Dr. Wilfried Buchta

US-satellite photo of the Green Zone from 2006. The green circle separates it from the rest of Baghdad, the “Red Zone”. 

December 2005

Wilfried Buchta in his role as Senior Political Analyst of the UN Peacekeeping Mission (UNAMI) at the central helicopter airport of the US armed forces in Baghdad's Green Zone. Shortly after this picture was taken, he boarded an US combat helicopter and flew to Basra in southern Iraq, 800 km away. There, at the British Armed Forces central military base, he conducted a 10-day fact-finding mission. Through discussions with local government officials, NGOs and leaders of militias and tribes, he evaluated the situation in the crisis-ridden and oil-rich southern province.

June 2008 

 View from above of the UN mission's central administration building. UNAMI's blue logo is displayed above the entrance.

May 2007

View from above of UNAMI‘s Central Administrative Tract at Diwan Compound, where the daily meetings took place and where the Mission Director had his office. Once again there is another sandstorm sweeping over the city of Baghdad and there is a yellow haze in the air that makes it hard to see and breathe. Out of the year we used to have between 20-30 days with sandstorms, with some of the storms lasting 2 – 3 days at a time. During those times, your daily life and mobility was severely restricted. 

Partial view of the inner auto park. In the protective roof's concrete shell there was a crater, caused by a grenade. Much like all other facilities within the Green Zone, UNAMI’s Diwan-Compound, too, was attacked by rebels with mortar rounds at least once a week. Sometimes these attacks only caused material damage, but other times people were wounded or even killed.

Last preparations before the departure of an UNAMI employee to a Red Zone Mission. He is travelling in an US Military armored personnel carrier convoy. In order to mediate during negotiations and visit important Iraqi institutions, UNAMI conducted Red Zone Missions several times a week. Those were always risky, since outside of the Green Zone, there was always a chance of running into rebel attacks or booby traps.

At UNAMI’s vehicle park at Diwan Compound, September 2008. Buchta is getting on an armored US Army Humvee. He is scheduled to attend negotiations with Iraqi politicians and militia leaders in Baghdad’s dangerous Red Zone. 

 March 2007 

The mission convoy crosses the border between Green and Red Zone. Wilfried Buchta is riding in one of the US-Humvee armored vehicles and takes a photo of the red warning sign attached to a passing Humvee. It says in Arabic: khatar! ibqa ba´id miat metr (Danger! Stay back 100 meters). The warning is meant for Iraqi pedestrians as well as drivers, who are not supposed to approach the vehicle. Should they attempt to come too close, they will be considered a potential threat and be shot at with machine guns or grenades. 

 July 2006

Side view of the Rashid Hotel, shot from the parking lot. The hotel served as sleeping quarter for most of the nearly 100 UNAMI employees from 2005 to 2007. The Rashid Hotel was quite exposed, since its blast walls bordered with the Red Zone in the East, North and West.

June 2006

View from my room at the Rashid Hotel. Behind the safety facilities and the greyish white blast walls, you can see civilian accommodations that are located in the Red Zone. In the run-down high riser adorned with scaffolding, snipers often camped out to fire at the Rashid Hotel.

Wilfried Buchta’s window in his room at the Rashid Hotel had been hit by enemy snipers on several occasions. Luckily the armored glass was thick and strong enough so that the shots did not get through.

Group photo with Iraqi and international employees of the UNAMI Political Affairs Office in Baghdad.

October 2008

Pictured in the front, the US armed forces' helicopter airfield. Off center to the right, you can see the Republican Palace, which was Saddam Hussein's government headquarters until his overthrow in April 2003. The US military then used the building as their headquarters in Iraq until they moved to the newly built US embassy in the Green Zone in 2009.

June 2006 

At the residence of UNAMI Mission Director Ashraf Qazi, called the „Villa“, which served as a location for formal and informal meetings and work dinners. Wilfried Buchta is pictured next to UNAMI’s Deputy Mission Director Michael von der Schulenburg after a work dinner with several US-Military leaders in Iraq. Pictured are (on the right) General Eldon Bargewell, Director of Strategic Operations at Multinational Forces Iraq (MNF-I), left General Rick Lynch, spokesman of MNF-I, all the way to the outer left General Vern “Rusty” Findley.

