Untold stories from Iraq War
September 21, 2008 by grzegorz.piechota
Polish troops will withdraw from Iraq until October 31st, 2008. In a week-long series of feature stories Gazeta Wyborcza has revealed facts about the mission that had been rarely known in Poland.
Despite 20,000 Polish soldiers in total have taken part in this mission since 2003, the media coverage of Iraq War has been rather limited and often based on foreign sources like news wires and syndicates.
Sending own reporters to Iraq has always been seen by media executives as expensive and dangerous. After two Polish TV journalists were shot dead in 2004, some media outlets withdrew their reporters, some other embedded them with Polish units. This trend has forced journalists to depend more heavily on military sources.
In effect the Polish public opinion has not been aware of some facts and details about Polish mission.
Poles in Iraq War
Poland backed the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Polish-commanded multinational division took over responsibility for five of Iraq’s 18 provinces. The contingent at the time numbered 9,000 troops from 21 countries of which 2,500 were Poles.
At first Polish soldiers performed so-called stabilization tasks: they helped with the country’s reconstruction, carried out patrols, and protected the headquarters of the Iraqi local authorities against attacks, for example, during the rebellion of the radical Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr in 2004. Later their tasks focused on advising and training the new Iraqi armed forces. The Polish contingent was reduced to 1,600, then to 1,400, and eventually to 900 troops. The multinational division was also reduced, with countries withdrawing their forces or decreasing their contingents. The zone controlled by the multinational division also shrank. Now the division includes contingents from eight countries apart from Poland.
After October 31st, there will stay only several dozen officers who will train Iraq soldiers, policemen, prosecutors etc.
In total 23 Polish troops were killed in Iraq. The number of wounded soldiers is not confirmed by the army and is estimated to 150.
Series at Gazeta Wyborcza
Two Gazeta’s reporters – Marcin Gorka and Adam Zadworny – disclose some of the secrets of Polish army in the series called “Iraq. Poles on war” that has been published last week.
The series is a result of a dozen months-long investigation that Gorka and Zadworny carried during their travels to Iraq and a dozen talks with former officers and soldiers.
Despite the official claim that Polish troops were well-prepared for the mission in Iraq, Gazeta revealed how poorly equipped they were in fact.
Their equipment was as old as the Warsaw Pact’s arsenal. Their cars had no armor but canvas. Their guns failed due to sand. Their boots crumbled from the heat.
Polish politicians and troops were really thinking they went to Iraq on a stabilization mission, but they quickly realized they had to fight the real war.
It was a new experience for both commanders and soldiers, as Polish troops used to serve peacekeeping operations only in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Here are some examples of pages:
Gorka and Zadworny told five stories:
- “They welcomed us with bombs and not flowers”: about a Polish sapper who disarmed hundreds of bombs with his hands. Finally, his car was attacked by insurgents and the sapper became the first ever Polish soldier wounded in Iraq. When he was transported to homeland, he was visited at a hospital by a minister and TV. Later he was refused any compensation despite he lost his leg, as his insurance policy did not cover “war”. The Army argued with him over 10 dollars of pension. His application for military sanitarium was rejected, as he was no longer a soldier (he was dismissed from the Army after his return).
- “The bloodiest battle of Poles since the World War II”: an untold story bout a a city battle in Karbala in 2004. Polish and Bulgarian soldiers killed hundreds of insurgents in a nearly week-long battle at the City Hall. Officially, there was no such a battle with Poles at all – the Polish Army has kept their involvement in secret, as it has not wanted to alert the public opinion at home about the reality of Iraq War and their mission.
- “It’s me who tells mothers: You son is dead”: confessions of a military priest whose mission is to inform about killed soldiers. He tells a heart-breaking story of his race to reach families before media.
- “War addicted”: a story about Polish ‘Indiana Jones’, an archeologist who enrolled in the Army after he read in a newspaper about damages done to the ancient ruins of Babylon where the US had built a helipad and a parking for heavy vehicles. Polish troops took over this camp and the scientist helped to document damages and antiquities. The archeologist could not calm down when back to Poland. He enrolled again and is going to Afghanistan.
- “I regreted I had no gun with me”: an interview with Edward Pietrzyk, a former commander-in-chief of the Polish Land Forces and Poland’s ambassador to Iraq. In 2007 he got wounded in an assassination attempt in Baghdad, by a roadside bomb, and received burns to about 20 percent of his body. He disclosed how the decision to send troops to Iraq had been made in 2003. “I asked the president: ‘What about equipment?’ I heard no answer. ‘What is our mission?’ No answer again. ‘How long should we stay there?’ The president did not know.”
Promotion of the series
The features were promoted in radio and in the newspaper with full-page ads and front-page article. Here are the examples:
Tagged: Case studies, Gazeta, in-paper promotion, investigative journalism, newspaper
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