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Answer
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Name
Felicity A.
- United Kingdom
Profession
Question
Good evening Jo,
You will be aware that the US and UK governments have now warned their personnel in Iraq that they are in a harzardous health situation due to the chemically toxic and radioactive depleted uranium (DU) debris left from the
munitions they used in the invasion of March-April 2003 and the residue of the same remaining from the 1991 Gulf war. As you will know, this has been linked to so called Gulf war syndrome and cancers, leukaemias and birth defects in Iraq and among 1991 war veterans, those in Afghanisatan and the Balkans, where these weapons were again used. Many scientists say, as you will know, that Du's pollution will outlive the life of the sun. It remains radioactive for four and a half BILLION years.
Could you tell participants in this dialogue the warnings and advice the
Iraqi people are receiving in this respect from the US Authority, the advice GO's such as yourself are receiving and the efforts made to clean up this appalling hazard by the occupying forces - and also warnings to people selling scrap metal which often comes off tanks and vehicles hit bu DU and potentially life threatening.
I imagine the US and British Authorities must have huge warning signs all over. Can you describe their pro-active initiatives in this respect? I apologise for the length of this question.
Warmest greetings, felicity a.
Answer
There is a huge tank cemetery near Daura where all the burnt-out military hardware has been dumped, and there are children working there, cutting pieces off the tanks for a small amount of money, and there are no warnings at all. I asked one of the boys if he'd been told anything at all about the dangers, and he said some British journalists told him it might be dangerous, but he had no other source.
There is a huge amount of fear about DU because the old Iraqi government used to wield it as a sort of bogeyman, so people believe that every niggle, every illness is caused by it, which is causing huge suffering as well.
The Ministry of Health has been told that research into DU and its effects is not a priority and no money has been allocated for it.
Name
ali
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Profession
Question
In your opinion, is the Iraqi constitution (which was signed last week) useful for the Iraqi political future?
Answer
I was in Kurdistan at the time of the signing and there were celebrations because, for the first time, Iraqi Kurdistan is a federal state.
I haven't heard much reaction either way from Iraqis back here in Baghdad - people don't seem to feel it has much impact on their lives whatsoever. The previous constitution had a lot of noble words and protections which were completely ignored and the feeling seems to be that as yet it's only a piece of paper.
As an illustration, 15 women and one man have been arrested this week, bank clerks, and around a thousand have been threatened with arrest. During the changeover of the Iraqi currency, the Ministry of Finance lost a lot of money because the fake notes from the old Iraqi currency were exchanged for new currency, as well as the genuine notes, so there's a big discrepancy between what was paid out and what came in.
The bank clerks were told specifically to pay out new currency for old regardless of whether it was suspicious. They weren't equipped with any methods for finding out whether the old notes were fake or genuine. Now they're being forced to sign papers agreeing to "pay back" the millions of dinars that were lost.
There's no legal basis for this, no legal framework to it whatsoever. The Minister of Finance and his Deputy are both close associates of Ahmed Chalabi and were also linked with the old regime. There are a lot of people saying that nothing has changed.
Name
anti-war
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Profession
Question
Do you think that Iraqis are suffering less under the Anglo-American regime?
Answer
It's not possible to generalize for all Iraqis, of course. There are those who were being tortured under the past regime and are now released, who are clearly suffering less. Having said that, I met a poet who was a political prisoner until the fall of the old government, who said unequivocally that he would rather the US/UK had not invaded, that the Iraqis had been allowed to get rid of Saddam.
Certainly there are a lot of people suffering now. The electricity is still erratic, unemployment is massive and petrol is scarce. Prices are rising far more than wages, even for those with jobs, and a lot of people are still living on the food ration.
A great many people are homeless, either as a result of the bombing or because they can't afford the rent, or because they've been evicted since the war, and some of the squatter camps they've moved into have started being evicted. There was one in Sadr City, which has been given until 10am tomorrow to leave. A father of ten went out looking for alternative accommodation for his family. He failed to find anything, came home and collapsed and died of a heart attack.
A lot of the camps are without basic services, suffering from very poor health and, because they are internally displaced and not international refugees, there is no one responsible for them.
As well, there are still house raids and detentions without charge. The US figure is around 11,000 detainees in the prisons, while human rights groups and Iraqi lawyers estimate at least 18,000 - but these figures do not include the women.
People are routinely arrested during house raids or at checkpoints.
Name
Ennes
- Greece
Profession
Question
Hello Jo!
Have you been to Iraq Lately, and how would you describe the situation there right now? From what we hear from anti-war websites and some of the major newspapers the situation is beyond words, and if you go on and meassure that to the Saddam era i would say Iraq was much better under saddam. We heard yesterday from an article by Robert Fisk where he describes kiddnapings and killings of ordinary Iraqis ( either by the coalition or by Iraqi gangs )I mean it seems to be a total jungle out there thanx to the Coorporate Democracy brought by our leaders.
Thanx and Best Regards!
