NOTE:
Please forward this to anyone and everyone. All have my permission to post this anywhere - just please include my main email (sarin@devo.com).
-danke
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January 2003

Ben Granby Report from Iraq - #1

Before I could even internalize that I had just crossed the border into Iraq, a statue just past the mammoth gates at Trebeel stunned me. Ahead of our GMC Suburban stood a life-size statue of the Iraqi leader reeling back on a horse with a sword in hand. As if that was not enough, for added militant potency, flanking his horse were twin sets of Katyusha rocket launchers, making his steed resemble some megalomaniacal Voltron figure. This is Iraq.

Our journey took us, the latest grouping of Iraq Peace Team (www.iraqpeaceteam.org) members on the ten hour drive from Amman, Jordan into Baghdad, Iraq. IPT made all the arrangements for our visas – something most journalists struggle to obtain these days. But IPT has a history of clout with the Iraq Foreign Ministry through its seven-year-old parent organization, Voices In The Wilderness (www.vitw.org). Voices was formed in 1996 in response to the worsening state of civilian life in Iraq, due mainly to the adverse affects of the UN sanctions regime. Having already sent several dozen teams into Iraq in the past, VITW had little trouble arranging our visas.

After enduring an arduous two-hour wait at the Jordanian side of the border to pay our departure taxes, it was quite a relief to enter the Iraqi side. President Hussein greeted us not only upon his missile-loaded mount, but also across a column featuring him shaking hands with Hammurabi of Babylon as if there is some sort of historical continuity here. I doubt Hammurabi ever made it out to Trebeel, where were it not for the border facilities, he would be immersed in a vast and empty rocky desert of hundreds of square miles. Instead we had a welcoming sign which read, "Welcome to the hosts of Iraq and the Great Leader Saddam Hussein."

The three SUVs transporting our twelve person delegation pulled into a lot and our drivers ushered us out into the customs house. Saddam this time encountered us with a grand portrait flanked by a sign praising the good manners of the customs officers in both Arabic and English. Inside the customs house a cadre of polite officials did their best to efficiently wade us through the bureaucracy at hand. We hurried to fill out the proper exit forms, which is a standard procedure at any border entry. But then we had to collect all of our electronic equipment for itemization in a yellowed Iraqi log. The desk clerk dutifully jotted down the make, model and serial number of each computer and camera we had, carefully peeling back the crisp carbon paper beneath to check its functionality. Looking around, I observed a total of six portraits of the Great Leader, including a giant shag tapestry which accentuated his chubby cheeks.

The whole process took another hour, but unlike the cold edifice of the Jordanian passport control room, the twelve of us were able to recline in a pleasant lounge. As we sat waiting, a black and white television in the back beamed in images of Iraqi troops rolling under tanks in maneuvers. On the other end of the room was an immense portrait of the President, at least six feet in height. But most striking in its elaborate excess was a dual hand painted sign in Arabic and English describing how to declare foreign currency upon entry. As we were given hot tea to sip, an Iraqi official named Qassem showed off his skills in Spanish by engaging the members of our group who had spent time in Central America.

Finally a customs officer returned and did his best to hurry us on our way. It was already past seven at night and we had another six hours of driving to undertake. As we picked up our respective equipment he shoved a sheet of brown paper in our face. "Make sure you keep this! If you don’t have it, you cannot take your things out of the country!" I can only surmise that its an intricate plan to prevent foreigners from entering Iraq and buying some of the twenty year old beta videocameras for sale in their bazaars.

I endured the second leg of our trip by dozing in and out while listening to my new MD player. Somehow our driver was able to stay awake driving for ten hours without listening to so much as the radio. Everytime I stared out into the bleak blackness, my eyes slammed shut. I must admit however that I had imagined the Iraqi roads to be in terrible shape, yet unlike their single lane and dangerous counterparts in Jordan, the highway to Baghdad was well kept with two or three lanes of divided traffic.

Finally the flickering past of street lamps woke me. I strained to grasp where we were. The highway had become incredibly well lit with four lamps in tandem stretching across the highway every hundred yards or so. This was it. This was Baghdad. City of… well, CNN aerial imagery. As buildings arose along the sides of the highway, the city began to take shape. Statues and monuments zoomed past, leaving a definite impression of grandeur. For whatever Hussein has done for Iraq, he certainly has left Baghdad with an impressive array of architecture and civic engineering. These didn’t stand out as abstract and excessive Stalinist structures in Eastern Europe. Instead they arose from the medians to give the cityscape a palatial feeling for every mile driven. While I tend to abhor ornamental uses for concrete, the roads into Baghdad left me impressed. Short stretches of road, for instance, would be flanked by several towering and narrow arches, which were squared at the top. The city presented a sharp image of subdued futurism blended with Orientalism - and without any of the flickering epilepsy of say, Tokyo.

I could only cringe at the realization that I was unable to pull out my video camera and record what I saw. The restrictions placed by the state are most apparent with visual documentation. No photograph or video can be recorded outdoors without the permission of an Iraqi government official for fear of spies taping key government buildings. Their fears seem understandable, but I was anxious for the one time that someone would trust my abject ignorance.

The SUV convoy eventually pulled up to Al Fanar hotel where we began to disembark. After thirteen hours on the road or waiting at the border, most of us were only half-conscious and quite bleary. I was given a room, and struggled to gather my things. In the elevator one of the bellhops looked at me, smiled and exclaimed, "Tired!" I could only nod. Partnered with Greg, a Buddhist activist from Colorado, we had two bellhops dragging our heavy luggage into our room. Greg fished into his pocket for two 250 Iraqi Dinar notes ($0.25) for his assistant, and I did the same for mine. As it turned out, however, I had unwittingly given my bellhop the first two notes I found in my pocket – 20 Jordanian Dinar, or $35. Before I knew it, other staff were practically lining up at our door for a share of my wealth. No honest mistake goes unpunished, to be sure. Distracted by this, it wasn’t until I finally crawled into bed when I could actually realize, I’m in Baghdad. Damn.

Before turning in, we already had our first plans laid out. 11am, we gather to go to the Baghdad UNICEF center to hear about the conditions across the country. It was refreshing to know that after a full day of bewilderment, we could finally begin to be productive. I’m in Baghdad. Damn.

Report from Iraq - #2

My second day in Iraq finally drew the drastic extremes to my attention. While on the day before our group had an informative yet sterile briefing by UNICEF’s Baghdad Director, Carol Derroy and a few brief walking excursions, I was looking forward to something more tangible. I was struck by the similarity Baghdad’s small shops along As-Sadoon Street with those I had become familiar with the year before. The most substantial difference, apart from the ubiquitous posters of Hussein everywhere, were the rather racy advertisements for movies and plays. Drawings of seductive women hanging off Bond-like figures dotted the numerous theaters along the road. My major find was a vendor selling old Iraqi military pins, which I of course delighted in.

But Thursday reminded me of the military aspects that eroded all campy appeal. We visited the Ansariyah bomb shelter where on Feb. 13, 1991 some 408 women and children were incinerated by two US bombs. I remembered being a child and following the Gulf War late at night on my radio. I almost can envision where I was when I first heard about Ansariyah, just like the Challenger explosion or 9/11. Being able to visit the site lived up to the sobering anticipation I long held.

Several of us piled into a minivan, which drove us to the shelter location on the other side of Baghdad. Just a look at the area demonstrated that there was nothing around but civilian structures, as the shelter was directly in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Ansariyah was one of 34 shelters built, primarily in case of nuclear war, around Baghdad’s neighborhoods. Its obliteration was the single largest loss of civilian life in the war. At the time, the US claimed it was a military target and Saddam put people there as targets. Where the military gear fit in the two story concrete bunker was beyond me.

A woman named Inesar greeted us with a smile and ushered us in. Immediately past the iron door entry the walls showed black burn scars. Dashed across all surfaces, blotches of black streaked across the white under color. In some places the floors showed small lumps of charred materials, fused into the pavement. I later found out that those were human remains. In a flash the people taking shelter at Ansariyah were cooked at temperatures exceeding 400&186; centigrade.

Just past the entry way a shaft of light poured from a ceiling of fragmented concrete and twisted iron support bars. This was where the first bomb busted through. Immediately below, the thick floor buckled in, as if still quivering from the impact. Our hostess gave a brief description of how the incident occurred and its impact. I asked if it affected civilian reliance on shelters. Certainly, she answered, for after the bombing people stopped using shelters and stayed at home. And in a future war? They would remember Ansariyah.

A Belgian peace delegation shuffled in and moved to the back. I followed to watch as they set up candles for a vigil against a future war. The blackened walls stretched all over the shelter, darker near the top where the flames licked at the walls above the roasted bodies beneath. I kept stumbling over short red wooden posts, but took more care when I realized that they were demarking the locations of remains. Several Iraqi women assisted the Belgians by brining in several dozen portraits of victims from the bombing. They were only photocopy composites of photographs, but the faces still gave life to the site. I had only last seen such a memorial at Qana in Lebanon where 106 refugees were sliced apart by Israeli shells in 1996. Whereas Qana was draped in colored cloths and flags, accompanied by color portraits, Ansariyahs minimal black and white reflected the scorched walls where darkness overcame so many people. Indeed, sappy musings danced in my head as I paced about. Again, in the reflexes I learned from my time in Palestine, I used the objective lens of my camera to distance myself from the environment.

The vigil consisted of 408 candles laid out for the victims as several people read poetry. Local press poured in and soon after it was accompanied by a large group of male college students. They jockeyed for shots with my camera and I managed to interview a few. "America is the devil," seemed to be the common sentiment. But one young man had a strong point imploring that anyone who would make war on Iraq again come and see Ansariyah for themselves.

The visit hung over me most of the day, in conjunction with a group meeting about contingency plans should war start afresh. Planning for war. What do we need? Water. Lentils. Flashlights. Thousands of dollars to escape in a taxi. All seemed set, but the nervous tension of such talks was quite evident. A little later though, there was great clanging and music playing outside our hotel. Several weddings were taking place in the neighboring Palestine hotel. Just a brief glimpse of the event, where dozens danced about while moving outside, shook me from my pessimism. At least for a bit.

Report from Iraq - #3

Less than a week into this endeavor, and I already feel like an exploiter. As I make attempts to photographically document the citizens of Iraq, I begin to feel more and more as if I am on a safari. There is a stark removal from my subjects in many situations, and I feel most uncomfortable with that. Whereas in Palestine I had the assurance that I was documenting great tragedy, and people genuinely wanted me to photograph them (especially the swarms of children). But here, it seems as if I'm merely trying to set the stage for some sort of drama. Don't smile. Frown. Look down in despair, not at my camera.

Part of the problem is the unique nature of photographing in Baghdad. There simply is no freedom to do so, even if your subject matter requests it. For unless you are indoors, a person needs official permission to take a picture or people or things. The wealth of amazing architecture here shall go largely unseen by my cameras, as it is too difficult to arrange for permission to shoot them.

So when I do find a permissible subject matter, it becomes quite artificial. Yesterday I went on a second taxi tour of Baghdad, visiting both some of the poorest and some of the wealthiest areas. I insisted to our driver, Muhammed, who works closely with our group, that I wanted a chance to photograph areas. Muhammed, who has some discreet ties to the government, can often give nominal permission to photograph people outdoors. So we poured out of a taxi at one intersection and began taking shots of a fruit stand. Next to that was a wood-burning stove roasting some fish, and I snapped away there too. Up above on a balcony sat two young girls, so I got them as well. I try to offer a thanks each time, and the people genuinely smile, but it still doesn't feel natural.

Later we came across a minivan decked out in Iraqi flags and photographs of malformed infants. It proved to be a sort of caravan display of letters from children in southern Iraq, suffering from depleted uranium and malnutrition. I tried to ask a man putting up the photographs who was the organization behind this and he quickly whisked me inside a neighboring theater. There I was rushed to a small office where a rather corpulent Iraqi in a corduroy leisure suit greeted me and implored that I "take a rest" inside the theater. I walked on in, still not knowing what was going on. Once I emerged from the entrance next to the stage I looked about and saw a sea of very young children sitting patiently, waiting for some sort of performance. Many were dressed up in shirts and bow ties or little dresses. None could have been over the age of six. What else could I do? I began snapping away with my camera. In one corner two young boys flashed victory signs as I photographed them. Unfortunately, we were still on the meter for our tour and had other arrangements for the evening to attend to.

The tension here is indeed building in the days before Bush's State of the Union address. But all of this preparatory, "daily life in Iraq" documentation still leaves me feeling like another exploiter. I'm not here for your oil, just some nice shots of your misery.

Report from Iraq - #4

Before detailing anything more with my daily experiences here, it's probably appropriate to provide more of a contextual view of Baghdad. Twice now I've taken tours around the city with a journalist from Quebec named Jooned. Jooned writes for Montreal's Le Presse, and is quite a character in his own right. Of Mauritanian origin, he moved to Canada and began interning as a journalist. He has been at it now for over twenty years around the world, but opted to travel with IPT as our visa restrictions are more lax. Most midlevel journalists have trouble entering Iraq these days, which makes little sense as they are usually the most sympathetic.

On Thursday after our visit to the Amariyah shelter, we took our first trip around the city's landmarks. Baghdad is an immense city of some six million residents, straddling either side of the Tigris. In 1991, US bombs destroyed all bridges across the river, but they have since been rebuilt. In fact, as far as I could tell, all signs of damage from 1991 have been repaired. I guess the Iraqis have little to do these days other than build things.

The construction though is monumental. As I noted before, there are stretches of road ornamented with grand structures for pure aesthetic value. Large towers and edifices grace street ways, often with statues or frescoes, but other times just as plain decorative architecture. While there are areas of antiquated housing in both older Arabic brick as well as British colonial style, there are also numerous office buildings constructed in peculiar neo-Italian futurist designs.

Rounding one bend, we passed by a gigantic round structure that resembled a squished sports coliseum. Atop sat a large square structure, above which at an angle sat an immense hundred foot tall concave surface, like a closing lid. Aside that sat a spiral ziggurat-like tower in multiple colors. The whole facility turned out to be Iraq's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It certainly lacked the modesty of Arlington Cemetery...

Next to that was the one area most Americans would recognize from their televised parades of Iraq's military: Celebration Square. The boulevard running the length is marked at either end by gigantic crossed swords made of the melted helmets of dead Iranian soldiers. I begged our driver to stop and he arranged with a nearby soldier for me to take a photo. The soldier showed with his hands the only angle from which I could shoot. Presumably this is done to prevent the capturing of key government buildings in the background. I suppose the Iraqis still haven't heard of satellite imaging.

Other impressive structures included Baghdad's Clock Tower, where the tower sat upon a sort of Aztec pyramid style base. The typical mosque, far from the graceful Turkish style designed by the great architect Sinan, or the plain but functional sort elsewhere in the region, resembles a Faberge egg decked out in thousands of tiles of beautiful mosaic work.

At one point, we spied in the distance a sea of cranes huddled around what looked like a mammoth structure. The driver took us past what was the Hussein Mosque, still under construction. It is meant to be the largest mosque in the world, and even in its incomplete state, defies description. All I could think was that I was looking at a clay set piece, not quite finished, for some sci-fi set on a distant planet. A massive dome was surrounded by a network of conjoining lesser onion-shaped domes, all with patterns of arches woven in with concrete. While it didn't look extremely tall overall, the sheer massive size of the building was almost impossible to determine. It simply didn't look real. A few miles away, another enormous mosque was being built near the airport. There the only completed parts were six thin arches stretching hundreds of feet into the sky.

Jooned remarked, "you see, it's not just oil for food..." I could only concur. The sheer amount of incredibly elaborate and presumably expensive architecture in Baghdad is astounding. Then again, concrete probably isn't what is lacking here. Even though Iraq's economy ranks among the poorest in the world at present, most people still have ample housing, for all of that was built while the nation was still comparatively wealthy. Homeless women, sunken down in their chadoras, indeed sit in the entry way of mosques, with feeble hands outstretched, but their number seems small. Most begging children, who might follow me for blocks asking for money, while certainly poor, probably do have shelter and the basic rations all Iraqis receive.