March 2007

Work meeting with Iraqi judges and members of Parliament at the residence of UNAMI Mission Director Ashraf Qazi (center). The second man from the left is judge Said al-Hamashi. He was one of six judges who led the special tribunal against Saddam Hussein. The tribunal ended 2006 with the result that the overthrown dictator was sentenced to death. Hamashi and Wilfried Buchta later became close friends.

July 2010 

Wilfried Buchta as guest in the home of his friend, judge Said al-Hamashi, who used to own a house in the Green Zone. For safety purposes UNAMI employees were not ever allowed to leave the Green Zone (for danger of being kidnapped and killed) so private contacts to Iraqis were extremely rare. Luckily, I was able to visit my friend, the judge, for dinner and some casual conversation every now and then. 

May 2007

The archway in the background was one of several heavily guarded access and checkpoints for the Green Zone and was called Assassin’s Gate in military jargon. It was a hot spot for fighting between the US occupying power and Sunni rebel groups. Between 2004 and 2009 several suicide attacks took place here, where people with suicide vests or cars loaded with explosives unsuccessfully attempted to force their way into the Green Zone. 

March 2007 

Ban Ki-Moon on the podium of UNAMI's lecture auditorium, where he discusses the results of UNAMI's work with the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki (2006-2014).

March 2007

UN-General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon with several high-ranking UNAMI members during a work meeting regarding the schedule for his visit in Iraq

August 2006

Western view of the Rashid Hotel, where you can see Zauraa Amusement Park and the City Zoo, both surrounded by blast walls. The facilities were abandoned after the US invasion and turned into garbage dumps. Behind them you can see the enormous but unfinished Grand Mosque, an architectural and religious political prestige project of Saddam Hussein. With its construction the dictator intended to prove to the people of Iraq what a devout Muslim he supposedly was. The mosque was meant to accommodate 30.000 praying men and therefore be the largest mosque on earth.

Helicopter flight over a part of the Green Zone. View over US-Military warehouses and container storage facilities within the Green Zone. 

June 2010

Wilfried Buchta at the government palace after negotiations with the then-Iraqi Vice President Adil Abdulmahdi. Abdulmahdi was and is considered a chameleon of Iraqi politics and an unrivaled master of political adaptation. While he was a member of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath state party in the early 1960s, he switched to the opposing communist party in the 1970s, only to then join the Shiite opposition camp that was loyal to Iran in the early 1980s. He reached the height of his career in October 2018 when he was elected prime minister as a compromise candidate. Having failed politically, Abdulmahdi had no choice but to resign in May 2020.

We are standing at the entrance of Zauraa Park. There, on the military parade square, is a bronze monument towering 43 meters in the air. The sculpture of two giant hands carrying two crossed swords, was ordered to be built by Saddam Hussein in 1989, and carries the name „Qadisiya Swords“. It symbolizes the victory of the battle of Qadisiya (638), when the early Muslim Arabic conquerors of Iraq beat back the Zoroastrian Persian armies. 

August 2008

Wilfried Buchta at the end of talks with Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the longtime head of the opposition Daawa party. From May 2005 to May 2006 Jaafari was head of government of the first government of Iraq to emerge from free, democratic elections. When the Shiite sectarian civil war broke out in February 2006 and tore the country into chaos, he acted haphazardly and without luck and finally had to cede the office of Prime Minister to Nuri al-Maliki.

September 2007

Wilfried Buchta at the end of talks with Ayyad Allawi, the leader of IRAQIYA, a national-secular party alliance in the Iraqi parliament. From 2004 to 2005 Allawi was Prime Minister of the interim government of Iraq set up by the US occupation powers.

Baghdad, June 2008

Wilfried Buchta in front of the UNAMI mission sign during a break from work. The sign was too heavy and too large to be hung up anywhere higher than that. At some point it was carelessly moved next to a drill ground at the Diwan Compound, which was used by soldiers of the Fiji Battalion, assigned to protect the mission, to practice drills or play sports.