Answer
Hello. I'm in Iraq now and without doubt things are more dangerous than before, under Saddam. See the last answer for some information about the detentions by coalition forces, many thousands of them.
The school we visited yesterday in Sadr City has had a lot of kids drop out because it's too dangerous for them to walk to school. This is a common problem and girls especially are suffering. There are kidnappings, robberies and random killings.
When you ask people what their main priority is, "security" is the most common answer. A lot of Iraqis don't feel safe on the streets and that's exacerbated by the fact that, when there's a roadside bomb, or some gunfire in the street, the US troops start firing at random, causing lots of casualties.
In the north, in the Kurdish part, things are very calm and peaceful. There are no US troops in Erbil, though people have been nervous since the bombings on February 1st.
Elsewhere in the country, the situation in the south seems to be similar with the area around Amara, particularly, generating a lot of refugees, or internally displaced people as they're officially known. It seems to be effectively in the hands of a local militia, from what people say, though as I haven't been there I'm not sure.
Name
Omar Salam
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Profession
Question
Thank you for your efforts.
Based on your analysis, being in Iraq and following the events closely, how do you see the future of Iraq, keeping in mind all global changes and global militarization.
Answer
I think there's a definite intention on the part of the coalition leaders to maintain a long term presence in Iraq and I think also there are clearly visible signs of attempts to destabilise, to cause friction between different groups, to turn the discontent of people at their poor standard of living into in-fighting over who's getting the bigger share of far too little.
My family are Greek Cyrpiot and they saw precisely that happening in the 60s and 70s when the UK and later the US paid both sides in the conflict and used agents provocateurs to increase the problems between the sides.
A lot of people here believe that the US is, if not planting some of the bombs, at least allowing some to go off that could have been prevented. I can't say whether this is true or not but I hear it a lot.
In the UK at the moment a road building scheme has recently been restarted in Caerphilly, in Wales. A flyover is to be built, and a tank factory is being built on the other side. The sole reason for the road building going ahead is to serve the tank factory. The arms trade is expanding hugely, at the expense of taxpayers and with massive profits for the manufacturers and dealers.
So I think the future of Iraq depends very much on the efforts now of the tribal, political and religious leaders to build links and peace between their groups and communities, to resist any incitement to fight among themselves and to stand together to determine their own future. Whether the will exists to do that, I don't know.
At the same time I think this is something people outside Iraq can take a role in. The reconstruction contracts are a fundamental reason for the war and we need to take action against companies like Halliburton and Bechtel and all the rest, making it clear that profiting from the bombing of Iraq is inappropriate and making it more trouble that it's worth.
Equally we need to take direct action against the arms trade, against all the companies that manufacture and sell weapons, who deliberately fuel conflicts by arming the different sides. Look at www.caat.org for more - although obviously not until I've finished on here.
Name
Edna
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Profession
Question
Would you tell us more about the Circus2Iraq and the reaction of Iraqi children to it?
Answer
I could go on about this all day...
Circus2iraq has been working here for just over 2 months now. There have been 4-6 of us at a time, mainly in and near Baghdad, but recently in Kurdistan, and soon to the south.
There are a few aims - at it's simplest it's about making children laugh, but that's really important at the moment. Yesterday we were in a very poor school in a very poor area. There were no windows, no sanitation, no learning materials, and the kids were so excited to see us. The teachers said it was the first time they'd ever had fun in that yard. Before they used to have to sing pro-Saddam songs in it. There were loads of kids at the school gates and the headmaster said he was sure that some of them will come back to school now they've seen something good happening there.
We worked with a group of street children living in a shelter, and have helped them integrate into their new long term accommodation in an orphanage. One of the things we do is play the huge red parachute into a big dome with them all inside, so all they see is a rosy glow, all the squalour of their living conditions shut out. Games which teach the kids co-opeartion and communication, things they really need both in their personal situation and in Iraq as it rebuilds.
Like I said, I could go on all day, but I'll try not to... The kids in the refugee and squatter camps, in the orphanages and schools have very little, often there are no toys, so to see a circus is incredibly exciting for them. It gives them something else to think and dream about apart from the intense violence and the suffering that they've seen in their lives. One of the games involves turning the huge red parachute into a big dome with them all inside, so all they see is a rosy glow, all the squalour of their living conditions shut out.
As well, having a woman in the show is really good for the girls - they see a woman doing something completely outside their normal experience and it inspires them. When we first went to one of the camps we go to regularly, the girls were too scared and shy to play. Now they run up to us and beg to play, yell "Boomchucka" at us as loudly as they can and are generally much more outgoing.
We're turning it into a long-term project which will help with training of teachers in Iraq, reintegration of street children with their families as well as the work we've already been doing in camps and orphanages and so on.
Name
imtiaz
- United Kingdom
Profession
civil servant
Question
If you decide to work for the police force in the UK, is it benificial e.g for muslims who are practising?
