By Cathy Breen
Voices in the Wilderness
Baghdad
October 28, 2003

Death in the Background

This morning I can taste the dust in the water. But I prefer tap water over bottled water which I tried the other day and actually found distasteful. The dusty taste makes me think of a beautiful poem by Li-Young Lee which I want to share with you. Actually I want to hear it again myself. It is called From Blossoms.

From Blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bit into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

Yesterday in the late afternoon I stretched out on my bed for a bit, awaiting sunset when we could break the fast. I’d cooked up some potatoes, made a salad and set the table. I put an extra plate out in case a guest would appear. It seemed to be an appropriate Ramadan thing to do. Cynthia was to bring some chicken home. A real feast.

Tired to the bone, I found no rest. I couldn’t shake the thought of the families of the 35 dead and over 200 wounded in this day’s attacks, a low estimate to be sure. They were not sitting down to a meal together. There would be no spirit of celebration in their homes tonight. Our dinner, though delicious, sat like lead in my stomach afterwards.

Earlier that same afternoon I heard from a friend who lives near the Red Cross complex– where the suicide bomb exploded–that her neighbor had felt it safe (after many months) to sent her little daughter to school that day. At 8:30am the explosion hit, shattering this mother’s hope, driving terror into her heart and the hearts of the children, the parents, the neighbors and the city. Pure terror. Ann Montgomery from Christian Peacemakers Team went to the bombing site less than an hour after it had occurred. She described the scene of desperate parents racing to find their children. She stepped into one of the schools to find shattered glass, a blackboard ripped from the wall, and one of the students, a young girl, standing alone in shock by an open window.

Two days ago the top security Al Rashiid hotel was attacked. Mr. Paul Wolfowitz was in a room a couple of floors above where the rockets hit. The news said that he was visibly shaken. He left Iraq the same day. I wonder how Thomas is today, the young GI with whom I spoke the other day at the Al Rashiid compound. I’ll bet he is scared and shaken as well. At least three Iraqi police stations were among the places attacked yesterday, and there were U.S. soldiers present who where killed. I’ll bet Thomas would like to go home. Where are you Mr. Wolfowitz?

The electricity went off last night just as people were gathering to share a meal together. We know that because we were just sitting down to dinner. I have gotten into the habit of looking at my watch at night when the power goes down. I have noticed that 7:00pm is a popular time for the electricity to go off. There are no air-conditioning units on now to sap the city’s electrical system, and yet there are still long periods with no electricity, especially after sunset!!

The threat of suicide bombs has never been greater. This morning I heard on BBC radio that “Americans feel the rest of the world has not been properly involved in the rebuilding of Iraq.” The announcer continued that the U.S. is taking a hard line with respect to the increased attacks. Colin Powell came on. His words as I recall were “they [terrorists?] get to choose. They can continue the attacks and get killed or arrested–or they can lay down their arms and be incorporated into the new Iraq.” I am afraid, Mr. Powell, that it is not that simple.

We have taken the lid off Pandora’s box. We have let the genie out of the bottle. We have pulled out the cork, and it is clear that we don’t know how to put it back in. No one really believes us anymore. The myth that we can–and will–put an end to terrorism, has only served to increase violence around the world.

It seems that it is the American people and government, Mr. Powell, who have a choice to make. We must admit that we were wrong, that we have made a grievious and costly mistake. The violence, the attacks, the problems are not going to go away. Here in Baghdad there are NO days we live as if death were nowhere in the background. Death is ever present. It is always in the background.

October 29th, 2003

As Ahmed said in his recent piece that I sent you, the danger now is not so much that of being robbed, but rather of being blown up.

Foreign NGOs, humanitarian organizations and Iraqi police are being targeted as well as U.S. troops. We heard yesterday afternoon that Iraqi people were being warned–by way of posters around the city–not to go to work at foreign NGOs this Saturday, as they might be targeted.

At 1:00am this morning the deafening sounds of helicopters made sleep impossible as they flew low over the buildings in our neighborhood. Simultaneously with the call to prayer at 5:00am was the sound of loud automatic gunfire nearby. President Bush was on BBC this morning telling the press that the “U.S. will not be intimidated by continuing attacks.” He blames local supporters of Saddam Hussein and foreign terrorists, and chides Iran and Syria. “We must let them know they must enforce their borders.”

