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=> Iraq: three years on

Iraq: three years on

Posted by Tiglath (Guest) - Sunday, March 12 2006, 6:12:33 (CET) from 203.214.77.71 - 203-214-77-71.dyn.iinet.net.au Australia - Windows XP - Internet Explorer Website: Website title:

Before first light on 20 March 2003 missiles rained down on Baghdad as the American-led invasion began. Saddam's regime was toppled but, three years on, the war still rages. About 35,000 Iraqis, 2,500 allied troops and 109 journalists are dead. The lives of millions have changed forever. Here are some of their stories Sunday March 12, 2006 The Observer The poet 'My mission was to try and rehumanise our society' Abdullah al-Baghdadi, 41, a poet, lives in the Karrada district of Baghdad On 9 April 2003, when I saw the statue of Saddam being hauled to the ground in Baghdad's al-Fardous square, I had such hopes for the future. Seeing the tyrant lolling on his back with a rope around his neck was the ultimate in poetic justice. It opened up all sorts of possibilities for artists and intellectuals in Iraq. Previously half-formed thoughts and ambitions began to solidify in our minds. Inspired by the name of the movie, I decided to form an Iraqi Dead Poets' Society - so named because all of us had spent the past 35 years like dead men walking. I contacted all the poets I knew. It wasn't easy; all the phone lines were down. I sent letters and taxis and messengers across Baghdad, hunting down the pens that I knew could help beat the sword. And the reaction was overwhelmingly positive. I would find a suitable venue, a 'Poetry HQ', and we would meet weekly for readings of our work. All the poems and poets banned or suppressed under Saddam would have a chance to live and breathe again. We would issue a monthly magazine in both Arabic and English. We would invite poets from the West to come and share their inspirations with us, to bypass the artificially imposed barriers that had been in place for far too long. We would also form a poetry club for the youth of Iraq, who had been starved of all beauty under the Baathist regime. I remember how three years ago I had this passion - I felt it almost as a mission - to rehumanise our thoroughly brutalised society. I also wanted to override the images of concrete blast barriers, barbed wire, suicide bombs and mortar shells that were threatening to take hold of our imaginations after the first few months of liberation. I believed all that had been destroyed could be recreated again, in verse, by us poets. Any destruction of any thing means the death of part of a poet's soul. It took six months to find a building by the Tigris, where the society would meet and enjoy the intoxicating air of freedom. In 2003 we could write and read whatever we wanted. But then, like a slow trickle of acid on to our foreheads, the same intolerance we had seen under Saddam began to reappear. One poet was threatened; one was kidnapped; one was killed; one fled abroad. History repeated itself. We had begun once more to create a policeman inside our heads, bigger and more frightening than the policeman who stands on the street. Our pens were cuffed and our hearts imprisoned. And then on 31 December 2005, our building, Baghdad's nerve centre of verse, was wrecked by a bomb. Al-Qaeda nihilists? Angry Saddamists? Irate Iranians? Hopeless Americans? I neither knew nor cared. Was our society the intended target? Again I did not know or care. But of this I was certain. There I stood, just me, alone again, squinting through the dust and debris at the total eclipse of my dreams. The journalist's widow 'Geoff Hoon said he did not have the means to help me' Fabienne Nerac, wife of Fred Nerac, an ITN cameraman who disappeared after an exchange of fire between US troops and Iraqis outside Basra on 22 March 2003. A Frenchman based in Belgium, he has two children and was 43 at the time I was always worried when Fred went to cover wars, ever since his first war in Kosovo. But you never think that something serious is going to happen. He was being careful and always took precautions. It happened at 9am and I knew by 5pm that Fred had 'disappeared'. Of course I was shaken. It was as if the world had collapsed but I focused on the fact that he had 'disappeared'; I thought that he would be found. That was three years ago. The war completely changed my life. My eyes, my ears are now permanently turned to Iraq. As long as Fred has not been found, every time I hear Iraq mentioned I jump; every time I see something in the newspaper I have to read it. All my time is taken up with the effort to find out what happened or find his body. I spoke to Colin Powell [the former US Secretary of State], but he did not help. It was just an exercise for the press. I met Geoff Hoon (former UK defence minister), who was very unpleasant. He just said he did not have the means to help and made a series of stupid suggestions. Jack Straw was helpful. He was the only one who was human. He listened to what I had to say and said that if he was in my place he would be doing exactly the same. And he must have helped, because 10 days after we met the British announced a military investigation. There have been two investigations, American and British. The Americans just wanted to check why they had fired on the car in which my husband was travelling and to show they were blameless. But the English were very thorough and helped me know what had happened. To not know is the worst. You just ask yourself why it happened. I am angry as well. I think about the war and about the person who is not here. I think about the journalists who have been hurt or killed during this war and I think the profession should be extremely concerned. The politician 'Since Saddam fell, we have gained friends' Adnan Mufti, politician and speaker of the Kurdistan National Assembly in Irbil It took a long