wildfirejo

April 28th
Thawra

Israa’s mother, her sisters, sisters-in-law and cousins heard an explosion about eleven in the morning and another about three in the afternoon. They hear a couple every day, just in their small area of Thawra, or Sadr City. The second one, the afternoon one, went through Israa’s bedroom ceiling.

“I was in my house,” Israa’s husband said. It was around three on Saturday April 24th. His friend came to visit, so he was sitting with him in the visitors’ room, Nuredin and Huda, the older two children, playing in the same room while Israa lay down with the youngest child, Abdullah.

“I went to ask her if she would make tea for us but she said she was too tired, so I went back to my friend. After a wile I heard a horrible explosion. My friend went out to see what had happened. I thought our house was OK because nothing happened to the room I was in. My friend said don’t come out, stay in the house. I pushed past him. I tried to go out but there were people coming up the stairs towards me saying the explosion is in your apartment.

“I opened the door to the bedroom and saw light coming in through the ceiling but it was full of smoke and dust. I couldn’t see anything. I was trying to feel my way, to touch something, calling Israa, Israa. I found her body with her belly open and her bowels outside. I went out of the room and told my friend she was not there.

“Two of my friends went in and took the little one from her arms. She was still cuddling him. I couldn’t believe something bad had happened to the person I loved. I said if my son was fine then my wife was too. I kept telling myself I didn’t see her body. I gave Abdullah to my friend and then went to check on the other two kids, still in the room I was in before. They were very frightened.

“When I came out I heard one of my friends telling another that Israa was dead. I can’t remember anything else until I woke up with the kids beside me and people crying all around. I can still hear the explosion in my ears. I didn’t see the mortar but I’m sure it was the Americans. They came to the house later and took away the shell pieces. They couldn’t say it wasn’t them that fired it.

“They told the owner of the house they will pay compensation if they prove it’s an American shell. But what could they have been aiming at? In my neighbourhood there is a hospital, a school, houses, an electricity plant. Do they want to attack those? I believe it was the Americans who fired it, but even if it wasn’t them, it’s because of them. Even if someone else fired it, it’s still because of the occupation.”

Nuredin, at six the oldest of the three kids, lay in his dad’s lap chewing a plastic ruler. Abdullah just cried and cried in the next room with the women. “No one can comfort him,” his grandma said. “He needs his mother. The children will stay with Israa’s family; their dad stays sometimes with her family, sometimes with his. Israa was thirty, working in a nearby tax office.

“What am I going to tell my children when they grow up and ask what happened to their mother? That she died defending her country? She died asleep in her bed.”

From the roof of the house, you can see the monument to the Unknown Soldier, two blue halves of an egg shape, which has been taken over as a US base. The owner of the house said all the neighbours who saw it happen told him the mortar came from that direction.

The other explosion that Israa’s sisters heard was around the corner, a mortar hitting the pavement outside the front of another residential house, killing a grandfather and a little girl, an hour or so after the explosion in the Chicken Market which killed twelve, maybe fourteen people and injured at least 35 more. The stories, the individual families, the overall numbers are important in themselves, as a record of what is happening to ordinary Iraqis now.

But there is also this: Thawra is described by the western media as a “slum city”, home to between two and a half and four million Shia people, mainly poor, densely crowded and bullied ferociously by Saddam. A dozen men gathered in the room to tell us about the death of the child and the old man. Mohammed told me how they welcomed the Americans when they first arrived. “I gave them cigarettes. We thought anything would be better. Even Saddam at his worst was better than the Americans.”

Another son pulled shrapnel from his pocket. It filled the houses, shattered all the glass, killed three people and injured ten. Jassim was a 58 year old builder. He was unwell and walking in the street because it was supposed to be good for his health. Six year old Zainab was walking to the shop to buy eggs with her three year old sister Noor and their grandma, Thanwa, both of whom were injured when Zainab was killed.

“All we know is it was a US mortar,” Faisal said. “It had the markings on the shell pieces. We don’t know which direction it came from. It was calm and quiet that day. They bombed to try to provoke us so then they can kill us. There are no foreign fighters here. We don’t accept strangers here. They raid houses saying they’re looking for foreign fighters.

“All this trouble is because they closed a newspaper, because it exposed the truth about Bremer. Why didn’t they close the newspapers that exposed the scandal about Bill Clinton and Monica? We didn’t do anything to them. They drive through here on patrols all the time and there haven’t been any attacks from us because we are waiting for orders from Najaf.”

