Who Killed Steven Vincent?

There's speculation in the press. No accusations, just hints, allegations, and things almost said...

The Dallas Morning News:

FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES OF STEVEN VINCENT, THE AMERICAN FREELANCE JOURNALIST kidnapped and slain in Basra yesterday, believe he was killed because he spoke out against the threat Islamic religious extremism poses to Iraq's nascent democracy. In his last dispatch on his blog ( www.redzoneblog.com), Mr. Vincent, author of In the Red Zone: A Journey Into the Soul of Iraq, described an interview he and Layla, his Iraqi translator, conducted with an Air Force captain in charge of doling out business to Iraqi contractors. Mr. Vincent portrayed the session as an example of American naivet頩n the face of the danger posed by Shiite militants.

US reporter murdered in Iraq had written his own epitaph

Steven Vincent's final story, reprinted today, told of a police 'death car' operating in Basra. Shortly afterwards he was bundled into a pick-up and shot in the head
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He wrote: "An Iraqi police lieutenant, who for obvious reasons asked to remain anonymous, confirmed to me the widespread rumours that a few police officers are perpetrating many of the hundreds of assassinations, mostly of former Baath Party members, that take place in Basra each month. He told me that there is even a sort of "death car": a white Toyota Mk II that glides through the city streets, carrying off-duty police officers in the pay of extremist religious groups to their next assignment."

Driving through central Basra with a Times journalist a few days before the article was published, he spotted an identical vehicle near the waterfront. "That's the death car," he said. Another journalist reassured him that the rumour was that a different vehicle was now being used for assassinations.

On Tuesday night, as he walked with Ms Itais to exchange some money outside the Merbid Hotel, he found out what the new death car was: a white Chevrolet pick-up without registration plates but with the word Police on it.

Witnesses said that armed men jumped out of the vehicle and bundled him inside. Having written extensively about the Islamic militias who enforce their own harsh law on the city, Mr Vincent struggled to get away. His shoes were later found in the rubbish that litters Basra's streets. Locals who saw the abduction and were brave enough to inquire what was going on said that the gunmen shouted out that they were policemen. No one dared to intervene.

An officer in the Basra police department said Mr. Vincent had been working on an article about the role of policemen in the recent assassinations of former Baath Party officials.

More excerpts from Steve Vincent's blog In the Red Zone:

The past few days have been interesting in Basra--and of course, in Iraq, "interesting" means general mayhem and bloodshed. Cases in point: over the weekend, unknown assailants--the assailants are always unknown, there are no uniforms or name tags here--assassinated five people in the streets. The victims, or so I hear, were ex-Baathists (there is no such thing as an "ex" Baathist to some, evidently), but, as Samir, the night clerk at the funduk put it, "We have courts and judges to decide matters like this. It is not up to people who chose to take life so cheaply."

In another incident

The sharp ripping sound erupted somewhere close to the hotel. Automatic weapon fire, I thought, flashing back to Baghdad, where the same noise was--and still is--a constant part of city life. Perhaps it's just a wedding. But it was 9 a.m., and besides, everyone knows that the Hauwza--the religious establishment in Najaf--has outlawed the casualty-producing custom of celebrating nuptials by firing guns into the sky.

A few hours later, we got the news. On the street just behind the funduk, four masked men in a Toyota emptied their AKs into a parked car, killing a police colonel from Zubair, who had come to Basra for medical treatment. The assassins are unknown, as is their motive, although rumors have it the murder had something to do with "smuggling."

"Summer is coming," an Iraqi man grunted in the hotel lobby. "The Wahhabi have been quiet for awhile, but we are expecting their return with the hot weather."

*****

The NY Times ($) offers their coverage of the same attack:

In other violence, insurgents gunned down Iraqi security officers in the major cities of Kirkuk and Basra, police officials said Friday...

In the Basra attack, which took place in the center of the city at 10:20 a.m., four men wearing black masks showered bullets into a car carrying the security officers, Col. Abdul-Karim al-Daraji and his brother Kosay. Both died, while a third brother in the car suffered minor injuries. Ammar Hussein, a medical assistant at the Educational Hospital of Basra, said that Colonel Daraji died immediately, while Kosay died later as a result of chest wounds.

Gripping reporting! How silly of Vincent to be satisfied with "The assassins are unknown, as is their motive..." when a quick glance in the Times would reveal they were insurgents.

Although the original AP story from which the Times culled their quote called them "gunmen":

Also Friday, gunmen killed the dean of the police academy in the southern city of Basra and an Iraqi soldier was killed when a roadside bomb exploded in the central city of Mashru.

