In the spring of I flew from Istanbul to Baghdad. It was my second visit to Iraq. And, while staring at the Turkish mountains out the window of the plane, I was overcome by the desire to make the same trip by car.
If progress had truly been made in Iraq, it should be possible to reach Baghdad by car. If not, well then that much would be clear in any case. If one were to ask me, I would say: progress means less suffering. Yet as a definition that is suspect as well. The elimination of suffering can have surprising side-effects. I am carrying neither a flak jacket nor a helmet; this third trip to Iraq will not include a visit to the American Army. And I will not be travelling alone. In that way, too, this trip will be unlike the others.
From there he will be replaced by an Iraqi driver. Eva is going along as well, an artist who assisted me from the Netherlands during my previous trips, but who wants to see with her own eyes how things are going in Iraq.
The same modest attire, a wide skirt over a pair of jeans, a close-necked sweater, the same rounded and at the same time prominent features, the same hairdo, the same high, melodious voice. As she tucks into her breakfast, she tells me that friends and family have ordered her to find a Turkish husband during this trip. What I want to find out is usually something I find out only after I arrive. His claim to fame is his photograph of two corpses, a mother and child, killed during the Iraqi poison-gas attack on the city of the Halbya in the spring of He dresses more like someone in the fashion industry than a war photographer.
The walls of his office are covered with his own photographs. They said he also had interesting things to say about war photography.