On Saturday afternoon we took a tour of the poorer and wealthier neighborhoods of Baghdad. The poorer areas were not hard to find, as many of them are situated only blocks from our hotel. We are staying next to the Tigris, down from As-Sadoun Street, a major shopping thoroughfare. At all times of day and night the street is packed, mostly with people congregating near food stalls. Along the side streets the roads breakup into muddy puddles and scattered refuse. Baghdad, despite the shabby condition of many buildings of lesser stature, has a remarkably good cleaning service. Old men with push brooms drag garbage carts down the street, diligently cleaning the sidewalks and curbsides. The poorer areas are no exception, however a degree of filth seems to permeate. Cars appear in tired and worn condition, and many substitute those for push carts and donkeys. Yet still among these areas stands full of bright (though blemished) fruit stand out. Plaster peelings and concrete in disrepair are the main signifiers of what neighborhood one is in.

The wealthier areas feature elegant estates nestled along the Tigris river. Stretches of shops with well-designed signs denote the upper class districts. More notably, the people in these areas have a more European look to their style, and women prefer to substitute imitation Italian design for hejabs here. But what stood out to me the most was the complete lack of portraits of the President in these areas. It seems the upper classes don't require the same amount of indoctrination.

Report from Iraq - #5

Yesterday we set out on a walk to another popular meeting place for middle class Iraqis. IPT had cultivated a relationship with a woman named Amal ("hope" in Arabic), who runs a house that has been rather converted into an arts and crafts center known as Al Bayt Al Iraq (The Iraq House). Given the bright and beautiful January day, we decided to walk to her residence.

Along the way traffic was notably packed, and I wondered why. Finally, someone spied banners and crowds in the distance. It was one of the numerous demonstrations put on by Iraqis, as the crisis seems to pique. This particular demonstration was in front of the UNDP building, a place with little influence on the UN Security Council to be sure.

As we approached, the crowd had already begun to break up to some degree. Other members in our group felt the desire to hold back, or at least wait for one of the members who had been in Iraq longer. I (of course) was eager to not miss the opportunity to see a demonstration up close. Before we had left Amman, one of the old hands in the IPT who had stayed here for ten weeks noted that he had never seen a demonstration during his stay. Finally, the others moved ahead too, as our guide, Cathy, approved. One of the groups heading home from the demonstration passed by, and on noticing us, broke out in a chorus of Arabic condemnations of America. I just smiled and waved at them. Others in the group looked a little more disconcerted. Having been to several angry Hamas demonstrations in Gaza, I tried to assure the others that the crowd just wanted to our attention. "Yeah, that's the problem," one commented.

Up ahead at the UNDP though, the demonstrators were held back by Iraqi soldiers, so we were able to slip in behind. The crowd, which was previously much more docile, whooped into frenzy upon our arrival. My appearance, in sunglasses and a suit and tie, probably didn't help much. But I leaned over to a guard and in feeble Arabic asked permission to photograph the crowd. Others followed suit, and once the cameras came out, the crowd jockeyed for position in the lenses. There were exclusively men present, and while a banner in English was signed by students of Basra, most of the participants were in their thirties or older. One middle-aged man with a large poster of Hussein jumped up and down in front of me as he yelled in Arabic. "Down down Bush!" they began chanting. Mary, from our group quipped about joining in on the mantra.

While I was pre-occupied photographing and videotaping the scene, others in our organization proceeded to hand out letters in Arabic describing our peace mission. As this was going on out of my view, I didn't notice, but supposedly those who read the letter turned quickly from anger to embracing joy. I never really thought that we were the focus of their outrage, but then again, its not like the UNDP doesn't already know how most Iraqis feel about being bombed and invaded again. These demonstrations have increased in frequency of late, and so they garner little outside attention if any at all. It was still an event I was eager to catch. While I understand the artificiality of many demonstrations in such a controlled state, their outrage, if not fear and anxiety, was surely pure and honest.

We then continued on to Al Bayt Al Iraq, to see the wares Amal had on display. To be honest, the older women in our group took more of an interest in the sorts of arts and crafts on sale, but there were traditional Iraqi woodworks and sculpture present as well. The house itself, with two-stories surrounding a small courtyard was quite nice, and a good reflection of older Iraqi homes for the mid to upper classes. In 1991 when several bombs hit the neighboring Jumaliya Bridge, the concussion collapsed most of the second floor. Amal explained how homeowners had to complete most all construction and rebuilding for small homes like hers, with some help from masons.

Two sisters who worked jointly on their own art showed up and described some of their pieces. Lacking ample supplies of paint due to the embargo, they developed a medium using parts of pressed leaves from various plants. With almost exclusively organic material, they created several urban scenes from around Iraq in intricate detail. Other works ranged from textiles to pottery and most anything else imaginable. The home had been set up for dozens of years as a communal space for people to work on art, give musical performances, or even discuss philosophy. Its one of the few homes that our organization has open permission to visit by the government, without fear of raising suspicion.

Report from Iraq - #6

Note to all: if you have a chance, drop me a line, via johnshamilton@yahoo.com -- its nice to know if people are getting my reports, and to know that there is a world left to return to...
-b
________

Today I witnessed some of the brutal truths. The seminal "faces behind the statistics." So much that I've done here in my first week, other than encounters with middle-class Baghdad residents, has involved press conferences, dialogues with officials, and statistics from agencies. And so it does indeed alter one's perception when finally coming face to face with a reality only read about before.

The Al-Monsour Pediatric Teaching Hospital is actually quite a common place for delegations to visit when in Baghdad. Indeed, I visited the same wards not too long ago seen by some U.S. Congressmen, and even Sean Penn. But as this is Iraq, each visit to this children's hospital is likely to be different: the beds keep emptying with each fatality. I don't think anyone could grow accustomed to it.

A group of six of us set out from our hotel to spend a few hours at the hospital. At first we had a meeting with the director, Dr. Luay Kasha. Dr. Kasha proved to be quite animated and even jovial, given the grave circumstances surrounding his job. When we got on to the topic of the levels of toxins in local meats, he wouldn’t stop praising Baghdad's high quality lamb. "I should stop now, for a while ago some journalists from the Guardian were here and I said the same. When I read their article they cited that I love high cholesterol foods!" he quipped, as he lit a cigarette. For a good hour he answered our questions about the hospital and how it has struggled in the face of economic sanctions. Most all of the problems I had read about before still persisted.

The hospital had the only radiology lab in the nation, and it was faltering. Other labs in the country, with their old equipment, had fallen into disrepair. At his hospital, there were only three of eight original machines working. None could be repaired and no new labs could be opened. Why? Because the US considers such equipment and spare parts to be "dual use" – potentially convertible to weapons. "It is absurd," Dr. Kasha noted. "They ban cobalt for our machines like it's uranium..." Radiological equipment is only the beginning. Simple items like blood bags or chlorine for cleaning are difficult if not impossible to import, because some chemicals could be possibly diverted. The medical university's biological research lab couldn't function because the US banned any chemicals needed for such work. Even totally benign items such as test tubes took months to get approval from the sanctions committee to import. And most inexplicably, Iraq's medical establishment has been completely unable to import or receive Western medical journals and research. "Our medical library is now like a medical history museum," he noted, shaking his head.

Most tragic though is the lack of medicines that could easily save lives. For five years from 1991-96, Iraq was almost completely unable to purchase basic drugs to cure diseases. Even with the oil-for-food program, so touted in the West, any order is held up for months at a time. In order to fight cancer (which has had a five-fold increase in children in the past ten years – mainly due to depleted uranium in US bombs) each patient requires a regimen of various drugs. If just one drug is held up, or blocked from purchase, as invariably happens, nothing will help a patient. In addition to the enormous surge in cancer cases in Iraq, the devastated water treatment and sanitation systems in the nation (all due to US bombing campaigns) have led to massive outbreaks in preventable diseases. Even polio, once extinct, has resurfaced in areas. Outbreaks of typhoid, cholera, meningitis, once rare in Iraq, are now common place. And basic antibiotics to fight these have been banned by the US, on the suspicion that such drugs would be used to cure chemical weapon poisoning.

Dr. Kasha estimates that in the past 12 years, since sanctions were imposed, some 1,720,000 Iraqis have died prematurely of diseases. A full two-thirds of these he fully believes could have been prevented without the sanctions and with modern medical equipment. Infant mortality in 2002 was five times higher than the death rate in 1990. He noted that even two years ago his own cousin died as an indirect result of the US imposed sanctions regime. With advanced kidney cancer, his cousin required delicate water-jet-knife surgery, a process available in the West. As Iraq has been unable to buy such high-end medical equipment, and visas for medical treatment in Europe have been nearly impossible to get, his cousin needlessly died at age 59.

More and more statistics. But then we were finally taken to the cancer ward. In three separate rooms, we saw twelve Iraqi children and their mothers. The tradition in the Middle East is for mothers to spend all their time at the hospital if their children are ill, and so with every child's sickly face, we saw that of a weary mother sitting nearby. Here Dr. Oday Salah showed us around and gave us the prognosis for many of the children. Most had lymphoid cancers, leukemia, or variants thereof. Just again the day before our visit, the hospital had run out of antibiotics to administer.

In the first room, I just stood and stared about me. Eight-year old Hamoud didn't look so bad, but he had just been admitted and only began chemotherapy two days before. He didn't seem to know what was happening. Across from him I spied Abdul, a ten-year old boy already missing most of his hair, but sitting upright and brimming with smiles. I waved to him and he lit up, waving back. It was a stark contrast to six-year old Atarid, who was bundled up in blankets and bleeding from terminal cancer. His mother, with bright eyes and a round face, was the youngest in the room. While her son could move little and was reluctant to open his eyes, she kept trying to smile for us. I noticed, on looking back, that when she didn't think we were paying attention that her head had collapsed back into her hands.

It didn't get any better. In the next room there were two girls, both only three years of age, with cancer. They were so young that they couldn't even recognize themselves as Dana, from our group, took Polaroid photographs for each one. Dr. Salah then turned me around to face a thirteen-year old boy, feebly trying to stand next to his bed. "This is Faraj. He is with leukemia, but it is in a terminal stage and he will die in the next few days." I couldn't even think about it. There were four more like these in the next room down. Our group handed our crayons and stuffed animals to them, as well as took their Polaroid photos. The mothers appreciated the gestures, but it seemed as if the children didn't understand why they deserved so much attention.

As difficult a visit to any such children's cancer ward must be, its far more incomprehensible when there are external political and military causes to their suffering, and preventing their treatment.

When I returned I re-read a report from a few days back about new potential Pentagon plans for an air attack on Iraq. The National Defense University, according to the Baltimore Sun of Jan. 25, put forth a plan to launch 3-400 depleted uranium tipped missiles into Baghdad, and to make water supplies one of the key targets. They claim it will "shock and awe" the citizenry who will then rise in revolt. I like to think I'm pretty up on my history, and I cannot recall an instance when people dying of thirst ever had the energy to revolt before...

Basically, I don't know what to think of the world anymore.

Report from Iraq - #7

Yesterday, the 29th, began with my awaking to the reaction of Bush’s State of the Union Address. I had originally intended to join others in the group in watching the Address at Al-Jazeera’s bureau at 5am. It was easy to figure what would be said. I slept in. As I reached the hotel lobby after waking, I ran into Joneed. "It was the closest thing to a declaration of war, without declaring war," he described it.

Mary, another member of the group who stayed up to watch the speech gave an even more ominous tone. She explained that as she saw it, because Bush implied the US would attack unilaterally, the attack would certainly come without warning. "If he is doing it alone, why would he warn anyone who might oppose it?" she reasoned.

For the first time in my entire stay here, my stomach bottomed out.

I really could just be walking down the street to find a 2,000lb JDAM bomb on top of me without warning. I always presumed that there would be a zero hour, to allow for last minute preparations. It gave me pause (as I suppose it would anyone, the moment they entered this country…) I presume for now that the window of safety at least extends to February 5, when Powell addresses the UN Security Council. Plenty of time to buy some water.

For the rest of the morning, we acquired a text of Bush’s speech and proceeded to laugh at its content. Yet most people clearly were simply sickened by it. Notions of Bush’s administration caring for all life, pursuing liberty, and feeding the Iraqi people become stark jokes to me now. Not like they ever weren’t before, but it seems apparent that if Bush’s speech writer could spend just half a day in the slums of Baghdad, the world could change.

We were to take part next in a demonstration at Al Mansour Pediatric Hospital organized by the Greek branch of Medicines du Monde. The immediate response to Bush in Baghdad was to be thrusting in his face images of those he is willing to kill. Unfortunately, the logistical end broke down, and while we showed up to the hospital, we were unable to find the demonstration – perhaps due to the numerous hospitals situated in the large complex. I went on my own to ask around the area (normally a minder is needed to even visit a hospital), asking along the way if anyone had seen a wayward group of Greeks. At one point I was mistaken for being a participant in a seminar, and was ushered into a medical lecture in Arabic.

The day was salvaged by a return to Al Bayt Al Iraqi, the arts and crafts gallery/house where we had been a few days before. Here I met Naira, an elegant and articulate Iraqi woman in her 80s. She studied religious philosophy at the American University in Beirut, and her children and other relatives lived around the world. With a great-uncle who was an Ottoman Pasha that played a key role in the 1908 Young Turk rebellion, she came from a rather distinguished family. While most of her descendents were Turks involved in politics, she was proud that her father was a farm owner instead (who then had to sell most of it with the land reforms after Iraq’s Ba’ath revolution). "I am through with politics," she asserted. "I connect with people by understanding religions."

Naira gave me a critical lesson in Iraqi identity, one that I had little pondered before. Westerners like to think of Iraq in terms of its oppressed Kurdish minority in the north (most of whom live in total autonomy now) and the Shia majority that live under Sunni rule in the central and southern regions. While this cookie-cutter regionalism works for people like Bush, Naira had a different perspective. "I am more Iraqi than Arab," she whispered to me, jokingly afraid that the hostess, Amal, would take offense. As Naira is part Turkish, Kurdish, Persian and Arab, she is content with comparing Iraq with the sort of melting pot of America, to a degree. "They think there are just Kurds in the north and the Shia in the south? These people are everywhere," she explained.

Dana, of our group, at one point asked her of her secret to her youthful old age. "I never go to sleep hating anyone," Naira promptly stated. "Even those who would harm me – I never end a day with a grudge."

At around 7pm, the owner and hostess invited us to attend a short presentation on architecture. "You will see, we Iraqis are not all hospitals and sick people," Amal said as she introduced Dr. Sahar Il-Kassi. Dr. Kassi, a short, balding, permissive man, offered us a slide show of his work. It was only a ways into the 3D graphical renditions of his recent plans that we understood just how significant he was. With award winning designs in Germany and elsewhere, he had just finished designing almost a dozen university buildings, mostly in the city of Kufa.

Dr. Kassi’s premise was a "blend of the old and the new," where he mixed classical Arabic and Sumerian styles with contemporary design. Frank Lloyd Wright was one of his major inspirations, and many of his houses greatly reflect that. With his impressive university plans, most already in construction stages, the dual-concepts came across with modern white functional structures emerging through classical facades, sometimes literally.

Such works, which I would perhaps take only nominal interest in elsewhere, strike a strong chord in Iraq for me. Daily it becomes more and more apparent that this is a nation used to being on the cutting edge of the developing world and well infused with contemporary thought. It is as if a class of college students were forced to repeat the third-grade. Such potential sits here screaming for the opportunity to join the world community.

-ben

Report from Iraq - #8

"Once again, this nation and our friends are all that stand between a world at peace, and a world of chaos and constant alarm." Those words from President George Bush’s State of the Union speech reverberated in my head with the bitterest of irony. As my heart sunk during most of Bush's comments regarding Iraq, to be standing in Baghdad at the time made it all the more unbearable.