Answer
I say, just briefly, that the police force in the UK is always and inevitably exercising the will of the state. The state in effect, because of our electoral system, is the will of Tony Blair, so if you accept what he does as appropriate, then working for the police could be appropriate too.
But bear in mind immmense amounts of evidence that the police force is extremely racist. If you think the best way to fight that is from within then good luck to you. A lot of Muslims I know who have worked for the police feel they were used as tokens, poster people, and not treated equally. Up to you.
Name
arab
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Profession
Question
After one year, Do you think that America fulfilled its goals from attacking Iraq, in another words, I want you to evaluate this first year of that unfair war.
Answer
Yes, I think America achieved its goals, but not the ones it announced to the public. As I said earlier, some people are suffering less than under Saddam, but the living conditions for the country as a whole are poor and the coalition forces have committed many, many human rights violations.
The US has military and political control over Iraq, has already channeled vast amounts of money through reconstruction contracts out of Iraq's economy and into its own, with much much more to come, and has control of Iraq's oil.
The thing they have also achieved from the war is a huge number of US military casualties, which it is doing its best to keep concealed. Though they annouce deaths occurring at the scene of an attack, they do not give figures for soldiers badly injured at the scene who die later.
Many soldiers are losing limbs and sight and so on and the mainstream US media avoids reporting these. Look at www.truthout.org or www.gregpalast.com for more, as well as the Veterans for Peace site - sorry I don't have it handy.
So I would say that even greater control of the media is another goal which the US has achieved with the war. There seems to be little dissent, because it's presented as unpatriotic. Incidentally, the UK government has also benefitted from this, via the Hutton Report, which exonerated the government of any wrong doing over David Kelly, in spite of the evidence, enhancing the government's power over the BBC.
So yes, the US achieved a lot of goals.
Name
saber
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Profession
Question
I have 2 question :
1-how do the anglo-american forces deal with the activists?
2- as u are in Iraq, do you think that American forces don't tell the complete truth about the number of its killed and wounded soldiers?
Answer
I can't say for sure whether the US forces tell the truth about the number of dead at the scene. Often their reports conflict with those of eyewitnesses - see www.albasrah.net for reports which don't make the news. Of course it's possible that an eyewitness says someone is dead, when in fact they're badly injured.
But as I said above, it seems they neglect to announce the deaths of those who die later and there's very little coverage of the horrific injuries.
As for the first part, there are very few "activists" as such here. There are marches and on occasion those have been violently supressed, but there is also a degree of harassment of organisers, for example the arrests of leaders of the Union of the Unemployed in Iraq, more than once, and the arrests of the school children in Al Ameriya who peacefully demonstrated against the occupation.
Organizers have to get permission for marches which can of course be refused, their route changed, their time altered and so on. Less directly, there seems to be some reticence to protect activists and organizers who are threatened by members of other groups, such as Yanar Mohammed of the Organisation for Women's Freedom in Iraq, who has received death threats and no help from the coaltion forces.
Name
ghizlane
-
Profession
Question
Hello.
What's your opinion about Iraqui people in particular and muslims in general;And what in your opinion the best way for them all to get out of all their troubles? Thanks a lot.
Answer
I've found most Iraqi people to be friendly, welcoming and above all, completely ordinary, no different than people anywhere. My friends are Iraqi, Christian and Muslim and neither, in a few cases. There are some people in any society who are dedicated to violence - unfortunately in some countries they're the president.
I could spend all night telling you my opinion about Ahmed, about Safaa, about Dhamia - ultimatley were all the same, whatever nationality or religion, which was one of my main reasons for coming here - to put people in touch with each other through twinnings, to tell people's stories through writing, and to have them realize they're all the same.
That, I think, is the only way to have people work out their troubles. Peat, a clown colleague, has worked in Northern Ireland where they bring disabled and able bodied children together and have them play and while they're playing they have so much fun they never remember to ask whether their new mate is catholic or protestant.
It has to be the same with every divided community, that they come together and work out the ways that they're all the same. I think play can help with that in young people. For the older ones, perhaps they will have to find another way to start the dialogue but it has to happen.
They have to stand firm against anything they want to overturn. If they allow themselves to be divided by people who offer power they will always be fighting. In Palestine and Israel, in Cyprus, in Northern Ireland, and so on, the process has to come from the people, because powerful political mleaders are motivated more by greed than peace.
Name
abdoALLAH
-
Profession
Question
How much the ordinary iraqis suffer under the american's colonialism?
Answer
It varies of course from person to person, but generally the high unemployment and the lack of security are major problems throughout the country. The contracts which I've already referred to are a major contributor to the unemployment, draining the local economy and worsening the poverty.
The troops' fear of the Iraqi people is also a factor - a lot of them treat Iraqis badly on house raids and at checkopints. The US administration in Iraq offers money for information about anyone working for the resistance, which is precisely the tactic the old regime used, and act on unverified information, so that many people are arrested based on false allegations made by someone with a grudge.I can't put a level on the suffering,
but the stories I've been telling give an indication.
