E-mail a friendDamien Cave
airdate March 20, 2008
Before taking the reins of The New York Times Miami bureau, Damien Cave—and his wife, who is a multimedia journalist for the paper—spent 18 months reporting from Iraq. His story topics ranged from Iraqi politics to the street-level impact of the troop surge on Iraqis and American soldiers. He also wrote on what it's like to be on assignment covering a war with a spouse. Cave was previously a contributing writer for the online magazine, Salon, and a Phillips Foundation Fellow.
Journalist talks about the "success" of the war in Iraq and discusses the changes he witnessed during his 18 months in Iraq. (2:26)
Full Interview. (9:32)
Damien Cave
Tavis: Damien Cave recently returned from 18 months in Iraq as the Baghdad-based correspondent for "The New York Times." There are worse places, I suspect, that you could be sent after a year and a half in Iraq than Miami, Florida. Damien Cave is now the Miami bureau chief for "The Times," which is where we find him this evening. Damien Cave, nice to have you on the program, sir.
Damien Cave: Thanks, I'm happy to be here.
Tavis: Let me start by asking what are your thoughts were, having been there for 18 months, when you heard the president and the vice president, Bush and Cheney yesterday say that this war was necessary and moreover, that it is succeeding.
Cave: Well, to a certain extent I wasn't surprised. This has basically been the line from the administration from the start of the war. Year after year, the Bush administration has basically said the war is succeeding despite in many cases' evidence to the contrary, or at least evidence that makes the picture a lot more nuanced.
Tavis: Having been there for 18 months, do you have any sense of what this administration or for that matter, what the American public ought to expect the definition of success to be at this point five years later?
Cave: I think that's a really difficult thing to try and figure out. The goal post, the bar, however you want to use the metaphor, is often moving and it's difficult to tell. I can tell you that for Iraqis, what they're looking for a greater sense of stability, an economy that works, and a sense of safety that at this point still feels kind of far away for a lot of them, or at least in certain neighborhoods.
The Iraqis that I talked to in many cases said that they didn't feel that their lives were better today than they were in 2002, and until they feel that that is a question that they would answer differently, I think they wouldn't necessarily consider this a success.
Tavis: So that said, maybe John McCain wasn't all that crazy that it might take a hundred years.
Cave: Who knows the length of these things? One of the things that's really interesting from being there in 18 months is you discover how unpredictable the story there is. I think that things change much more quickly there than people often realize, and who knows? In a couple years, perhaps things would be wonderfully better.
I hope so for the Iraqi people and this country, but we'll have to see. It could be a year, it could be two years; maybe it will be a hundred years, but I hope not.
Tavis: During the almost two years, the 18 months, rather, that you were there, from the time you arrived till the time you left, what noticeable changes - I'm talking about positive changes now -if any, did you take away from your tenure there, your time there with "The New York Times?"
Cave: I did see changes. When I left, it was better than it was when I had first arrived. The violence was down; people were beginning to feel a little bit safer. But as I often tell people when they ask me how was it over there, it was better but still far from good.
For a lot of people, they didn't have jobs. Many people were still grieving for loved ones that had been killed or dealing with the damage of injuries that came from bombs. Corruption was rampant, there was a lot of distrust for the Iraqi government, and in many neighborhoods it was mafias or gangs or militias that were really the ones defining their lives in terms of gasoline, in terms of food, in terms of medicine.
So to say that it's significantly better is - depends on what vantage point you look at it from. What's clear is that there's still a long way to go. There are still a lot of unresolved issues five years after the war started.
Tavis: We know what President Bush and Vice President Cheney think about it, but what was your sense, again, as you left as a reporter covering this, your sense of the impact of the troop surge?
Cave: I think that the surge was definitely a factor in cutting the violence in Iraq, but it was one of many factors. It's hard to tell, and there was a great debate about whether or not the surge was the dominant factor in decreasing the violence, or in fact if it was more of an Iraqi dynamic that changed, with Sunnis deciding to align themselves with Americans and with Shi'ites deciding to use their weapons less as a result of a cease-fire from Muqtada al-Sadr.
So it's really very hard to tell to what extent, and it may take years, actually, to figure out whether or not the surge was the dominant factor. A lot of the Iraqis seem to feel that it was simply one factor and that in fact what had changed was that a dynamic among the Iraqis was different. Whether or not that dynamic will be able to last is something that they were not sure of.
Many people said that they felt what they were experiencing now was the calm before another storm. Others said that they really believe that this was something that could last, that perhaps for the first time they could feel hope again in a way that they hadn't felt it since the Americans first came in in 2003.