One of the major issues Iraqis discuss with me is the on going economic sanctions. Unlike the perception of sanctions in the US, Iraqis feel the tangible effects of not being able to obtain standard goods from abroad, or be able to improve their lot by selling their own products. While sanctions include restrictions on everything from medical supplies to contemporary literature, another major impact is on Iraq's agriculture and the ability of people to subsist by it.

On the day before the President's speech I attended a talk with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) representative for Iraq, Dr. Elkheir Khalid. It struck me that a man from Ethiopia has been in charge of helping Iraq regain its agricultural footing. In the 1980s Iraq was fully self-sufficient in food and even was a major regional exporter of many staple foods. Now, according to the FAO, almost 70% of all Iraqis are dependent on government rations due to the sanctions and the poor economy. Because of those sanctions, no one here is starving, but as Dr. Khalid pointed out, it is a fragile system and any new conflict would send it into peril. "At least in 1991, when Iraq faced war, most people had assets to buy for the emergency," he explained. "Now they are much more vulnerable." Even without a new war, Iraqis are still struggling with the sanctions. The FAO notes that in rural areas, over one in five children are malnourished.

In Baghdad, I find an abundance of food. Many fruits and vegetables are widely available (although eating many is risky due to the diseases in the water supply). On one afternoon, I walked through one of Baghdad's poorer sections, where I paid about four cents for a glass of tea, and ten cents for a falafel sandwich. I turned to a neighboring fruit stand, presuming that the prices would be comparable. It surprised me to find that a fresh orange was double the cost of the sandwich. In a country where average wages are under $5 per month and children make up almost half the population, the malnutrition levels are understandable.

Brahim Ad-Das Ismir understands the agricultural situation well. At the age of 72 he still works the same farm that has been in his family for hundreds of years. We paid a visit to Brahim's farm, about 50 miles northeast of Baghdad on a bright cloudless late-January day. Brahim and his six sons greeted us with great enthusiasm to his orange and date farm. As the entire extended family lives in the area, we were also met by an onslaught of young children eager to play with the new guests.

While sipping on freshly squeezed orange juice, Brahim explained some of the problems in rural life that face even cash-crop farmers such as him. The most important aspect to Iraq’s agriculture is its complex and ancient irrigation systems. As the population has grown, most irrigation is now done by electric pumping systems. The 1991 Gulf War destroyed Iraq's electric grid, and thus greatly hampered food production for years in many areas. Even today, Brahim's farm loses all power from time to time as the fragile system struggles to cope with demand. His farm also once produced rice, but as its water requirement is very high, he could no longer grow that staple crop.

The FAO noted that Iraq used to export almost 90% of the world's dates. For farmers like Brahim, this was a substantial source of living. "And now, nothing because of the sanctions," he bemoaned to us through a translator. "I don't know why, but the Americans won't let us sell our food on the world market." With acres of orange groves and over 300 date palms to harvest, it is telling that his home for himself and the extended family is a model in austere asceticism. Sitting seemed to be the only activity available to the family.

We took a walk through the groves, where oranges ripened on short trees that sat adjacent to majestic date palm trees. The arching palm branches dissipated the noonday sun as I breathed in the fresh air. "In July, it is even unbearable to be in the shade," one of Brahim's sons commented. We were shown a few trees that had been affected by microorganisms. One, called 'white fly', greatly reduced the productivity, and left a sticky residue on the oranges. Brahim observed that none of these diseases existed before 1991, and presumably came about with the contaminated water supplies. Indeed, Dr. Kahlil at the FAO told us that the sanctions greatly hampered the ability to fertilize and spray crops around the country, as everything from chemicals to parts for crop dusters have been held up.

Yet these are all circumstances of the present, and with Bush's address and the impending threat of war, we of course had to raise the issue with Brahim. "Oh, I quit following the news long ago," he said. Scoffing at our concern, he continued, "If a person only pays attention to the news, they won't get anything done." His youngest granddaughter darted past and landed on his lap. "I'm just going to live my life the same."

*Statistical source: FAO Representative in Iraq: Agriculture in Iraq, Briefing Notes, May 2002, UN FAO publications

Report from Iraq - #9

Thursday was our day of tourism. About nine of us set out in a minivan with one of our Iraqi minders, Zaid, to visit the Shi'ite holy shrines of Kufa, Najaf and Kerbala. The three towns, which all lay relatively close to each, other are pivotal to the Shia branch of Islam. As the Shia split began with followers of Mohammed's son-in-law Ali, Kufa contains the mosque where Ali was murdered in 661 after becoming the forth Caliph – and scuttling the possibility of Islamic unity. After his death, Ali was buried in a shrine in Najaf, which is now treated as a most sacred pilgrimage site by Shi'ites. Ali's second son, Hussein, took up the cause was killed in battle in 680 at Kerbala with his half brother, cementing the split in Islam. There, twin shrines house the remains of Mohammed's grandsons, Hussein and Abbas.

The drive to Kufa took about two hours, where I mostly slept with the hot Mesopotamian sun heating the car. Its intensity at the end of January made me fear what the country must be like in the summer. We passed by the ancient site of Babylon, but didn't get out to see any of its remnants. One morsel of conversation from the ride stuck with me. Dan, from Colorado, an elderly man who was in Baghdad for the first days of the 1991 Gulf War made some comment about passing by the same things before. Joneed, in his sarcastic attempts at wisdom commented, "Well, that's life. Repeating things over and over."

"Almost," Dan replied.

"Well, almost doesn't quite count, does it now?"

"It does with hand grenades."

For some reason, that exchange has stuck in my head.

On passing through Kufa, we disembarked for a short visit into the courtyard of the mosque where Ali was martyred. The poverty and congestion of the city of a few hundred thousand was quite apparent along the main roads. People meandered through run down shops whose signs barely showed glints of their once bright colors. Most goods seemed to be peddled on the carts that surrounded the mosque. Indeed, the Shi'ite pilgrims who visit these three cities from Iran annually number some 4 Million – compared with only 2.5 Million who attend the Haj to Mecca each year. Iranian clerics huddled near the door and smiled to us as we took photographs. Only the women, fully covered save for their faces, seemed camera shy. But when they sat with children, they too were open to pictures. The mosque itself is a magnificent golden dome surrounded by vaulted courtyards covered in turquoise mosaics and inscriptions.

We returned to the van and headed eight miles north to Najaf. Along the way we passed Kufa University where we saw several of the buildings shown to us in the presentation of the architect Dr. Kassi the night before. Najaf, a somewhat larger city, resembled Kufa in its poverty, yet numerous hotels and souvenir vendors reflected the huge tourist trade here. "Its bigger than oil right now," Zaid commented on the influx of Iranian pilgrims and tourists. In fact a visit to the city of Ali's tomb is so sacred, many Shi'ites on the passing of a relative will cruise into the town with the coffin on top, circle the tomb and try to return in time for burial by sundown.

We entered the courtyard where before us stood an even more grand golden dome, flanked by two minarets of modest height also plated in gold. The ceilings of the archways leading into the shrine inside were covered in glass, patterned at various angles so as to shimmer as the surface of a cut diamond. All around pilgrims and worshippers sat on small blankets with their families. As a constant prayer billowed from the minarets, only a few families were in prayer. Most were too busy grinning at the peculiar Westerners who had entered with cameras firing away.

Zaid took us into a room near the back of the complex where we were introduced to several clerics and Dr. Haider Rufeh, the key-keeper of the shrine's treasures. The tomb of Ali for centuries had collected offerings, and Dr. Rufeh's family had been entrusted as its guardian for several generations. After a hurried glass of tea with the Imams, we were again off. The situation began to bother me as if I were in a tour group – and basically I was. Zaid kept ushering us on, even as I resisted wanting to take in the sensation around the highly sacred mosque. In addition, the area provided a wonderful opportunity for open photography of families, so we further annoyed our minder holding back for that.

Kerbala appeared to more resemble Baghdad with its wide streets in the city center. Just in the middle of a giant roundabout sat the shrine of Abbas, a large mosque surrounded by a circular wall of turquoise mosaics. By this point, it almost became redundant. The shrine of Abbas featured more gold plated minarets, a substantial golden dome, and elaborate mosaic work around. Families here too were much the same, with many appearing to be more picnicking than in worship in the courtyard. A large pedestrian mall spread itself outside the Abbas mosque, leading to the more revered shrine of Hussein. At the latter location we were not allowed in to the courtyard, so we posed outside for photos and fended off beggars. The pedestrian mall had basically been converted to a tourist trap for Iranian tourists. But the target clientele didn't prevent many of the wandering souvenir peddlers from pushing their Shia wares on us. I consented to buy a hand-wrapped package of dried mud disks, made of the soil around Ali's grave.

In all it was a pleasant trip away from Baghdad, and a good immersion into some of Shi'ite culture, which I knew little of before.

And now, as it is the night before our trip to Basra, I have undertaken some sort of stomach illness. One of the others, who ate where I did earlier today, is now vomiting. Such are the perils of war journalism, I guess.

And as I wrote this, the images of CNN came in over Iraqi television showing what appears to be space shuttle Columbia's crash. Apart from the tragic loss of life, from the perspective here, it might give Iraq some breathing room as America mourns. Then again, that's all I know until I make it to the internet café.

Unless I find internet access in Basra (or I'm too sick to go) I likely will be incommunicado for the next two days.

Report from Iraq - #10

On Sunday morning, we left for Baghdad's Saddam International Airport for Basra. My stomach problems were persistant, but I had enough energy to go and I didn't want to pass up the trip. Saddam International featured a striking ceiling with hundreds of arcing lights stretching down in conical formations, with hanging PVC rods between. It belied the fact that the airport was almost devoid of services, and despite flights to Amman, was now reduced to little more than a domestic hub. This of course meant that to fly to Basra was to fly almost the entire way in the US/UK imposed "no-fly zone". Apart from images in my head of the 1987 downing of an Iranian Airbus by a US missile, the flight in the aged Boeing 727 was uneventful.

As we landed in Basra, what first stood out was the sight of almost twenty burned out hulks of APCs, mobile artillery and tanks lining the route of the airfield's taxiways. Our Iraqi government minder, Zaid, later acknowledged that it was a rather macabre memorial, I presume to remind people in this once rebellious province of the sacrifices the army made in 1991. Or to assure foreigners that the US isn't the only nation that fetishizes the machinery of war. I also managed to spy a few old bomb craters near the runway from the Gulf War.

Basra proved to be quite a bit more impoverished than Baghdad almost from the start. The city lies past the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates, and straddles numerous canals that run between and along major thoroughfares. It has a rich rustic and British colonial past, but these once elegant districts laid in notable disrepair. Colonial buildings from the 1930s looked as if they had not been lived in since then, but of course poor families did so. The lack of garbage pickup seemed much more prevalent than in most of Baghdad, and most of what we saw was relatively upscale to the poorer neighborhoods.

At the hotel, Al-'Iyoun, five shoe-shine boys lined up on cue, begging, "Mister! Mister!" for our attention. At our hotel in Baghdad, Al-Fanar, which sees plenty more long-term Western residents, we only have two. Kathy Kelly, the founder of Voices in the Wilderness, couldn't help herself and simply gave each of them some cash. Later on, one of our group supposedly gave one of the boys a US$5 bill for a shine, which brought the wrath of Zaid. Zaid complained that if we are too generous with the children, they will refuse to attend school, finding they can make so much more on the streets.

After checking in, we split into two groups, which was well facilitated by the cadre of Iraqi minders we had in tow. Apart from Zaid, the other three minders knew almost no English, and dressed relatively casual in striped shirts and brown leather jackets. Still, the locals were easily intimidated it seemed. The group I was with immediately set off for the Basra Hospital for Maternity and Child Care, while others joined Kathy on personal work and visits to old friends of hers (she spent almost three months living in a slum there in 2000.)

At the hospital the director, Dr. Mohammed Nasser described the conditions. Almost all of it were things we had heard before concerning the restrictions on medicines and essential equipment. The difference here in Basra apart from the hospitals in Baghdad, was that they were at the bottom end. Al-Monsour Pediatric Hospital was for those who could afford it and its equipment. In Basra, though the poor received free care, there was almost no equipment for any proper treatment. Even basic chemotherapy was not an option for the cancer patients. The Basra district, surrounded by water and near marshlands as well as the major areas contaminated by depleted uranium from US missiles, suffered vastly more cases of waterborne illnesses and cancer.

Dr. Nasser began listing the types of things his hospital could not purchase due to sanctions: any electronic equipment, cancer medication, antibiotics, chemicals for diagnosis and research, and a slew of other things we had heard before. All were banned of course because of potential military use by the whim of the US. "I don't even know what 'dual-use' means," Dr. Nasser complained. "It has no significance to me, I'm a physician." Diseases common to the third-world, but easily curable and never a real problem in Iraq before, such as lesh meniasis, cholera, typhoid and even worms, now became debilitating if not fatal diseases.

And then the obligatory cancer ward visit. But before that, an assistant to the director tossed several photo albums on the table for us to peruse through. Behind their covers of nature scenes and dolphins laid spreads of newborns dead of congenital malformations and tumors. It bordered on the grotesque. We only went into one room where eight children occupied the beds. The hospital was clearly in rough shape. Though built in the early 80s, it already looked run down and didn't smell quite sanitary. Flies buzzed about everywhere, even around the heads of the dying children in the wards. "The Baghdad hospitals look like the Hilton compared to this place," Jooned commented.

The ward was quite unbearable, and seemed so far removed from possible reality that I had trouble accepting its reality like I could in Baghdad. I felt more detached from the young boys and girls and the mothers who embraced them. One eighteen month old boy just two weeks before developed a lymphatic tumor. Now it had encompassed almost all of the left side of his face. He could do nothing but cry constantly. I asked our guide, Dr. Mohammed Kamil, how long the boy would live. The doctor could only give a nervous smile. Limia Abu Jabal sat in another bed on the opposite side of the room. She looked small for a girl of fifteen and she exemplified the poverty of the Basra hospitals. Suffering from aplastic anemia, she could obtain no treatment at all even to minimize her suffering. Her bloodshot eyes and black cyst covering her neck said more than any statistic could. Dr. Kamil noted that her cancer required only a bone marrow transfer – something impossible in Iraq because the equipment is banned. And clearly her poor family could never afford travel to Jordan for aid.

There is obviously much more to my Basra tale, but this is all I can get out before the internet closes for the day.

-ben

Report from Iraq - #10.5

* Note: This is an earlier report from Ben, his second from Basra. There's been trouble receiving email from Iraq; apparently the US government is flooding the country's computer networks in an effort to disrupt communications.
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For our second stop in Basra, we headed to a water treatment plant along the Shatt Al-Arab. We drove outside of the city, into dusty poor neighborhoods dominated by small farm markets and goat herders. The plant was placed just off one of the Shatt's rocky shores, about a kilometer from a fishing boat landing. Large inactive cargo vessels sat along both sides of the coastline. A few miles south of our position, the other coast of the waterway turned into Iranian territory. The whole region was one of the pivotal points during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war.

The water plant for the Abu Hasid district services about 800,000 people who are dependent on obtaining clean water from the river. With the high water table in the region, most any wells would be contaminated, and so the plant and its pumps are essential for the area. Nevertheless, for some reason, in 1999 a US bomb knocked out the facility, which had to be rebuilt with aid from a German/American NGO. The irony reminded me of areas of Palestine where USAID spent American tax-dollars to build some infrastructure, and then American tax-dollars went into the Israeli weapons that destroyed it all. No one knew why the plant was it – if it was intentional or accidental, but of course at the time the US claimed it was some sort of radar station. Such is the 'quiet war' going on in Iraq's south since 1998.

