Journalist Charles Sennott

DATE November 18, 2003 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Charles Sennott discusses spending a month in Iraq
reporting on the war for The Boston Globe
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

My guest, journalist Charles Sennott, just spent a month in Iraq, a month
in which security deteriorated. Among the stories he covered were the downing
of a US Chinook helicopter, the rocket attack against the Al-Rasheed Hotel
where Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying, and a synchronized
attack by suicide bombers that struck the Red Cross headquarters and three
police stations. It was Sennott's first trip to Iraq since covering the war.
We invited him to talk with us about what he observed there. Now he's back
home in London, where he works as The Boston Globe's London bureau chief. A
little later, we'll talk about President Bush's visit. This morning, I asked
Sennott if he was expecting that so much of his time in Iraq would be devoted
to covering attacks by the insurgents.

Mr. CHARLES SENNOTT (Journalist): Well, I think things shifted while I was
there. When I first arrived, there was some discussion, you know, among the
media about whether or not we were being unfair to the US-led occupation, if
we only kept writing the bad news. So there was almost a certain amount of
pressure out of Washington on the media to write the good news, and I think
something happened in mid-October that you could feel this shift in the air.
It really became much more ominous. The opposition there, the insurgents
became much more menacing. They really stepped up their attacks, and it, of
course, began with this attack on the Al-Rasheed Hotel, where Deputy Secretary
of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was staying at the time, and this was a pretty
well-orchestrated, sophisticated attack. It involved a multiple rocket
launcher, if everyone remembers that. And suddenly, all of these missiles
began bombarding the Al-Rasheed Hotel, which is kind of the heart of American
power, and it killed a soldier on the 12th floor really just a few yards below
the room where Wolfowitz was staying on the 13th floor.

So there was this sudden sense of they are going to try to really strike at
American power in Baghdad, and I think from that point on, that became what
the story was about, and I really found myself running on the escalation in
attacks and the deteriorating security situation.

GROSS: You had mentioned that there had been pressure from the Bush
administration on the press to put a more positive interpretation on the story
of the US presence there. Is that pressure you felt directly at any point?

Mr. SENNOTT: I don't think you feel it directly, but I think you factor it
in. You wonder, you know, are we being fair here? It takes you a while to
get your feet on the ground, to understand the story, and you kind of talk to
your colleagues who have been there. And what I kept hearing is everyone
saying, `It's really bad here,' and that so contravened the message coming out
of Washington that you had to kind of walk your editors through understanding
just what it felt like on the ground, just how dangerous the central part of
the country, the so-called Sunni triangle, in Iraq--just how dangerous that
was and how much the security situation was deteriorating and how rapidly it
was deteriorating.

GROSS: Why don't you walk us through that?

Mr. SENNOTT: Well, I mean, one of the scenes that I think is the most
memorable for me was having lunch in the palace, the palace that Saddam built
during his reign that is now the headquarters for the US-led occupation. It's
where Bremer lives on the grounds there. It's where many of those chief
administrators in the occupation live. And I was invited into the palace for
a lunch, and this was really unbelievable for me to see. As a reporter who'd
covered Iraq, you used to look at this palace from a distance and imagine
Saddam in there. And for me anyway, it was the first time coming into this
very opulent palace where I was invited by a very senior official in the
Coalition Provisional Authority, the CPA, the head of the occupation.

And we sat down in this beautiful dining room with crystal chandeliers and
marble and marble mosaics tiled all over the walls, telling the history and
grandeur of Iraq, and a lot of kind of pictures of Scud missiles, for example,
on the wall, but it's tremendously opulent and it's so Baathist, and you're
right in the heart of the Saddam era of extravagance, and here, of course, is
the American-led coalition. And we kind of all lined up for food with
American soldiers in fatigues and American contractors from the Halliburton
subsidiary, KBR, and the guys from Bechtel, these two big American companies
with huge contracts there, and everyone seems to be wearing cowboy boots and
baseball hats, and you really feel the presence of the American empire here in
Iraq.

And during this lunch, in this very nice air-conditioned palace, the official
from the CPA kept telling me how great this occupation was going. And this,
of course, was the message coming from Paul Bremer, who's the head of the
occupation in Iraq. And the message was so on for them. They kept hammering
away at the schools they're building, at the amount of money that they're
pumping into the local economy, and how they feel the people are really, you
know, receiving this warmly. And, of course, while I'm talking to him, I'm
trying to square that with what I felt on the street, which is completely
different and really a much darker picture. And literally, I was being
text-messaged during the lunch about the downing of a Chinook helicopter near
Fallujah, and every time I checked my text message, the death toll went up.
At first, it was several dead; then it was 10 dead; and then it was 15 dead;
and then it was more than 15 American soldiers killed in the downing of the
Chinook.

