By Anna Bachmann
Voices in the Wilderness

Dr. Khammo Awshalim is going back to the UK. A former Agriculture professor with the Universities in Baghdad and Basra, he has been working for over a year for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) as an advisor to the new Ministry of Agriculture. He helped develop numerous programs and projects to increase agriculture production, provide assistance to farmers, and restore the date palms, the national symbol of Iraq. Nearly all have come to naught and Dr. Awshalim is fed up and leaving the land of his birth to return to his adopted country where he lived for 14 years before returning to Iraq after the war to help with the reconstruction.

Dr. Awshalim rubbed his fingers together. “No money.” They seem to have plenty of money for security, he complained. Hundreds of thousands are being spent on concrete blast walls, armored vehicles, and security guards. “Tell me,” he said, “When the Americans finally leave, what will we do with all these concrete blast walls? Of what help will they be to the Iraqis?” For months now, Dr. Awshalim has been sending out email missives addressing these and many other issues that point to a lack of real reconstruction, huge wastes in spending and dubious environmental practices.

By Anna Bachmann
Voices in the Wilderness

We left for Erbil on Friday, June 4th. David & James two journalists and A my translator had gone up on Wednesday. I traveled with another journalist named Dahr and his translator/driver Harb (Harb is Arabic word for war and given that this man can be argumentative, unwilling to listen and always sure that he is right while you are most assuredly wrong, I think is name is quite appropriate. Regardless, he is a very nice man and according to Dahr an amazing “fixer”).

First we visit with some friends of Harb in Kirkuk that lies a little over an hour south of Erbil. Harb is a retired Iraq army officer. His friend could only be described as something equivalent to the English batman. We spent time talking about the situation in Kirkuk, which is primarily characterized, according to Harb’s friend (a Turkmen) as a fight for control of the city between Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds. There is an American military presence here but unlike Baghdad, it is less visible.

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?”

By Anna Bachmann
Voices in the Wilderness
May 4, 2004

There is a woman who is the Director of an important Iraqi scientific establishment focused on the control and prevention of radiological hazards for the entire country. She has a brand new facility rebuilt and equipped by an international health organization. Her staff is conducting surveys of the communities impacted by the Tuwaitha Nuclear Facility, the primary location of Saddam’s nuclear program, which was looted in the days after the war. They are looking for areas of depleted uranium contamination caused by U.S. bombardments from both the 1991 war and the latest conflict in 2003. According to this woman, there are no problems. Everything has been cleaned up and no one needs to worry. She is a very nice lady. She even took me on a tour.

The problem is that she appears to be lying through her teeth. Her statements don’t make sense. When I tell her of a building that is rumored to be contaminated by D.U., she says to me, “Oh really, we’ll have to check on that.” When I ask her later if her staff was able to do so, her shoulders touch her ears and she opens her hands.

“We can’t go there,” she says, almost apologetic, “We can’t get permission.”

When I check with the U.S. soldiers who staff the checkpoint next to the building in question, they shrug their shoulders too. “If they are part of a government ministry (they are),” they tell me, “They shouldn’t have any problem getting permission to go there.”