By Cathy Breen
Voices in the Wilderness
Baghdad
October 26, 2003

Dear Friends,

Today is the first day of the holy month of Ramadan for Suni muslims. Tomorrow Ramadan begins for Shias. Early this morning the heavily fortified hotel for senior officers and CPA staff, the Al Rashiid, was attacked.

Just a couple of hours later I was on my way to the Conference Center which is in the Al Rashid compound, when our taxi driver Mohammed told me about the hit. He was visibly distressed, hitting his forehead and saying in Arabic “many problems, many problems!”

Arriving at the compound we found many people cued up between coils of razor-wire that form a long narrow passage one has to pass through in order to reach the first checkpoint. A nearby reporter said “No one is allowed in, everything is cancelled today.” And indeed no one was at the gate.

Yesterday I was at the Conference Center and was told I could return to meet with a CPA advisor at the Iraq Mine Action Center. Now as I lingered for a moment, an Iraqi gentleman struck up a conversation. As we conversed, the gate opened and we moved together toward it. When I got to the head of the line, an Iraqi translator, with whom I’ve become friendly, offered to take a message inside for me.

A young soldier behind an automatic gun called over to me that there was a chair to sit down if I wanted to. I preferred to stand next to him keeping an eye on the line of people in case I’d see one of the staff I knew going in. Thomas and I began to speak together. Though we each looked straight ahead with little eye contact, I was struck by how genuine, personal and full of good will our conversation was.

I asked Thomas about the attack, and he answered that he’d never heard such a loud explosion. He’d been on duty some distance away from the hotel when 12 RPG rockets were fired. Ten of them hit. “Went right through the [protection] wall and into the rooms.” They struck between the 8th and 10th floor I believe he said. He didn’t know if anyone was killed, but said there were 15 wounded, some seriously “missing arms and legs….all Americans and British.” Dear God, I thought. Maybe I said it out loud. I don’t remember.

Later that afternoon I heard on BBC radio the news that Paul Wolfowitz was on the 12th floor of the hotel. He “escaped harm but was visibly shaken,” and in a press conference said that “we will be unrelenting in our pursuit of them [terrorists[.” He left Iraq the same day.

Thomas is from Florida. He was south of Iraq in January and February and has been in Baghdad since May–the entire time in the Al Rashiid compound. He says he never goes out. My heart went out to him. He said that two of his friends had been killed. One, not in combat, but in an accident involving his humvee. His other friend, however, was “shot in the head while he was waiting in line to buy a soda.” Dear God, have mercy.

“I just graduated from high school” he told me. His thoughtful demeanor and measured words belied his age. He joined the military hoping, like so many, to get an education.

I had told him something about the history of Voices in the Wilderness, and that we’d gone to the Kuwait border last February to take a message to our GIs there. The message was that we were sorry that we in the U.S. had let things go so far. We didn’t want them to get killed. We didn’t want anyone to be killed. We still don’t. He expressed interest when I mentioned a letter that had been written by Vietnam veterans to the U.S. soldiers in Iraq. I gave him a copy that I had with me.

We are concerned about the use of depleted uranium I told him. That was one of the reasons I had come today, to try and get an appointment with someone who could tell us how much D.U. was used in the recent bombings, where it was used, and to ask what is being done to assess contamination and cleanup, to investigate the health effects of these deadly weapons? Thomas said that they had been briefed about D.U. before they came. But he said it was only barebones information. “We were told not to go into a tank that had been hit.” I told him how concerned we are for our soldiers and for the Iraqi people who were and who continue to be exposed to this deadly substance.

As we parted he stuck out his hand for me to shake.

I couldn’t shake a heaviness of heart as I went to bed listening to the explosions going on around the city. On BB I heard tht there had been 2 more attacks on the Al Rashiid. I am supposed to go there tomorrow to pick up a letter from the UK consul. Will it be possible to go there I wondered?

October 27th

At 8:30 am we were severly jolted by a tremendous explosion. I ran outside to the roof. there was black smoke billowing from behind the Sheraton hotel in the distance. Cynthia and Ed came out. We were all shaken.

Abu Mohammed came to get me in his taxi and we called him to the roof. He seemed to indicate that the hit was not near the Al Rashiid compound and that it would be OK to follow our original plan. Before we left the house we heard on the 9:00 am BBC news that the attack was near the Red Cross. As we drove through the city at least 3 ambulances passed us. Mohammed had the car radio on and later indicated that 20 persons had been killed. Dear God, what madness.

I was able to get into the Al Rashiid where a letter from the UK consul was waiting on the desk. It is for a woman doctor we know who wants to travel tomorrow. Abu Mohammed then took me to the hospital where the doctor (who is traveling) was just about to examine a friend’s little daughter, She’ed, who needs heart surgery. The doctor was overjoyed to have the letter in her hand that we hope will allow her to cross over into Jordan. I was overjoyed that she had agreed to examine little She’ed, and that they parents had been able to bring her. We were able to forget, if only for a moment, the violence that surrounds and threatens us. It is especially painful and incomprehensible as this is the beginning of Ramadan.

I will close now hoping to send a couple of pictures. One is of Abu Mohammad in his taxi. It is because of him that I feel safe as we drive through the city. He has no idea how much I depend on him, how grateful I am, for we speak with hands and single words. He is rather large and has a threatening look about him. But this is just a disguise. He has a wonderful sense of humor. The other picture is of the explosion this morning from our rooftop. You can see the black clouds of smoke in the distance. The other is of the twins, Hebe and Duah, together with Makmut their brother on their way home from school yesterday. Trust, fear, and hope.

I am going to close now as I want to get this off to you before the servers go down. Much love to you, cathy