Ask the 'Baghdad blogger'

The Baghdad blogger, "Salam Pax" - who has always remained anonymous - answered your questions in an interactive forum.

Transcript

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Over the past year, a Baghdad man has been keeping an internet diary on what everyday life is like for people in Baghdad.

"Salam Pax" - his real name has never been revealed - spent months writing an often bleakly humorous weblog which detailed the fears and hardships of Iraqi citizens as they prepared for the inevitable conflict.

The diary began as a way for the 29-year-old architectural student to keep in touch with his friend Raed in Jordan but it picked up a huge audience around the world.

The entries have now been compiled into a book which his publishers hope will provide an alternative voice from the Iraqi war.

Were you one of those who responded to the Baghdad blogger's site?

What was life like during the conflict?

"Salam Pax" answered your questions.

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Transcript

Peter Biles:
Hello and welcome to this BBC news interactive forum. I'm Peter Biles. For the past year there has been a way to find out what everyday life is like for people in Baghdad. It's been to log on to the website of "Salam Pax" who's become known as the 'Baghdad blogger'. His internet diary of ordinary - or rather extraordinary - life in Iraq, picked up a huge audience around the world. 'Salam Pax' - his real name has never been revealed - spent months writing an often bleakly humorous web log which detailed the fears and hardships of Iraqi citizens as they prepared for the inevitable conflict. Well now his internet diary has been compiled into a book. You've sent in your many questions from around the world, and I'm pleased to say 'Salam' is here to answer them. Welcome.

Let's go first of all to an e-mail we've just from Debbie Reager in the USA who says: Recently you've not written about general life in Baghdad these days. What is it like at the moment?

"Salam Pax":
Well I've been here for almost two weeks so I don't know what it's like at the moment. But when I left it was at this point where you wouldn't be able really to tell whether it was going to get worse or get better. I left Baghdad right after the attack on Hakim at Najaf and everybody was very worried about how this could have happened and what was going to happen afterwards.

You try to find your way around whatever the troubles you have now in Iraq. You have to live your daily life - you have to go shopping, you have to do whatever you have to do. Many businesses have opened again - you try to get things going as much as you can.

Peter Biles:
We have a couple of e-mails about your website. The first one is from Misha Dellinger, Finland: It seems that I was reading the Blog from very early on, and realised how important it would be when the war began. The internet has truly broken the information monopoly that the USA had in the last war. Do you realize how important your contribution has been? It seems most do not understand how revolutionary the internet is.

"Salam Pax":
I would agree about the part of the importance of the internet. If it weren't for the internet, I would have absolutely no idea what the western media was saying about Iraq. There is no access to information other than the internet. And for some reason the Iraqi firewall did not allow us to browse through the western media. It was so important.

Later on with the web log, it was for me just important to communicate with all these people - the other web loggers that were around just to have this discussion going on. It was very important for me personally that lots of people found it very interesting. I'm very gratefully that someone actually found it informative. I did not realise how much attention it would get when I started doing it.

Peter Biles:
Will Thomas, UK: Were you surprised that you managed to evade Saddam's security service, especially given the high profile that you enjoyed in the period before the war in the global blogging community? And if you had been identified, do you have any idea what your punishment might have been?

"Salam Pax":
Hanging from a ceiling somewhere upside down! At one point I actually sat down with a friend of mine who worked with the Iraqi internet service provider and asked him what they were doing, how they were checking the internet and he found out they are not good at all which made me relax a bit. The only thing that I was worrying about is the big media - that they would pick it up. Something about the web log in Reuters - scared me a lot and then having these reports on the BBC World Service and Voice of America in the first week of war - yes, that was very worrying. I wasn't worried about the blogging community - this was something that Iraqi ISP had no idea about. So I was worried about that at all. I was worried about the big media.

Peter Biles:
Ed, UK: I read your blog throughout the initial conflict and continue to do so, you have allowed me to grasp how such a continuing horrific course events affect real people, and how they do or do not cope. How are you coping with all the media attention?

"Salam Pax":
There's something I've been very grateful for is that this media attention that you talk about is only here in the West. When I'm in Baghdad I see nothing of this because it is still very isolated - nothing much filters in. So there is not much coping to deal with - I live in Baghdad - this here is almost like a twilight zone, this is just surreal. So I'm really glad that there's not a big fuss about it in Baghdad because I can just go on with my life normally. There has been, I think, jut too much made of the web log - it's just a small thing - it scares me a bit.

Peter Biles:
Dalia Mustafa, UK: I first heard about your log in a newspaper article at the time of the invasion and it was speculating on whether you really were in Baghdad or was this some type of American/British propaganda - How do you feel about all the curiosity your log has generated, has it changed your life at all?

"Salam Pax":
Once you realise that there so many people are reading the web log - it's not that you change what you write but you're suddenly aware of the number of people who will react to what you write. So you kind of make sure that people understand what you're saying very clearly. At first it was much more careless, to tell you truth. Now because I know there are lots of people paying attention, I make sure that I'm clear about what I write. I don't want to be misunderstood, which has happened quite often.