There was little to see at the refurbished plant of much interest. We were shown the areas where chlorine was added and then three separate filter systems worked to purify the water. Most significantly though, as one of the workers, Ali Hadid, explained, was that the top of the line German filters had to make due with substandard Chinese chlorine. Under the UN sanctions regime, Iraq is only allowed to import impure and low quality Chinese processed chlorine – which not only doesn't fully clean the water, but it also ruins the filtration systems.

We left the plant to walk to the river's edge. Several stray dogs gave apathetic growls, but didn't seem interested in actually getting up to pursue us. The coast consisted of an extremely rocky beach, dotted with shrubs, and almost completely covered in black oil residue. I walked up with some interest of touching the water (it's something I like to do at prominent waterways. I'm a history geek, after all) but as I almost slipped on the oil and the water seemed to ooze past more than flow, I changed my mind. A few fishing boats covered in faded blue paint slid past with their occupants smiling and waving to us.

After that, the two groups of IPT members reconvened to plan our next outing. My perturbation at feeling like a tour group again was offset by the knowledge that most journalists don't have such access. In fact, IPT attracts several journalists who would rather travel with us and our minders than be stuck at Baghdad's Al-Rasheed Hotel jumping from press conference to press conference. Five of our fifteen worked as journalists, with three full-time, including Joneed. I'm still a wanna-be. Kathy Kelly had another errand to attend to, and as the other option was a boat ride, I chose to join her.

Along the Shatt Al-Arab, Basra's dwellings notably transformed from poured concrete structures and into mud-brick homes. The markets gave way to sporadic tin shacks selling local produce along pockmarked roads. We headed towards the village of Abu Falous so that Kathy could meet with a young victim of the US's intermittent bombing campaign over southern Iraq. Twelve-year old Isra Abu Athier lost her right arm in a 1999 bombing of her remote village. Another activist initially discovered her story, and her portrait and story were turned into a prominent campaign in America. Kathy hoped to arrange for Isra, along with some other young victims of US munitions, to travel abroad and share their stories. While I lacked the personal stake in the matter, the short day trip well illustrated the difficulties facing this incredibly poor region of Iraq.

Through a good forty-five minute drive from Basra, we passed small date farms spread across muddy dunes where soil and sand mixed with the haphazard irrigation systems. At one point we drove by a small obsolete military base where people still camped out in tiny tents next to antiquated tanks. Refuse piles were everywhere in between.

With a population of around 1000, Abu Falous proved to be one of many non-descript villages spread out around the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Apart from their limited electrification and the women in chadors, it resembled most any third world farming village. In one courtyard, between several single story brick and concrete homes, a large pool of fetid sewage sat, seemingly providing some grazing ground for local livestock. Our van stumbled along the half-rocky, half-muddy roads towards Isra’s home. We stopped at an intersection, which seemed to be more meant for pedestrian traffic. Indeed, as I stepped out, the intersecting pathway was a dirt road with a punctured sewer line running down the middle with most of its contents strewn about.

As we walked towards the home, between crumbling mud and breeze-brick homes, children began to emerge. Like any other third-world situation, a throng of foreigners in a small village of course attracted great attention. At first it supplied wonderful backdrops for photography, and eventually it became a nuisance as the youngsters swarmed us. But Isra was our focus, and we were soon led into her modest home.

We took off our shoes and sat down on a dusty carpet against pale concrete walls. The family emerged, although most men were away at work or elsewhere as our visit was unannounced. I couldn’t tell if the village had telephone service. Kathy, translated through our minder Zaid, began describing the purpose of her visit. She told the Isra’s mother, Umm Altheir (she didn’t give her first name), that there were organizations in the US willing to sponsor visa applications for Isra and some other Iraqis who had been harmed by American bombs.

Isra emerged from a back room, along with several of her younger sisters, brothers and cousins. She wore a simple plain dress and beige headscarf wrapped around her head. She didn’t stop smiling, but was noticeably shy if not a little scared of us. As she sat down near Zaid, the empty right sleeve of her dress flopped down beside her. Other locals, including the neighborhood Ba'ath party leader, stepped in to see who we were, acknowledged Zaid and left.

Isra had been leaving her school after an exam in January 1999 (a bad time for the region in general) when a US bomb landed just outside the grounds. Four children were killed and several were badly wounded. The blast tore off her right arm beneath the shoulder and she went into a brief coma. Isra really was one of the luckier ones, but her adorable face won her the attention at this point.

The blast scarred her socially, in addition to the physical handicap and trauma. Her young peers teased her incessantly when she returned to class, as rural kids in America might do. Her teachers, already overworked, had great difficulty in giving her enough attention and helping her learn to write with her non-dominant hand. She became more shy and removed, not wanting to attend school. As the eldest child, it also had an impact on the family. "Once she used to help me take care of the others," her mother noted. "But now I have to spend more time helping her."

And those weren’t the only concerns for Umm Altheir. "There is no future for my daughter. No marriage, no work, no anything..." she trailed off in despair. The family decided that they would have to see what the father thought, but would consider letting Isra go if someone could accompany her – a problem for the rural family though. All the while Isra sat attentive on her knees and continued trying to smile for us. One of her younger brothers played with half of a plastic army helicopter toy just next to her.

One of the journalists in our group, Greg, asked Isra through Zaid what she thought about the possibility of a new war. Isra listened to Zaid, smiled, shrugged her shoulders and looked down. She looked back at Greg and gave another feeble smile.

Report from Iraq - #11

After our journey to Abu Falous, we headed back to Basra to have an appointment with an Imam in the relatively new Al-Mousawi Mosque in the downtown area. Immediately, it was set apart from the traditional style of both new and old Shia and Sunni Mosques around Iraq with a clock tower serving as its only minaret. Lacking much décor on its exterior, it was lit up by strings of red, green and yellow lights. Built for a maximum capacity of several thousand, it was really more functional than artistic.

This fact became most apparent as we removed our shoes and followed our minders inside. The interior, instead of being graced with elegant carpets, delicate patterns and mosaics of scripture, consisted of plain white walls, undecorated concrete pillars and hundreds of bright fluorescent lights. This was outdone by an eight-meter tall chandelier wrapped in gold bands, visible on the second floor. The interior proved even more garish than any tiny mosque I had come across in impoverished Gaza City. But Al-Mousawi was built with millions of dollars in funding and has been under construction and constant renovation since 1982. Thankfully our host, the assistant to the Imam, Abdul Razad, soon distracted us.

Razad kneeled before us and we followed in a small circle to listen to his description of what was now the largest Shi'ita mosque in Basra. Following that, questions began flowing, mainly focused on a fatwa issued a year before concerning the defense of Iraq against invaders. Razad had been one of the signatories, along with hundreds of other Imams and clerics around the country. The basic principle was a call for all Iraqi Muslims to defend their country from any foreign attack. He prefaced his comments, noting that "no Iraqi people want to fight. We all love peace." Yet he explained that there is an obligation to Muslims to defend their lands "if war is forced upon us." I noticed that he was using the same terminology that President Bush had in the State of the Union for America. But it seemed much more honest to come from a spiritual leader in Basra, Iraq's first line of defense for any ground invasion. He further explained that war is otherwise never an option, stating that, "when people are within their own borders, there is no need to fight among each other."

In 1991 during the Shi'ite uprising in the region, the mosque remained neutral, the cleric explained. It served as a sanctuary for anyone seeking protection during the chaotic and usually opportunistic fighting. I took note of that point, as one of IPT's biggest fears during our stay is the outbreak of civil war. While he spoke, Razad remained smiling regardless of the topic. His soft voice seemed to flutter past his gleaming teeth as he took our questions. Other topics regarded relations with the small Christian population (which are superb) and what role the mosque would play in helping the community during wartime.

Razad finished by answering some issues relating to bin Laden and his appeal to some rural, under-educated Muslims. "Islam does not allow anyone to attack innocent people," he immediately offered. "We believe that the tragedy in New York was not caused by true Muslims." It should be noted that Shi'te Iran was one of the strongest opponents of the Sunni Taliban through the late 90's. But in all, I really didn't hear much more from him that I hadn't elsewhere. And the florescent lights began to give me a headache.

As we left, a siren echoed through the city. One of the workers at the mosque explained that it was the "all-clear" sound, as the alarm had gone off a bit before. This was the first tangible sign I had seen that Iraq was still at war. But it meant little to the locals. "This happens everyday, several times," the man explained. Apparently it goes off during any overflight of US jets. So how do they know when the real thing starts, I had to ask. "Oh, when war starts, you know," he replied. He gave me a big smile and laughed.

Afterwards, we took the opportunity of having a large escort of minders to wander about downtown Basra for about an hour. While the main minder Zaid, went with Kathy and others to another area, six of us were left to take photographs and video, accompanied by three minders. These were the three that spoke little English and hardly looked like Ba'ath party officials beneath their jovial exteriors. Nevertheless, as a band of foreigners with escorts, we scared the locals as much as delighted them.

Since it is difficult to have the change to openly photograph in Baghdad with so many government buildings around, Basra was a blessing for me, even though it was nighttime. We wandered through shopping areas where almost as many sunflower and teacarts stood across from a wide variety of stores and small offices. Even in places that were closed, such as real estate offices, men sat inside sipping tea and chatting. Otherwise people gathered for ice cream, sweets or in cafes playing dominos. I was still rather pensive about openly photographing people, so I made sure to ask each person I pointed my camera at.

Later on, when five of us set out for a late dinner, Zaid and two minders joined us. I had to suppose it was mainly for our protection, as Basra has a somewhat more unpredictable population than Baghdad. But it felt highly obnoxious to be so removed from the locals, who mostly were taken aback by our presence. I had felt more comfortable attending Hamas parades in Gaza before. But when the fellafel is really good, it does help to have people covering your back.

Report from Iraq - #12

The wind howled at my windows on Monday morning in Basra. We were to fly out of the city at 5pm, but before then we had at least one excursion left. Some people wished to visit the local Catholic Church representative, others had an interview with a doctor about child psychology, and Kathy had more errands. So I begged to take a more exciting option, to travel south to the border at Safwan and see the depleted uranium (DU) laden vehicle graveyard. Zaid had been trying to avoid the topic, as he seemed bothered with taking the risk of going there. But several other delegations had visited before, and by my reasoning, since most of the destroyed vehicles were moved to that location from elsewhere, it wasn't the worst concentration of DU around. Zaid gave us a spare minder, Qassim, who spoke almost no English and sent myself and two other volunteers on our way in a taxi. The wind was so intense that even before we reached Basra's southern limits, the dust clouded the air all around.

Our tiny aged Volkswagen rumbled through the streets, passing by more run down areas of the neglected city. The most common mode of transport, apart from peddled carts, seemed to be deteriorating Chevrolet Apache vans from the 1960s, replete with their gaudy wood-paneled sides. As we wound onto the highway and wove through slow moving trucks, oil refineries began to dot the skyline in hazy brown silhouettes. The roadside turned to desert, apart from random patches of fetid water and some green shrubs. In odd locations, it seemed, rather large mosques straddled the highway in areas where there were almost no residential buildings.

We drove past what looked like a military base, but it seemed hardly functional. A large sign atop its gate depicting Hussein straddling a map of the whole the Arab world was crumbling on the sides. A few one-story buildings looked abandoned and the field was overgrown. But I clearly made out two anti-aircraft cannons, aimed straight upwards. It was impossible to tell if they were functional or not. Certainly, they weren't being manned.

About a half hour further, as the wind picked up large sand clouds ahead and visibility came to a hundred meters or so, we turned off the road and onto a gravel path between rocky dunes. The rusted color of dozens of pieces of metal emerged through the haze. This was the Safwan graveyard. The taxi stopped and I quickly got out of the car. Not gauging the power of the wind properly, my bag flipped over and my Arabic flashcards flew off into the piled wrecks. The wind blew so hard, I found it completely impossible to take sustained shots on my video camera, as I was almost knocked off my feet.

Yet the wind gave a powerfully eerie impression to the vehicle dump. While everything around us was a sandy beige, including the sky, the wrecks stood out as our only land marks. The wind over the dunes moaned more than it whistled. Staggering against the gusts, my feet fell on varieties of rusted car parts, along with a tank shell and flattened gun-belts. Most all of the wrecks were cars and trucks, driven from Kuwait and blown up by US airplanes. While this was not along the same road as the "highway of death" (which requires special government permission to visit) there were at least 100 destroyed vehicles present. Three T-60 tanks stood out from everything else. They had already been stripped completely though, from almost everything including their armor to the seat upholstery. Even their barrels had been salvaged. Our minder pointed out on one of the tanks where the DU-tipped rounds penetrated the turret, allowing for the searing lead to bounce around inside the cabin and tear apart its occupants. I remained in some fear of the DU particles potentially in the air, and duly - if not naively - pulled my t-shirt over my nose.

Another orange-painted cab rumbled over the dunes and past where we were standing. The minder explained that it was just a family heading over to their farm. Life surely still goes on along the border. Numerous plastic-covered tomato farms could be found in the area. I didn't recognize the produce from the distance. What do they grow, I asked Qassim. "Tomatoes... and uranium!" he laughed.

After returning to the taxi, we were treated to a brief penetration into the Iraq-Kuwait Demilitarized Zone, only half a kilometer from Safwan. One painted blue sign along the road in English warned us of this, and another declared no photography in the UN run area. The DMZ encapsulates five kilometers of both the Iraqi and Kuwaiti border. We drove in a ways, passing a UN bunker manned by a bored looking guard. As we turned around to return to Basra, we passed carts and taxis taking farmers to their homes in the area. They must be the first line of defense, I figured.

Before we left our taxi driver, Abdullah, once back in Basra, he showed us that he had been driving with only two fingers on his left hand. The other three had been blown off from a bomb in downtown Basra in 1991.

Our final brief venture was a short walk to the Shatt Al-Arab from our hotel to see the string of statues that line the waterway. 100 life-size figures were erected in 1989, each of an actual Iraqi soldier who perished in the Iran-Iraq war as "defenders of Basra". Naturally, there is a larger statue in the middle of one who did not perish, President Hussein. Each statue points accusingly across the water towards Iran (about 10km away) in a poignant pose. Nearby on the abandoned Sheraton hotel, I spied a few pock-marks inflicted during the 1991 uprising. Supposedly other buildings in the area are also damaged from then, or from the war in the 80s, but most are in such disrepair its impossible to tell. An entire stretch of roadway in front of the Sheraton was flooded with backed up sewage.

We paused at a bakery to buy a few bags of cookies. Although the high winds seemed to keep most people indoors along otherwise busy roads, it wasn't long before a cadre of shoeshine boys lined up outside the store. I deftly dodged them while some others in our group complied. As I stood waiting an air raid siren blasted out its wail. A group of men playing cards outside a cobbler shop across the street looked up briefly and returned to their game.

Report from Iraq - #14

After returning from Basra, I decided to relax for a bit. This meant another quick tour of some of Baghdad's prominent sites on Tuesday morning. Jooned, ever the journalist to utilize the taxi service for guided tours, recruited our usual driver Muhammed to again take us out. Our first stop was the Martyr's Monument, built in 1983 in recognition of those lost in the Iran-Iraq war (which went on for another five years afterwards).

Apart from Hussein's crossed-swords archway at the parade grounds, the Martyr's Monument might be one of Baghdad's most recognizable structures. It consists of a gigantic spade-shaped dome, split in two and aligned with one ending where the other begins. Hence, it resembles an enormous bulbous dome, cleaved open to bear the wounds of Iraq. The two halves, stretching about 250 feet in the air are covered in turquoise tiles, providing for a stunning appearance for miles around. Between the two dome halves are a fountain and a painted sculpture of a draped Iraqi flag. The museum inside, which supposedly is more of a reliquary of personal items of dead soldiers, was unfortunately closed.

