My story in Outside, about my journey through Iraq, is posted here.
Author: Peter Maass
I was born and raised in Los Angeles. In 1983, after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, I went to Brussels as a copy editor for The Wall Street Journal/Europe. I left the Journal in 1985 to write for The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, covering NATO and the European Union. In 1987 I moved to Seoul, South Korea, where I wrote primarily for The Washington Post. After three years in Asia I moved to Budapest to cover Eastern Europe and the Balkans. I spent most of 1992 and 1993 covering the war in Bosnia for the Post.
The Race to Baghdad
What was it like to cover the war in Iraq? My 7,500-word story about my journey from Kuwait to Baghdad is in the July issue of Outside magazine. The article, “The Race to Baghdad,” is not posted online yet but the issue is available at newsstands.
Meet the New Boss: Dathar Khashab Didn’t Miss a Step When His New Managers Showed Up Wearing U.S.-Issue Fatigues
The New York Times Magazine
June 8, 2003
There are two types of people who do well in dictatorships: those who make themselves politically indispensable, doing whatever bit of wickedness the dictatorship requires, and those who make themselves economically indispensable, keeping the trains and refineries ...
Meet the New Boss
Dathar Khashab had what it took to maneuver his way up through the ranks in Saddam Hussein’s oil bureaucracy. When his new managers showed up wearing U.S.-issue fatigues, he didn’t miss a step. My latest story, about a G.I. and a Baathist, is in this weekend’s issue of The ...
Salam Pax, Cont.
How was I to know that my Baghdad interpreter was famous? Public Radio International has posted a cute story about Salam Pax and the dimwitted foreign correspondents, including myself, who figured out who he is. Click here and scroll down to “Blog Report” for the audio file.
Salam Pax Exists
During the war in Iraq, a blogger in Baghdad became a sensation on the Web, attracting a considerable following to his blog. He also attracted a considerable mystery–was he for real? I stumbled onto the answer, and my story about it, in Slate, is posted here.
Salam Pax Is Real: Baghdad’s Famous Blogger Worked for Me
Slate
June 2, 2003
Baghdad was hectic when two blogging friends e-mailed me to suggest that I track down “Salam Pax.” I had no idea who or what they were talking about. I could have handed over the job of sorting out this Salam Pax thing to my interpreter—he was a clever and funny Iraqi ...
Talking About Sadr
If you want to know more about Muqtadah al-Sadr, the Iraqi Shiite leader whom I wrote about in The New York Times Magazine, Public Radio International has posted an interview they did with me. Scroll down to “Islam Interview.”
In Iraq, Theocrats and Americans
My latest story, in The New York Times Magazine, profiles Moqtadah al-Sadr, who wants Iraq governed by Islamic law. First he has to outsmart his rivals, outmaneuver the Americans and get Iraq’s millions of Shiites ...
Trying to Rebuild Iraq, While Watching Their Backs
The New York Times
May 11, 2003
BAGHDAD, Iraq — The news conference was held in splendid isolation. Splendid, that is, if you enjoy being walled off from the rest of Baghdad by tanks, armored Humvees, barbed wire and a small army of soldiers bearing M-16 assault rifles and .50-caliber machine guns.
The ...