By Jo Wilding
August 13th

It repeats itself: the main hospital has been closed down by US troops and is being used for military operations, ambulances are being prevented, again by US troops, from moving around the town, which is being pounded from the air while the US and the Iraqi militias, disparate armed groups, fight in the streets and US soldiers drive around with loudspeakers, ordering civilians to leave or be killed.

It could be Falluja in April; this time it’s Najaf. I hear that Kut has been bombed, the hospitals reporting massive casualties which the US says were fighters, the locals say were mostly civilians. I hear nothing about Nasariya, Samawa, although I know that when Najaf kicks off, my friends in the other southern towns just have to lock their doors and wait.

Then the kidnappings. I hate it when my mates become the news. This morning the radio woke me up with the news that James has been kidnapped in Basra. Armed men went to the hotel, went through the books to find out his room number, shot him, dragged him out and have threatened to kill him if the US doesn’t withdraw from Najaf in 24 hours.

Of course they know, all too well, that the US command doesn’t care about life � they wouldn’t have been attacking civilians in Iraq for the last 14 years and a week if they cared about life. Of course, James is only one in a ceaseless flood of civilians caught up in the violence of this occupation, the invasion and the sanctions; he’s only one of dozens that I know personally, but there’s something about hearing your mate’s voice on the radio, hearing the terror in his voice, when the last time you heard it was over a narghila in your apartment in Baghdad, hearing the media commentators pontificating about him in the past tense, remembering what it felt like for me when I had four other people with me and when our captors were so gentle and polite.

By Peggy Gish
Christian Peacemaker Teams

When revisiting the Sisters of Charity orphanage in Baghdad, where I’ve spent time during the last year and a half playing with severely handicapped children, I think about the changes that have happened there as well as in Iraqi society in the past four months.

Four children have been moved to other institutions. Allah and Ansam were simply getting older and needed a different kind of care. Nancy and E’lias, were sent to a place where they could learn reading or writing, so it is a step of progress. Four new children have come. Ghasara has been there three days, and was still upset and disoriented. She cries about half of the time. Change for her has been very painful.

Change for the Iraqi people has also been very painful, and they, too, have had little control. After the recent “transfer of government” many Iraqis tell us, “nothing has changed, but what can we do?” Others hold on to hope that even if it is not now changed it will eventually lead to more autonomy or improvements. There are more Iraqi policeman and military forces on the streets, but still some presence of U.S. convoys, patrols and guards. With matters of security, the U.S. military are still in overall control. Iraqis now staff the Iraqi Assistance Center, but they have little control over the availability of information, or the decisions to provide compensation for an innocent person killed or for a car confiscated in an arrest. If the complaint was even vaguely related to a situation of resistance or a violent situation, even though the parties are known to be innocent, it is labeled, “combat related,” and the U.S. military claims no responsibility to compensate. Rebuilding has seemed unbearably slow to most Iraqis. Since last March there has been little increase in electricity in Baghdad. Water quality and phone service has improved only in some areas. There has been some decrease in street crime, but an increase of attacks on civilians and other “soft targets” by some resistance groups. It is hard to find Iraqis who will say that that their life has improved very much since the invasion. In fact an Iraqi told me today, “Even with a few more freedoms our life is more miserable now than before the war.”

While the lack of progress in the society is discouraging, it lifts my spirits to see progress with the children in the orphanage. Yasser is walking more with a wheeled walker. Nurah, with stubs for arms and legs, now two years old, is learning to talk. She can sit up, turn over, and scoot around on the floor. When put into her bed for her afternoon rest time, she showed me her new trick. With her tiny half-foot with three toes she picked up a ringed toy with beads hanging down and shook it to play. As I showed her my delight, she looked not only pleased, but triumphant!

Would that there be true progress and excitement in the changes for all the people of Iraq!

Christian Peacemaker Teams is an ecumenical violence-reduction program with roots in the historic peace churches. Teams of trained peace workers live in areas of lethal conflict around the world. CPT has been present in Iraq since October, 2002. To learn more about CPT, please visit www.cpt.org.
Photos of our projects may be viewed at www.cpt.org/gallery

By Nicolas Rothwell, Middle East correspondent
The Australian
13 August 2004

AT LEAST 165 people were killed and more than 600 wounded in heavy fighting across Iraq over the past 24 hours as US marines moved to wipe out Moqtada al-Sadr’s militia forces in the holy city of Najaf.

As US tanks, armoured vehicles and helicopter gunships attacked the radical cleric’s Mehdi Army, the rebels fired mortar rounds from the courtyard of the Imam Ali mosque, one of the holiest Shi’ite sites.

Within hours of the onslaught, US marines claimed to control the city centre. But hundreds of rebels were believed to have dispersed in the tunnels beneath Najaf’s cemetery to prepare for a last stand.

Iraqi civil defence forces and police units were sent to seal off the holy areas.

“Major operations to destroy the militia have begun,” a US commander said.