Reporters who covered U.S. invasion of Iraq reflect on impact of war

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• Geoff Bennett:

  Twenty years ago this week, U.S. forces were speeding toward Iraq's capital city after invading the country weeks earlier.

  With them and waiting for them in Baghdad were hundreds of journalists who would go on to document a war that took a brutal toll on many Iraqis, U.S. personnel and sometimes the journalists themselves.

  Nick Schifrin spoke with some of them earlier this week.

• Nick Schifrin:

  The invasion of Iraq is one of the rare moments that divide history. There's a time before and a time since. And those who document the first draft of that history are the journalists who embedded with U.S. forces, who covered the war from Iraqi communities and those who continue to return.

  To discuss how the invasion unfolded, how the story evolved, and how the legacy of Iraq continues to haunt, I'm pleased to be joined by three of my journalist colleagues, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, Opinion audio podcast host of The New York Times, former NPR and Associated Press reporter who spent eight years on and off in Iraq, including living in Iraq, including Baghdad during the invasion.

  Salwan Georges, a Washington Post staff photojournalist who left his native Iraq in 1998 and returned for the first time recently. And Chip Reid, a former CBS and NBC News correspondent who was embedded with U.S. Marines for the invasion and is now writing a book about those Marines.

  Welcome very much. Thank you, guys.

• Salwan Georges, The Washington Post:

  Thank you.

• Chip Reid, CBS News National Correspondent:

  Good to be here.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Really appreciate your being here.

  Let's go back in time. Let's start with the invasion and take a look, Chip, at some of your coverage.

• Chip Reid:

  What they're doing here is literally digging in. They do that so, if there is any shrapnel flying across the field at night, any artillery or mortar rounds fired at the camp, it will fly over them, if they are down below the surface of the ground. And that is hard work, indeed, believe me.

  Behind me, you can see the smoke rising. That is the remnants of a battle, about an hour-long firefight that we were right in the middle of.

• Nick Schifrin:

  How do you remember the invasion today?

• Chip Reid:

  Well, I got to say, in 33 years as a TV journalist, this is the one story that was the most jaw-dropping, the most otherworldly than anything.

  I don't have a military bone in my body, but I went into this war feeling it was a gigantic mistake. But it's not something I think of in a negative way now, because the experience for me was so extraordinary. I developed tremendous respect for these Marines I was with, 18-year-old kids who were making life-and-death decisions like that.

  I have tremendous respect for people who will put their lives on the line to answer the nation's call, even if it's a bad call.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Lulu, you were based in Baghdad for the invasion. How did the drumbeat of war look, from your perspective, when you were reporting out of Saddam Hussein's Ministry of Information?

• Lulu Garcia-Navarro, The New York Times:

  Yes, I was there when the weapons inspectors were there.

  And it was a surreal place. It was a place full of fear. We had minders all the time, people that were assigned to us by the Ministry of Information that would inform on us, would inform on the people that we were going to talk to.

  But I will never forget the day when it was clear that the United States was going to invade. This quite feared and heinous member of the Ministry of Information, I went up to him and I said: "Why aren't you prepared? Why aren't you preparing?"

  And he looked at me and he said: "Well, you know what, it might not be a bad thing after all."

  And, all of a sudden, I realized that this veneer, this facade that I had been sort of sold in Iraq was very, very different than the reality, and something — something else was coming in its stead.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Fast-forward to 2004. You were at a celebration, effectively, invited by a U.S. official at Saddam Hussein's palace.

  What did you see?

• Lulu Garcia-Navarro:

  It was, as the U.S. occupation authority was coming to a close. They were going to be handing over — quote, unquote — "sovereignty" to an Iraqi government. And they were billing it as sort of the end of the Iraq War.

  And they threw a barbecue in Saddam Hussein's palace. There were 19-year-old soldiers in swimming trunks doing cannonballs into the pool, munching on corn and eating hot dogs and hamburgers. And in the midst of all this, Paul Bremer, who had sort of overseen a period of absolute chaos and hubris and mismanagement, shed a tear and was talking about what a great job he'd done.

  And, then, then-President Bush came on via video link and told everyone in his Texas twang to enjoy a good barbecue.

  There were no Iraqis there. There were only Americans. And I think it was very symbolic of what was to come.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Absolutely.

  Salwan, you were a teenager at the time living in the United States. What did your family experience during these first few years of the war?

• Salwan Georges, The Washington Post:

  We never thought Iraq would fall that fast.

  And my family were like all Iraqis, were believing that democracy is finally going to come to that country, we were finally going to be free. I was worried about my relatives. I was worried about my grandma, my grandpa, who was still in Iraq. One of my cousins were kidnapped by a terrorist group. Then we had to pay to get him out. My other cousin was killed by a terrorist group in 2013 who were targeting Christians.

  And then when I returned during my last trip, I discovered that my grandpa's grave, a little bit — 21 mile outside Baghdad, was destroyed by U.S. soldiers who were looking for weapons.

• Nick Schifrin:

  So many years ago.

• Salwan Georges:

  And I couldn't believe to see my grandpa's casket all destroyed after all these years.

• Nick Schifrin:

  And then so, of course, so many Iraqi families have stories, tragically, like that.