And finally, I had to say to this senior official, `You know, I have to go.'
And when I left the palace and went to this small village outside of Fallujah
to see the wreckage of the downed Chinook and all of the villagers cheering
for this and really supporting it, you really began to experience in a very
physical, tangible way this huge gap between the US-led occupation and the
administrators who carry it out--what they're saying and what was happening on
the ground.

GROSS: Well, you know, in talking about that contrast between the message
that you're getting from the Provisional Authority and from the Bush
administration and the reality that you felt you were witnessing in Baghdad,
after the Al-Rasheed Hotel in which Wolfowitz was staying was under missile
attack, he held a press conference in which he said, `Well, you know, the
mission is really going well.' What was it like to be at that press
conference hearing him stating--you know, describing how well the mission was
going after the hotel he was in was under attack?

Mr. SENNOTT: That was a very hastily called press conference that I was not
invited to because it was really only for those reporters who were traveling
with him. It was really only the Defense correspondents who get to go to
those nice cozy little briefings. Those of us in the field don't always get
the word that they're happening, which always makes me very interested because
we never get to ask the questions we want to ask. But that was, you know,
called really at the last second just to show that he was alive, I think, and
watching that press conference, it was very obvious that Wolfowitz was visibly
very shaken.

And, you know, here was the architect of the war in Iraq, someone who had been
putting together the policies that would lead to a war in Iraq, even before
9/11 happened, and then to see this war come that close to him personally, I
thought, was a very important moment in understanding US policy in Iraq, and
to hear him defending the US-led occupation, even when it's coming straight at
him personally I think really crystalized, you know, as I say, this gap that
was there between what Washington had been saying and what was happening on
the ground. I think that Washington recently has recognized that gap, and I
think they're now really trying to react to the situation and the reality of
what it is, rather than what they had hoped it would be.

GROSS: What hotel did you stay in and how safe did you feel there?

Mr. SENNOTT: Well, we were staying in the Al Hamra Hotel, which is not too
far from the Al-Rasheed Hotel. You can see the Al-Rasheed from my room, which
was on the sixth floor of the Al Hamra Hotel. The Al Hamra Hotel was a
uniquely precarious spot, frankly, to be because we had very specific warnings
that members of the coalition found to be credible that the hotel was going to
be attacked, and so a lot of us, including myself, ended up fleeing this
hotel and seeking shelter elsewhere until the security situation could be
really assessed, until we could actually have more blast walls, as they're
called, put in to protect the hotel from a car bomb, to have these private
security forces that a lot of media organizations are hiring, really reassess
security there, rethink how they're going to patrol the perimeter, and we had
to all kind of factor in, in our own heads, whether or not we felt comfortable
going back there.

So a lot of us are still tossing about about how we're going to work there.
Should we be in hotels? Is there safety in numbers? Should you get with some
kind of protective force behind blast walls? Or should we be in houses, in
neighborhoods with a much lower profile on our own, you know, maybe with a
bodyguard, as many people in Iraq, not just Westerners, have bodyguards, and
try to operate that way. But I think all of it, when you get out of there and
you step back for a minute, raises some pretty interesting questions just
about kind of how the fortress America idea is also beginning to invade our
work as journalists. That sense that we were somehow immune to covering these
conflicts has been vanishing for quite a while, but I think in Iraq right now,
you really feel so vulnerable as an American journalist, as really any Western
journalist, and all of that was really crystalized in our hotel in particular,
the Al Hamra.

GROSS: So did you stay at the homes of Iraqis when you left the hotel?

Mr. SENNOTT: I did. I stayed several nights with a translator friend of the
Al Jabouri Tribe and was able to have iftar with him, or to celebrate the
breaking of the fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, all of which is,
you know, part of being there and part of trying to understand the story, and
that was very worthwhile. I also had a generous invitation from ABC News to
stay with them for a while, and they had a much lower profile set of buildings
that they had set up their headquarters in. So colleagues look out for each
other. There's a pretty good spirit of working together, and that's what I
did. And then I eventually did go back to the Al Hamra because I felt like it
was safer. I don't know. It was an assessment that you had to make, and I
felt OK being there, but a lot of journalists I know did leave that hotel and
are not returning.