In the Basra attack, which took place in the center of the city at 10:20 a.m., four men wearing black masks showered bullets into a car carrying the security officers, Col. Abdul-Karim Daraji and his brother Kosay.

And a google cache of another version of the NY Times story reveals an even more in-depth re-write:

But as the political haggling dragged on, insurgents once again showed how seemingly easy it is for them to strike and escape. In the Basra attack, which took place in the center of the city at 10:20 a.m., four men wearing black masks showered bullets into a car carrying the security officers, Col. Abdul-Karim al-Daraji and his brother Kosay. Both died; a third brother in the car survived.

It's certainly not clear who committed this crime, but evidence suggests that in this case those "insurgents" made their first appearance at the Times editor's desk in New York City.

A few weeks later and it's likely the Times, in reporting Vincent's murder, can't even grasp the irony:

An officer in the Basra police department said Mr. Vincent had been working on an article about the role of policemen in the recent assassinations of former Baath Party officials.

It's certainly much more complicated than that, but perhaps there's a simple solution. Perhaps they could switch to the term "thugs". There is indeed a power vacuum in Iraq, and many would struggle to fill it by becoming the next Saddam Hussein, or the next Ayatollah Khomeini. The biggest thug on the block.

What Iraq needs, of course, remains elusive. Iraq needs its first statesman, someone to rise and unite, to cut across divisions, provide hope amidst despair. The good people of Iraq, as with anywhere else, outnumber the thugs. This must not be forgotten, even in the midst of the current darkness. Especially in the midst of this current darkness.

Steven Vincent knew this. He was an eyewitness to darkness on 9/11, having seen a plane hit the Trade Center - not on TV, but before his own eyes. From the same post linked above, he describes seeing the same thing again. But this time it was on TV in his hotel room in Basra, when a Dubai-based channel aired "Rudy: the Rudolph Giuliani Story."

Ten minutes into the movie, the real-life footage began: the gaping hole in the north tower; fire erupting from the south; smoke streaming from the largest skyscraper fires in history; people on the upper floors waving white distress flags; the downward plunge of the south tower into its foundations; avalanche-like billows of white debris pouring down Vesey Street and over the spire of St. Paul's Church as the north collapsed...and for a moment, I was no longer in my hotel room, but back in New York, on the roof of our building, once again witnessing the horrible, the unimaginable, the obscene.

Upsetting, yes; but somewhat eerie, too, to watch these scenes replayed in Iraq. For, of course, the reason I was even in this Basran hotel room--the reason America and Britain forces invaded Iraq, drawing thousands of people, including myself, into this country--was the nearly 3,000 people murdered on September 11. Strange, too, were the words I remember the real Mayor Giuliani expressing that day--especially his awful, emotionally wrenching statement that the "loss of life today will be more than any of us can bear"--given Arabic subtitles. Did Iraqis watching this show--say, my friendly hotel staff--identify with the mayor, or with the terrorists who humbled the Great Satan? Did they cheer the law and order sheriff or the Robin Hood of the Middle East?

I can't say for sure, of course, but knowing Iraqis, my money's on Rudy. The people here desperately need--and deserve--law and order, a sense that justice can prevail against malevolent powers stalking their nation. The idea that a single man can galvanize a society to stand up to Ali Baba, be they mobsters or terrorists, and survive--unlike, it seems, the police colonel from Zubair--can only bring hope to these demoralized and suffering people. "We need leaders," a Iraqi journalist said to me over dinner last week. "But where can we find them in such a society?"

Hollywood being Hollywood, Rudy's war on crime (the same war that cleaned our block of the heroin gang that had ruled it for years) was depicted with a montage of cops rousting the homeless and squeegie men and prostitutes, scored by a ominous soundtrack that evoked thoughts of fascist thugs crushing the spirit of democracy. I had to laugh. Here in Iraq, real fascist thugs--and not the imaginings of hysterical lefists--seek to crush the spirit of democracy. Here in Iraq--where serving as a policeman is the most dangerous job in the world--people can only pray for a force that is incorruptible, efficient and effective against Saddamite psychos and bloody-thirsty jihadists. They wouldn't call a man like Giuliani a "fascist," and they certainly would not call police officers "pigs." And that's not just because they're Muslims.

Or maybe not.

The NY Times, from their report on his death:

Mr. Vincent resolved to go to Iraq, where he lived a hardscrabble life in a $15-a-day hotel and wrote articles about what he regarded as Islamic fascism.

Courage.

Steven Vincent's family requests that donations be made in his name to Spirit of America.