Tavis: So if John McCain ends up not being the president, let's say Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama end up being the president, they have both suggested that they want to move much more swiftly than McCain in pulling out American troops. Tell me how that act would be viewed by Iraqis, since you have been there for a while.
Cave: Iraqis are very conflicted about their relationship with the American military. You have to realize this is a society that dealt with decades of dictatorship and is often described as an abused population. And so for them it's very conflicted. At times they will say, "We need the Americans to leave." It's an insult to them in a nationalistic way to have a foreign country on their soil.
But at the same time a lot of Iraqis that I met in Anbar province and in Baghdad said the Americans better not leave until they finish the job. So it's very hard to tell in many cases, and this was often from the same person saying two completely conflicting ideas.
And so I think that this is an ongoing struggle for them to try and figure out really how they feel. What's clear is that there's a lot of bitterness and a lot of anger about the years under Saddam Hussein and about the past five years and all the failures and struggles that they've had to deal with since the war started.
Tavis: Is there a particular thing or things, plural, that really have gotten your attention since you've been back here - as I said, there are worst places to be sent than Miami. But since you've been back on American soil, vis-à-vis the campaign for the White House, Democrat and Republican, are there things that have gotten your attention about how this campaign for the White House is being waged where Iraq is concerned?
Cave: Well,one of the things that struck me is that it's still a very American-focused debate that is going on. There's a lot of discussion of when the troops come home or whether to come home, but there's very little focus on actually what's the best way to improve Iraqi lives. So I'm struck by the conversation being somewhat shallow in that sense, that I don't see a lot of debate about well, what's the best new idea for getting the economy going?
Can we pull in new academics or think tanks or new ideas to somehow bring this country back together? What I see in some ways is a debate that's still focused on specifically the troop surge, in a lot of ways, as opposed to looking forward, and I think that's the case both among the Republicans and the Democrats. I hope that whoever gets in office will really look at this in a deeper way to try and figure out not just what's best for the American troops but also for these Iraqis whose country the Americans really went into and dove in in a way that turned the whole country upside down.
So that's something that I've been struck by and something that I'm curious to see if the debate will change on that.
Tavis: Speaking of American troops, do you have any sense at all - again, we know what President Bush and Cheney think about the war; they called it yesterday a necessary and a success. Does the American military, as you interviewed folk and talked to them, feel the same way? I'm talking about troops on the ground - do they feel they are succeeding?
Cave: One of the things that's interesting is it's very local, and I think in a lot of ways this is the story for Iraqis as well. Iraq has gone from a nation that maybe had a singular vision under Saddam to one that's increasingly segmented by neighborhood, by family. And so for troops it's very similar. In certain neighborhoods, they do feel like there is progress.
Some of the guys I spent a lot of time with south of Baghdad, when they left at the end of the year, they felt like they helped turn this place around. But in other areas of Baghdad alone, in northwest Baghdad where the police and army was very infiltrated by Shi'ite militias, the troops there were not so convinced that things had gotten better.
And so I think there's a wide range of opinion, but the one consensus for these guys is that they work at what they're doing, at what's in front of them. A lot of them don't really look at the larger policy, they just need to know can they do a good job where they are and can they get their guys home?
Tavis: Let me ask you right quick as an exit question, if my facts are right, you as a reporter and your videographer wife volunteered to go to Iraq, yes?
Cave: Yeah, that's correct.
Tavis: Tell me why you did that and what you and your wife have taken from the experience of being in this region of the world in this historic time.
Cave: I think that's part of the reason why we went. We felt an urge to witness history in a way that a lot of journalists feel. The decision to go together was something that was difficult and something that we came to as a result of conversations with other reporters, and I think that for us, in part because of that, it did become very personal.
We grew very close to a lot of the Iraqis we worked with and very close to a lot of the soldiers that we spent a lot of time with, and for us as a couple it's an experience that we'll never forget and something that we look back both fondly but also with certain sense of heartbreak at some of the people we lost - friends and those we interviewed who are no longer with us. So it's an experience that will be with us forever and frankly, I think will probably take quite a few years for us to really figure out how it's affected us.
Tavis: Damien Cave, former "New York Times" correspondent in Baghdad, now the Miami bureau chief for "The New York Times," back from Baghdad now with his wife, who was doing videography for 18 months while they were there. Damien, nice to have you on the program; all the best to you there in Miami.
Cave: Thank you, I appreciate it.
Tavis: My pleasure.
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