A vehement debate broke out over Sistani and Al-Sadr, over whose orders were to be followed. “Why do you differentiate between Sistani and Al-Sadr?” one demanded. “They are the same,” another insisted. They differed a bit over whether there were differences; they also differed over whether the Americans were unequivocally worse than Saddam. The latter, in his time, closed more newspapers, for example.

Still they were unanimous in wanting the Americans to leave now. “Immediately,” Hussein said. “They didn’t do anything for us. They only invaded. They only brought terrorism.” They talked about the impossibility of sleeping with helicopters constantly overhead, about the nightly house raids and arrests of young men, about the frequent explosions, mortars falling close to the hospital.

Kerim wanted us to see his mother in the hospital. We didn’t have the proper permission to go in but the Facilities Protection Service guards who had seen all the bodies come in didn’t much care for the sensitivities of the Ministry of Health and its procedures. An old man was sweeping the floor with a palm branch as the guard told us about a mortar hitting the neighbourhood next to the hospital at 5am the day before yesterday.

Thanwa pointed through her abaya at the places where shrapnel had pierced her body. Kerim’s cousin was lying nearby. In front of the house when the mortar hit, he had serious internal injuries, part of his bowel severed. “Most of the women in here were hurt in the chicken market explosion,” she said. The Souk Ad-Dejaj actually sells scrap metal rather than birds.

“It was only a mortar,” Saad the security guard explained, but they heard the explosion from the hospital. People buy refilled gas canisters from flatbed vehicles or horse drawn carts which traipse around the city, the drivers hooting or banging a stick on a canister to advertise their arrival. The mortar hit one of those. “They found the driver’s head on the roof of the market.”

People are adamant that they didn’t hear any shooting before the explosion. Mayada Radhi was washing clothes at home, opposite the market, when she heard the explosion. Shell fragments blasted through the door. She went outside to look for her two children, didn’t find them and came back indoors and then saw the blood on her own body, felt the pain and passed out. Hamid, her brother-in-law, was woken up by the explosion, a boy in a football shirt and baseball cap, and came out of the house to see pieces of bodies lying in the street.

Five of the family were killed last year in a bombing in the southern town of Kut: only her mother and a brother and sister survived. The hole in the road, the pitted walls of the buildings, the strainer-like front of the lorry standing in the middle of the market place, the dried blood spatters tell a story which rated a mention on the main networks but little more. In the epic traffic jam surrounding the entire Karrada area, a man with a patched up face and a towel around his shoulders in a pick up indicated that he’d been hurt by an explosion. We opened the windows and he told us he was injured at the Chicken Market.

This is what’s become of the bit of town that welcomed the Americans.

The temperature hit 40 degrees Celsius (that’s 105 F for those among you who think that way). It’s almost too hot to do anything, certainly too hot to sleep when there’s no electricity, sometimes no water either. That and the traffic jam meant we didn’t make it to the kids at the camp. Late, maybe half past eleven, Rana phoned to say there were loads of soldiers around her house; she thought they were going back to the hospital next door to arrest more of the patients.

For the first time all day the air coming through the windows was cool, the streets deserted but for the dog packs scavenging, so at last you could drive through the city. Still when we got there the soldiers were gone and there was no one to watch us change the wheel on the taxi, push start it again and traipse home.

These are the Falluja stories in Arabic - thankyou, thankyou, Mohammed, you're a very good man.

الفلوجة
11 ابريل 2004
جو ويلدينج

شاحنات و دبابات و ناقلات نفط تحترق في الطريق السريع شرقي الفلوجة. تيار من الصبية و الرجال يندفع ذهاباً و إياباً إلى لوري لم يحترق كلية مجردينه من كل ما فيه . سلكنا الطرق الخلفية التي تمر عبر أبو غريب ، بينما كانت نهى و أحرار تغنيان بالعربية. مررنا بالعديد من العربات المحملة بالكثير من البشر و القليل من الممتلكات سالكة الطريق المعاكس ، ثم عبرنا بجوار استراحة الطريق الفقيرة و ألقى الصبية هناك بالطعام خلال النوافذ إلى داخل الحافلة من أجلنا و من أجل من لا زالوا محاصرين ، هناك ، داخل الفلوجة.