time to remove Saddam and his genocidal rule, and then only with the help of the US and the UK and the coalition. But after all that has happened, and all the heartache and disappointments the Kurds have been through, I can say we are no longer alone. Indeed, over the last three years we have been gaining friends by the day. The US invasion was already 10 years too late. But it saw the removal from power of a very strong and very dangerous enemy of the Kurds. While he was there, not one of us could feel safe and not one of us could plan for the future - 9 April 2003 was an historic day. When the US attack started in March 2003, we felt sure our final liberation and security was at hand. The price of fighting for freedom and democracy they say is very high. But what is more important are the political gains that the Kurds have made. We chose to go to Baghdad. We succeeded in having a constitution that will enshrine our self-rule and return the historic areas of Kurdistan, such as Kirkuk, to our region. Given the tough neighbourhood in which we live, we chose to fight to reshape Iraq into the kind of country in which we can feel comfortable. It must be free and democratic and federal. And not ruled by Islamic fundamentalists or Arab nationalist dictators. That may not be easy and much danger lies ahead. But those are our red lines. The Iraqi mother 'I heard screams, shouting and gunfire. My son was dead' Sayida al-Hassan, 27, a mother and widow who lives in Mosul You want to know what the last three years has meant for me? It has been a confusing mixture of grief, humiliation and hope. I will first tell you about the grief. It was at the end of 2003. I remember I was outside in the yard washing the clothes. I heard a commotion outside in the street. I saw a big American armoured vehicle, I don't think it was a tank, turning into our street. It was followed by lots of the local children, including my two boys, who were running, shouting and waving at the American soldiers. The soldiers looked very smart and I wondered who did their washing for them when their mothers were not around. Then the vehicle stopped and they got down and started handing sweets to the children. They seemed very friendly. I called inside to my husband, Mohammed, who was as usual sitting there doing nothing. I told him to go and check on the two boys and while he was there ask the soldiers for a job. Mohammed used to be in the army in Saddam's time, but he spoke some English and I thought he could be of use. To tell the truth I was fed up with him in the house all the time, giving me orders when I was the one who did all the work. Anyway, he grumbled and got off his chair and went down the street towards the soldiers. Then there was a bang like the end of the earth and the wall around my house fell like it was made of paper. I could see a big cloud of smoke and then I heard screams and shouting and gunfire. I knew it was a bomb. I raced out on to the street and saw Jassim, his face was black, running towards me crying. He said he was standing with his brother but he didn't know what had happened to him. I shouted for him and for my husband, but there was no finding them. Later my neighbour told me a suicide bomber had driven into the street - driven at the American vehicle. My neighbour told me that six children had been killed, including my Saif. He was only five. Also my husband was dead. Since that day, our life has been so hard. It is very tough for a widow and a mother. Everyone forgets us. I am hopeful people will listen to women instead of pushing us around. It is Iraqi women who have suffered most. We have to keep our families together while mourning our dead. When the bomb went off I was pregnant. Four months later I had a baby girl. I think when she grows up she will not have the problems that we have had. I will make sure she gets a good education. The civil servant 'I knew that if I didn't leave my family would be killed' Asaad Hameed, 38, a civil servant, who last week left his home of 20 years in the Amiriya district of western Baghdad I was reluctant to go, we used to like it there, and I remember before the war there was no tension between Sunni and Shia. But we knew that unless we moved we might be a target for the terrorists. One morning I woke up and found a note under my front door. It said that I was a Shia and a member of the Badr forces [a Shia miltia]. It said we had one week to leave Amiriya or we would be killed. Many Shia people there were given this paper, and I think many like me have left. We will rent out our house to another person, a Sunni, for a low rent. The area's for the Sunnis now, and our life is upside down. The bombing of the holy Shia shrine in Samarra was just a spark to the civil war that has been tearing our neighbourhoods apart. Despite this, I still believe that one day I will be able to return to my home. This used to be a good area to live in. In the Eighties, Saddam built many nice houses and gave lots of good land away here as rewards for his army officers serving in the Iran-Iraq war. It was a way to buy loyalty to the regime. My father was civil servant and not an army member, but nevertheless secured a small house in Amiriya in 1986. It was mixed area, 70 per cent Sunni, 30 per cent Shia. Quite pleasant and calm, run by Iraqi army officers. We kept a low profile and there was no problem. But tensions began to grow soon after Saddam was removed. First the militias of religious Shia parties came here looking for old Baathists to kill. Then when the Americans attacked Falluja [to the west of Baghdad], many of the families sought refuge in our area. At first we welcomed these familes. They were suffering from upheaval and needed somewhere. But soon we became concerned that, along with the genuine refugees, were Jihadists and Wahabis. A week ago the grocer in my neighbourhood, Ali, was