By Anna Bachmann
Voices in the Wilderness

People keep asking me what I think the transition will be like on June 30th when the U.S. hands over power to the Interim Iraqi Government. Well, expect alot of fireworks … Fallujah times 4. But then I thought the fighting in Najaf and Karbala would be bad … but in terms of the feel on the street it doesn’t seem quite as intense. Regardless I really don’t think it will be much of a transition.

I recently found out (though it appears to be common knowledge around here) that the U.S. intends to keep the Presidential Palace as it’s embassy in Iraq. It is one of the largest and grandest buildings in the City. I can’t imagine that Iraqis would view this as anything but a slap in the face. In the U.S. it would be as if an foreign power had decided that it would just turn the White House into their embassy. It is hard to believe that the people running the show here could be that short-sighted.

By Anna Bachmann
Voices in the Wilderness
May 13th

Today I went to visit the National Association on the Iraqi Environment. I thought I was simply interviewing a member of the group, but upon arrival, I found that there was a two hour workshop on the Environment in Iraq about to start and I was the opening speaker. I stammered through a short introduction and gave them some background on my interest in environmental issues and my plan to boat down the Tigris River in Baghdad and look at some of the problems of the river. Afterwards, several speakers came forward to address the host of environmental disasters that the Iraqi people have inherited from decades of war and sanctions. The Minister of the Environment though invited, never came but sent a few representatives from his P.R. department. They were quickly at the center of a storm of indignation as many members of the audience rose to take the Ministry to task for not doing enough. One man passed me a note that said (in Arabic) that the Ministry of Environment was useless and should be dissolved.

At one point I received a question from a man in the audience. He welcomed me and asked, “What can the Americans do to help the Iraqi Environment?”