GROSS: My guest is Charles Sennott, The Boston Globe's London bureau chief.
He just returned from a month in Iraq. We'll talk more after a break. This
is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest is Charles Sennott. He's the London bureau chief for The
Boston Globe. He covered the war in Iraq for The Globe, and he just spent a
month back in Iraq. He returned last Friday.

The Bush administration is trying to speed up the movement toward Iraqi
sovereignty. The Bush administration is now saying that it might restore
Iraqi independence as early as next June. How is that changing the plans for
how much of the democratic process will be in place at the time Iraq assumes
sovereignty again?

Mr. SENNOTT: Well, what they're talking about is really accelerating the
process pretty dramatically. Originally, the US administration's plan was to
take a slow approach, to begin building the institutions that would help them
have a transition to a sovereign democratic country, to create a kind of
council that could advise the coalition as they went ahead with writing a
constitution, conducting a census, and then having an election that would put
in place a internationally recognized government of Iraq, and then that would
lead to the transition and the handover.

I think really during my time there in the last month, we saw, you know, as I
say, this incredible deterioration of the security situation, and Washington
reacted. On my last day there, they called back Paul Bremer, the head of the
US-led occupation, to Washington, and they kind of rewrote the book, and they
decided that what they were going to do is actually try to find a way to put a
recognized government that could be put in place and have authority over the
government, if not sovereignty, immediately, and hopefully get a recognized
body in there up front. And now they're talking about doing that by June.
And then write the constitution, do the census and have an election later.

I think the recognition was that it's taking too long. There was great
frustration in Washington with how slow the Governing Council, the 25 members
who were appointed by Washington, were taking, and just how cumbersome that
whole council had become. And so they reacted, I think, pretty quickly and
they've really tried to reorder, reprioritize, and they're really going to try
to push ahead with that now. Whether or not this is really going to work,
whether or not they're going to make it by June is going to be something to
really watch in the next few months.

GROSS: Critics of that course are saying that it's the Bush administration
preparing for the next election and that democracy is a slow process, and
there's the possibility that if the American and British presence pull out on
the early side, that we will leave chaos behind us, chaos and anarchy that
will become more of a breeding ground for terrorists and that democracy will
be less likely to take root because of the possibility that there wasn't a
firm foundation built for it.

Mr. SENNOTT: Yeah.

GROSS: That's what the critics are saying.

Mr. SENNOTT: Right. I mean, I think the opponents see it as an exit
strategy, and I think they see it as turning and running from the
responsibilities that came with invading that country. And I think critics
would say, `Look, you had a policy which was to unilaterally act to invade
Iraq. Yes, you brought a pseudo-coalition along with you, but you defied the
United Nations and you went ahead with your invasion of Iraq, and you did so
without a solid plan of how you would implement the democracy you hoped would
be built there in Iraq, and you've left a real period of chaos and a real
vacuum of power and a real mess, frankly, in which a lot of Iraqi civilians
are dying and a lot of American and other coalition member's soldiers are
dying.'

And the critics are saying, `Now you're talking about this exit strategy and
running,' and I think that is a very valid criticism, but I think it may be
premature. I think we're going to really have to see how they parse this out,
how they go at it, and how it coincides, as you point out very accurately,
with domestic politics, with George Bush's looming election.

GROSS: I don't know if the press is allowed into this, but were you able to
sit in on any of the Governing Council's meetings?

Mr. SENNOTT: Not their meetings, but we were able to go to many press
conferences, and I found them really interesting. I went to these a lot, and
I often found myself with only a handful of other American reporters. A lot
of times, it was kind of viewed as a waste of time, I think, by some other
reporters who had been there a while and who had grown frustrated with this
incredibly cumbersome body of 25 people from every different aspect of Iraqi
life, but I found it kind of fascinating to watch the mix, to hear the
conversations, to see them trying to put out this message and to hear the
vying constituencies essentially in Iraq, to hear the Shiite message coming
from Hakim and then to hear the message coming from the Communist Party,
for example, within Iraq. Or then hearing kind of the Reform Monarchy
Party(ph) putting in its two cents and then just watching this whole soup that
is still cooking in Iraq and it's going to have to somehow form a government.