تبعت الحافلة عربة يقودها ابن أخ أحد الشيوخ المحليين و بجواره دليل صاحب اتصالات مع المجاهدين قام بترتيب مرورنا معهم.كنت موجودة على هذه الحافلة لأن أحد الصحفيين الذين أعرفهم زارني في الحادية عشر مساء ليخبرني بأن الأوضاع يائسة في الفلوجة ، و أنه قام بإخراج أطفال بأطراف ممزقة منها ، و أن الجنود الامريكيين يجوبون البلدة مخبرين الجميع أن عليهم المغادرة قبل الغسق أو التعرض للقتل ، و لكن حينها ، عندما فر الناس حاملين أياً كان ما استطاعوا حمله ، أوقفهم الأمريكيون عند نقاط التفتيش على أطراف المدينة دون أن يسمحوا لهم بالخروج ، و هكذا ظلوا محاصرين يشاهدون غروب الشمس.

قال الصحفي أن العربات و أجهزة الإعلام يرفض السماح لها بالدخول. و قال أن هناك مساعدات طبية يجب أن تدخل و أن هناك فرصة أفضل لعبورها الحواجز الأمريكية إذا كان هناك أجانب غربيون على متن الحافلة. بقية الطريق كان مؤمناً بواسطة المجموعات المسلحة التي تسيطر على المنطقة. سندخل المساعدات الطبية و نرى ما الذي يمكننا أن نفعله لمساعدة الناس هناك ثم نستخدم الحافلة لإخراج من يحتاجون الخروج.

سأوفر عليكم وصف كيف اتخذت القرار ، و كل الأسئلة التي سألناها أنفسنا و بعضنا الآخر ، و يمكنكم أن توفروا اتهاماتكم لي بالجنون. و لكن ما خطر ببالي في تلك اللحظة كان : إذا لم أقم بهذا ، فمن سيقوم به ؟ أياً كان فإننا نصل- هناك- سالمين.

حملنا الصناديق إلى الردهة فتم فتحها على الفور و رحبوا جداً بالبطاطين . لم تكن مستشفى على الإطلاق بل عيادة جراح خاصة تعالج الناس مجاناً منذ أن دمر القصف مستشفى المدينة الرئيسي. و تم استحداث عيادة أخرى في جراج للسيارات. كانت أكياس الدم مخزنة في برادات حفظ المشروبات و يقوم الأطباء بتسخينها تحت صنبور للمياه الساخنة في حمام غير معقم.

دخلت نسوة صارخات ، يدعون ، و يلطمن وجوههن و صدورهن. " أمي" تصرخ إحداهن. احتضنتها حتى جذبني مكي – طبيب استشاري و مدير العيادة – إلى جوار سرير يرقد عليه طفل في حوالي العاشرة من عمره مصاب برصاصة في رأسه. في السرير المجاور يرقد طفل أصغر يعاني من نفس الإصابة . أصابهما قناص أمريكي هما و جدتهما عندما غادروا منزلهم ليتركوا الفلوجة.

انقطعت الكهرباء ، فتوقفت المراوح عن الدوران و خلال الهدوء الذي حل فجأة قرب شخص ما شعلة قداحة سجائر من الجراح ليواصل إجراء العملية على ضوئها. تم قطع الكهرباء عن المدينة منذ أيام و عندما ينفذ البنزين من مولدات الكهرباء يجب عليهم في العيادة أن يتدبروا أمورهم حتى تعود المولدات للعمل. أهداهم ديف مصباحه اليدوي . لن ينجو الطفلان.

قال مكي لي " تعالي" و قادني إلى غرفة تم فيها للتو خياطة جرح ناري في بطن الجدة العجوز. ساعتها كان يتم إجراء الغيار لجرح آخر في ساقها . كان الفراش تحتها غارقاً في الدماء ، و كانت يدها لا تزال قابضة على علم أبيض و سمعت نفس القصة : "غادرت منزلي لأذهب إلى بغداد عندما أصابني قناص أمريكي." بعض أجزاء المدينة يسيطر عليها المارينز و البعض الآخر يسيطر عليه المقاتلون المحليون. يقع منزلهم في المنطقة التي يسيطر عليها الأمريكيون و هم مصممون على أن القناصة كانوا أمريكيين.

لا يقتصر الأمر على تسبب القناصة في مجازر بل إنهم مسؤولون أيضاً عن إصابة خدمات الإسعاف و الإجلاء بالشلل ، فأكبر مستشفى متبقية بعد قصف الأمريكيين للمستشفى الرئيسية تقع في المنطقة التي يسيطر عليها الأمريكيون و لا يمكن الوصول إليها من العيادة بسبب القناصة. تم إصلاح عربة الإسعاف أربع مرات بعد تعرضها لإطلاق النار ، و الجثث ممددة في الشوارع لأنه لا يوجد من يستطيع أن يذهب لرفعها دون أن يتعرض لإطلاق النار.

