ABC TV (AUS) Enough Rope
[transcript]
Monday, July 26, 2004
There are
two types of war correspondent - those who stick to
the circuit of military briefings, safe hotels and
careful excursions into unstable areas, and those who
throw themselves at the job with apparently reckless
disregard for their own safety. Mike Ware is one of
the latter. Writing from Afghanistan and Iraq for
'Time' magazine, he spent much of the past few years
behind enemy lines, bringing back stories of the
Taliban, Afghani war lords and, more recently, Iraqi
insurgents. A few weeks ago some of those insurgents
sent him tapes showing in chilling detail just how
they go about their work, tapes whose images were
soon flashed around the world.
ANDREW DENTON: Mike, thanks for being on Enough Rope.
How does a boy from Brisbane end up in the middle of
an Iraqi insurgency?
MICHAEL WARE: Yeah, I'm sort of asking myself that
same question every night before I go to sleep. It's
quite hard to fathom actually. But, yeah, from
suburban Brisbane to the trenches in Baghdad, to
having the words I write read in the White House,
it's all quite a trip actually.
ANDREW DENTON: The President reads?
MICHAEL WARE: Well, so we're told, or perhaps it's
read to him! I did say it was "read in the White
House".
ANDREW DENTON: Your ability to get close up to groups
that others can't is quite extraordinary and you
describe this as 'gumshoe journalism' - you're
basically on the ground with the Iraqis, earning
their trust. How do you do that?
MICHAEL WARE: Well, it's pretty difficult, as you can
imagine. I've been here in Iraq for just over 18
months now. I arrived before the war and then was
here through all the conflict. And then as soon as
the first phase, as I call it, of the war finished -
the actual invasion - I quickly turned my attentions
to the second phase which we're in now, the
insurgency and the occupation.
Now, I started off very simply with the 'bad guys' as
people from the West and certainly Fox News likes to
call them. In the beginning they were just ragtag
groups - you, me, cousin Ahmed, we go out, we shoot
at a passing American convoy and feel a lot better
for it. So, I started just hooking up with these
guys, talking to them individually. Over time, they
started to get their act together and they formed
into groups, then that group would join another group
and then suddenly there'd be a structure and it would
grow and there'd be commanders. And I just kept in
touch and followed them as they progressed, so it's
taken well over a year and it's had some moments, I
can tell you.
ANDREW DENTON: Journalists who worked with you in
Afghanistan describe what you did almost like method
acting. Is that part of your approach?
MICHAEL WARE: Well, I mean, I think it's very
important, I mean, not so much to be a chameleon as
such, but you really do have to immerse yourself in
whatever environment you find yourself in. Really,
what I want to do is find out what makes these things
tick. I mean, this is world history playing out
before us.
So, in the beginning it was Afghanistan. I mean, we
had al-Qa'ida terrorist camps there, a Taliban
regime, we had the American war machine charging in.
Well, I wanted to see what that was all about. Now,
for me I think the only way to do that is to really
get down in amongst it and let it all wash over you,
so I have been known on many occasions to go in
Afghan drag. I mean, I grow my beard down to a
suitable Taliban length, I wear what the Americans
perfunctorily call a 'man dress', but it's actually a
salwar kameez. I learned to speak a little bit of
Pashtu, enough to bluff my way through a checkpoint,
so that if I'm driving or passing through your
village or eating in your restaurant you don't know
that I'm not a Pashtun.
ANDREW DENTON: Nonetheless, as you said, you speak a
bit of Pashtun, you don't speak fluent Arabic, I know
that. How vulnerable does this make you, Mike?
MICHAEL WARE: It means I must always have a
translator almost surgically attached to me, grafted
on to me. It's really my 'Jiminy Cricket' or alter
ego, I guess. I can't function without a translator.
I might be able to order tea but I mightn't be able
to ask for sugar in it. To do every little thing, I
need to have a translator with me, so that becomes an
integral part of your life. You've got a constant
shadow with you and they become integral to you.
You've either got to gel with this person and find a
real trust, because you and he - it's always a he -
are about to go to hell and back. That's always
guaranteed. So, you've really got to know who each
other is. It's quite a challenge.
ANDREW DENTON: Can you describe what hell and back
means?
MICHAEL WARE: It can be anything from disease... I've
had recently - a little while ago - I had typhoid,
for example, or it might just be in Afghanistan, I
was the proud home to a colony of rare parasite that
a team of experts in Australia congratulated
themselves on because they could only find reference
to it in out-of-date textbooks. So it can be anything
from that to being held hostage by Saddam's Fedayeen
militia, which happened to me during the war very
briefly, having a gun to your head, sitting in a room
with a group of people, having someone walk in and in
a language you don't understand ask for permission to
execute you. Then a debate goes on about the relative
merits of whacking you or not, and you don't learn
this until, or if, you walk out the room and your
translator decides to tell you about it.
The other thing is the American war machine. I don't
know how many times I've nearly been killed by the
Americans, be it from ordnance falling from the sky,
I've had a tank leap out of a ditch and ambush me,
I've had soldiers shooting at me. So, hell and back
can be all sorts of things. It's body and soul.
