worked. Many of them were burned and looted. We had people kidnapped and we had staff taking refuge in various military compounds - in some cases taking up weapons and helping fight off the insurgents. This became known as the Sadr Rebellion and it was a turning point in the situation in Iraq. It marked the period where kidnappings became commonplace and signaled a tipping point for a cohesive insurgency recognizable by the foreign media and acknowledged by the US military. USAID and most other organizations cut most of their projects in southern Iraq.

    The Shias in essence took the southern half of the country back for themselves. It remains the bloodiest period since the end of the US invasion of Iraq. It didn’t happen out of the blue as it seemed on CNN reports and footage– the signs were crying out – but no one was listening. Where was the news media? Embedded? Or in Bed?