قال البعض أننا مصابون بالجنون لمجيئنا للعراق و أكثر قليلاً قالوا أننا مجنونون كلية لمجيئنا للفلوجة و الآن يقولون لي أن الركوب في مؤخرة العربة النصف نقل و العبور أمام القناصة لإحضار المرضى و المصابين هو أكثر الأشياء التي رأوها في حياتهم جنوناً .أعرف ذلك ، و لكن ، إذا لم نفعل ذلك فلا يوجد من سيقوم به.

كان يحمل علماً أبيضاً مرسوم عيه هلال أحمر ، لم أعرف اسمه. لوح لنا الرجال الذين مررنا بهم عندما شرح لهم السائق مهمتنا. كان الصمت موحشاً في أرض اللاأحد الفاصلة بين منطقة المجاهدين و التي تقع خلف التقاطع حيث توقفت عربتنا النصف نقل و منطقة المارينز التي تبدأ من خلف الجدار المواجه لنا. : لا طيور ، و لا موسيقى ، و لا إشارة تدل على أن هناك شخصاً لا زال على قيد الحياة ، حتى انفتحت بوابة في مواجهتنا و خرجت منها امرأة و أشارت لنا.

تقدمنا ببطء و حذر تجاه الفتحة في الجدار حيث رأينا عربة محاطة بقذائف الهاون المستعملة. كان هناك قدمان ظاهرتان، متقاطعتين و في حالة سيئة. كان القناصة ظاهرين أيضاً ، حيث رأينا اثنين منهم فوق أحد المباني . و لكنني لم أعتقد أنهم قد رأونا بعد و لذلك كان من الضروري أن نعلمهم بوجودنا.

صرخت بأعلى صوتي : "هالو ، هل تستطيعون سماعي؟". لا بد أنهم سمعوني ، فلم يكونوا يبعدون عنا سوى ثلاثين متر ، و كان باستطاعتنا أن نسمع طنين الذباب الذي يبعد خمسين خطوة. كررت ندائي عدة مرات دون أن أسمع أيس إجابة .و لذلك قررت أن أوضح الأمر بصورة أكبر.

" نحن فريق طبي . نريد أن ننقل هذا الرجل المصاب. هل يمكننا أن نخرج و نحضره؟ هل يمكنك أن تعطينا إشارة أن بإمكاننا القيام بذلك؟"

كنت واثقة من أنهم سمعوني و لكنهم لم يجيبوا. ربما لم يفهموا ما أقول ، و لذلك كررت ما قلته مرة أخرى. ردده ديف أيضاً بلهجته الأمريكية ، و رددته مرة أخرى ، و أخيراً بدا لي أنني سمعت رداً، و لأنني كنت غير واثقة سألت مجدداً:
"هالو؟"
"نعم"
" هل يمكننا أن نخرج و نحضره؟"
"نعم"

خرجنا ببطء و أيدينا مرفوعة في الهواء. حملت السحابة السوداء التي تصاعدت لتحيينا رائحة مرة و ساخنة. كانت ساقاه ثقيلتين عندما حاولت حملهما معاً فتركتهما لرنا و ديف ، في حين رفعه دليلنا من وسطه. كان الكلاشينكوف ملتصقاً بدم متجلط بشعره و يده و لم أرد أن نحمله معنا و لذلك وضعت قدمي عليه و رفعته من كتفيه ، عندها سال دمه من فتحة في ظهره . أسرعنا بحمله إلى العربة النصف نقل محاولين أن نسبق الذباب.

أعتقد أنه كان يرتدي شبشباً لأنه كان حافي القدمين ساعتها. لم يبد عليه أنه يبلغ أكثر من عشرين عاماً ، و كان يرتدي سروال نايك رياضي مقلد و فانلة كرة قدم بخطوط طولية زرقاء و سوداء و رقم 28 مكتوباً بخط كبير على الظهر. سحب المعاونون في العيادة المقاتل الشاب من العربة فانسكب سائل أصفر من فمه فقلبوه ليرقد على ظهره و اندفعوا به مباشرة باتجاه المقبرة المؤقتة في حين أفسح الجميع الطريق أمامهم إلى العيادة.

غسلنا أيدينا من آثار الدماء و ركبنا عربة الإسعاف. كان هناك أشخاص عالقون في المستشفى الآخر بحاجة للذهاب إلى بغداد. بسرينة صارخة و أنوار موقدة احتشدنا معاً على أرضية عربة الإسعاف مخرجين جوازات سفرنا و بطاقات هويتنا خارج النافذة. هناك ، ملأنا العربة بالناس ، أحدهم بأنبوب مركب في صدره و آخر على نقالة و قدماه تنتفضان بعنف فاضطررت للإمساك بهما بينما كنا ننقله إلى العربة و نرفعه عبر السلالم.