ANDREW DENTON: In amongst all this, you trust your
translator who hopefully is loyal, but how do you
know who else to trust? There must be a great degree
of instinct and guesswork?
MICHAEL WARE: There's a very simple rule about that,
Andrew. You trust no-one. People can turn on you in a
minute and it's very hard to see it coming. I mean,
you almost develop this intuitive sense, especially
when I'm out there - I'm out there in tiger country.
It's territory controlled by the other side, what the
military would call the enemy. Now, I'm completely at
their mercy, so the mood can change in the blink of
an eye, and across the cultural barriers, sometimes
it's hard to know just what different signals or body
language mean.
I had an incident just a few weeks ago with some of
the Iraqis who were involved in the kidnappings and
beheadings. Now, I'm with them. Suddenly, a flash
passed over this guy's face and he turned. Now, he
turned on my translator and I could have sworn I was
about to see my translator executed as some kind of
message to me. Now, that's how precarious it got. And
we very quickly had to move to diffuse it and all
that was was just a subtle hint in his voice and a
look in his eyes and then it was on, so that's what
it's about. It's kinda hard.
ANDREW DENTON: A few weeks ago you brought to the
world's attention tapes from the insurgents detailing
how they go about suicide bombings. We're going to
look at an excerpt of one of those now.
BLURRY FOOTAGE, COURTESY APTN, WITH MEN CHANTING IN
ARABIC, EMBRACING AND GETTING IN A TRUCK. EXPLOSIONS
RING OUT.
ANDREW DENTON: Mike, how did you come by these tapes?
MICHAEL WARE: They were brought to me by insurgent
sources. For a over a year I've been getting a
variety of tapes, pamphlets, materials. It's one of
the ways that I can learn about them, about what's
making them tick, how their moods are shifting, how
their designs, their tactics, their goals are
constantly being amended.
The most disturbing thing about that tape, though, is
that's essentially from al-Qa'ida. You've got Iraqi
fighters defending their homeland, you've also got
al-Qa'ida here fighting the global Jihad, the clash
of civilisations. That's who does those suicide
bombings, and that's who that tape is from. Now,
apart from the disturbing images, the most difficult
aspect of that whole experience for me is this - that
the al-Qa'ida central committee, the shura, the group
of leaders, physically sat around and discussed me by
name before they gave that to me. That's not entirely
comfortable, having al-Qa'ida talk about you
personally, weighing up your relative merits and then
deciding to hand you something very, very special, in
their eyes.
ANDREW DENTON: When you look at that young man who's
addressing the camera before going to kill himself,
is there something for you to be admired about a man
who can willingly face his death for his beliefs?
MICHAEL WARE: The important thing about what you're
illustrating here is about this commitment that you
see in the face of this guy and, in that tape, in the
face of many others. There's no negotiation here. I
mean, you can see it for yourself. These are
committed individuals. They're on a path and they do
not deviate from that path and they're not tempted
from it. And that's the mindset that we're dealing
with. That's what we've come here into Iraq and
stirred up. Now, I want my mum and dad, my family, my
friends and by extension, the public, to know that's
what we're up against. That's what we're facing.
That's what American GIs every day are dying from.
We've got to understand this and to understand that
it's not always pleasant, and you've got to look into
the face of it just like that young suicide bomber.
ANDREW DENTON: How do you possibly combat that, Mike?
MICHAEL WARE: The only way we can combat that, the
only way we can deal with really what the conflict
here in Iraq has become, is on the grand scale. We're
not going to stop the fighting in Iraq by addressing
it in Iraq. This is now the global Jihad that Osama
bin Laden inspired with September 11. This is what it
was all about. September 11 was the end of al-Qa'ida,
really, not the beginning. All he wanted to do was by
his 'great deeds' to his mind, open the Pandora's box
of Jihad and that's what's happened. That's Bali,
that's Madrid, that's now the insurgency here in
Iraq. You've not going do stop that in those
individual places. We've got to address the big
picture, the big Jihad - the big West and East. I
mean, something has started here that I think we're
going to be living with for a long, long time in many
forms. As one American intelligence officer said to
me, "I was telling my mum that this is a new Cold
War," he said, "and it's going to have its ebbs and
flows, high-intensity, low-intensity conflict, but
we're going to be living with this". From what I see,
that's nothing but right.
ANDREW DENTON: We read in our papers today, Mike, of
the Tawhid Islamic group threatening to bathe
Australia in pools of blood if we don't withdraw our
troops. Do you know anything about this group, and
should we take this threat seriously?
MICHAEL WARE: Firstly, take that threat very, very
seriously. Even if it's come from a bunch of yahoos
who don't have the capabilities to carry out a tenth
of what's they're threatening, it doesn't matter.
That sentiment expresses something very real. Trust
me. I mean, Australia now, particularly since our
Government's choice to involve us so publicly in the
war here in Iraq, much lesser degree with
Afghanistan... It's Iraq that has entered Australia
into the global Jihad lexicon. I mean everyone knows.