killed because they said he was a member of the Badr Brigade. I knew Ali very well. He didn't have any political position or contact with any political party. But he insisted on complaining about the Wahabists in Iraq and called them terrorists. Another businessmen was killed because he opened a shop for satellite receivers. The Wahabists told him it was forbidden by Islamic law. And then they shot him in the doorway of his store. The British soldier 'If I hadn't done it I would always have wished that I had' Tom Orde-Powlett commanded a platoon at the age of 23 and was among the first wave into Basra. All 36 members of the platoon came home and Orde-Powlett was honoured with a Military Cross. Three years later, he has been promoted to captain. I have no regrets. It's what you join the army to do. In a perverse sort of way, I suppose if you're a fireman, of course you don't want someone's house to burn down and people to die in fires, but you've trained to be a fireman and you want to go and fight fires. Likewise in the army you want to put your training into practice and see if it works, and everything is very, very exciting. You probably think less about what you're doing before than after. The day after Basra was the most exhilarating time, which was when all the units had a big show of force patrol, when every man available was patrolling really to show set a precedent. We wanted to show the Iraqis we were there; there were plenty of us and we were going to maintain law and order and hopefully have some impact on their minds like that. There were huge numbers of Iraqis out on the streets, cheering, clapping, throwing flowers, throwing sweets. Particularly having lost soldiers the night before, that was one point when you thought, 'Actually, this has been worthwhile.' It did very much feel as though we'd liberated the place. When we handed all our kits and weapons and ammunition back in it was quite a big moment, which I wouldn't have anticipated beforehand. It is a monumental weight off your shoulders: suddenly you think that, for us, it is over. Returning home there were small things I didn't expect, like the number of different shades of green that you don't see out there, suddenly becoming vivid. Receiving the Military Cross was a huge, huge honour, but it really could have gone to anyone in the platoon. I went to Buckingham Palace and received it from the Queen in February 2004. It was an intense experience and people bond incredibly closely as a result of that. If I hadn't done it, I would have wished I had. The American mother 'Bush doesn't cry for our soldiers' Diane Santoriello, of Verona, Pennsylvania, lost her son, Neil, who was serving with the US Army's 1st Division near Falluja. He was killed in action on 13 August, 2004. He was 24 The day I heard that my son had died I heard the doorbell go and then I heard this horrible sound that I realised was my husband screaming. I came down and saw a minister, a police officer and a soldier. I think my mind just wanted to screen out the military uniform. I saw my husband and I thought his father had died. Then my mind cleared and I saw the soldier and I started screaming too. I knew if Neil had been wounded they would telephone. If he had been killed they would have sent an officer. Neither of us has slept a good night's sleep since Neil died. It tested my faith in God. For a while I just could not pray. I had lost the idea of what to say to God. Joining the military had always been an ambition of Neil's. I had raised my kids with the idea that it was a good thing to do service, to improve the world. That is what he wanted and I am very proud of him. He had a great feeling for the Iraqi people and I know he took good care of his men. I know he served with honour and he won medals for his bravery. I have trouble looking at George Bush's face when I see him on the television. I just cannot bear to see his smirk. There is a song called 'Arlington'. It has the line: 'There's a big White House sits on a hill just up the road. The man inside he cried the day they brought me home'. Well, Neil is buried at Arlington and I don't buy that line at all. Bush didn't cry at all for our soldiers. He did not cry at all. It is us parents who do all the crying. The US veteran 'I still have nightmares' Alex Rybov, 23, from Brooklyn. He was born in Ukraine and moved to America with his family in 1990 By the time I was in tenth grade, I was sick of school. I went to a jobs fair at school and there was a US Marines stall there. I filled out a card and thought: what harm could it do? My parents were not very happy about it. My grandmother had survived the Nazis invading Poland and my father had been in the Russian military on the Arctic submarine fleet. They knew about armies and weren't keen on me joining one. I was there for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The strange thing was that as soon as we heard that we were being shipped out one of the officers in my unit just came right out and told us why we were going. He said no one was going to find any WMDs. He said we were going over there to fight for oil, but that we would go anyway because we were marines and that was our mission. I came back in late May 2003 and got out of the army a year later. Now I suffer from post-traumatic stress. I keep having nightmares all the time. The funny thing is they are not the things that actually happened to me, but they are taking place in Iraq. I am back in combat mode. I jump at anything. I have lost weight. I only have a home because I am at my parents'. Everything is different now. I am 23 and a disabled vet. --------------------- - BACK TO INDEX - REPLY - QUOTE - EDIT - DELETE -

The full topic: Iraq: three years on Tiglath - Sunday, March 12 2006, 6:12:33 (CET) Re: Iraq: three years on Dr Pancho - 03/12 18:21

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