By Cathy Breen
Amman, Jordan
Friday, March 11, 2005

We sat over coffee in a little courtyard, an Iraqi friend and I. I will call him Emad.

He asked me “What’s the best thing to do when a raging bull is coming towards your house?” Smiling, I answered “Get out of the way!” He paused to recapture the seriousness of the moment, then said “You open the door and let the bull run through. If you keep the door closed, everything will be destroyed.”

He continued “When the army [U.S. troops] came to Iraq, it was in my mind ‘How to rule the country peacefully.’ I was so afraid they wouldn’t do what I was thinking about. They [the U.S.] took the wrong way to administrate Iraq.

It is not a matter of how to form the government. When you have empty stomachs, each government has to think how to fill the empty stomachs.

I have known that Iraq is a wealthy country since I was a child, from geography lessons, though I had no concrete proof. I asked ‘Where is the wealth?’ Any leader, Sunni, Shia or Christian, when they come to power, should open the doors, to make the people feel like they are sharing the wealth and treasures.

Iraq is a part of heaven, cut out by God, which landed on the earth. We should thank God for this and educate Iraqis about this. To love their country, to serve it and to be open bridges between Shia, Christian and Sunni. To work together to build our country, to make use of the treasures to improve the lives of Iraqis.

If, for instance, you spend one million dollars to improve their ration card, to make them feel that this is their portion of the oil, or give them $10 a month. It is not a matter of how much, but to make the people feel they have their share of the oil. If
their situation improves concretely, they would stand by you. Ask any Iraqi when they see a humvee that has been destroyed ‘Who will pay for this?’ and they will say ‘We will, with the oil.’

Since they haven’t received help, they will find another way. They still have empty stomachs that can’t be filled with empty promises.”

Cathy Breen, with Voices in the Wilderness, is currently in Amman, Jordan. Cathy has been talking to many Iraqi friends that have made there way to Amman, Jordon. She has also had conversations with Iraqi refugees in Jordon and in Syria.