by George Capaccio

Dear Mr. President,

Now that you have met your objectives in Afghanistan, I understand that you are wrestling with the question of which country to attack next. It appears that Iraq is somewhere near the top of your list of potential targets. Despite the U.S. ban on traveling to Iraq, I have gone there many times in the past five years, and have developed close and lasting friendships with families in Baghdad and Basra.

When you consider whether to bomb Iraq in your pursuit of “justice” for the events of September 11, I want you to understand something about the people who live there, ordinary individuals whose lives are not terribly different from those of their American counterparts.

by George Capaccio

This January (2002), on my way home from Iraq, I met an old friend in Jordan’s Queen Alia airport. She is Palestinian and had been visiting her family in Amman. I had spent the previous three weeks living with families in Baghdad and Basra as a member of a Voices in the Wilderness delegation. It was my eighth visit to Iraq in nearly five years. My friend and I were returning on the same flight to Boston. As we waited for the boarding call, she told me stories about life on the West Bank. The one I found most compelling concerned a Palestinian couple attempting to pass a checkpoint. The woman held her child in her arms and explained to the soldiers that the little girl was very ill. They needed to get her to the hospital as quickly as possible. The Israeli soldiers told the couple they would have to come back in the morning.

They argued, they pleaded. But the soldiers were steadfast. The man and woman walked back to their home about a mile away. During that long night, their little girl died. She died in her mother’s arms. The woman would not surrender her child. In the morning she returned, with her husband, to the same checkpoint. This time, they explained to the soldiers, theywanted to bury their child in the cemetery that lay a short distance away. The soldiers told them to wait. When the husband asked for a reason, one of the men pointed his gun at him and ordered him to shut up.

By Kathy Kelly

In my 14th visit to Iraq, I came to know a little boy.

5 year old Munthedar, whose name means “waiting for,” suffered from leukemia and thalessemia, and had just had his spleen removed when I first met him in early December. He barely noticed me. On my second visit he was sitting up and smiling, and by my third his mother said he’d been asking after me every day. He greeted me with kisses and shyly whispered, “Is there a toy for me?” Fortunately, I had one last, toy harmonica to give to him. There aren’t words to describe his mother’s
eyes as Munthedar clutched his tiny piece of plastic and flashed the gentlest smile I’ve ever seen. When I returned for a fourth visit, little Munthedar’s bed was empty. He died Saturday, 5 January 2002.

By Ramzi Kysia

Published in the April/May issue of Left Turn magazine

Have you ever been blessed by a beggar?

Strolling near Baghdad’s Foreign Residence Office is an other-worldly experience. Foreign businessmen rush about to extend their visas at the office. A UN hotel in the neighborhood completes the international presence. “Fancy” restaurants line crumbling sidewalks, catering to the foreigners and what remains of Iraq’s middle class - offering elaborate, multi-course meals at $2 per person. So many faces, so many people, each with their own hopes and their own history. What are they thinking? What do they dream of?

The only face America sees is Saddam Hussein’s. Are we looking hard enough?

By Kathy Kelly

In 1996 Dr. Raad Towalha gave up his career as a surgeon to become director of Ibn Sina hospital in Mosul. Looking at his handsome and dignified figure, I quickly jot “could double for Omar Sharif” in my notepad. Like its director, Ibn Sina looks pretty good. Walking into the Cardiac Care Unit, I was surprised to see at least some machinery hooked up and blinking.

Then the litany: there are 14 beds in the unit, but only two monitors and there is no central control station. Who gets the two monitors? “I have no other choice,” says Dr. Hamid Zacharia, the chief resident on the CCU. “I choose the most critical.” In the event of an emergency, they make a change-it sounds like a bizarre game of musical chairs-remove the monitor from the patient formerly deemed most critical and hook it up to serve the newly arrived patient.