And there were moments of realization there that this is going to be very
difficult. And there were kind of, I think, exciting moments of recognizing
that this really is the stirrings of something new in Iraq. And having been
to Iraq a lot before the war, and seeing the way the Shiite population was
treated, the way the Kurdish population was treated, to know the oppression
that was there and to see this opening up to them to take part in a government,
albeit one appointed by the coalition, was pretty exciting actually.

GROSS: So there are representatives on the Governing Council who are
representing parts of the population that had been very oppressed under Saddam
Hussein. Do you think those representatives are acting on those principles of
freedom that they have now or do you think that there's a degree of kind of
vengeance or, you know, group self-interest that's kind of dominating the
direction they're heading in?

Mr. SENNOTT: I think group self-interest is a real issue in Iraq. I think
it's really what drives all of the sides. I still think there is a tribalism
in Iraq that we need to understand really well in America if we're going to
play any role in helping them build a democracy. And kind of looking at that
honestly and clearly and saying that the Shiite majority in Iraq has long been
oppressed and really sees this as its moment to gain power, to really exert
itself. And they are pushing in that direction very strongly.

The Sunni minority, which has always been the group from which Saddam Hussein
drew his most loyal support, is hugely concerned, worried and reacting to
this, and the Kurdish minority from the north has different concerns. They
see this as a possibility to continue their experiment in a pseudo-sovereign
state in the north that they call Kurdistan and that they want to continue to
foster, to build and to really push forward. Because they've very proud of
what they've accomplished when they were protected in the no-fly zone in the
north and built their own little pseudo-sovereign state.

So each of these groups have very different agendas and I think we're going to
have to be very clear on who they are, what they want and Washington's going
to have to pay close attention to that if it's really going to make some kind
of democracy work. Because after all, if you really just went on a purely
democratic basis right now, I think you would see a Shiite in power. And I
think there are a lot of people in the Sunni and in the Kurdish populations,
and even in the secular--the kind of vast secular majority that would make up
Iraq. You'll see concerns about that because there is a voice that would
express concern about the imposition of Shariah or Islamic law. Certainly
Shariah will form the basis of Iraq's law as Shariah forms the basic laws of
most of the countries in the Muslim world. But I think people fear an overly
puritanical interpretation of that could rise out of this, even democratically
rise out of this. And how all of this is going to be balanced is one of the
really great questions for the future in Iraq.

GROSS: Charles Sennott is The Boston Globe's London bureau chief. He just
returned from a month in Iraq. He'll be back in the second half of the show.

I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

GROSS: Coming up, President Bush's popularity or lack of it in England. We
continue our conversation with Charles Sennott, London bureau chief of The
Boston Globe. He recently returned from Iraq; it was his first time back
since covering the war.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'M Terry Gross.

Back with journalist Charles Sennott. He just spent a month in Iraq. It was
his first trip back since covering the war. He spoke with me this morning
from the BBC in London. Sennott is The Boston Globe's London bureau chief.
We'll talk about President Bush's visit to London after we hear more about
Iraq.

What's security like in the streets? Did you have any close calls in the
streets?

Mr. SENNOTT: We had no close calls on the street, although the day when the
International Red Cross building was bombed was a uniquely frightening day in
the sense that we were covering one bombing and then we could hear the
sequence of the three other bombings that all happened within 45 minutes. So
there was a sense of bombings going on all around you.

I've covered a lot of bombings, having reported in Israel and in the West Bank
and in Gaza. And, you know, we're sadly way too used to covering bombings,
for those of us who've covered the Middle East. But this one had a uniquely
horrifying aspect to it in that you felt like you were in the middle of it and
it was happening around you. And so that was probably the closest call on the
street.

Frankly, the other real, you know, fear you have on the street is being shot
by American soldiers. These are young soldiers who are manning checkpoints,
who are in tanks with .50-caliber machine guns which are very, very powerful,
heavy-caliber guns. And their fingers are on the trigger, whether they're in
the stationary positions at checkpoints or they're in the armored Humvees
cruising down the streets of Baghdad through very crowded marketplaces where
you may just be out, you know, changing some money or even shopping, or just
walking around with translators trying to understand how people feel on the
street. And there were, I have to say, many moments when you feel those guns
quickly turn in your direction that are very frightening. And, sadly, a lot
of Iraqi civilians have been killed when soldiers have overreacted at times to
the threat around them.

