Alum Reports from Iraq
Post reporter: 'I was privy to everything'
By Phillip Yates

Jim Hughes

The Team 1-12 Infantry Battalion, part of the 4th Infantry Division, was supposed to launch a northern front against Iraqi forces during "Operation Iraqi Freedom," but the Turkish parliament deep-sixed that idea. Instead, the 4th Infantry Division was forced to move its jumping-off points to positions in Kuwait, delaying the unit's deployment to the Middle East.

The delay allowed a reporter for The Denver Post, Jim Hughes (MA '98), assigned to the 1-12 Infantry Battalion, some time to build camaraderie with the troops he followed into combat and to familiarize himself with life in the military. Luckily for Hughes, his battalion was only a short trip down Interstate 25 to Fort Carson, just outside of Colorado Springs.

"The (members of 1-12 battalion) were behind the news. It turned into nation-building stuff," Hughes said after he returned to Denver from Iraq on May 5, explaining why, after months of preparation, he was only able to file a few stories from Iraq. "They weren't newsy in that they weren't finding any bad guys. The war was pretty much over when I got there."

While national and international news organizations moved their reporters to Baghdad to cover the political transformation of Iraq after the conflict, the Post and its editors saw that most of the conflict had subsided in Iraq, so they recalled Hughes to Denver.

"We don't have the resources to cover the whole blow by blow of nation-building," Hughes said.

But before he left Iraq, Hughes was able to file reports from Samarra, a holy city north of Baghdad. One article concentrated on the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, the unit the 1-12 battalion is part of, and its efforts to seize three suspected Baath party members. Another article quoted U.S. Army soldiers who said they had found documents indicating Palestinian fighters may have received training at the local military base outside the city limits of Samarra.

Although he wrote only a few stories during his one-month assignment with the 1-12 battalion, Hughes still had some interesting experiences with the soldiers. He described one instance where the soldiers made preparations to storm a large airfield, expecting to meet heavy resistance, but "all they found were a bunch of farmers trying to steal a fence." On another raid against suspected Baath party headquarters, coalition troops encountered only police officers and others disbursing food, Hughes said.

But when he first rode the convoy into Iraq, Hughes was surprised at what the soldiers encountered when they finally entered the country. He said he saw Iraqi citizens waving to the soldiers, some even blowing kisses.

"It was like a victory parade, but they had not even touched (Iraqi) soil," Hughes said. Many Iraqis were asking for MREs, the military's ready-to-eat rations.

"Kids were pointing to their mouths, wanting food," Hughes said. At first, leadership within Hughes' combat team discouraged soldiers from giving food to children from their Bradley fighting vehicles, in the fear that the children would fall underneath the massive transport vehicles.

"The troops threw food to them anyway," Hughes said.

As for the "embedding" experience, Hughes said he was astounded at his access to information.

"I was privy to everything," Hughes said, referring to tactical reports and intelligence that the 1-12 had at its disposal. "I am still surprised the (Pentagon officials) allowed it to happen. It shows they have a lot of confidence in their system."

In early April, as coalition forces began to seize military objectives on the outskirts of Baghdad, Hughes was in Colorado Springs, attending social events and observing training exercises to get as familiar with the soldiers in his unit as he could.

"This job is all about getting along with people so they'll talk to you," Hughes said.

Hughes spent a week at Fort Benning, Ga., at a Pentagon-sponsored boot camp for journalists to help them acclimatize to life in the military. The optional training was offered to journalists from around the world who expected they might be covering the military in what at the time was still a potential war in Iraq.

Hughes called the experience a "show and tell" for journalists. The Pentagon hoped to instill in journalists the necessity to operate in unison with units they were assigned to and a sense that they were vulnerable to enemy fire like any other soldier in the field, he said.

"(The troops) are not there to chaperone me. They're fighting, and I'm following along," Hughes said.

Hughes, throughout his experience at Fort Benning and in the days before his departure to the Persian Gulf, said he was struck by the openness military personnel afforded the journalists. Only one rule was sacrosanct: Don't reveal tactical information.

"The only restriction is, 'Don't do anything to get anyone killed,'" Hughes said.

Hughes traveled to Kuwait in late January with a photographer and spent seven weeks covering the political turmoil in the Mideast before the war began. At the end of his seventh week there, the Pentagon announced the embedding program to media outlets. With only an eight-hour notice, he packed his gear and headed back to Denver to secure a position with the 1-12 battalion.

"It was luck of the draw," Hughes said of his being assigned to the Colorado battalion, while a photographer for the Post accompanied a Marine unit that did see heavy action during the war.

While other reporters have followed the 1st Marine Division and 3rd Infantry Division on their lightning dash to Baghdad, Hughes had to wait in Denver because Turkey decided against allowing the 4th Infantry Division to go through that country to launch a northern front against Iraqi forces. Although Hughes and the 1-12 battalion missed some of the heaviest fighting of the war, he said he still felt trepidation before he left.

"Even if it's peacekeeping, it will be fraught with conflict," he said.

"My wife was supportive, but she is concerned," Hughes said. "She understands why I am doing this. My folks were more nervous and less OK (with it)."

In the last-minute preparations before his departure, Hughes made sure he had all the proper gear.

"It's a difficult thing to pack for. It's an open-ended trip to another part of the world," Hughes said.

The luggage he packed was spartan, except when it came to electronics. Hughes said he had all the essentials to keep in contact with his editor in Denver: a laptop, a satellite phone, a satellite modem, a digital camera and a GSM mobile phone.

"I had to have all my bases covered. If the phone were to go down, I'd be on a dangerous and expensive joy ride," Hughes said.

As Hughes was finishing his master's degree at CU, he landed an internship with the Post that later turned into a full-time job. He worked as a general assignment reporter when he started, but nine months ago he moved to the federal court beat, covering federal law enforcement and other federal agencies including the FBI and the DEA. He credits Associate Professor Tom Yulsman with helping him to develop his writing.

"He was the closet thing to a real-world editor," Hughes said. "Some students used to complain that their papers were bleeding, there was so much red."