للمستشفى قدرة أفضل على معالجة الحالات من العيادة و لكن هناك نقصاً كبيراً في الإمكانيات بالمستشفى و الطريقة الوحيدة لنقلهم إلى بغداد هي حافلتنا مما يعني أن عليهم الذهاب إلى العيادة. تجمعنا سوية في أرضية العربة لاحتمال إطلاق النار علينا. كانت الطبيبة نسرين التي تماثلني في العمر عاجزة عن منع دموعها من أن تسيل عندما خرجنا.

اندفع طبيب إلى الخارج و سألني : " هل بإمكانك احضار سيدة ، إنها حامل و تضع طفلها قبل التمام؟"

كان عزام يقود العربة ، و أحمد في المنتصف يوجهه، و أجلس انا إلى جوار النافذة : الأجنبي الظاهر ، جواز السفر.سقط شيئ في يدي في نفس الوقت الذي سمعت فيه صوت رصاصة تصيب عربة الإسعاف ، و انفصل جزء بلاستيكي منها و سقط من النافذة.

توقفنا و أطفأنا السرينة و أبقينا الضوء الأزرق . انتظرنا مراقبين سيلويت الرجال الذين يرتدون ملابس المارينز فوق أسطح المباني. أتت طلقات أخرى ، فانخفضنا إلى أقصى قدر ممكن و استطعت أن ارى أضواء حمراء صغيرة تنطلق بالقرب من النافذة قريبة من رأسي. البعض منها ربما أصاب العربة، من الصعب التأكد. شرعت في الغناء. ما الذي يمكنك أن تفعله سوى ذلك عندما يطلق شخص ما النار عليك؟ انفجر إطار في صوت مدوي و ارتجت العربة.

شعرت بالغضب. نحن نحاول أن نصل إلى امرأة في حالة وضع دون أي رعاية طبية و دون كهرباء في مدينة تحت الحصار ، في عربة من الواضح أنها عربة إسعاف ، و أنتم تطلقون النار علينا ، كيف تجرؤون؟
كيف تجرؤون؟

أمسك عزام بالجير و جعل العربة تسير إلى الخلف . انفجر إطار آخر عندما كنا نعبر الحاجز في منتصف الشارع ، و استمر الرصاص في الانهمار و نحن نهرب عبر التقاطع. واصلت الغناء. تمزقت الإطارات نتيجة الإحتكاك و احترق المطاط الممزق.

أسرع الرجال باحضار نقالة عندما وصلنا و هززت رأسي. رأوا ثقوب الرصاص الجديدة فأسرعوا ليروا إن كنا على ما يرام. هل هناك طريق آخر للوصول إلى المرأة الحامل؟ أريد أن أعرف." لا ، ماكو طريج". قالوا أننا فعلنا الصواب و أنهم قد أصلحوا عربة الإسعاف أربع مرات حتى الآن و سيصلحونها مرة أخرى و لكن الرادياتور دمر و الإطارات ملتوية.... لكنها لا زالت في منزلها وحيدة تضع طفلها في الظلام.....لقد خذلتها.

لم نستطع الذهاب مرة أخرى ، فلا توجد عربة إسعاف بالإضافة إلى أن حلول الظلام يعني أن وجوهنا الأجنبية لن تكون قادرة على حماية من سيذهبون معنا أو من سنلتقطهم. قال مكي مدير المكان أنه كره صدام و لكنه الآن يكره الأمريكيين اكثر.

خلعنا الأردية الطبية الزرقاء و دوت انفجارات في السماء خلف المبنى المواجه لنا. بعد دقائق معدودة ظهرت عربة مسرعة . استطعت ان أسمعه يصرخ قبل أن أرى أنه لا يوجد جلد متبق على جسده. بالتأكيد لا يوجد ما يستطيعون فعله ، سيموت من الجفاف في غضون أيام.

حملوا رجلاً آخر من العربة إلى النقالة ، و قالوا :قنابل عنقودية ، و لكنني لست متأكدة إذا ما كانوا يعنون شخصاً واحداً أم كلا الشخصين. شرعنا في المشي باتجاه منزل السيد ياسر ، منتظرين عند كل تقاطع أن يفحص أحد الشارع قبل أن نعبر. سقطت كرة من اللهب من طائرة ثم انفصلت إلى كرات أصغر من الأضواء البيضاء اللامعة. خطر ببالي أنها قنابل عنقودية لأنني كنت أفكر فيها ، و لكنها سرعان ما اختفت. لم تكن سوى شعلات مغنسيوم لامعة جداً و لكنها تدوم لوقت قصير ، معطية صورة مضيئة للمدينة من الأعلى.