So that is another side of the threat that you feel and that, frankly, a lot
of Iraqi citizens feel when they're walking through the streets. And I think
it has something to do with the growing alienation that I heard among Iraqis
from the US occupying forces.

GROSS: Are you critical of the US military's approach to dealing with
security in postwar Iraq? Or do you think it's the situation itself, an
impossible situation, that is leading to these close calls?

Mr. SENNOTT: I think it's a really complicated equation that you really have
to look at in different parts. And I think the US military has many different
personalities, frankly. It can go from division to division.

For example, I was with the 101st Airborne Division in northern Iraq, where
they are taking a very sophisticated approach in terms of working with the
community, building schools, meeting with the tribal leaders, meeting with the
Muslim clerics in the mosques, really reaching out to the community, really
doing a lot of creative, dynamic things. And in the north, the 101st Airborne
Division is led by a very enlightened general who is a smart guy, who's taking
a different approach and who's actually had great success up there.

Then you can go to the 82nd Airborne in the areas more closer to Baghdad, in
the heart of the Sunni triangle, and there you see a much more confrontational
approach. Now it's true that they also have a much higher number of
insurgents to deal with essentially. So they are, of course, more tense and,
of course, more quick to react. But I do think there's also something about
the personality that I learned about from being with a lot of the different
soldiers. They're aware of this. They know the 101st Airborne Division has a
different personality than 82nd. And there's a sense that I learned about,
which is, hey, the American military is a place that has different
personalities. Some are overreacting and some I would criticize. Some seem
to be doing a pretty good job and are really more comfortable in the role of
policing.

One of the other interesting comparisons was to go down to the south, where
the British soldiers are policing in Basra. And there we saw the British
soldiers had a very different approach. These are regiments who understand
their regimental histories in colonial Britain. They understand that their
regiment was, in fact, there in southern Iraq during World War I. They know
the history of the 1920 revolt and the mistakes that the military made in
that. And there's a real sense in the British army of having a history of
empire, having a history of occupation, of colonial expeditions or
enforcements of occupations. Not all of it really heartwarming stuff. They
have good and bad elements to that. Certainly their experience in Northern
Ireland was very instructive for them. When they used too many strong-armed
tactics, it really backfired on them. So the British brought a sophistication
to it that I thought was interesting to compare with the American forces.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Charles Sennott. He's the
London bureau chief for The Boston Globe. He covered the war in Iraq for The
Globe and he just spent a month back in Iraq. He returned on Friday.

Let's take a short break here, and then we'll talk some more. This is FRESH
AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest is Charles Sennott. He's the London bureau chief for The
Boston Globe. He covered the war in Iraq for The Globe and he just returned
to Iraq for a month. He came back to London last Friday.

What about the presence of Iraqi soldiers or police? Do you see much of that
presence in the streets?

Mr. SENNOTT: Increasingly, you do. And the coalition forces are training
them as quickly as they can to get them out on the street and that is a very,
very important development that really, from everything we were hearing, can't
happen quickly enough. You're beginning to see a kind of perimeter force of
Iraqi military and police around different buildings, around even military
installations now. You'll start to see more and more Iraqi soldiers out
there. But the United States government, as the leadership of the coalition,
decided to go very slowly and really dismantled the Iraqi army.

And I heard from a lot of Iraqi people--politicians, soldiers, people who were
in the old regime, people who were in the underground that lived abroad that
was really opposed to the regime--all these different people would--all of
them--say that they really believed America miscalculated on the Iraqi army.
That the Iraqi army has a very proud tradition that would go back many
generations, at least 75 years. And that the Iraqi people are proud of their
army. And that for America to completely dismantle it was a tactical mistake
and a cultural mistake. And I think it's interesting now, as I say, to see
Washington trying to react to that, to rethink and to respond.

GROSS: How much of a responsibility are Iraqi troops and police taking for
dealing with insurgents who are operating against the US presence?

Mr. SENNOTT: There's huge frustration about that among the Iraqi police that
they are not playing an active enough role. We heard this repeatedly from the
Governing Council leadership, across the spectrum, and also from those who I
interviewed who are police working on different cases. They feel they have a
lot to add, that they have a lot of security information, that they keep
giving it to the US government or to the US military and that that information
is not acted upon. And they feel that America is making a huge mistake in not
relying on them more.