We then embarked on a quick tour of the national Iraqi History Museum, which had fascinating displays of Iraq's heritage from pre-Sumerian to early Islamic times. While most rooms, covering epochs of great kingdoms such as Akkad, Babylon and Alexander's empire, held hundreds of figurines and elaborate pottery, the Assyrians stood out. I had never seen any Assyrian art, apart from depictions of their reliefs documenting the many conquests of their warrior state. The Assyrian room instead was full of towering sculptures and reliefs that reached the ceiling. Most impressive were two giant man-headed bulls with wings that once graced the temples of Sargon II. The passion for monumental art seems to have well persisted in Iraq.

Later that evening, some of the IPT members organized a "Bowling for Baghdad" event, raising money for the local leukemia ward at a refurbished bowling lane. Baghdad only has two bowling alleys, and it seemed as we picked the most gaudy, with its green and teal painted backdrops from the 1970s. An awards case from the mid-80s featured Iraq's national "Peace" bowling tournament results. My highlight was meeting the (ahem, THE) president of the Iraqi Bowling Federation. A rather tempered and distinguished man, Laith (I missed the last name) spoke of Iraq's glory days of bowling. It was clearly never as huge a past time here as say dominoes or backgammon, but they did participate in international contests. And they always lost. Nevertheless, older players were still on hand to beat their American rivals that night.

Afterwards, I was treated, along with about six others, to dinner at someone's home. It was my first home visit in Baghdad, and I was delighted for the opportunity. Out host was Mahmud, a Masters student at Baghdad University, presently working on his thesis on rhetorical linguistics. Originally from Yemen, Mahmud was one of many Arabs from neighboring countries who won a scholarship to an Iraqi school.

Mahmud, his wife and three children lived in an enormous apartment building in the Al-Rasheed district, not far from central Baghdad. It was a modest apartment, with minimal furnishings apart from the Mideast staples of a couch, chairs and a television. There we were introduced to several other Yemeni college friends of Mahmud, along with the director of his department, Dr. Ahmed Mustafa.

Mahmud's Yemeni wife proceeded to cook us an elaborate Yemeni style dinner with lamb, chicken, rice, chutney, salad, chicken soup, mincemeat and other assorted dishes. One of them seemed particularly tasty, being a mixture of meats, onions, tomatoes and some sort of juice. After consuming almost half a bowl, I asked one of Mahmud's friends what exactly it was. "Animal hearts. Good no?" I then performed the double feat of not only preventing myself from choking, but also smiling and nodding in agreement.

The dinner conversation naturally turned to the potential for conflict and the idiocy of US foreign policy. I almost became embroiled in an argument with another American woman who just arrived in Baghdad, over how I thought Clinton was little better than Bush in his adventurism and militancy. Jooned brought up al-Qaeda, and Mahmud's friend explained that "half of Yemen is al-Qaeda." By that he meant that they favored the terrorist organization because it had "humiliated Bush," but he himself didn't seem convinced of that. One of our people responded that in fact 9/11 made Bush only stronger and allowed the White House to get away with an incredible array of things – including threatening Iraq. The Yemenis agreed wholeheartedly.

Mahmud had quickly become acclimated to the difficulties involved with the sanctions regime. After dinner he carted our a slew of photo-copied texts related to his thesis. He had traveled to Amman, met a friend of his studying there who checked out twenty key books at the university there. Then Mahmud photocopied the books in their entirety and brought them back to Baghdad for his studies. This was the extent that he went to just to obtain semi-current texts because of the sanctions on imported works for Iraq. Dr. Mustafa put it more succinctly to me. "I like to teach from contemporary American drama. But because we have been unable to buy any new works, our class is not very contemporary..."

Report from Iraq - #15

This is a relatively short one. Each time I set aside to work and write, I get wrapped up in more activities...

On the fifth, I paid a visit to another art gallery. The Saddam Art Gallery is clearly a state run organization, in a mamouth building which features permanent and rotating exhibits. The original idea was to catch an opening by several young art students, but when we arrived we found that we were a week early. So instead we took a tour of the Museum of Pioneer Artists – the showcase of Iraq's earliest painters.

As Islam essentially forbade the depiction of human characters, it was only through illustrations that most of the Islamic world has a heritage in painting. So for Iraqis, it was not until the opening to the West in the late 19th century that Arabic artists began training in the European style. The earliest paintings in the Pioneer gallery are those of Jedel Kader Rassem, with his rural scenes from the 1890's. But soon after, numerous artists began studying in Europe and bringing back that knowledge to Iraq.

It seemed as if the Iraqi artists were constantly playing catch-up, given what I saw on display. Impressionist style paintings extended into the 1920's. Then the influence of Picasso and Klee showed up in the 1940s and 50s. And this extended until themes of revolution and social struggle became more apparent in the 1960s and 70s, reflecting transition and turmoil in Iraq and the Arabic world.

I really took to some of the revolutionary themed pieces by Faiq Hassani, where he had large depictions of bands of fedayeen surging forth with anticipation and fear on their faces or urban strikes with cries of help for innocent victims of repression. Apparently these were incredibly popular during early Ba'ath party rule.

Most sobering though was the separate room reserved for what seems to be Iraq's martyr for all artists, Leila Al-Attar. She was an early art prodigy, winning international acclaim first at age 11 in India. She eventually rose to become the director of the Saddam Gallery and maintained popularity with her stark and bleak modern works. Our guide, Marouj Sa'adann, described Al-Attar's works, where faceless human figures seem to reel in pain in the midst of di-chromatic landscapes, as reflecting the struggle of women for equality in modern society. In 1991 a US bomb struck her home, which Marouj insists was intentional. "They failed to kill her then, but they succeeded in 1993." In that year, another US bomb hit Al-Attar's second home, killing her and her husband. Marouj says the director was targetted because she contracted the famous mosaic of George H. W. Bush's face to be walked on at the Al-Rasheed Hotel (since covered up).

Al-Attar is honored outside her gallery with a wreath and verse in English lamenting her demise. "Hail to her as an artist some of whose works have been destroyed by their dastardly weapons," it reads in part.

That evening was Sec. of State Colin Powell's speech at the UN. I originally hadn't thought of going, and then decided that it would at least be interesting to see it from the Baghdad Press Center. Arriving though, I began to dread it like a death sentence. I expected the UN Security Council meeting to conclude in a final date for Iraq's execution. Sitting for over an hour in a large room with at least 100 journalists and watching the tacky power-point display on BBC, I realized that this wasn't the time it would happen.

It was odd though to go a good three weeks without having to be subjected to a long tirade of US propaganda and then to sit through Powell's talk. The time away removed me from some of the conditioning I didn't realize I was used to. Powell sounded like a patronizing puppet from some children's show. This image was greatly aided by the fact that on the old TV we were watching where some of the color tubes had broken, UN Ambassador John Negroponte's face, just over Powell's shoulder, remained Smurf-blue the entire time.

Just after Powell spoke, several people from IPT and from a US women's peace organization called Code Pink (led by Medea Benjamin) jumped up. In front of the array of video cameras (which were there to film the Iraqi response) they pulled out a gas pump nozzle and a sign reading "we have the smoking gun." As usual, the reporters were almost universally on our side. Producers are another story.

Ultimately, we find that we have to wait until the 15th. The Eid festival and the Haj to Mecca will all be over then. Politically Correct time for bombing. The White House seems only to gauge Muslim sacrements when plotting, but is quick to forget about the civilians engaged in them afterwards...

Report from Iraq: The Growing Anxiety

"It's only a matter of time. There is nothing we can do."

Ahmed's fatalism was getting to me. At 28, the single, Western-minded and self-described "bad Muslim" (he drinks substantially) wouldn't offer me one ounce of hope. He berated me at length for even having come to Iraq to relate stories back to Americans.

"For thirteen years people have said 'sorry, sorry, sorry' but they don't do anything to help." He took a long drag from his cigarette and stared me down. "But nothing here has changed. What's the point?" In the past week, since rhetoric against Iraq has picked up at the White House and in the UN, the citizens of Baghdad have become antsier. While for weeks now I grew accustomed to being told that people would go on living their normal lives because they had no choice, fear finally has begun to permeate across society. Soldiers posted around key buildings (and protecting foreigners at hotels) don't seem to smile as much. Average people on the street glare at me with suspicion rather than stand aglow in smiles.

Most Iraqis are still incredibly hospitable and warm, and all have different methods of dealing with their anxiety. At the home of Karima Umm Zawa, the family was overjoyed to have company. While Karima, whose husband died in a car accident and now raises eight children alone, should have been concerned with two sons in the military, she happily served tea and laughter. One of her younger daughters, Heesa, insisted on practicing her belly dancing across the chipped concrete floor of their home.

Yet Ahmed, Karima's brother-in-law and presumably sole bread-earner for the large family, wore great concern on his face. "When will the American soldiers come?" he insisted, over the laughter of the playing children. His eyes either demonstrated deep fear or anger, I couldn't tell which. "How long do we have?" I couldn't give a straight answer, and tried to say that the UN still had some time. I didn't want to nurse the fear of a unilateral attack by the American government, which would most likely come without warning.

While I had been playing thumb-wrestling games with Karima's youngest boy, Mahmud, and showing him my Arab-English flash cards, he picked up on the conversation around him. The five year-old boy ran across the room and giggled something in Arabic to his sister. They laughed. I pressed them to explain to me what Mahmud was saying. Amal, the best English speaker of the children, pieced it together for me. "Maybe Bush will bomb the school." Mahmud laughed and clapped his hands.

A new short play was showing over the weekend at the Al-Rasheed Theater called "Oxygen". All plays of political nature are given state funding - and ample censorship to be sure. Nevertheless, Oxygen proved to be a dramatic mix of interpretive dance and symbolic reflection of Iraqi attitudes. It featured a couple in Baghdad (chain-smokers, of course) coping with life after the first Gulf War and struggling to remain together through the present period of sanctions. Dreams haunted them where "the West" enticed them to abandon their nation. Their hardships were reflective of the limitations imposed by sanctions, and the couple threatened to divorce each other.

Finally, as writer/director Hassan Mani' explained, "They work to change themselves and to control their lives by seeing what is good in life." They strove to breathe. Then in the final scene, the dreams returned with "the West" plotting a new attack on their lives. "The common people," Mani' concluded, "are always the first to suffer in these situations."

While creative culture still manages to thrive in these difficult times, it was the pleas of an Iraqi-American that proved the most permeating. Amira Atakamoto, who left Iraq years ago for Lebanon and finally America where she married a Japanese man, returned to Baghdad for a week to meet with her family. She came with a group of American women on a campaign for peace called "Code Pink" and spoke up at their final press conference. With tears in her eyes, she related how the night before she had a final visit with her Iraqi relatives, unsure if she would ever see them again.

"War will be a disaster here. A disaster." The room of mainly European reporters fell dead silent as Amira emphatically spoke in a soft, quivering tone. Her eyes fell to the floor. "This will be a disaster that lasts for a hundred years." She looked up again, shook her head and concluded, "Iraqis and Americans will never be able to be friends again."

Report from Iraq - #16

On the morning of the sixth, I joined two others in a brief meeting with one of the Baghdad families that IPT has developed a close relationship with. While their story is nothing new to most in this organization, it proved to be a particularly precipitous day to show up, just after Powell's presentation the night before.

Karima Umm Zawa lived in a run down concrete home, with some of the corregated metal roofing slats typically found atop many poorer homes here. But her family was actually in the process of moving to a new home in an apartment building nearby, so I couldn't read too much into their living conditions. Nevertheless, their home consisted of peeling plaster, poured-concrete frames, which were falling apart, and minimal old furniture.

Karima had eight children to care for, two of which were in the Iraqi army. Her twelve year-old daughter Amal was the main connection to IPT, as the bright girl had the best background in English. Unlike her sisters, the tom-boy Amal preferred not to wear dresses and the hejab scarf. Also present were a young teenage daughter, Fatima, and a ten-year old Heesa. Mahmud, the youngest boy, immediately seemed to take a liking to me and insisted on playing hand games and thumb-wrestling the whole time. Fatima's husband had died in a car crash some eight years before, and it wasn't clear how the family was surviving. It was just one of the questions I couldn't quite ask.

The one adult male present, Ahmed, Fatima's brother-in-law, took a seat next to me as Mahmud ran off to play with my video camera. Ahmed seemed cautious and didn't immediately introduce himself to me. He spoke no English, but usually that isn't a huge impediment. He looked worried. Eventually he stood, turned to me and asked in Arabic, "when are the American soldiers coming?"

I had to respond by explaining that it seemed the UN was going to wait before deciding on anything. Fatima and her sister also began looking to me for answers. I didn't want to nurse the fear that America might attack unilaterally without warning, so I again said that the UN would wait. I told them with my new and feeble use of the future tense in Arabic that I would know more in ten days (after the Hajj). Then Ahmed, wearing either a look of fear or contempt in his eyes looked at me and asked, "are you a soldier?"

Their fears worried me. But the children proved to be the most troublesome on the matter. Before the topic of war came up, I had been showing Mahmud some of my Arabic/English flash cards. He also had taken my video camera and filmed Heesa as she demonstrated her attempts at belly-dancing.

Once Mahmud heard us talk about war though, his ears perked up. He said something in Arabic about his school, which I couldn't quite follow, and then laughed. He repeated it for one of his sisters and she also laughed. I pressed Amal for an explanation. "He hopes Bush will bomb his school," she explained. Mahmud jumped and clapped his hands, giggling.

Later on, I headed out to the Suq Al-Arabe with Mick and Mary, two Canadians who were to be leaving soon. We took one of the cab drivers, Karim, as a guide and escort as the packed markets could get daunting. In many Mideast cities I was well used to being hassled for business - especially in Old City Jerusalem where people were desperate for business. But Baghdad's markets proved dramatically more pragmatic and geared towards selling local essentials, rather than tourist items. Like most Arabic markets, it was divided into separate areas based on the wares sold. For Baghdad, this meant market for clothes, one for pens, one for kitchen wares, one for toys, and even one for glass framing.

Small dark alley ways off the market hid some of the repair shops and craft areas where much of the small trades are practiced. In a muddy alley made up of fragmented and crumbling pavement, large panes of glass moved about to be cut at one shop and mounted at another. It was a fascinating area to explore and photograph, but Mick and Mary were more intent on interviewing workers. Our escort insisted instead on treating us like tourists.

Near one of the old mosques adjacent to Sheheeda Bridge, we found old souvenir outlets, peddling antiques and various metal crafts. Prices were of course inflated and it was only here where people seemed desperate for our attention. I entered one store intent on finding some curious memoribilia from Iraq's history and picked out several old pins and keychains featuring the President's face. I talked the owned down to a $10 sale (still quite a ripoff), but was content just to have found such items. I walked outside and almost immediately the taxi driver thought twice about the transaction. Without asking, he grabbed my purchase and exchanged it back for my cash. "Ali Baba," Karim grumbled, referring to the famous story of the 40 Thieves.

In the meantime, Mick and Mary had struck up a conversation with another young merchant about the situation. He began berating them for thinking that IPT could really be of use in Iraq. Unfortunately, they were cut short as Karim moved in and told the man to leave them alone. We would return the next day for a more full conversation with him.

Report from Iraq - #17

On Friday afternoon, Mary, Mick and I returned to the souvenir shop on the edge of the Suq Al-Arabe where they had met the articulate and outspoken young shop owner the day before. We had decided that with a different taxi driver as our escort, the more permissive Mohammed, we would be able to have a more full conversation.

Ahmed invited us into his small metal ware and antique store, seemingly unsure why we had visited. When he caught site of Mohammed, he seemed a little pensive about our visit, but his obligation to hospitality overrode this.

At age 28, Ahmed was relatively old for a traditional Iraqi to not be married, and still rather adrift in his life. He graduated after eight years of college, with two degrees in liberal arts and spent almost a year living in Europe. He returned to his family, and took over the family shop where he had worked since age nine. He continued to live with his family, passing his time between two jobs, rather unsure where to go with his life, but now completely beset by the sanctions and looming war.