Peter Biles:
Patrick, Canada: Now that your country has been "freed", what is stopping you from revealing your identity? Do Iraqis still fear Saddam, and do you take notice when he releases a cassette calling upon Iraqis to resist the US occupation?

James Wild, UK asks a similar question: When will you reveal your real name?

"Salam Pax":
Look first of all, I'm a blogger - all bloggers have pseudonyms. You don't write bad things about your boss and then write your real name under it.

In the e-mail it says "your country has been freed" - it's okay, Saddam has gone but it's not stable. The situation there is so chaotic - you have actually more things to worry about. You don't know any more where the enemy is, who is going to do bad things to whom. Things have to settle down a bit before you start feeling really safe. That's other than just generally - not about me and my name.

Peter Biles:
The Iraqis don't yet see it as real freedom.

"Salam Pax":
No, no. It's still far from there, we still have to go through this whole process of learning what freedom means. At the moment freedom means that someone can kill me in the street without anybody taking a second look at what happened. This is what's happening now - it's a bit chaotic - it will take time. I still don't feel very safe for many reasons - Saddam has gone, ok, but there are other things that make you worried so I'm keeping my pseudonym for a while.

Peter Biles:
Adam Hopkinson, UK: I heard a lot of rumours about your true identity, some even suggesting you were a Mossad agent - which is your favourite rumour?

"Salam Pax":
I seem to have worked for every single organisation - I've been working for the CIA, Mossad etc. every possible organisation, which is very funny.

Peter Biles:
Pete, UK: I notice that Salam Pax could be interpreted as "Salaam" and "Pax", giving a different meaning to your name. Was this deliberate?

"Salam Pax":
Yeah, I know was "pax" means - so it's "peace, peace" - it was deliberate sure, from the beginning. "Pax" sounded very nice and I decided to use it and I'm liking it more and more.

Peter Biles:
Neil Hoskins, UK: I think that in a recent interview you described the bombing of Baghdad as something like "not as bad as expected". Is there a clear picture yet of the number of Iraqi soldiers who were killed in the carpet bombing of troop concentrations?

I have to say, I suppose, the coalition would dispute the fact that they carried out carpet bombing.

"Salam Pax":
What I meant when I said "not as bad as expected" - they did not go and carpet bomb whole civilian areas. Yes, of course, the number of troops - anything that looked like a military place - they just totally erased it. But what I meant with this is that we were expecting civilian areas to get much more damage and this didn't happen during the air raids, especially in Baghdad - - other cities, yes, other cities they had lots of casualties.

A friend of my mine was working with this NGO trying to find out about civilian casualties because of bombing, because of troop movements in cities and when they were being offered financial support by USAID, they specifically - USAID - told them, we will not give you any money unless you stop looking for civilian casualties. So yes, of course they will never tell you what happened - you will have to depend on independent sources to tell you the number of civilians that were killed. As to the troops - no one will know.

Peter Biles:
Ian Baldwin, England: Where do you think the weapons of mass destruction are now? Or did they ever exist?

This of course in a week when Hans Blix, the former UN Chief Inspector, said he thought that possibly the weapons of mass destruction were destroyed more than 10 years ago. Well of course we know that some certainly existed because of the gassing of the Kurds back in Halabja back in 1988. What are your thoughts about the weapons of mass destruction and the search that is going on for them even now?

"Salam Pax":
I just keep remembering that long speech that Colin Powell gave at the UN which we listened to - just sneaked a satellite dish on our roof and just sat there listening to that speech because it was so important. And the numbers he had they were amazing - it was as if Iraq could just totally destroy the whole population of the earth in a couple of seconds. And now they come in and it's taking them so long to find anything - ok so he might be good at hiding stuff but the numbers they were giving were so huge - they must have found something. So it makes you worried - not worried it's just that from the beginning I didn't really trust the reasons they were giving. The weapons of mass destruction, now turns out to be the argument which seemed as a good selling point for the war and everybody used it. And now they're trying really hard to find anything. So yes, I'm waiting, we're still waiting to see where they are - of course we need to know where they are.

It's really strange, the first people who actually gave themselves up were the scientists who worked on these projects - they have them all and they have for months now and nothing came out of interrogating them? It's kind of strange - it's really strange.

Peter Biles:
Meraj, Calgary, Canada: Is anger towards the Americans merely local in certain areas or is the hatred more widespread across the entire Iraqi society?

We know of course the Americans have been under attack predominantly in this area called the "Sunni Triangle" to the north and west of Baghdad.

"Salam Pax":
Generally the south is mellower - it's the central Iraq which is more difficult. It is much mellower and you don't want this to change. I was reading an article the other day and it was saying that some intelligence sources who were working in Iraq are telling the Americans that the situation might be changing - there is more anger also from the Shia regions - you do not want this to happen. The Shia are giving the coalition forces are giving the coalition forces a better chance than central Iraq. They're trying to see what they trying to do - the problem is they're not doing it faster enough, they're not showing people what they're doing and what is visible is tanks and people with big guns on your street sometimes not acting very nice, not being respectful enough. So - anger - you don't want the Shia to turn against you and it's very worrying that some reports say they are.