America's recognition recently seems to be that, yeah, they're admitting, they
do need to involve the Iraqi authorities more in going after who these people
are, who is this opposition, trying to understand it. And I think you're
going to see more and more that Washington is going to try to now listen to
that criticism and try to rely more on the Iraqi police and authorities who
understand who this enemy is, who are these loyalists, who are the foreign
fighters who have come into the country, and to what extent is there an
element that is neither loyal to Saddam nor a foreign fighter, nor an Islamic
militant but a frustrated ex-soldier who really wants to end the occupation of
his country. And I think they're going to have to rely on Iraqis to get a
more deeper, and more complicated understanding of that. And I think to some
extent the Bush administration has recognized that in the last week or so.

GROSS: We've been hearing a lot about American casualties in Iraq. Did you
get a sense of whether there are many Iraqi casualties in Iraq now?

Mr. SENNOTT: Yeah. It's one of the more disturbing things to do in Baghdad
is to go to the local hospitals where Iraqi civilians are filling up the
emergency wards with wounds, many of them from being caught in cross-fire or
perhaps being involved in some situation where American forces may have
overreacted and may have opened fire at a checkpoint and, you know, there are
innocent civilians who are wounded and, of course, the US administration has
been very apologetic about these incidents. But they are happening and they
are there. Also, there are a lot of wounded from a sense of a lack of law and
order. I mean, there's a real attitude of wanting to even scores out there.
And that is taking place on the street on every level, from families that may
have a feud to some kind of tribal fighting that's erupted on the streets, to
people who were really oppressed by Saddam's regime may be out actually
killing ex-Baathists. We've seen at least eight murders of former Mukhabarat
or security officers under Saddam's regime.

So there's this sense of a real bloodbath in the streets and a lawlessness
that is not only really tragic to see when you go to the hospitals but it's
not well-documented. The US-led coalition is not counting the deaths of
Iraqis, not police nor civilians. And a lot of the human rights workers who I
spoke with in Iraq are concerned about that. They feel that if the United
States is going to be an occupying power, that they should be taking the
responsibility to, at a minimum, keep an accounting of the extent to which
civilian Iraqis and Iraqis who are serving in the police or other protective
forces--to what extent they're being killed and injured as well, not just the
American troops or the coalition troops.

GROSS: Charles, you're researching now a magazine piece on empire--the
history of empire in Iraq, focusing on the history of the British empire in
Iraq in the first half of the 20th century. Is there a scene--I know you
spent a lot of time in Iraq researching that piece. Is there a scene that
stands out in your mind of something that you witnessed or learned that has a
parallel to what the US and the United States is facing now in Iraq?

Mr. SENNOTT: One of the most interesting scenes I had in Iraq was actually
going to a course at one of the great and famous universities in Baghdad where
the students were learning their lessons about the British occupation during
and after World War I in Iraq. And I got to go to this university several
times when I was in Iraq before the war, many, many years ago. And I was
always frustrated that I could never get to really talk to the students
because so many of the university professors were Baathists. One of the
things Saddam had done is really keep a tight hold on the universities, almost
like thought police that could keep the students understanding the Baathist
message that Saddam wanted delivered. And anyone who would try to question
that or anyone who would try to undermine that would really put themselves at
great risk and they could easily be imprisoned.

So I very rarely was able to have a candid conversation with any Iraqi student
on this university. So when I got to go back and meet with a lot of
the--interestingly some of the same university professors, there was this new
sense of openness; they could finally talk. And that was really thrilling.
But when I went to this one university professor who was teaching the modern
history of Iraq, specifically the British occupation, he was an ex-Baathist
who had not somehow been rooted out in the purge of the Baathist professors
that had happened. And he basically began to give me a real Baathist rant.
And I was surprised to hear it, but he invited me to go to his university
class and to listen to his lecture, which I did. And I sat in the back with
my translator who gave me simultaneous translation and we heard him try to
teach this very heavy-handed history of British occupation and to keep making
the comparison that the British made promises that were broken and didn't
America do the same thing when they arrived.

And he--just hammering this message about how the British occupation was no
different than the American occupation. The proud Iraqi history was to throw
the British out of this country; `We'll do the same thing with the Americans.'
But what fascinated me was the students didn't want to talk about that and
they kept challenging this man about his past. And one of the most really
thrilling moments I heard was when this professor said, `History has sides and
during history you have to choose sides.' And his message obviously was, `You
should choose the side that's fighting against the American occupation,'
because everyone remembers those who sided with the British and didn't fight
the occupation.

