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[casi] Travels around Free Iraq! - the Julia Guest reports




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>
> Travels around Free Iraq
>
> Before April 9 2003 there was little chance I would
> see cities like Nassiriyya, Diwanniyya or Samawa.
> So
> I had little hesitation accepting an immediate
> invitation to head south with Raed, who with a lot
> of
> ingenuity and a little funding from has started the
> process of documenting the real civilian casualty
> figures. .
>
> Raed’s political understanding of Iraq is a
> phenomenon. The website “Where is Raed?” set up by
> his friend Salaam Pax, while the government was
> still
> monitoring every word people in Iraq wrote or
> thought.
> “Salam had got fed up with me not replying to
> emails
> so he set up a web site which we both started
> writing
> material on. It was only supposed to be for us.
> After a while we noticed people had been looking at
> it
> as an example of ordinary Iraqi lives, it was very
> embarrassing. People were reading about my problems
> with my fiancé.” During the war “Where is Raed”
> started getting a huge audience. “We really panicked
> when the BBC quoted us and we suddenly had tens of
> thousands of hits. We decided to change the URL to
> Dear Raed and just prayed the authorities would not
> find us.”
>
> So having been back in Baghdad for less than 12
> hours
> I found myself in car heading towards Kerbala. The
> volunteers working now collecting the casualty
> information took us on a brief tour of a bombed
> area.
> Here we found a woman who had been sitting in
> central
> room in her house while the missiles were landing
> around her. One missile came through the roof of
> her
> kitchen; through the top wall of the room she was
> sitting, out the other side, through a second room
> and
> out other side of the house. It had failed to
> explode. Her memory of the shock showed in the
> tears
> she couldn’t hold back. “These are the real stories
> of the war,” said Raed, “People who have survived,
> and
> are now struggling to live in damaged houses.”
>
> Another house where the missile had come through the
> building, a woman explained, “It destroyed the
> house,
> the fridge, my son was killed” At this Raed became
> exasperated, “people don’t value life here, they
> list
> the loss of their son in the same sentence as their
> fridges, dammit”
>
> In Nassiriyya heavy fighting caused thousands of
> deaths. As the hospital director explained “most
> people could not reach the hospital with their dead
> during the fighting, so they buried them at home”
> Now
> the grim toll in Nasiriyya alone and so far is 1,100
> dead, 3,700 injured and those are the hospital
> figures.
>
> Here we found young children playing in a burnt out
> armoured personnel carriers “They were empty”
> explained the children “But we saw the helicopter
> that
> came and bombed them” Now the tell tale sign of the
> black DU Oxide on the ground and the intense fire
> that
> had gutted the machines make the vehicles dangerous
> playgrounds. “Do you know about Depleted Uranium?”
> asked Raed. “Yes we know about it” they replied,
> but
> it hasn’t stopped them playing. One entrepreneur
> was
> busy hack sawing a radiator out of the vehicle.
> Further along the road we found the US army
> surrounded
> by razor with a queue of Iraqi’s being handed their
> wages. I stayed in the car filming this and was
> soon
> approached by a GI “There’s no filming here, we have
> machine guns in place” I was puzzled and pushed him
> for a better explanation, “I could take that off
> you”
> he said, leaning into the lens. I had forgotten to
> turn it off. “OK I’m not filming” I lied.
> After hours and days on the road from Baghdad to
> Basra, we stopped at cities I had never heard of,
> Samawa, Diwanniyya and villages that are not even on
> the map. At one place we decided to stretch our
> legs
> and walked into a place built with mud blocks. “I
> am
> not sure they will not start shooting at us,”
> admitted
> Raed. Yet as everywhere people were glad of
> visitors.
> “This place is incredible,” said Raed. “It’s
> called
> Aruba, here they have a water filtration system,
> electricity, even television.” But the electricity
> has been off for weeks, they are carrying filthy
> water
> from the river and cannot filter it. It’s making
> them
> sick “For now they have their food rations, but it
> will run out. People will hear that Baghdad and
> Basra
> are restored, but will they care about villages not
> the maps, or will people here start dying and nobody
> will know.” Observed Raed. I couldn’t answer. I
> met the World Food Programme information officer in
> the hotel in Basra. “Just let me know if there is
> any
> information you need,” he said. He was not on my
> list
> of priorities, “Well we start distributing food in
> two
> weeks” he said unprompted. So Maybe Basra will get
> their rations in two weeks, but what about this
> village of Aruba.
>
> Thousands of US trucks and machinery are moving in
> the
> desert, “they are building a new base, Camp Ali”
> said
> Raed. They could be importing a new city from the
> activity.
>
> Back in Baghdad I am only starting to comprehend
> life
> with the US military. Tanks thunder past the hotel
> every few hours. This morning I saw two of them
> climb
> the pavement, and nearly destroy a carefully
> nurtured
> tree in their impatience to get past a garbage
> truck.
> It’s hard to describe seeing tanks being driven
> around
> streets as if the were jeeps, not slowing or
> indicating for corners. It’s only a matter of time
> before a person, child or even a car does not get
> out
> the way in time. As Jamil the man who makes us all
> ‘special’ coffee said, “It’s not good”.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> It's Samaritans' Week. Help Samaritans help others.
> Call 08709 000032 to give or donate online now at
http://www.samaritans.org/support/donations.shtm

__________________________________________________
It's Samaritans' Week. Help Samaritans help others.
Call 08709 000032 to give or donate online now at http://www.samaritans.org/support/donations.shtm
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---------------------------------
It's Samaritans' Week. Help Samaritans help others.
Call 08709 000032 to give or donate online now at
http://www.samaritans.org/support/donations.shtm

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