You ask them who is the coalition here - it's
America, it's Britain and it's Australia. People even
know John Howard's name. I see signs - "War
criminals, Bush, Blair, Howard". Osama bin Laden
himself has listed us as a legitimate target. When I
read their material coming out on the Net and
documents that I've retrieved from al-Qa'ida safe
houses, we're right up there. Have no fear. So if
these guys can't do it, there's others looking to.
Trust me on that.
Tawhid's an interesting name. The group that's here
in Iraq, led by the Jordanian terrorist, a former
intelligence officer by the name of al-Zaqawri, he's
been a fringe player for al-Qa'ida for a long time.
The Iraq war had made him the pin-up boy, the star.
He now rivals Osama. Well, his group, I hate to say
it is al-Tawhid. He formed that many years ago,
principally as a channel of funnelling men and
documents and communications between Europe and the
Middle East. Eventually that blossomed into
individual terrorist organisations, everywhere he
goes, wherever he sets up his new branch or version,
its name is a play on the word 'tawhid', which is
'unity' or 'unification'. In Iraq it's... (Speaks
Arabic) - 'unity in Jihad'. This new group concerns
me - this name - because it includes 'tawhid'. I
don't know anything specifically about them, but at
first blush, that suggests some kind of link to
Zaqawri and that's not a link that we should relish.
ANDREW DENTON: What precautions do you take against
being kidnapped, Mike?
MICHAEL WARE: Quite frankly, Andrew, there's not a
great deal you can do. I mean, I'm literally
surrendering myself to men who kidnap, and in two
cases, to men I know who have been involved in the
beheadings. There's certain things you can do, but it
only goes to an extent. It's all about calculation,
quite frankly. The big thing that I do is that I rely
on again coming back to understanding the environment
you're in, the culture here. In the Middle East, with
the Arab world, there's a true meaning of the word
'guest'. Hospitality is a very serious thing, so if
you invite me into your home, you're giving me your
cloak of protection, so even if your brother comes to
the house to kill me, you're honour-bound to defend
me. So, using the experience that I've gained, using
the contacts that I've developed, the fact that
people have come to know me and know that I play it
straight, then I can cultivate a situation where I
will get an invitation and that will get me into a
place where no other journalist can go and will get
me out.
The complicating factor now is the foreign al-Qa'ida
presence. I can be with an Iraqi group or Prince who
does protect me and shield me, but he can do nothing
against the foreign fighter al-Qa'ida presence. If
they walk in the room, I'm dead. So, it's a matter of
calculation, it's rolling the dice.
ANDREW DENTON: I've seen you referred to by some
journalists as a bit of a cowboy, an adrenaline
junkie, "the Steve Irwin of Baghdad" was one
description. How do you respond to that?
MICHAEL WARE: I don't bring my little boy here and
hang him out over the front of insurgents. I haven't
done that yet. Although, that might make a good
picture! But look, yeah, I cop a bit of that, but
I've got big shoulders. I mean, Philip Knightly, one
of the doyens of journalism and particularly conflict
writing, he said in every war someone inevitably
steps forward, one person steps up. Well, at the
moment, for better or for worse, maybe that's me. I
don't know. So there's bound to be some flak. And
there's a fundamental...I don't know, almost a
failing on the part of the press corps in general. I
mean, you can't report a war from your hotel room or
from the hotel bar, as much as I wish I could. You've
got to be out there.
ANDREW DENTON: You mentioned your mum before. I know
that you were on Sydney radio a couple of weeks ago
and your mum asked for a tape of it because she
hadn't heard a great deal from you. I know you're
dealing with a lot of fear despite the fact you're
smiling now. Is there a part of you that would like
to come home?
MICHAEL WARE: I mean, I guess, but...there's a lot of
things here. I mean, I think there's a job to be done
here. I think that it needs to be done well, because
this is the war of the 21st century and this is only
the beginning, so we've got to start getting into it
and learning about it now. And we as journalists have
to do this so someone's got to do it. Plus, sometimes
I get the feeling that not many of us journalists can
really do it. There's only a few of us prepared to go
that extra mile. Among that few I feel there's an
even greater responsibility. So I feel a kind of a
sense of wanting to be noble and wanky, a sense of
duty, to some degree.
But there is another element that you touched on. I
wouldn't call it the 'adrenaline junkie', but there's
something extraordinary about living your life in
conflict zones. I mean, you really see the best and
the worst of what humanity has to offer. I mean, it's
an extraordinary experience for me.
ANDREW DENTON: Just quickly Mike, we're nearly out of
satellite time. What would you like your family to
know?
MICHAEL WARE: That everything's safe. I'm in no
danger, Mum, and I'm staying in the hotel bar,
covering the story.
ANDREW DENTON: I hope that's all right, Mike, and
that you travel safely. Thanks for being with us
tonight.
MICHAEL WARE: Thank you very much Andrew. It was a
pleasure. Weird, but a pleasure.
ANDREW DENTON: (Laughs) Mike Ware, ladies and
gentlemen.