From Nygaard Notes Number 327, April 24, 2006

The day in question is April 6^th, 2006. On this day, as on so many days, Iraq was on the front page. The headline read, "In Bid to Rebuild Razed Bridge, Recovery and War Vie in Iraq." The first use of my imagination is to imagine that there are two sides (at least) in the conflict in Iraq; one side being the occupation forces and their allies and the other side being everyone else. The reason one needs imagination in this case is that, as is typical in U.S. news reports from Iraq, all of the sources for this story are U.S. military officials, or other U.S. officials, except for one "Colonel Ishmael, the Iraqi commander [of a regional battalion], who declined to give his full name." (According to the Times, by the way, he declined because "His Marine adviser says the colonel and his family have been threatened for cooperating with the Americans." Note how odd this is: this man has already been threatened, so what difference would it make to identify himself to the Times? I imagine that the Iraqi resistance has other ways of finding out who is collaborating with the occupation than reading the Times. Don't you think?)

Such "official source" reporting is typical of "embedded" reporters, although the New York Times refuses to tell me which of their reporters are "embedded."

To summarize the article, it seems that "the Marines took down the only bridge over the Euphrates River for miles around [the city of Husayba]." The Times tells us that "Iraqis who live on the river's northern bank grumble that they have no easy way to get to town to buy and sell goods or to see the doctor." I imagine that many not only "grumble," but also seethe with rage and perhaps even join the resistance to U.S. occupation. But the Times never hints at these possibilities. This is the closest the Times comes to a "non-official" source, if you consider a mention of "grumbling" to be a "source."

The main source for the Times is "Lt. Col. Nick Marano, commander of the Marine battalion" in Husayba. Paragraph 12 states "Hoping for an interim fix, Colonel Marano inquired recently about moving a little-used pontoon bridge installed by Army engineers miles down river. He was told that the unit was to rotate back to the United States soon, and would be taking its bridge back."

It's not until paragraph 28 that we read about "a freshly painted police station, which has been refurbished with American funds after it was attacked by insurgents."

This, then, is how the "recovery and war vie in Iraq:" the military/police infrastructure in Iraq has priority, while desperately needed civil infrastructure is "taken back" to shore up the military/police infrastructure in the United States. Meanwhile, the American Society of Civil Engineers, in their 2005 Report Card for America's Infrastructure, reminds us that "The condition of our nation's roads, bridges, drinking water systems and other public works have shown little to no improvement since they were graded an overall D+ in 2001, with some areas sliding toward failing grades."

Pontoon bridges, anyone?