طلب منا ياسر أن نقدم انفسنا ، أخبرته أنني اتدرب لأكون محامية. سألني رجل آخر إذا ما كنت أعرف شيئاً عن القانون الدولي ، فقد كانوا يريدون أن يعرفوا قوانين جرائم الحرب و ما الذي يشكل جريمة حرب . أخبرته أنني أعرف عدداً من بنود اتفاقية جنيف ، و أنني سأحضر المزيد من المعلومات في المرة القادمة و يمكننا أن نجد من يشرحها لهم بالعربية.

طرحنا مسألة نايوكو عليهم ، و لكن لم تكن لمجموعة المقاتلين هذه أي علاقة بمن اختطفوا اليابانيين، و لكن و خلال شكرهم لنا على ما فعلناه هذا المساء حدثناهم عن الأشياء التي قامت بها نايوكو لأطفال الشوارع و مقدار حبهم لها. لم يستطيعوا أن يعدونا بشيئ و لكنهم قالوا أنهم سيحاولون أن يعرفوا أين هي ليقنعوا الخاطفين بإطلاق سراحها. لم أعتقد أن هذا سيؤدي إلى أي نتيجة فهم مشغولون بخوضهم حرباً في الفلوجة و لا علاقة تربطهم بالمجموعة الأخرى ، و لكن لن تضير المحاولة شيئاً.

كانت الطائرات تحلق فوقنا طوال الليل ، و لذلك في لحظات غفوي القليلة اعتقدت أنني مسافرة على طائرة في رحلة عابرة للقارات. كان هناك صوت عميق مستمر لطائرات استطلاع دون طيار ، تغطيه الأصوات العنيفة للطائرات المقاتلة و الخفقات المميزة لطائرات الهليكوبتر. و يقطع كل ذلك بين حين و آخر أصوات الإنفجارات.

في الصباح صنعت بالونات على شكل كلاب و فيلة و زراف للطفل عبدالله الذي ينادونه عبودي و الذي كان بادي الضيق من ضجيج الطائرات و الإنفجارات. أنفخ فقاعات بفمي فيتبعها بعينيه. و أخيراً ، أخيراً ، نجحت في رسم ابتسامة على شفتيه.، كما ضحك التوءمان أيضاً. كانا في الثالثة عشر من عمرهما و كان أحدهما سائق عربة إسعاف و كلاهما كما قيل لي يجيد استخدام الكلاشينكوف.

كان الإرهاق بادياً على وجوه الأطباء في ذلك الصباح ، فلم ينم أي منهم أكثر من ساعتين في اليوم لمدة أسبوع ، بل إن أحدهم قد نام ثمان ساعات فقط في الأسبوع الماضي كله مفوتاً حضور جنازة أخيه و عمته لأنهم كانوا يحتاجونه في المستشفى.

قال جاسم : " لا نستطيع مساعدة الموتى ، لا بد من أقلق على الجرحى."

ذهبنا من جديد : رنا و ديف و أنا ، هذه المرة في عربة نصف نقل. كان هناك مرضى بالقرب من خطوط المارينز يجب إجلاءهم. لا يجرؤ أحد على الخروج من منزله هناك لأن المارينز متمركزون فوق أسطح البيوت و يطلقون النار على أي شيئ يتحرك. جلب لنا سعد علماً أبيض و أخبرنا بأن لا نقلق لأنه قد رتب الأمور مع المجاهدين الذين لن يطلقوا النار علينا ، ودعا لنا سعد بالسلامة ، هذا الطفل ذو العينين البنيتين اللامعتين الذي يبلغ أحد عشر عاماً من العمر و يغطي وجهه بكوفية و يحمل كلاشينكوف يكاد يماثله في الطول ، دعا لنا بالسلامة.

هتفنا للجنود مرة أخرى عندما وصلنا حاملين العلم الأبيض الذي رش عليه هلال أحمر. ظهر اثنان منهم من المبنى لتغطية ذلك الجانب. غمغمغمت رنا : " الله أكبر ، من فضلكم لا تطلقوا النار عليهما"

هبطنا من العربة و أخبرناهم أننا نريد إجلاء مرضى من هذه البيوت ، فطلبوا من رنا أن تحضر العائلة الموجودة في المنزل الذي يتمركزون على سطحه. ثلاثة عشر امرأة و طفل كانوا هناك ، محتجزين في غرفة واحدة من دون طعام و لا ماء ليوم كامل.