Mary, though wanting to ease into the conversation, was the first to bring up how Ahmed had adversely reacted to our group the day before after being told of IPT's purpose. So he again explained his view that our work was quite worthless to him. "For twelve years people have been coming here. You think you are the first? Over and over again, we hear 'sorry, sorry, sorry', but no one does anything." He became emphatic in his dismissal of our purpose. "Nothing has changed. What good can you do?"

Ahmed went on to elaborate his view that our work could never influence people set on the path of war, exemplified by the fact that the crippling sanctions regime remained in place despite years of campaigning against it. I grew to actually like his blunt honesty. I had always been too cynical to believe that every mother and child I had photographed, or every doctor I spoke with really believed that a team of people from the US could actually influence public - or global - policy. I knew they appreciated our presence, but did they really believe that another slew of photographs for sale in an independent bookstore would change their fates?

Ahmed actually said what most activists dread hearing. "You can photograph another hundred Iraqi children, and it won't do anything." He often looked away when speaking from his stool behind a counter. His arms extended out with each rhetorical question. "So you go home and you talk to some people, but is that really going to change my life here? You are liars. You lie to us and you lie to yourselves."

In some ways it was absolutely true. I often feared that we presented a false hope here. I thought back to a missile attack I saw the year before in Gaza City. It hit late at night and I was the only westerner around to begin photographing the damage. An elderly couple had begged me to enter their home to photograph a broken window and a place where a bit of shrapnel had fallen through their patio roof. They wanted the world to know. It seemed pathetic to me really, and even had I been a professional journalist, I doubt I would have put photographs of their relatively minor damage on any newswire.

Mary managed to calm Ahmed down to some degree by countering him with, "so what should we do? You tell us?" She explained that she would be happy to just change the minds of one or two people back home in Canada (where her and Mick were from). She noted that we came out of concern and a desire to try something - anything - due to the dismay over the path to war. Ahmed seemed to appreciate these sentiments and he became more sanguine.

Yet he maintained his fatalism. "It’s just a matter of time," he emphasized. So why do you continue to work? "What should I do? Sit in my home and wait for bombs. I have no choice but to continue my life."

We moved on to personal questions, and the pseudo-interview became more of a discussion between us all. He asked us about our backgrounds and if we were married. Ahmed was still single at 28, which is somewhat out of the ordinary for most traditional Iraqis, but he clearly had a strong Western bend in him. "I am waiting for the right person, don't you?" He explained that to be with another meant losing a part of oneself, and he didn't think it was time in his life for that. "And I am still young." Mick and Mary, both single and in their 30s fully agreed. I began to sense that Ahmed had a great deal in common with us. This wasn't the usual circumstance among people of little means in the Middle East.

Ahmed ordered us a round of tea from a boy passing by the store. As Mohammed fell asleep in a corner, Ahmed began asking the three of us questions about our life aspirations. He seemed interested in understanding just how different it was for people around his age in America to figure out their aspirations. He asked Mick for advice as to if he should try to remain in Iraq and stay with his family, or try to move abroad as he desired. It wasn't so much a wish to flee Iraq, rather Ahmed felt the desire to live in a new culture and among new people.

I asked him what he tends to do on his free time in Baghdad. "I work here, then I go work for a bit at another store." He then cocked his head and smiled, continuing, "and I'm Muslim. I get drunk and do other bad things." He became a little maudlin at this point, continuing to stare off into a corner of the store as he spoke. "Sometimes though, I have to wonder what the point is. Why do we keep living? Why are we here? We all ask that, right? At night when I want to get drunk and cannot find anything to drink, I sit and ask myself those questions until I fall asleep." Bukowski has a home in Baghdad.

Ultimately, Mick, Mary and I chimed in with our own personal views on being alone, being unsure about our futures, feeling unfulfilled and how alienating life has become in American and Canada. We explained how opportunities weren't always so great for us, and that many ambitions are easily squelched. Another factor we mentioned was the disaffection that seems to permeate American society now. Ahmed quickly perked up, almost with delight to finally realize that these are universal afflictions that even those living in the vaunted West share. Somehow or mutual misery and apathy towards life unified us in ways I've never found with another Iraqi.

Report from Iraq - #18

I suppose it would be prudent at this point to provide some reflection of just what is going through my head. The Eid al-Adha has begun, signifying the culmination of the Hajj to Mecca - as well as the correct time for the US to begin its bombing campaign. As such, fears here have peaked that Feb. 15th or there about will be a time of decision by the US government. Since my one yardstick - the mobilization of air infantry units has now occurred (the 101st Airborne), I can no longer rely on my cynicism. Unilke most people here, I was one of those who felt that Bush could, for maximal political gain, drag out the present situation for another six months and attack, if at all, next fall.

This means that bombs could start falling by the end of the month. Of course, these dates have been thrown about like racing odds around here for months, so nothing is certain. Invariably one runs across the journalist with "inside information" or really arrogant guess work who seems to have a date in mind. This puts myself in a rather awkward position though, for my visa in Iraq expires on the 19th and I am only able to afford being away from my bills at home until the beginning of March.

Lengthening my stay, if war doesn't break out before my visa expiration, would require some remote fundraising and the hope that I will be given a new entry visa. I have basically been waiting until after the 15th to gauge the situation and decide then. I am willing and committed to stay through the conflict, especially as rumors now are afloat that the US military will do everything possible to squelch reporting from the ground in Iraq. The fear is that electro-magnetic pulse bombs (e-bombs) will be used to short out the equipment of any free-thinking journalist planning on sending back video and reports from the ground in Baghdad. This makes the work of independent witnesses (who need to buy more film soon) all the more critical.

Then comes the knot in my stomach. To consider what a massive US attack on Baghdad would be like - even not including the chaos that would envelop the city if troops poured in and it became a battlefield - boggles the mind. The only experiences I have had to draw on are the minimal gunbattles and air attacks I personally experienced while in the Palestinian territories last year and two witnesses to US bombing campaigns. My own experiences have no comparison. In Palestine it was simple to avoid dangerous areas. I knew if I was walking into a gun battle or not, and I knew the places where I risked being shot by touchy Israeli snipers. I nevertheless took those risks (and once had a bullet zing over my head in '01), but at least I could think about it before hand. And Israeli airstrikes with small Hellfire missiles were quite safe to watch from a half-mile away, if not horribly nerve wracking. 400 US cruise missiles silently dropping on a city simply doesn't compare, and there would be no walking away from that.

Dan White, who left us about two weeks ago, had been here in 1991 during the first eight days of the Gulf War. Given his tales, panic never fully overwhelmed him, in part because the Iraqis evacuated him and those he was with to Al Rasheed Hotel, where CNN and other journalists were stationed. But even from that safety zone, two US bombs hit the hotel complex. Yet Dan still described being able to freely walk about Baghdad and inspect bomb damage during the day (in fact his peace delegation had vastly more freedom than journalists did).

Jeremy Skahill, an independent reporter associated with IPT lived through the bombing campaign in Serbia in 1999. He told me of a degree of faith in accurate bombing, but also told of civilians flipping out with the overwhelming cacophony of sirens, alarms, explosions and screams. He said some people simply lost it in the night.

Our best laid plans merely consist of bunkering down in our hotel, sleeping in the hallways to avoid windows. Beyond that, the only other real issue is having ample stocks of food and water. I endured a meager 36-hour siege in a Bethlehem hotel last April before being evacuated and thought that was bad enough…. I'll probably need some whiskey and a deck of cards at least.

Really though, there are plenty of what-ifs to ponder that push a sinking feeling into my stomach such that I have never experienced before. In Palestine when gunfire cracked through a city just down the road or rockets pummeled a building a few blocks away my adrenaline soared and I lost my sense of caution time and time again. I certainly flipped out during one air strike when the explosions reverberated in my head to a degree far in excess of the immediate danger, but that was the only instance. I recall times of having my knees shake but feeling strangely compelled by curiosity to move towards gunfire in Hebron. I could never explain nor justify the idiocy of doing such.

But now I have to think about a building collapsing on top of me. A window blowing apart before I can react and shards of glass flying into my room at a hundred feet per second. There is no medivac service. The closest border, at top speeds (and top dollars) is still five hours away - and every highway would risk pinpoint strikes. Even leaving Baghdad in a caravan to Jordan would risk being hit, as the US is apt to target almost any vehicles found on the roads. And if not that, various militias would be roaming about paranoid of spies. It's at this point of consideration that my stomach bottoms out.

And I haven't even gotten to the thought of Baghdad becoming a battlefield. Random gunfire. Artillery strikes (the biggest killers during ground wars). Competitive militias seizing foreigners in hotels. Executing spies. Chemical weapons. Being seized as the next John Walker Lindh by Ashcroft's goon squads. Oh, and no health care coverage for war injuries.

It's quite a bit to consider. I'm vastly younger than most of the other people who are committed to staying. Most are retired with children and legacies to leave behind. Right now, I'm the youngest person in this group and I like to think I have some sort of future elsewhere (though that's debatable…). Is it really worth it to sacrifice myself for this?

I may not even have a choice. As more IPT members enter and other delegations from Europe arrive, the government may very well not wish to be responsible for so many people. I may not have my visa renewed, or I may be denied a new one if I have to return to Amman. I also have almost $1000 in bills to worry about covering back at home for March. I like to think I'm willing to stay though. I wouldn't be alone and the value of documenting the affects here would be monumental as the US government seems hell-bent on restricting coverage of civilian casualties.

Of late my thinking is that if war occurs before my visa expires, I'll stay. If it's definitely going to happen in early March, I'll stay and start begging for more support. But I may still crack.

Most of Baghdad is shut down for the next few days for the Eid celebrations, so I'm left with time to think. It's a decision I will have to make over the next week. Or it's a decision that will be made for me by outside forces.

Given the chance

Ill die like a baby

On some faraway beach

When the season's over

It's likely

I'll be remembered

As the tide rushes sand in my eyes

I'll drift away

Report from Iraq - #19

We finally had our run in with the extremes that people are going to in this embroiling situation. While some of the journalists have darted off to Mosul or Tikrit at times to witness marches by the new militia brigades, the Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Army, replete with women and old men carting their AKMs around, IPT almost got in over its head.

It began innocently enough through our new friend Mahmud. During Jooneed's final days here, we spent more and more evenings with Mahmud playing dominoes or chess late into the night at various cafés. On the evening when we went to see the play "Oxygen", with Mahmud accompanying as our translator, he later invited us to stop by the Yemeni General Students Union.

The building looked innocuous enough, tucked away in a distant neighborhood of Baghdad. On the front gate were painted the flags of Yemen and Palestine, much as is the fashion in many Middle East nations that pride themselves as protectors of the Palestinian people. Inside the dank concrete structure, we were taken upstairs for tea with the President of the union. Apparently there are over 5,000 Yemeni students studying in Iraq, not including their families. It had been Yemeni cultural week, with celebrations and feasts, but we arrived too late to partake. I myself had to leave soon to return to the Internet café before it closed, but I hung around enough to hear the President, a small young man in an oversized tan sports coat boast about the number of foreign students in Iraq willing to fight should an invasion occur. "You see, Iraq Peace Team and we are both here to defend Iraq's people." Well, we don't get issued guns, sorry. I guess the concept of 'witnessing' or independent anti-war journalists was lost on them.

They invited us to have the IPT team to come in full on Monday evening for the end of their cultural week and to talk about our work. I presumed the implication was to have a festive dinner and to share stories about Iraqi hospitality with the student union. I eagerly told Kathy Kelly, our nominative director, about the invitation once I got back to the hotel. The degree of my naivete was not yet apparent, even after she warned me that student organizations are usually direct government bodies in Iraq.

Monday night was a spectacle. I had been warned, but it was above and beyond what I had expected. Kathy was aware of the dangers in being guests of honor at such a function, but even she was duped. Her goal was to use the opportunity to talk, but with minimum exposure by foreign press so that IPT would not be misrepresented. Walking into a courtyard replete with at least six portraits and paintings of the President, numerous banners in English and Arabic and a slew of foreign press blew apart all illusions. "We were ambushed," Kathy later described the event.

Even myself, despite my usual fawning over my books of old Soviet propaganda posters and amusing clippings from North Korean newswires turned to Lisa, an IPT member from Canada, and said "This is creepy." as we entered. We were ushered to sit in the front row upon a series of plush couches, where behind us about one hundred Yemeni students sat in plastic lawn chairs. Kathy was led to the stage to sit at a table, beneath which a sign in English read "No Blood for Oil!"

Mahmud had previously asked some of us for typical slogans used in the US. I suggested one I had heard, "Stop Sanctions of Mass Destruction," and several were up that night. Included were others such as "For Oil And Zionist Aggression, America Kills Iraq's Children." While I agree in principal with the premise, having such a sign behind our heads for the AP to photograph didn't seem so wise. Another sign warned, "Those Who Abandon Iraq In Its Crisis Will Have No Place In Its Prosperity." A man walked down our aisle, passing out flyers. One read in part, "We, the humanity friends group [sic], who seek for peace [sic] and beleivers [sic] in the rightness of Iraq's case, are ready to be human sheilds [sic] to protect the Iraq country [sic] and its people." I thought back to the North Korean newswires.

Members of the Student Union treated us to a series of speeches and pronouncements. Mahmoud's statement emphasized our common goal of peace and the love for the people of Iraq with no real reference to the US apart from military aggression. But that of the President of the Union, Azzay Hibittallah, was unrelenting with references to "Devil Bush" and his follower "Demon Sharon". Every now and then after he would say something provocative, a person in the audience would jump up and begin chanting "We will defend with our last drop of blood!" in Arabic. Mahmoud dutifully translated the chants for us. Some were acceptable, such as "No war, only peace!" but no one in IPT pitched in when the chorus rose up for "We love Iraq and its great leader Saddam!" They didn't quite understand the idea of apolitical peace activism.

Kathy gave a highly encouraging speech herself, reflecting on children she had met and the difficult lives they had lived. She tied together the trauma of being in New York on 9/11 and the psychological damage many Iraqi children have endured with relentless US bombings. She then adamantly called for an end to all weapons of war. She was soft-spoken, emphatic and moving in her usual way. The crowd, through Mahmud's translations, enjoyed it thoroughly and I hoped some of the fanatical edge had been taken off.

The head of Yemen's Ba'ath party next spoke (they have little influence in Yemen to be sure) and actually gave a very touching speech in broken English. He said that our presence in Iraq, so far from our own families and lives, risking ourselves for others was an incredible statement. He said that we had given average Iraqis new hope and "made us feel human again." Calm had prevailed.

Then another Student Union member got up to speak and went off about the dedication to being "human shields" (which IPT adamantly is not - I later noted that the only thing we would be shielding in case of a war is our hotel), albeit with weapons. He said how 500 students from Yemen had so far signed up for militia training to defend Iraq and that more were needed. A uniformed man in the audience jumped up for more chanting about the President. When those subsided, a man ran to the stage with his three-year old daughter. Microphones were shoved in her face and she renewed the chant, promising to defend Iraq with blood as the audience chimed in.

Honestly, anywhere and anytime I would have a chuckle at such an instance, given my rather cynnical fascination with mass psychology. But to have such a chant emanating from a girl's mouth at a rally where I am one of the guests of honor was kind of revolting. Perhaps when I'm running the planet, it'll be okay, but it was too much that night.

Afterwards another announcement about the formation of "human shields (with weapons)" was declared and sign up sheets were laid out on the table at the stage. The crowd cheered and rushed the stage en masse. Sean Penn didn't get a reception like this. Sign up sheets were even printed in English, as the Student Union honestly expected us to join them. IPT quickly fled the building in the ensuing chaos.

"Ben, I'm going to kill you." Kathy told me once we returned to the hotel.

"What? You're telling me I'm the only one who signed up?" She didn't laugh.

Thankfully, IPT is such a non-issue to the US press that we weren't even mentioned let alone badly maligned as we could have been. I'm still mad about missing the dinner.