Last night we received a visit from Salaam’s brother, a Shia Imam from the Al Sadr movement, who came with three friends. Salaam’s brother had come by some time ago to invite us to a press conference and demonstration–which has since been held–to announce the creation of their new shadow government. The Coalition forces have been outspoken that they do not recognize the legitimacy of the Al Sadr government.

They wanted to advise us that a Sheik’s house had been broken into about 8 days ago at 3:00am by Coalition forces. They said that the elderly father of the Sheik and 5 of his brothers were handcuffed, dragged and beaten during a search for weapons. The soldiers also went into the bedroom areas where women were sleeping. No weapons were found. These men were subsequently detained and, together with 15 other men arrested at one of the Al Sadr offices, taken to a Military post in Hilla. Some of them have been released, but others are still being held. They say that no one has been allowed to see them. They were told that they will be tried, but it is unclear in which court or by which judges? They said that their leader, Moqtadr Al Sadr, has received assassination threats. The phone lines in Najaf were cut 6 days ago. They asked us if we could help them get this news out to the public. They said that they don’t want to resort to violence, but they are anxious to have their people released.

They are grateful for the upcoming meeting with the Chaldean bishop which we were able to help set up, and asked if we could join them when a date is set to meet.

As I was writing this letter, I was reading parts of it aloud to Cynthia. At one point she handed me a piece by James Carroll which appeared on Sept. 2nd in the Boston Globe. Titled “Facing the truth about Iraq,” Mr. Carroll begins with the statement: The War Is Lost. Many people here in Iraq have said: The War Has Just Begun.

I want to include parts of Mr. Carroll’s article as it seems so timely.

“The war,” he writes, “was going to make the Middle East a more peaceful place. It was going to undercut terrorism. It was going to show the evil dictators of the world that American power is not to be resisted. It was going to improve the lives of ordinary Iraqis. It was going to stabilize oil markets. The American army was going to be greeted with flowers. None of that happened.”

Before the war, the threat of America’s overwhelming military dominance could intimidate, but now such force has been shown to be extremely limited in what it can actually accomplish. For the sake of ‘regime change,’ the United States brought a sledge hammer down on Iraq, only to profess surprise that, even as Saddam Hussein remains at large, the structures of the nation’s civil society are in ruins. The humanitarian agencies necessary to the rebuilding of those structures are fleeing Iraq.

“When brutal force generates resistance, the first impulse is to increase force levels. But, as the history of conflicts like this shows, that will result only in increased resistance.” The present heartbreak of one or two GI deaths a day will seen benign when suicide bombers, mortar shells, or even heavier missile fire find their ways into barracks and mess halls.

Either reinforcements will be sent to the occupation, or present forces will loosen the restraints with which they reply to provocation. Both responses will generate more bloodshed and only postpone the day when the United States must face the truth of the situation.

“Sooner or later, the United States must admit that it has made a terrible mistake in Iraq, and it must move quickly to undo it. That means the United States must yield not only command of the occupation force, but participation in it. The United States must renounce any claim to power or even influence over Iraq, including Iraqi oil. The United States must accept the humiliation that would surely accompany its being replaced in Iraq by the very nations it denigrated in the build-up to the war.”

“With the United States thus removed from the Iraqi crucible, those who have rallied to oppose the great Satan will loose their raison d’etre, and the Iraqi people themselves can take responsibility for rebuilding their wrecked nation.”

“All of this might seem terribly unlikely today, but something like it is
inevitable. The only question is whether it happens over the short term, as the result of responsible decision-making by politicians in Washington, or over the long term, as the result of a bloody and unending horror.”

“The so-called ‘lessons’ of Vietnam are often invoked by hawks and doves alike, but here is one that applies across the political spectrum. The American people saw that the war was lost in January 1968, even as the Tet Offensive was heralded as a victory by the Pentagon and the White House. But for five more years, Washington refused to face the truth of its situation, until at last it had no choice.”

“Because American leaders could not admit the nation’s mistake, and move to undo it, hundreds of thousands of people died, or was it milllions?”

“The war in Iraq is lost. What will it take to face that truth this time?”

There really is nothing more to say at the moment. James Carroll seems to have said it all. I greet you all with much love, cathy