قال أعلاهما رتبة " سنقوم بالدخول لإخلاء هذه البيوت سريعاً"
-" ما الذي يعنيه الدخول لإخلاء البيوت؟"
-" سندخل كل بيت منها لنبحث عن أسلحة." نظر لساعته دون أن يقدر –بالتأكيد- على إخباري بموعد عمليتهم ، و لكن سيكون هناك غارات جوية لدعمهم ، ثم قال " إذا كان عليكم أن تقوموا بهذا ، فعليكم أن تسرعوا."

ذهبنا في البداية إلى الشارع الجانبي الذي جئنا من أجله. كان هناك رجل يرتدي دشداشة بيضاء ،وجهه إلى الأسفل و كانت هناك بقعة حمراء صغيرة على ظهره. ركضنا باتجاهه و مرة أخرى وصل الذباب إليه قبلنا. حمله ديف من كتفه و حملته من ركبتيه و بينما كنا ننقله إلى المحفة دخلت يد ديف في ثقب في صدره ، ثقب رصاصة اخترقت ظهره باتقان مفجرة قلبه خارج صدره.

لم يكن يحمل سلاحاً. و بمجرد وصولنا خرج ولداه باكيين صارخين : " لقد كان غير مسلح ، كل ما فعله هو أن خرج من البوابة فأطلقوا النار عليه." لم يجرأ أحدهما على الخروج من ساعتها . لم يجرآ على الاقتراب من جسد والدهما . ظلا خائفين مرعوبين مضطرين أن يخرقوا التقاليد التي تحث على سرعة دفن الموتى. لم يعرفا أننا قادمون و لذاك ليس وارداً أن يكون أحدهما قد خرج لأخذ السلاح ثم عاد تاركاً جثة والده.

كان غير مسلح و في الخامسة و الخمسين من عمره و أطلقوا عليه النار في ظهره.

غطينا وجهه و حملناه إلى العربة النصف نقل ، فلم نجد ما نغطي به جسده. ساعدنا بعدها المرأة المريضة في الخروج من منزلها و أحاطت بها بناتها الصغيرات اللاتي كن يضمنن إليهن حقائب قماشية و همسن :"بابا ، بابا". مرتجفات ،تركننا نتقدمهن ، فرفعنا أيدينا و قدناهن إلى العربة النصف نقل مغطين وجوههن حتى لا يرونه ، حتى لا يرون الرجل السمين الميت متصلب الظهر.

بدا ساعتها أن البيوت تفيض بالناس فتلفظهم خارجها ، رجال و نساء و أطفال خرجوا على أمل أن نتمكن من اصطحابهم بعيداً عن خط النار ، ثم سألونا في قلق إذا كان باستطاعتهم جميعاً المجيئ أم أن النساء و الأطفال فقط يمكنهم القيام بذلك. ذهبنا لنسأل فأخبرنا جندي المارينز الشاب أن الرجال في سن القتال لا يسمح لهم بالمغادرة. " ما هو سن القتال؟" ، أي شخص عمره أقل من خمسة و أربعين عاماً ، و دون حد أدنى.

روعتني فكرة أن يبقى هؤلاء الرجال محاصرين في مدينة على وشك أن تدمر. ليسوا جميعاً مقاتلين و ليسوا جمسعاً مسلحين. سيحدث لهم ما سيحدث بعيداً عن أنظار العالم و بعيداً عن عيون أجهزة الإعلام لأن معظم أجهزة الإعلام في الفلوجة إما مرافقة للمارينز أو لم يتم السماح لها بدخول المدينة فظلت عند أطرافها ، و قبل أن نعود لنخبر الأهالي برد جنود المارينز دوى انفجاران فتفرقت حشود الأهالي هاربة من الشارع الجانبي إلى بيوتها.

كانت رنا لا تزال تساعد الجنود في إجلاء العائلة التي تقطن المنزل الذي يحتله المارينز. لم تعد العربة النصف نقل بعد ، و ظلت العائلات مختبئة خلف جدران بيوتها و انتظرنا لأنه لا يوجد شيئ آخر يمكننا أن نفعله. انتظرنا في أرض اللاأحد و كان المارينز يراقبوننا عبر المناظير المعظمة ، و ربما كان المجاهدون يراقبوننا أيضاً.