But there was a student who stood up and turned it around and said, `You know,
you're right, history has sides, and you chose the side of Saddam Hussein.'
And the class just erupted into chaos and everyone started yelling. The
professor lost control of the students and they were essentially confronting
their past--a much more immediate past than the history lesson was about. But
it was a really revealing and wonderful moment to see the students essentially
confront this.

And the class broke down. I mean, it fell apart. The professor essentially
had to leave and some of the students stayed afterwards and wanted to talk to
me. And I thought what they had to say after the class was an even more
important truth than what they were saying during the class in challenging
this Baathist professor.

GROSS: What did they have to say?

Mr. SENNOTT: Well, it was a lot of different perspectives. A lot of them
felt that they were glad that I was there, that I could see that. And to some
extent I wondered if they were not playing this up for me, which is always a
concern you have as a journalist. You become, I guess, participant observer
on some level. But I think there was a core of truth to that which was that
they wanted to directly confront Saddam's regime and express their loathing
for it and how it was embodied in this professor. But there was something
else that they wanted me to understand, which is that they did not like
American occupation. They really wanted me to understand that, yes, this
professor is right, that the British came here for oil and America came here
for oil; that the British came with promises and America came with promises;
that the British broke those promises and the Americans are on their way to
breaking those promises; that the British occupation stayed too long and that
the American occupation is staying too long.

But then they basically kind of reveal what I think is the most complicated
reality of Iraq and it is really the essence of everything I heard on the
street, which is, `Yes, they want this occupation out, but not quite yet.'
And essentially you have a sense that the clock is ticking, that there is this
hour glass on the American occupation and that these students are watching
that sand come down very closely and they want it to end very soon.

GROSS: My guest is journalist Charles Sennott. He just spent a month in
Iraq. He's the London bureau chief for The Boston Globe. We'll talk about
British public opinion of President Bush after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest is Charles Sennott, The Boston Globe's London bureau chief.

Before our time runs out, I want to ask you, now that you're back in London,
what it's like to be there now as London prepares for the meeting between
President Bush and Prime Minister Blair on Thursday. It sounds--from reports
we're getting here in the States, it sounds like there's an incredible
security presence now in London.

Mr. SENNOTT: It is a very stepped-up security presence for London. But, you
know, coming from New York, it seems almost quaint. You know, 14,000 police
and they have 2,000 of them who have guns. And you kind of--as an American
you kind of think there's something quaint about this. It is a huge security
presence for the British public, but I think Americans would not be that
surprised. It would feel like any normal presidential visit to any city in
America, except here it's a culture that's not used to this kind of fortress
mentality and it's really interesting to watch the British react to that and
to try to understand just what will Bush's welcoming be here. There are a lot
of questions about how he'll be received.

GROSS: What's it been like for you to go back and forth between covering the
war and its aftermath in Iraq and then, you know, covering London and, in
part, covering the Blair government and seeing how they're responding to
what's happening in Iraq?

Mr. SENNOTT: It's been an interesting vantage point, really, to view the
Transatlantic Alliance throughout the war in Iraq, both before the war when I
was going to the demonstrations where a million people came out in the streets
in London, the largest demonstration even in the history of the country to
protest this war and to really, I think, to protest Bush. I think there's a
real personal level at which they oppose this man and that's often
misinterpreted as anti-Americanism. I think it's really directed on a very
personal level against Bush.

It's also been interesting to watch the British public and the British
Parliament really want to see a deep probing of what some would call lies,
what you'd have to call exaggerations of intelligence that were used to get
this country to go to war. I think the British public really feel like they
were sold this war through exaggerations and through half-truths and through
lies. And a lot of the inquiries and investigations that have come out about
that in the British public have been so much more vital, so much more
productive, I think it would be fair to say, than those in Washington which
seem to be there. And there are some kind of procedural investigations that
are going on, but it doesn't seem to have the traction; the criticism of the
war doesn't seem to be strong enough, perhaps, in Washington to really push
these inquiries to break open the story. It's been interesting to see that
here.

GROSS: When you call those investigations `productive,' what do you mean?

Mr. SENNOTT: I think there's a dialogue here that people want to bring Blair
to task for exaggerating the threat that Iraq had towards this country and
towards the West and towards America. There's a sense that they want to say,
`Look, you exaggerated this threat and some would say you did so knowingly and
you should be brought to task for that because we feel this war was unjust and
you tried to fabricate an immediacy of the threat that just isn't there.' And
so there's a sense the British public really wants answers on this. They
really want to review the history and they want to look very closely at it.
Now we don't know exactly where the conclusions of these inquiries will come
out, but it's widely expected that they'll be quite damaging to Blair. And I
think that's what I mean by productive. I mean, there is a healthy
examination of this war going on in this country that seems to have a
different volume level than the examination that's gone on in Washington.