Peter Biles:
Amanda Akien, UK: What do ordinary people think of the aid efforts in Iraq - do they want to be helped?

"Salam Pax":
One of the most horrible things that everybody thought was going to be a disaster was the UN bombing. The UN is doing work in Iraq - you cannot believe how much work UNICEF is doing and has done in the north and now is doing and other organisations helping in the south. It's easier for NGOs to work in the south. We need them to stay there - yes of course we need help.

Peter Biles:
Lisa Baxter, USA: Why are the Iraqis not trying to work to bring there country together? I think they would be helping themselves if they tried to stop the violence being caused, and try to rebuild there country, as Kuwait has done.

"Salam Pax":
This is what you get from the media - this is not what's happening in Iraq. I got this a couple of days ago in a web chat in the Guardian and it actually makes me angry. Look, private businesses are back on line. Private banks are back. People are bringing back their businesses - it's what you see in the media that doesn't work - it's what the CPA is trying to do that doesn't work. We need the CPA to deal with the bigger issues - the governing issues - the smaller things, of course we're doing it. Look there are people who gave brought big generators and are selling electricity just to get over this electricity issue. No, we are helping ourselves - this is what you get from the media - the Iraqis are doing as much as they can to get their country back on track. But we cannot get, for example, the big ministries running again without some help, without some sort of governing issues being dealt with first. No, this kind of thing is wrong - the Iraqis are working - we are not just all sitting waiting for the coalition forces to do our work, of course not.

Peter Biles:
Nick, UK: In your opinion, is there a generalised liberation movement against the occupying troops, or is the situation just everyday lawlessness and collateral damage from a minority of freedom/resistance fighters?

"Salam Pax":
To tell you the truth no one knows anymore - in the beginning everybody thought it was clearer that these were people who were siding with Saddam and who had benefited from the regime but now with the UN and the bombing in Najaf, we didn't know who was doing this. So I think it's a mix - you cannot say it's just this group of people - it's all these people trying to make life as hard as possible for the coalition forces, for the people who are working with coalition forces, to delay Iraq from getting back on its feet - it's just a mix of all these things.

Peter Biles:
An e-mail just in from Boston, America from Nathan Demers who says: I know many immigrants who've left terrible circumstances in other parts of the world to try to make a better life. Would you leave Iraq?

"Salam Pax":
No, no, no. You know, you're country is going though this period where excellent, beautiful, wonderful things are going to happen and you just have to wait and you want to be part of this - you just want to be part of rebuilding your country because in the future you'll just feel that you contributed.

Peter Biles:
Steve, Canada: My question is this: How do the majority, at least in your circle, of Iraqis feel about the war, its effects, and the current state of Iraq. Here in the West we get mixed reports.

"Salam Pax":
It is mixed - you're asking my circle of acquaintances and friends and I can tell you that about the war, we were thinking things should have been done not in such a rush which is now justified because we found they didn't have a plan at all. But of course we all realise that we couldn't have got rid of Saddam without foreign intervention. So we know this, we keep this in mind. As to the post-war situation - there is a little bit of frustration - we were expecting the people who would come to help us rebuild Iraq to be more understanding, more culturally sensitive and that things would happen a bit faster which was maybe a little bit unrealistic. So it is very mixed - Iraq is 25 million people with different backgrounds - it is mixed.

Peter Biles:
Kim, Australia: What do you believe Iraq will be like in five years time? Do you want Iraq to be an example for the rest of the Middle East?

"Salam Pax":
Coming into a country and telling them - well we will put you in a window display so that the rest of people will see how democracy should run - it's very unreal from the beginning. But of course I hope that the country will be better than most of the Arab countries around it which might be a little bit unrealistic, it's a cultural thing. What will happen in five years? Really nobody knows - we have absolutely no idea what's going to happen next week so it's really difficult.

Peter Biles:
Hossein Derakhshan, Iran/Canada: I remember you had written about the popularity of Persian web logs among Iranians. Why don't you encourage Arab people to write web logs in Arabic language? Do you think it will become a catch in the Arab world?

"Salam Pax":
Once the internet becomes more widespread - yes it will I'm sure. But what I am trying to do all the time is get people to write. I have got some of my friends to write - a female friend blogs in Arabic and I translate the stuff for her in English. So I get whoever I need and see there is some potential there - people who have very clear opinions and ideas, I talk to them about this. It's very important to get as many Iraqi voices on the internet to tell the world what they feel. I hope we get to a point where we have as many Iraqi bloggers as Iranians - I so totally respect what the Iranians have achieved.

Peter Biles:
It's been fascinating listening to your perspective on Iraq today. I'm afraid that's all we have time for. My thanks to our guest "Salam Pax" and to you for your many questions. From me, Peter Biles, and the rest of the news interactive team here in London, goodbye.