Report from Iraq - #20

During the past week, my activities have been greatly stimied by the holidays, the four-day long Eid Al-Adha celebrations honoring the Hajj. It's a rather quiet affair publicly, much to my dismay, as families gather for feasts and day trips. Hence, there has been little to do in terms of interaction with people here.

I've tried to use the time to construct my first ever radio report for Free Speech Radio News concerning the 12th anniversary of the Amiriyah shelter bombing and its relevence today. For just a four minute piece, I agonized for days. Mainly out of my usual procrastination. But I managed to finish after a third trip to the air raid shelter yesterday, where I met several relatives of victims who annually visit to pay respects. They had placed a large colorful wreath next to the bomb crater that greatly contrasted with the gray and black atmosphere of the place.

While I was walking through and recording ambient sounds, my taxi driver/guide knocked over a metal rope railing post. Naturally, after it fell with a bang, the rest followed one by one right on top of some of the plastic coverings over the locations of charred remains. The Jerry Lewis moment seemed lost on the shelter's staff.

The other main activity has been IPT's week long vigil at the UN's Canal Hotel from where the UNMOVIC inspectors depart each morning. IPT set up a tent to encourage inspections instead of war in the prelude to Hans Blix's update report to Washington (which is going on as I type). These vigils have been held at 7am, and as such, I have not yet attended since I'm usually working into the night.

Instead I have joined the team at follow up demonstrations touring different sites each day. The intention has been to stop at locations around Baghdad that were either hit or suffered from power cuts in 1991. At each place, a banner has been hung reading "To Bomb This Site Is A War Crime – Article 54 of the Geneva Convention," which is quite true. I've been pleased to raise the war crime issue as the US so flagrantly and repeatedly shows its disregard for international law when it conducts war (yet is happy to use the topic to initiate wars). On Tuesday we went to Al Taji Power Plant, which generates electricity for much of the city and was an early target in 1991 (it still isn't up to full capacity as it has new generators, but the Sanctions Committee won't let them buy the computers to run them).

On Wednesday the stop was a water treatment facility near Saddam Teaching Hospital where the manager spoke through a translator to numerous international journalists. This is one of the most critical issues as water quality means life and death for so many here. In 1991 a bomb hit near the plant we visited, severing its power and damaging some equipment. Of course since then, the plant, like all others, has suffered from a lack of modern equipment and quality chlorine for purification - all of which are hampered by the sanctions. Following that, yesterday a bridge was the subject of a banner drop, and today people went to a hospital to do arts & crafts with children in the cancer ward. I passed up on both to get work done – which was not an issue since we have over 40 people now here.

Otherwise, all talk is of just when attacks will begin. I've almost forgotten about the matter, but other IPT members have been hastily putting together lists of supplies and the like. I keep presuming that it's not yet an issue, and I'm sure I'd be caught off guard. For now, I think I have some old chicken in my hotel fridge. And I'm low on toilet paper.

I should make some comments on some of the amusing claims I've heard that are being reported in the US. First of all, last November the US State Dept. warned Americans in Iraq that they could be kidnapped and used as human shields. So far, the only threatening thing I've seen on the streets are the incessant shoe-shine boys who fake crying to get business. The idea that some people in a black van would cruise up next to me, nab me off a sidewalk and tie me to a SAM battery is ludicrous. Supposedly the venerable FOX News has repeated this "warning" in the last week on its reports. It's interesting to be on the other end of the propaganda.

A few days after I heard of that, there was a report on CNN's website about the White House claiming that Iraq is stationing soldiers in cities to encourage civilian casualties. This is laughable on so many levels. For one, if the soldiers are in these areas – then they aren't serving a strategic purpose, so why would they need to be bombed? Secondly, soldiers have always been in Baghdad. It's quite typical in third world countries to have soldiers doubling as police. Third, Iraq has been calling up more soldiers, so just like in Israel, off duty soldiers wander the streets all the time. Finally, doesn't this mean that when Bush stations US troops around D.C. in his fake "terror alerts" that he is doing the same thing? It's typical preliminary propaganda softening up Americans to imminent massacres. Well, none of this is anything that couldn't be figured out from the States really.

Hmm, I said "the States". I'm already using ex-pat lingo. Scary.

Report from Iraq - #21

Yesterday I dove into a large and unique market with Joel, a professional photographer from Oregon. I found him as a new person to pair up with, given his similar penchant for sarcastic humor (he has incessantly teased me about the Yemen Student Union Human Shield issue, naturally). He also has been helping me with my photography. I'm now more envious than ever for a digital camera with which I could take numerous practice shots at no expense and also have instant results. And sending them over the internet wouldn't hurt either. But such is the price for being old fashioned (and not having a $2000 camera).

Our trip took us to the bird market, a location somewhat near Suq al-Arabe where they sell birds and other animals and pets. While there are certainly some fowl meant for breeding and consumption, for the most part it's a place to purchase pets – from snakes to goldfish. Immediately after we exited the taxi, we faced piles of hand make wooden birdcages full of parakeets and other colorful birds. Men sat at various stands ready to make sales while their children poked their fingers in the cages. We set to work immediately, snapping away through the crowds.

A child held up baby chicks and ducklings, many quite covered in dirt, to our cameras. Other booths sold supplies and feed, with food and soda carts interspersed. Down a little ways turkeys and full-grown chickens were offered. I paused at one cage to photograph a chicken who was tied to the top of it, forgetting a woman in a black chador was just behind. A man rushed up to remind me not to photograph the women.

Joel and I soon got separated as I passed through many of the snake stands. People eagerly held up handfuls of non-poisonous snakes for my camera, but after a few shots I moved on. At another spot, a large fishnet covered dozens of seagulls. I wasn't all too sure what the purpose was, as for my pictures, the owner kept reaching in to the mess of squawking birds and pulling one out to release it. Some soared elegantly into the sky, wile others less magnanimously fluttered about and fell to the ground. Young boys ran up and grabbed the gulls immediately after.

I pressed on and found an area where dogs were being sold. Most appeared to be German Shepards, chained to doors, seemingly for sale as guard dogs. But just in front sat cardboard boxes full of adorable puppies. I resisted the temptation to photograph them and concentrated on the people. One boy in a dirty shirt with tiny kuffiah on his head insisted on helping me by grabbing a stick and taunting several chained Bulldogs until they became furious. I tried to avoid the kid, since it was a rather obnoxious gesture. I was only able to buy him off with some candy.

Around a corner stood a very large crowd pressed closely against a door. I inched my way through, and once showing my camera the people stepped aside for me. There, at the center of the onlookers I found my certainly prize-winning photograph. Some fifty people or so had gathered to watch two German Shepards having sex. I took a picture of a man with his young daughter on his shoulders, both grinning at the spectacle before them. It took me a while to stop laughing.

I eventually found Joel again, and we moved on into a back alley where a dozen or so stands had goldfish for sale. In addition, the shops behind the sellers were all geared towards pets and pet supplies. The penchant for grouping like stores all in one area is really taken to an extreme in Baghdad it seems. Joel proceeded to get great shots of children peering into the narrow fish tanks, sometimes sticking their hands in to splash around. He likes to emphasize children with their parents smiling and enjoying themselves. It produces powerful photos. I just tagged along and imitated.

As we meandered through, pausing for more gleeful children, boys climbing on rooftops and other interesting shots of birds, we approached a muddy corner near the neighborhood mosque. There, just past several chicken coops, crowds gathered in variously sized circles yelling and laughing. As we approached with our cameras, people quickly pulled us in to watch. We finally found the vaunted Iraqi cockfights. Unlike their legendary Mexican counterparts, the ones we witnessed were often quite tame, with roosters only sporatically pecking at each other and other times just running about aimlessly. Once a bird was badly pecked, its owner would quickly pick it up and end the match. Nothing was to the death. As we never saw money being exchanged, it seems that the brief fights were only for pride or entertainment value.

Tiring of that, standing on a large pile of dirt with rubbish scattered about, we peered into an amazing crooked little alley of houses. We decided to head around into the area.

In these areas of Baghdad, the age of the city really begins to show. We came upon incredibly old brick buildings build along very narrow alleys with sewer water built up down the middle. The first thing I noticed was the fluid nature of the buildings which seemed weather-worn to the point where there were no corners or straight lines. Some have the Turkish style windows on the second floor embedded in wooden porches. Some had green paint so faded it seemed to melt in with the antiquated wood. A little boy kept peeking his head from a door frame as we photographed him. We moved further down around a slight bend into a dead end with two separate doorways. Soon a few young children emerged and their parents then followed.

What then ensued was a good half-hour spent with two neighboring families – mostly women. In one house an elderly mother emerged with four daughters, mostly in their thirties. I wasn't quite positive about the family relations though as none spoke any English. I communicated as best I could (Joel knows no English and when people continue at length in Arabic at him, he talks back to them in tongue-twisters) with one of the husbands about who we were and where we were from. It mattered little as the entire group of women were more than happy to be the subject of our photos – once they put on their hejabs. Two in particular kept laughing hysterically as we shoved our cameras in their faces. Really, they enjoyed the whole affair and kept striking poses for us. The children in the meantime naturally also begged for attention. One boy in a South Park sweatshirt (aptly with Kenny on the front) kept jumping in the way as we vied for the attention of the younger and more bashful girls.

After dozens of photos and a serving of Tang, we moved on. Down another dilapidated yet idyllic beautiful alley, I proceeded to walk square into an iron beam that was sticking out. As I recovered in a daze, we had finally drawn some curiosity from a few old men in green drab uniforms. They were pleasant enough and soon left, but we were reminded by it that we probably were still pushing our limits. We had done the whole escapade without any guides or minders. We had had enough for the day.

Later that evening, I finally got around to getting to know Bernadette, a British journalist who is presently working on a documentary about IPT for NBC's dateline. She claims that the program (possibly beginning next Wednesday with footage of hers from October) is set to be aired in several installments as features on the dynamics of the group. Before last night, I had seen her performing the unenvious task of filming each of our monotonous group meetings. When I had a chance to chat with her, I made a comment about how she should certainly interview the youngest person in IPT (presently) who is willing to stay through bombing – myself. She actually agreed, and after spending some more time around her, she further insisted on making me one of the principal "characters" to profile.

Naturally, this only feeds into my ego, but I'm not positive anything will come of it. I really am not sure if "Survivor: Baghdad" will be of much interest, but anything to get my face on TV. Otherwise, she at least has offered to help me shop my stories around to British papers.

The Blix update was also a big issue last night, but it's difficult to gauge what it means for us. Initially people who saw it all live insisted that it was a wonderful event, indicating that the US would have no excuse to attack now. People who saw the follow-ups at the UN after Blix, by Syria and France were even more elated. Syria called for the elimination of all WMD in the Middle East – saying that Iraq was a great start and Israel should be next. Then France noted how as an "old nation" that knows war on its soil and occupation, it realizes that the US cannot be allowed to rush to war. It is all encouraging, but then any cursory glance at CNN's webpage shows that the impression is probably much different in the US.

Not only do I doubt that anyone saw, let alone heard about Syria and France's comments, but Bush will likely dismiss this report like everything before. Most pertinent for me, without any immediate indication of a guaranteed war or guaranteed peace, I'm still not sure what I'll be doing when my visa comes up.

We had our big demonstration in Baghdad's streets today – more on that later.

Iraqi TV is showing clips of various demonstrations around the globe strung together, played to Carmina Birana. Lovely.

Report from Iraq - #22

Saturday was the day of massive worldwide demonstrations. It happened here in Baghdad too, but of a rather different nature. Apart from the usual pro-government rallies here - replete with weapons, IPT along with several other organizations formed a march of internationals starting from our hotel. Joining with us was the Italian anti-sanctions group, Bridges to Baghdad, the self-professed "Human Shields" (who have their own t-shirts), another British group with a name denoting something about truth and justice (my mind is foggy right now), and a group from Okinawa, Japan, called Music Not Weapons (the Japanese translates poorly.). There was a preliminary press conference before things got under way. IPT's intention was to have a silent march, but that's never possible when Italians are around. The Japanese, in colorful kung-fu style outfits (yeah, I'm being sensitive), also had drums and other traditional instruments to accompany their chanting music.

We set off, with each group proceeding in a row. Unfortunately, we seemed to have only scattered amounts of press with us, as most US press seemed focused on the government-backed rallies elsewhere. Guns are always a draw to journalists. Yet one would think that 150 internationals marching in a foreign nation about to be bombed might draw some attention.

Nevertheless, many locals came out to show support. Two Imams even joined in the march, walking and giving interviews along the way. Shop owners, construction workers and even soldiers we passed by gave us thumbs' up and clapped. I began photographing and fell back away from IPTs march to see the others.

Naturally, the Japanese drew the most attention, especially as they at times paused to dance in syncopated moves to their music. It certainly delighted many of the locals, and boys came streaming down streets to watch.

The Italians also became a little boisterous and passed their peace flags around to onlookers - to whom the press quickly surrounded for photographing. As we passed one of the military buildings (I'm not sure really what goes on in there) an old Italian man jumped into the row of soldiers standing with rifles to wave his flag. Lovely photos, really. From the windows in the distance, high-ranking officers leaned out and gave peace signs.

I didn't expect it, but certainly at times I felt awash with a bit of pride to be part of the whole endeavor. As we walked down towards Al Rasheed St. to climb Shuhada (Martyr) Bridge, young boys approached clamoring to hold on to something. Several waved a large peace flag in front of the President's portrait. I should note that I also took the opportunity to snap some shots of the portraits all around - mainly because I just cannot find any trading cards.

The march ended on the top of the bridge. I noticed that at this point we were escorted by leather-jacket clad party officials in sunglasses. They didn't stand in the way at all - most notably they let people photograph all over the bridge, which is usually a major no-no. It was a unique event, perhaps in world history even - but it really did get minimal attention outside of the region. Iraqi TV loved it though, and all evening hotel workers and the people at the internet café told me they saw me on TV. Stardom is fleeting though.

[See more on the Feb. 15 marches in Baghdad on Iraq Journal]

Report from Iraq - #23

I finally made an attempt to get some photographs at a market I had previously discovered while walking about the week before. I had been fearing that I would not be able to secure a visa extension, and that these might prove to be my final days in Iraq. So I had to get around to doing everything I had meant to in a short time. Bernadette, the woman working on the NBC film, opted to follow me as I went with the driver/escort Muhammed to the radio-parts market. This was an area tucked behind one of the electronics markets, set in a dingy and dank alleyway just a few blocks from Tahrir Square – the heart of Baghdad. Piles of garbage swelled in street corners and sidewalks were hardly distinguishable as they crumbled into the narrow alley road. Men hawked chassis of radio sets from the 1970s – things that were built to last. Some had tables full of speakers or gears for tape decks. I hoped that photographing the area would well illustrate the resourcefulness Iraqis have turned to in the face of total sanctions.

I began by taking a picture of a large pile of electronics boards, tossed together in no order. Several were broken and I was rather unsure what use they still had. Still, I liked the look of the pile (still practicing my technique...) and made an attempt to capture it with some people in the background. Not thirty seconds later and just as we were about to move on, a man ran up to me and began yelling.

"What are you doing here?!" he demanded. I instantly got nervous, not knowing who the person was. In his tan button down shirt and disheveled hair, he didn’t seem too menacing, but his eves wore an incredible anger. I told him I was taking photographs. "Of what??" he continued fuming. Of daily life in Iraq – markets and things people do, I explained. "No you are not! You are taking pictures of garbage!" He went on relentlessly. "Why this? What is this to you? You are photographing garbage!" I told him it was artistically pleasing. It didn't work. "No!" he repeated. "You are looking at garbage. Why?" He then asked me if I was a student. At this point a small crowd had gathered around us, and Bernadette was filming our exchange. I told him no, and then realized I didn't have one of the Arabic printed sheets explaining IPT's mission on me. I told him that I was a journalist trying to capture all facets of life.

