Jacob
KATHLEEN'S FIRST REPORT - January 6, 2004
The trip was exhausting, traveling all day to get to NY, then wait for 7 hours to catch an 11:00 pm flight to Jordan. We arrived at 4:00 pm, met the others with our delegation leader, slept a few hours, and left Amman at 3:00 am as the roads are very dangerous right now with robbers driving cars off the road so many try to gather at the border to drive together in caravans. We arrived in Baghdad (with no trouble) at 3:30 pm, all exhausted, but wired and curious to see what Baghdad would look like now after the bombings and with the current occupation. It has been interesting to walk the streets which at one level appear so normal, and people, as the last time, so friendly and responsive. But then one climbs over rubble and over barbed wire where buildings have been bombed or walking next to the wall surrounding the "green zone" where Bremer and crew sit in control of the country. No one is allowed in there without special permission, (feels so much like Occupied Palestine!)
This morning we spend at the Organization for Human Rights with the family of a man who had been shot and killed as he approched a check point driving too fast and his brakes went out. He was given no warning, and the checkpoint had only been in place for an hour. He was probably shot 50 times (we saw photos of the body), then dragged out of the car, kicked and laughed at by the US soldiers and left 45 minutes bleeding to death while his car was searched and nothing was found. On lookers saw his id taken by a soldier and torn up, his body then tied to a humvee and taken away. The family searched for him for 3 months before they learned he was dead. He was 39 years old and the father of 5 with one child on the way. He was a mechanic on his way home from work. The translator who was working for the Colition Provisional Authority and at the checkpoint at this time, saw all of this and was present at this interview this morning. He was so distaught by the treatment of his fellow Iraqi that he immediately quit his job. At the interview he refused to speak in English, because now he hates the US language and all it means here in Iraq. He has been pressuered not to tell this story. He and the family begged us to tell the world what had happened. I left shaken, enraged, and feeling somehow responible to do something. I told the family of my feelings, but also of my fear of impotency in the face of our administration, but that I would act on their behalf in contacting my legislators and let them know the "other side of the story" that so few of us know about. Please forward this email to as many as you can, I have more details and names which I can include in a longer story about this if any one needs or wants it.