Man collecting soap from relief organization at mosque. (Dahr Jamail)

Dahr Jamail

“Doctors in Fallujah are reporting there are patients in the hospital there who were forced out by the Americans,” said Mehdi Abdulla, a 33 year-old ambulance driver at a hospital in Baghdad, “Some doctors there told me they had a major operation going, but the soldiers took the doctors away and left the patient to die.” He looks at the ground, then away to the distance.

Honking cars fill the chaotic street outside the hospital where they’d just received brand new desks. The empty boxes are strewn about outside. Um Mohammed, a doctor at the hospital sat behind her old, wooden desk. “How can I take a new desk when there are patients dying because we don’t have medicine for them,” she asked while holding her hands in the air, “They should build a lift so patients who can’t walk can be taken to surgery, and instead we have these new desks!” Her eyes were piercing with fire, while yet another layer of frustration is folded into her work.

Dahr Jamail

BAGHDAD, Nov 23 (IPS) - The prime minister is following in the footsteps of the last president. The rule of Ayad Allawi, the U.S. appointed interim prime minister of Iraq, is now more in the style of the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein than a leader of a supposedly democratic state.

Most Iraqis had celebrated the overthrow of the regime of Saddam Hussein. But under what has developed into a brutal and bloody occupation people are turning against the interim prime minister as they turned against Saddam.

Cliff Kindy, Christian Peacemaker Teams
www.cliffiraq.blogspot.com

Practical questions about handling a complex security situation often confront peacemakers and warriors. Is violence more effective than nonviolence? The city of Fallujah has been a burr under the saddle of the US occupation. Players in that drama chose their tools of change.

Some precedents and stories place the options on the table. Najaf and the presence of Sadr militia groups guarding the shrine presented a complex problem for the US occupation. They decided to take control militarily with major air support and tanks and soldiers on the streets. Ayatollah Sistani, instead, called on Muslims to go to Najaf. That massive nonviolent crowd enabled the militia groups to withdraw without losing face and the US military to concede their tactics honorably. The friction de-escalated and the situation has achieved some normalcy.

November 18, 2004
by Tom Clark, Christian Peacemaker Teams

“People’s homes are like the cells of a prison. And Iraq is the prison.” A friend of CPT here in Baghdad gave this assessment of his country during a recent visit. His neighborhood is adjacent to an area that has been the scene of daily clashes between insurgents and Iraqi National Guard troops.

“Things are such in my country that we can’t trust anybody. We don’t know if we are with a friend or an enemy.” Another friend used these words to describe how it feels to travel the roads outside of Baghdad.