Part of a continuing series about the life of an embedded reporter in Iraq.
FALLUJAH, IRAQ — The curfew had not yet come into effect, but the streets were already deserted, the darkened windows of buildings staring vacantly into the night. We were on night patrol, rolling through the streets of Fallujah with two 7-ton trucks and a few Humvees, waiting for something, or someone, to show itself.
The only sign of life I saw was an occasional brand-new Iraqi Police truck, invariably parked off to the side of the road, lights flashing. In a telling sign, each time we would roll by, at least one Marine would train his gun on the police vehicle until we passed.
Curfew in Fallujah falls at 11 p.m. each night, after which anyone found out on the street is considered a target. But the city is so dangerous that after nightfall, few venture out; with the Marines making random, quick-strike forays into town, and criminals and insurgents on the prowl, residents have long since learned to stay indoors.
The troops were ready to go as soon as we left the barbed-wire gate at the rail station. We stopped a few blocks into the city to pick up some Iraqi soldiers for the patrol; and one of them tried to frisk a Marine before he entered their post. The Marine brushed him off and walked on by, and a couple of the guys laughed. We waited while the Iraqis took their time getting ready, which didn’t endear them to the Marines sitting around me in the open back truck. The guys stayed alert however; any time a car happened to drive by on one of the side streets, the Marines trained their weapons on it until it passed from view.
In Iraq, everyone and everything is a threat.
After setting off and weaving through the empty streets, we came up on a large corner house which had been selected beforehand for a search, and unloaded from the trucks. One Marine told me to hold back, so he and I crossed the street and flattened ourselves against a wall as the troops entered the house’s walled-in front yard, and others set up a perimeter on the street.
A few seconds later they were in, and we ran across the street to follow. The owner, a stern-looking man who looked to be in his late 40s, appeared resigned to the fact that his house was overrun with Marines, and seemed to know the drill: call his family into the living room, while the soldiers searched the rooms of the three-story house. His wife and children (about 5 or 6 kids in total, ranging from teenagers to small children) quickly gathered, with the women covering their heads, and sat on the couches to wait. I headed upstairs with a couple of the Marines, trying not to get in their way as they quickly looked through the rooms, and then followed them to the roof.
It was only once I got to the roof that I could see just how dark the city was. At street level, it was hard to get a sense of things as we sped through the deserted city, but up here I could see the vague silhouettes of buildings stretching in every direction, with the only light coming from houses that had gas generators. Public electricity is little more than a dream in Fallujah, with power being out most of the time, so most people use generators to light their homes. In the distance, a mosque’s minaret was lit brightly, standing as the only truly discernable structure in the city.
We could hear occasional gunfire off in the distance, and the Marines took up positions on the roof overlooking the street below on one side and the neighborhood’s rooftops on the other. One of them gave me his night vision goggles to look through, but even with those, I didn’t see anyone on the street other than Marines. We waited up there for a bit, and the guys trained their guns on anyone they saw peak out of a doorway or walk into their front yard below.
Heading back down, we found a couple Marines sitting in the living room with the house’s owners, as if they were neighbors who had dropped in for a chat. As the Marines got up from the couch to leave, one of them turned to me and pointed at the homeowner, saying, “This guy says he doesn’t like Marines, and he likes Saddam.” He turned to look at the man in disgust. “You shoulda been down here,” he said to me. “This is where the real story was. This guy.”
The Iraqi looked at me with a satisfied grin on his face. I couldn’t help but think that he knew he could get away with talking to Marines like this, whereas had he tried the same thing under Saddam’s regime, the outcome most certainly would not have been a couple laughs, a muttered “asshole,” and a peaceful exit from his home.
In all, the night produced no arrests. The city remained quiet.
We headed back to base, the guys unloaded their gear, and settled in — to wait for the next patrol.
Next: Disembedding, and Heading Home
Paul McLeary is a former CJR staff writer. Since 2008, he has covered the Pentagon for Foreign Policy, Defense News, Breaking Defense, and other outlets. He is currently a defense reporter for Politico.