Message to the Baghdad bureau

Foreign Editor Marjorie Miller marked the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war with a "well done" message to the Iraqi nationals who help staff the Los Angeles Times bureau in Baghdad. Publisher David Hiller put it on his intra-blog with his own "hear! hear!" for the newsroom to see.

Today is the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq. We should take time to remember and recognize the brave service of our colleagues who cover the war. Marjorie Miller, our foreign editor, wrote a fine note of thanks to the Iraqi staff in our bureau who face especially great danger in working with us. Following is Marjorie's note, and a reply from Salar Jaff, the first of the Iraqi staff to join us after the invasion. Please remember all of our colleagues abroad, and join me in thanking them for their service.

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Note from Marjorie Miller:

Dear Salar and the rest of the Iraqi Staff,

On the 5th anniversary of the U.S. invasion, I wanted to make sure that all of the Iraqis on our staff know how grateful we are for the hard and dangerous work you do for us every day. Please make sure to give our thanks to one and all, in the bureau and out in the hinterland. Whether you're providing translation, reporting, computer support, security, driving, paying bills or even cooking, you are providing essential services and without you we would not have been able to provide our readers with the thousands of smart and human stories we have published in the last five years.

Salar, you were the first to come aboard shortly after Saddam's government fell, but many of you have worked for us nearly the whole time. You accompanied us through the Nabil Restaurant bombing and Mark Fineman's death. You've survived terrible and wonderful times, and several generations of bureau chiefs and correspondents. We, in turn, have accompanied you as best we could though marriages, the births of your babies, the horrible deaths of children and parents. Some of you have sent your families abroad. Some of you have come and gone yourselves, and returned to the country again. We have learned so much from you and your families.

Your pictures are up on my door and window for all to see. Many people here in the building stop to look and talk about the bureau. They read your first-person stories and blog items and feel as if they know you. And every morning I open my front door and pick up the miracle that is the newspaper we made the day before, and your work is a part of that.

I wish you all safety, good health and a better year ahead.

Thank you, thank you,

Marjorie

Fineman was the Times reporter who died on the ground in Iraq of a heart attack in 2003. After the jump, Salar replies that "sometimes I tell my colleagues that a day in Baghdad equals a year abroad" and "freedom is really expensive."