Dr. Thamiz Aziz Abul Rahman, a General Practitioner at Al-Kena Rehabilitation Hospital in Baghdad. Al-Kena is the only hospital in Iraq that makes prosthetics and provides rehabilitation services. The hospital is critically under-funded and undersupplied.

Download PDF of “Iraqi Hospitals Ailing Under Occupation”

Dahr Jamail reports on the struggling health care situation in Iraq. The report surveys 13 Iraqi Hospitals, examines the actions taken by US military against hospitals and care workers that constitute war crimes as defined by the Geneva conventions, discusses and documents cases of US medical personnel complicit in torture through failures to document the visible signs of torture on their patients, and much more.

This report is endorsed by the B/Russell/s Tribunal, El Taller International, Asian Women’s Human Rights Council, Association of Humanitarian Lawyers, SOS Iraq, and Medical Aid for the Third World.

Download PDF Version of Iraqi Hospitals Ailing Under Occupation

Read the web version of Iraqi Hospitals Ailing Under Occupation

By Dahr Jamail
May 19, 2005

Her name is Ahlam Abt Al-Hassan. Yesterday was the one year anniversary of when she was shot twice in the head by member of the Mehdi army while waiting for ataxi to go to her job with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) in Diwaniyah.

After nearly three months of work searching women as they entered one of the US bases in Diwaniyah, she was paid a total of $475 from KBR. In return she has lost her eyesight, had to move from Iraq and can’t return because of threatsfrom the Mehdi Army. Her ex-employers will not return any of her calls or requests for assistance.

by Dahr Jamail

It feels uncomfortable writing about Iraq from Amman… but my close friends, Abu Talat (my close friend and interpreter) and intuition have all provided the same message-do not go inside Iraq at this time.

So I’ve been in Amman now for about a week, and will resume posting stories from here soon. We’ve been working on a couple of stories about Iraqis in Amman… those should be out soon.

For now, I am using my Iraqi contacts in Baghdad (and other cities) as well as those who have joined me here, along with watching Al-Jazeera television, to pass on some news and photos about the situation.

Fallujah, Iraq (photo: CPT)

DAHR JAMAIL spent eight months working as an independent journalist in Iraq. As one of the few journalists not “embedded” with U.S. forces, his reports earned a reputation for being an uncompromising look at life under occupation.

Currently, Jamail is back in the U.S. on a speaking tour that will take him to several West Coast cities. He spoke to Socialist Worker’s Eric Ruder about the destruction unleashed on Iraq by the U.S. during two years of occupation.

Interview by Eric Ruder
Socialist Worker

Independent Journalist, Dahr Jamail, has been back in the US giving presentations for several weeks. The following is the last story he wrote while in Iraq. It was originally published in The Nation on March 7, 2005.

Originally Published in The Nation
Dahr Jamail
March 7, 2005

Despite Talk of Civil War, Sunnis and Shiites Seem More United Than Divided

Baghdad - Wrapped in his brown abaya, Sheik Sayak Kumait al-Asadi, a spokesman in Baghdad for the revered Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is angry and forceful when speaking of both the US occupation and the suffering of the Shiites under the regime of Saddam Hussein. Above him hangs an ornately framed poster of Sistani.

The spokesman’s point is clear: After decades of repression, now is the time for the Shiites to have power, no matter the price. “Most of the Sunnis are accepted by us, but there are those among them who don’t want the Shia in the government, nor the Kurds. Some Sunnis will either kill us or make us slaves. We accept these elections now,” says Asadi, pulling the abaya close over his shoulders. “But many Shias and Kurds believe dividing the country is the only real solution.”

After all, the Shiites suffered horribly under the reign of the deposed dictator. Among the highly prominent Shiite ayatollahs killed by Saddam’s men were the revered Mohammed Bakr Sadr, executed with his sister in 1980, and his cousin Mohammed Sadiq Sadr (the father of Muqtada al-Sadr), who was assassinated in 1999.