GROSS: How are you preparing to cover President Bush's meeting with Tony
Blair?

Mr. SENNOTT: Well, I'm trying to understand how the British public feel about
this guy, because there is this real split personality I think here and I
think it's very interesting and I think it is kind of the core of
understanding the visit. Because if you read the polls that are done by the
European Union, kind of Europewide polls, they're very critical of Bush.
There was one that came out last week that looked at which world leaders pose
the greatest threat to world peace and, in this poll, the 7,000 people in
Europe who are interviewed felt that George Bush was tied with Kim Jong Il as
number two in posing a threat to world peace, which is pretty shrill
anti-Americanism and pretty hard to fathom. Number one in that poll was the
Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon.

There was a poll that was produced by The Guardian which is done by a polling
agency here called ICM. The Guardian is a very liberal left-leaning
newspaper. And it actually came out with this surprising results of a poll
that indicate a great support for Bush and his visit here. It found that 62
percent of voters believe that the US is, quote, "generally speaking, a force
for good, not evil, in the world," and that only 15 percent of British voters
agree with the idea that America is the, quote, "evil empire in the world."
It also found that a majority--43 percent--say they welcome George Bush's
arrival in Britain. And that only 36 percent would say they prefer he did not
come.

So I think in a way, Bush's visit is going to bring out a very important
debate, and one that I think is the real cutting edge of understanding how the
world views Bush because he's widely supported as the American leader here and
welcomed, yet they want to say, `We're really worried about the policies at
hand and about the way you have conducted yourself as the leader of the
American public.' Not only on the war in Iraq, but in terms of the steel
tariffs that were imposed, Kyoto, Guantanamo. The list is long to try to
expose, I think, the truths that the British public feel. That is, this is a
unilateral presidency and they're very worried about Bush personally, and
that's not to be confused with anti-Americanism.

GROSS: Well, Charles Sennott, thank you so much for talking with us.

Mr. SENNOTT: Thank you.

GROSS: Charles Sennott is the London bureau chief for The Boston Globe.

(Credits)

GROSS: I'm Terry Gross. We'll close with Don Gibson's recording of his own
song, "Oh, Lonesome Me." Gibson died yesterday at the age of 75. He also
wrote the songs "I Can't Stop Loving You," which Ray Charles made famous, and
"Sweet Dreams," which Patsy Cline recorded. Gibson recorded this hit in 1958.

(Soundbite of "Oh, Lonesome Me")

Mr. DON GIBSON: (Singing) Everybody's going out and having fun, I'm just a
fool for staying home and having none. I can't get over how she set me free.
Oh, lonesome me. A bad mistake I'm making by just hanging around.

Back-up Singers: (In unison) Hanging around.

Mr. GIBSON: (Singing) I know that I should have some fun and paint the town.

Back-up Singers: (In unison) Paint the town.

Mr. GIBSON: (Singing) A love sick fool that's blind and just can't see. Oh,
lonesome me. I bet she's not like me.

Back-up Singers: (In unison) Not like me.

Mr. GIBSON: (Singing) She's out and fancy free. She's flirtin' with the
boys with all her charms. I still love her so.

Back-up Singers: (In unison) Love her so.

Mr. GIBSON: (Singing) And brother don't you know.

Back-up Singers: (In unison) Don't you know.

Mr. GIBSON: (Singing) I'd welcome her right back here in my arms. There
must be some way I can lose these lonesome blues.

Back-up Singers: (In unison) Lonesome blues.

Mr. GIBSON: (Singing) Forget about the past and find...

Mr. GIBSON and Back-up Singers: ...somebody new.

Mr. GIBSON: (Singing) I've thought of everything from A to Z. Oh, lonesome
me. I bet she's not like me.

Back-up Singers: (In unison) Not like me.

Mr. GIBSON: (Singing) She's out and fancy free.

Back-up Singers: (In unison) Fancy free.

Mr. GIBSON: (Singing) She's flirtin' with the boys with all her charm. I
still love her so...

Back-up Singers: (In unison) Love her so.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.

Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.