He still didn't believe me – or at least my intentions. I couldn't quite fathom how I could be using photographs of rubbish in the middle of a market against the people of Iraq. I didn't understand how doing so would actually give cause to starting a war back home. If anything, I reasoned, photographing such things brought sympathy by revealing how bad the economy is here. I didn't tell him this as it then dawned on me that it was probably just an issue of pride. He didn't want that as the face of Iraq.

So I tried to relate to that. I told him I wanted to show America all sides of Baghdad - how the rich and poor live, and how difficult things were with the sanctions. "I don't believe you!" he again exclaimed. I was running into a dead end. Look, I told him, this looked interesting - I wanted to take a picture of it because as art, it is interesting. I said that if it was a pile of electronic boards in an American street, I would just as much want to photograph it. Indeed, there was certainly an artistic quality to it. I noticed a man behind him grinning widely - obviously amused by all of this. He smiled at me, and I had the understanding that he didn't get this guy either. So I then said that I had been to many galleries as saw all sorts of interpretation of art. "Are you a student?" he again demanded of me.

I stuck to the artist story, and he finally relented. "Well I'm sorry. If that is what you like - fine!" As he turned to storm off I said to him in Arabic, 'thank you' and 'with peace (Arabic for 'good-bye'). He ignored me and walked away. The others in the crowd laughed out loud and shook my hand. Perhaps I was out of line with my photograph, or perhaps Iraq just has difficult people like anywhere else on Earth. Muhammad though was shaken by the affair, and in his protective way ushered us out of the market.

Yesterday afternoon some IPT members from New York State held a ceremony for planting a "peace pole" at the UN Development Project building. The occasion was rather large in fact, and organized with numerous university students to urge peace for all nations. I went with Kathy Kelly and others, who brought along Karima and her family. Mahmud, the young boy of 8 who I hadn't seen in over a week, immediately recognized me and stuck by my side the whole time. I've begun to realize that I've spent more time playing with children in Iraq than I ever had at home.

Lacking any toys, I again gave Mahmud my videocamera and let him runabout. I didn't catch him in time for the press conference at the UNDP, and out in the lawn with all the other journalists with cameras on tripods I found him imitating them. As photographers moved in for shots, Mahmud followed. He even tilted the videocamera sideways, as photographers were doing.

After that brief affair, I went to go get my hair cut. Lacking clippers, I had been only moderately tolerating the condition of my hair, so I thought that a local hair cut might do the trick. The parlor was brightly lit by several florescent bulbs which reflected off of a sparkling clean floor. The owner only spoke a tiny amount of English, and the person actually cutting my hair knew none. So I did my best to explain that I just wanted the side and back trimmed with clippers and to leave the top alone. With patient care, the barber did a fine job without much input from me.

Then he went at my neck hair with a straight razor. I had to have my glasses off and was quite blind, but it didn't take me long to understand what he was doing. I panicked, realizing that he was close to my ear and my head was not quite being perfectly still. Joel had earlier seen a straight razor job done at another shop where a man with some spots on his face wound up bleeding. Just as I breathed a sigh of relief when he finished, he returned with something far more frightening. He twisted bits of elastic twine between his fingers and pulled it taught in his teeth. He then proceeded to snap the elastic across parts of my upper cheeks, tearing out hair follicles I never knew existed. I squealed and squirmed in pain as he continued. He only chuckled at my misery. I exclaimed in English that this was the brutality of Iraq.

Report from Iraq - #24

As my time here seems to wane, I feel like I am quite pressed. I am rather much in a situation where I realize there is so much more to see and do - but also that perhaps I have served my purpose and it is time to return. Included in this are the extraneous factors that are out of my control - such as my total lack of money, my visa and the fact that things are still very limited. Kathy has set the IPT on needing to focus on preparations for war, so there are less opportunities to travel around, and I certainly won't be seeing anything outside of Baghdad before I leave.

I've thought to turn my attention to getting things done as soon as I can, as the malaise of my impending departure is beginning to set in. Nothing is definite, of course, but I should probably take off as I am really unable to be away from any income for much longer. One of my priorities then has been to meet up with as many academics as I can, for I really relish talking to the well-educated people here. College professors in Iraq are not only incredibly intelligent (and usually fluent in English) but are also very passionate people with a myriad of ideas on a wide variety of topics. They put a great deal of emotion into their conversations, if for no other reason, much of what they teach is in some way hampered or directly affected by the situation around them.

Last night, I went to dinner with a several people and two Iraqi English literature professors who are married. I sat next to Dr. Saad Fadhill Abass, and spoke with him most of the night. We were at an Italian restaurant, which featured live piano music and souvenirs from Italy that lined the walls. It was the classiest place I had been to in Iraq, and predictably, was mainly filled with foreigners.

Dr. Abass specializes in modern English/American drama, and most prefers to teach "theater of the absurd". That evening, he was given as a gift, a large bag full of drama books from the last ten years. He was delighted by it, as (as I've mentioned so often) new material cannot be imported due to the sanctions. He invited me to visit the English department's library where dilapidated books from decades ago are what constitute 'contemporary' literature in Iraq.

Educated in Lancaster, England, he is a well-rounded man who also paints on the side. "I paint in the Iraqi style," he told me. This was explained to be several things. First of all, he did many country settings in an impressionistic style, trying to include black-clad women in chadors in rural areas. He said that his quirk was to leave the painting unfinished: "it is up to the viewer to finish the painting; to add his or her own touch." But he further explained that the "Iraqi style" was straight from the imagination, because sanctions had stagnated the country. Painters in Iraq, he asserted, no longer could study or train abroad, and nor could they get out to see anything new, "so we look inside our heads to imagine things, and we do a wonderful job of it."

The conversation turned to politics as the evening wore on. Dr. Abass asked us of our views on why the US seemed hell-bent on moving in on Iraq. I explained my theory that the US only goes to war with nations that don't open up their resources to American firms - while it happily does business with brutal regimes that do open their economies. But I was interested in how Iraqis felt cutoff from the West that they had grown accustomed to before 1990. He wanted to stress the multi-cultural and multi-ethnic nature of Iraq and how it is almost unique to the Middle East. "Once a foreigner asked me if we Shia naturally hated all Sunni Muslims. I said, I don't know, why don't you ask my wife who is Sunni." He went on through how all the different members of his Shi'ite family had married people of other faiths or ethnic groups. "We have total love for all types of people here."

On the next day, Monday, I returned to Baghdad University to try to meet with faculty of the Political Science department. I was having a spate of very bad luck in catching professors there, primarily due to the fact that I kept forgetting to call ahead. This time the Dean and two other professors I knew of were all away at the time. But we were assisted in meeting the director of the Palestine Studies program, Dr. Huda Al-Naimi and her colleague who translated for us, Dr. Samir Radi.

Dr. Al-Naimi greeted us warmly with her blue eyes lit up, happy to have the chance to talk to foreigners. She has spent the past fifteen years on this topic and I was eager to pry into the Iraqi viewpoint on the Palestinian crisis - and how it related to another war in the region. She stressed that the Iraqi approach to the situation was unique because Iraq was the only nation to never waiver in its stance. "While politics are never constant," she noted, "Iraq has been towards the Palestinians."

She covered many aspects of the matter that I well understood - such as the belief among Arabs that there was never an Arab-Jewish problem until Zionism came about, and that that was a direct result of the problems Europeans and Jews had. "It has been forced on us," she emphasized. She furthermore explained the belief that the West uses Israel as a paragon of superiority over Orientalism.

The main issue however was how a war with Iraq would affect the situation in Palestine. She repeated fears I had heard before that PM Ariel Sharon in Israel will use a war with Iraq as a cover to cleanse the West Bank of Palestinians. She noted that even without such a war, the current crisis has already distracted attention and Israel "is doing now what it couldn't get away with before," stepping up its abusive policies. But she wasn't hopeful about the future. "How can I have a dialogue with you," she gave as an example, "when I don't know what you might do to me? You may come and destroy my home at any time, so how can I approach you?"

Dr. Radi stepped in and commented that if there is a war in Iraq, "Sharon will have a festival."

Then we began discussing the US. Dr. Radi seemed quite lucid about the current situation in America. He insisted that problems began not with 9/11, but in November 2000, "when Bush stole the election in America." He continued, "it is the beginning of the collapse of the American dream and democracy. How did the Nazis begin?" I observed that time and time again, Iraqi intellectuals seem more aware of the faltering state of true democracy in the US than most Americans. "This is going to be a different America," he added. "It is going to be a monopoly, and monopolies are evil." Every now and then, he managed to make such nuances.

The conversation turned to the impending war and the two professors became much more emotional. "We are waiting for a miracle," they repeated. Dr. Radi added, "We are crossing all of our fingers, not just two." They were sure that Iraq was only the beginning, but that nothing could change it. The admitted to being pessimistic. We asked about the massive and unprecedented worldwide demonstrations on Feb. 15 - the largest in world history. They were encouraged, but assured us that people in power held the real sway. "I was called a pessimistic, but now I don't think so," Dr. Radi said.

He observed how as people matured, they began to become more skeptical. Even Dr. Naimi mentioned that before 1990 she never wore her hejab, and now she constantly does. "Radical, liberal, conservative, reactionary…" Dr. Radi listed denoting how people age. Instead of showing much hope, they both reflected on their survival skills. "You must learn the art of living," Dr. Radi insisted. "Right now, we are in a forest. But even in a forest, things survive."

The allusion was not lost on me.

Report from Iraq - #25

Flying from Iraq to Amman gives a good perspective on the amount of fear. Those wealthy enough, can take their families out of Baghdad. On the plane were several industrialists and other upper class Iraqis taking their children out. But the plane was not nearly as full as had been expected. Many Iraqis seem to be giving their odds more time – especially after the promise of more time from Blix's last report.

I myself was accosted by some of the corruption that thrives in impoverished nations. Despite all of my travels, I have never run into demands of bribery. I read enough accounts from Robert Kaplan and Robert Young Pelton on travels in third world nations and in conflicts to recognize how bribery works and how to dodge it. But I wasn't prepared for the Iraqi airport.

The first check was for the AIDS test stamp on my visa. Iraq requires AIDS tests of all visitors who spend more than 14 days in the country. (This paranoia has actually worked, preventing AIDS from reaching the country). As I walked through a guard stuck out his hand and said something about "Bakeesh" (like "Coke" and "OK", "Bakeesh" is universally understood). I just kept walking, not too sure what was being asked. I then went through the metal detectors and had to lay out all of my bags for equipment checks. I expected this, since when entering Iraq I had to have all of my electronic equipment registered. (I guess it prevents people from buying equipment in Iraq and taking it out. I'm not sure why they care though.) But then a man asked to see the cash I carried and if I had a declaration for it. I never heard of such a thing and just gave him a dumb look. This was his cue to ask for some money – to be discreetly slipped into my passport and handed to him. I complied, thinking that this was the way out of missing some form. I wasn't sure, and was flustered. Immediately after I complied, a tall official looking man strolled up and demnded that I take my bags and follow him.

I protested some, noting that the other IPT'ers leaving with me were still at the security check and how little time we had to catch our flight. "Come, come. No problem," he repeated, dismissing my concerns each time. I followed him into an elevator and down into an office. He waved my ratty brown equipment list, and I thought there was something seriously wrong to warrant such a trip. He took a seat behind a desk and urged me to sit next to him. He then turned and asked with an obvious grin, "We're friends, no?" Crap.

I didn't want to deal with the issue or the delay, so I slipped him a $20. Instantly, his demeanor and presense changed from a ranking airport official to a bungling man in an oversized suit begging for cash. He signed my equipment list and led me back upstairs, all the time smiling and noting that we were now friends. Once back to the departure floor, I darted over to the check-in desk for Royal Jordanian, anxious to just get onto the plane.

I threw my bags on the scale as a clerk checked my passport. She handed me a boarding pass with nothing more on it than a sticker with my seat assignment. Then her face wrinkled as she looked at the scale reading. "Ah, you are 13 kilos over. You have excess baggage." I protested that it was everything I brought in and I never had to pay before (even through I came into Iraq by land). She insisted I had too much weight, ignoring my claims. She then returned to her work and muttered, "But I can help you." What? She looked up, and gave dodgey glances to the left and right. "I can help you. Let me be your friend." Crap.

The $180 flight from Baghdad to Amman, already grossly inflated because Royal Jordanian is the only international airline servicing Iraq, rose to a total of $240. (Remember that Baghdad to Basra is only $20 round trip on Iraqi Airlines.) I was again hit up for "bakeesh" on the tarmac as the baggage loaders begged money from me. I ignored them, but wondered if they would ditch my bags in exchange. Before people try to attribute this corruption as unique to Iraq, I suggest they give border crossings a try anywhere in Africa. I was badly hit though, as most other IPT'ers seemed sensible enough to just play dumb and not pay up. It definitely left a sour taste in my mouth about the country – but its not the first time I've been seen as a wealthy businessman just because I'm an American in a poor nation.

Report #26

I sit in my Amman hotel room, so far removed from Iraq. I already have to readjust to the difference in dialects ("Mabsut" means 'great' in Jordan/Palestine, but it means slapping someone in Gulf dialects). The streets are more crowded in Ammans twisting roads that cut through the seven hills the city is built upon. Its drastically more confusing than Baghdad's well planned and mainly straight, wide roads. Cabs are metered and well marked – people don't volunteer their cars as taxis for extra income here as in Iraq. There is a lack of notable poverty, which permeates even into Baghdad's middle-class neighborhoods.

But the greatest contrast is in the sky. Unlike Baghdad's beautiful weather, every day I have spent in Amman both before and after Iraq has been bleak and dreary. Baghdad's sun provides ample distraction and can lift ones spirits at least temporarily. Amman feels depressing. Perhaps it's the lack of need for an air of defiance.

Hakem, an older gentleman at the Meridian "Businessman's Center" (other internet locations were closed on Friday), sat at a desk behind me as I sorted through my unread emails of the last month. He turned on CNN, and I spun in my chair to see smoke billowing from New York Harbor. He asked me if I was an American, and I replied in Arabic that I was. Surprised he asked me where I learned Arabic, and I told him I studied in Gaza.

At that point my arabic skills ran out and I went on to tell him that I had just returned from Iraq with a peace organization. He was quite interested in this. Hakem is a Kuwaiti who fled after 1991, and wound up in Jordan. I wasn't quite sure why he didn't want to return to his nation but he had been there during the Gulf War. He said he certainly didn't want to see any more conflict.

"The people at the top are never hurt. Only the citizens. It isn't right." I was pleased to hear that from a Kuwaiti. He also insisted though that there was no way to stop the conflict. "It is all up to Bush. If he wants it, he will do it. Everyone believes it."

But now I prepare for a new journey. I have to sort out my story for entering Israel/Palestine, mainly because the Israelis are trying to prevent people from entering who don't tow the Zionist line. People my age have been deported on arrival over and over again at Ben Gurion airport. Even internationally recognized humanitarian officials were being turned back last spring. Obviously Israel has something to hide – a drastic difference on entering Iraq. (Not that Hussein is any better than Sharon. Both are murderous thugs, but Iraq isn't currently occupying and colonizing foreign soil as Israel is.)

I also have to leave in Amman all of my Iraq "souvenirs". Among those is a stack of Iraq's English paper, Iraq Daily. I have collected such riveting headlines as "President Chairs Meeting," "President Chairs Cabinet Meeting," and "President Chairs Meeting". I've also collected some small bottles of Iraqi made whiskey and gin to delight my Wisconsinite friends at home who have probably never had something so foul. But its my photos that are most valuable, and my twenty or so rolls of films will need to be in safe hands while I'm in Palestine (the Israelis often confiscate film). It's with those photos of Iraq's people that I will be able to tell my stories on my return.

[End of file. See also Ben Granby's Palestine Reports.]