Shortly after we arrived in Baghdad, we had another conversation with the ambassador. He said that he wanted us to give him the timeline, because we had 90 days to get these prisons operational and transfer responsibility back to the Iraqis.
Today's message to Baghdad is very clear: the UN Security Council resolution expresses the unity and determination of the entire international community to assume its collective responsibility.
Prime Minister Maliki, released from American restraint, acted on his worst instincts, creating enormous distrust in Iraq's Kurdish population and deeply embittering Sunnis in western Iraq's Al Anbar, who lost any confidence in a Baghdad government they saw as adversarial.
But all that having been said, you can't, in a city of a million people like Karbala, or 5 million like Baghdad, you can't be in all places at all times.
I think in a sense this is a house that was built on a bad foundation. And the foundation was the Americans coming here and allowing the sacking, burning and plunder of Baghdad, for whatever reason.
These poor kids in Baghdad have no running water, no showers. They wipe with baby wipes. My heart goes out to them.
That was not part of the U.N. resolution; it was not part of the mandate to go on to Baghdad and, frankly, if we had gone into Baghdad and pushed Saddam Hussein off, we would have inherited an even bigger mess than the mess we inherited with the refugee problem.
I left Kurdistan in April 2003 with the peshmerga, following their excited advance as Saddam's forces crumbled. First Kirkuk, then Mosul - where looters broke into the city museum and seized its Parthian sculptures - then Tikrit. I reported from Baghdad in month-long stints until the end of 2004.
In 2004, Kucinich was the only presidential candidate who warned that a war in Iraq would be completely disastrous. I remember how mocked he was when he predicted hand-to-hand combat in Baghdad. I remember Candy Crowley, and other reporters as well, treating his views on the impending war as ridiculous, out there, almost insane.
I had no idea what it would be like to be a bomb tech in Baghdad until I got there so I didn't know what to expect. It was very eye-opening.