• Salwan Georges:

  Yes. Yes.

• Nick Schifrin:

  What we're talking about now is the sectarian conflict that really engulfed the country.

  And, Lulu, you filed a particular report we wanted to play for NPR in 2005.

• Lulu Garcia-Navarro:

  Twisted metal and debris that littered what was a market area. Women scream as they look for loved ones among corpses burned to a brutal black at the hospital morgue. Most of the dead are Shiite, and Baghdad too is burning.

• Nick Schifrin:

  How much burned?

• Lulu Garcia-Navarro:

  That was every day in Iraq.

  Every day brought some new horror that was unleashed on an Iraqi family, some terrible thing that had happened. Once the civil war was unleashed, families fought against other members of their families. neighborhoods were ripped apart.

  Hearing just that woman's scream, it reminds me so much of that was the sort of music of Baghdad, this terrible, terrible lament of just pain and loss and fear. And so it was a very hard war to cover.

• Nick Schifrin:

  And a very hard word experience for so many Iraqis.

  Salwan, I'm going to fast-forward here. And you mentioned that you went back. What kind of country was waiting for you when you got back?

• Salwan Georges:

  It's definitely not the same country. People are kind of numb to what happened to them. It's really sad to see that.

  People kind of — you see that, giving up hope in them, but they still kept the Iraqi in them to always enjoy life with what little they have. And, for me, it was a trip to kind of check my history, look back at my history when I was a child. We barely had an electricity. We would get a few hours a day.

  We had to leave because it — just life was so, so difficult. And when I returned, I mean, things are a little bit different, of course, but, as a country, went through many wars and many conflicts. I mean, you don't expect it to change in one day.

• Nick Schifrin:

  The scars of the war run deep across all of you guys' experience, including, Chip, for the Marines who you embedded with.

  Tell us the story of Mike Martinez (ph).

• Chip Reid:

  Well, Mike Martinez is one of the 42 Marines I interviewed for the book. The title of the book is "Battle Scars."

  And most of the battle scars that are in the book are psychological, not physical. I have a picture of him with his family at Camp Pendleton when he came home, his wife, Stephanie, who's in the photograph holding their brand-new newborn baby, and Mike is holding Mike Jr.

  And you can see that he is just in another world. And when I interviewed him almost 20 years later, he said he just — he felt like he was walking on Mars.

  And we have actually got a clip of that interview, you talking to Mike and his son, Mike Jr.

• Mike Martinez Sr., Iraq War Veteran:

  I wasn't physically abusive, but I could have — I could be mentally abusive, where I was — I would go act like a drill instructor on my kids. And I would I would scream at them like a drill instructor.

  Mike Martinez Jr., Son of Iraq War Veteran: Why is my dad like this? Like — like, why is this happening to us? Like, I wanted to talk back, but it's — we're his kids. I'm not going to say anything to my dad. He was scary.

• Nick Schifrin:

  He's scary.

• Chip Reid:

  Scary. He was.

  And his addiction was food. It wasn't drugs or alcohol. He ballooned up to 340 pounds. And he said, basically: I'm big, I'm bad, I'm intimidating, and that's the way I am. And I'm always right.

  Finally, he got help from the VA in 2019. That's a long time after this began.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Yes.

• Chip Reid:

  And now he is in full-fledged post-traumatic growth.

  I mean, he's going to school to become a teacher to leave a very tedious job he has now. The family is vastly happier. And the message in all of this, which is what so many of those Marines told me, is that if you are suffering from PTSD or PTS, just post-traumatic stress without a diagnosis, get help.

• Nick Schifrin:

  As I said, the scars run deep for everyone.

  And, Lulu, you did a powerful podcast recently for The New York Times with your longtime Iraqi colleague Ali Hamdani. And he admitted this to you:

• Ali Hamdani, Former NPR Producer:

  One thing that I may have not always conveyed perfectly, I would say, is how much people resented your presence in their country, how much people literally hated foreigners, because they associated them with the invasion.

• Nick Schifrin:

  How do you deal with that today?

• Lulu Garcia-Navarro:

  It was hard to hear how so many Iraqis did not welcome our presence as journalists.

  And, in fact, many years later, I had someone contact me on Facebook. I had done a report on him. And he tracked me down. And he said: "I wanted to reach out to you to tell you that you ruined my life. And I don't think that you knew what you were doing here when you were coming into my house to interview me."

  Sometimes, we need to reckon, ourselves, as journalists, also with the legacy of that war.

• Nick Schifrin:

  And, Salwan, you get the last word on that legacy.

  What is the legacy for Iraqis of a war whose very premise was disproven?

• Salwan Georges:

  That's a hard one.

  The legacy have really changed the life of Iraqis. People still struggle to get, like, simple needs like jobs, electricity, including my family, where we suffered a lot. And when I went back, I mean, my uncle was a translator with the U.S. Marines and lost his life by a car bomb in Ramadi during the war.

  So, it has — I mean, I don't know. The legacy, it's a hard question, because it just — people are still trying to figure out what happened there.

• Nick Schifrin:

  And will continue to.

  Salwan Georges, thank you very much. Lulu Garcia-Navarro, thank you very much. Chip Reid, appreciate it.