Baghdad, Iraq
Kathy Kelly
Voices in The Wilderness

Since I first met him in 1997, Sa,ad had talked about bringing me to meet his parents and, after he married, his wife and newborn baby. But fear prohibited the visit. We were nearly certain that Ba’ath party intelligence workers would interrogate Sa’ad’almost immediately after a westerner left his home. Yesterday, John Farrell and I spent the afternoon with Sa’ad and his family. We sat on thin mats in a bare room furnished only with a rickety wooden table and a vase of plastic flowers. The family is fortunate to have a fan and a working telephone.

Sharing the home are Sa’ad, his wife and six month old son, Sa’ad’s brothers Ra’ad and Qasim, his sister Eman, and his parents. At the doorstep, before we entered, Sa’ad whispered to me that Saddam’s fedayeen had broken his brother Qasim’s nose when they tried to conscript him into military service just before the recent invasion. Because Qasim refused, they tortured him with electric shock.

“This affect him,” said Sa’ad, lightly tapping his head. “His mind, it changes.”

Baghdad, Iraq
John Farrell
Voices in The Wilderness

A strong, male voice singing crisp Arabic woke me in the pre-dawn hour of August 26, calling the city of Baghdad to prayer. According to my housemates, though, I must have slept through an incredible clash of gunfire, helicopters and tanks that night; I am such a heavy sleeper that I don’t hear tanks and APC’s rolling down our street at night or gun battles happening just around the corner. Maybe I would be a little more nervous here if those sounds did keep me up at night, but in fact I do hear those noises often enough while I am awake that they have become commonplace. I am not startled now unless the gunfire is almost right outside our window. At the same time, however, these are not the only sounds that I hear in Baghdad. I also hear the welcoming words of Salaam Alaikum, or “Peace be with you,” wherever I go. It’s the most common greeting that I hear from Iraqis.

Please visit interactorg.com for more about Depleted Uranium and what you can do

1) Depleted Uranium is a radioactive heavy metal with a half life of 4.5 million years. It is nuclear waste, created when natural uranium is enriched to make nuclear weapons (at a ratio of 7 to 1). The US government uses DU as penetrators. In bullets, missiles and bombs, it self sharpens as it penetrates the target and burns upon impact (pyrophoric).