كان لدي منديل سحري في جيبي و لذا و بينما كنت جالسة منكمشة مثل ليمونة ، دون أن أكون قادرة على الحركة و أصوات الرصاص و الانفجارات في كل مكان ، أخذت في جعل المنديل يظهر و يختفي ، يظهر و يختفي. من الأفضل على ما أعتقد أن تبدو غير مبال و لا تشكل أي نوع من أنواع التهديد ، فتتجنب أن تبعث القلق في نفس شخص ما لدرجة أن يطلق النار عليك. تأخرت رنا جداً ، لا بد من أن نذهب لنطلب منها أن تسرع ، و عندما عادت كان في مجموعتها رجل شاب نجحت في اقناع الجنود بتركه يغادر هو الآخر.

أراد رجل أن نستخدم سيارة الشرطة الخاصة به لنقل المزيد من الأشخاص : عدد من النسوة العجائز اللاتي لا يقدرن على المشي و أصغر الأطفال. كان هناك باب ناقص في عربة الشرطة ، و من كان ليكون متأكداً مما إذا كانت هذه عربة شرطة حقاً ، أم أنه تم الإستيلاء عليها و انتهى بها المطاف هنا؟ لا يهم حقيقة طالما أنها ستساعدنا في اخراج المزيد من الأشخاص بصورة أسرع. أخيراً ، خرجوا جميعاً من بيوتهم في حذر محتشدين بجوار الجدار و تبعونا رافعين أيديهم مثلنا ، و مشوا عبر الشارع محتضنين أطفالهم الرضع وحقائبهم، و بعضهم البعض.

عادت العربة النصف نقل فملأناها بأكبر عدد ممكن من الناس و هنا ظهرت عربة الإسعاف من مكان ما. لوح لي شاب من مدخل ما تبقى مما كان منزلاً . كان نصفه الأعلى عارياً و تحيط بذراعه اليمنى ضمادة مشبعة بالدماء، و كان على الأرجح مقاتلاً و لكن هذا لا يشكل أي فارق طالما كان شخصاً مصاباً و غير مسلح.

احضار الموتى ليس ضرورياً فكما قال جاسم: الموتى لا يحتاجون مساعدة ، و لكن إذا كان من السهل احضارهم فسنقوم به . كنا على اتفاق مع الجنود و كانت عربة الإسعاف موجودة هنا ، و لذلك أسرعنا لنحضر الجثث ، فمن المهم في الإسلام أن تدفن الجثث في أسرع وقت ممكن.

تبعتنا عربة الإسعاف ، فبدأ الجنود في الصياح بالإنجليزية طالبين منها التوقف و مصوبين أسلحتهم نحوها لأنها كانت تتحرك بسرعة. صرخنا جميعاً و أشرنا لها أن تتوقف ، و مر وقت بدا لي أبدياً حتى رآنا السائق و سمعنا. لقد توقف. توقف قبل أن يشرعوا في إطلاق النار. وضعنا الجثث على المحفات و عدونا لنكدسهم في مؤخرة عربة الإسعاف، و اندست رنا مع الشاب المصاب في المقعد الأمامي و جلست القرفصاء أنا و ديف في الخلف بجوار الجثث. قال ديف أنه أصيب بالحساسية في طفولته و فقد تقريباً حاسة الشم. تمنيت بأثر رجعي أن أكون قد حصلت على حساسية في طفولتي و دسست رأسي خارج النافذة.

كان على الحافلة أن تغادر، حاملة المصابين إلى بغداد و منهم الرجل المحترق و امرأة مصابة في فكها و كتفها برصاص قناص و آخرون غيرهما . قالت رنا أنها ستبقى للمساعدة. و لم نتردد انا و ديف : " سنبقى نحن أيضاً" ، ( إذا لم أقم بذلك فمن سيقوم به؟) قد أصبح فجأة شعاراً لي. كما أنني عرفت الآن بعد الحادث الأخير عدد الأشخاص و النساء و الأطفال الذين لازالوا في منازلهم إما لأنهم لا يملكون مكاناً آخر ليذهبوا إليه أو لأنهم خائفون من أن يخطوا خارج منازلهم أو لأن البقاء كان خيارهم.

قال عزام أن علينا أن نغادر لأنه لا يملك اتصالات مع كل المجموعات المسلحة ، و لأن هناك العديد من الأشياء التي يتعين القيام بها ، فلا بد من نقل هؤلاء الأشخاص إلى بغداد في أسرع وقت ممكن . أما إذا تعرضنا للقتل أو الاختطاف فإن هذا لن يتسبب سوى في المزيد من المشاكل، و لذلك فإن أفضل خيار هو أن نركب الحافلة و نغادر و نعود معه إلى الفلوجة في مرة أخرى.

كان مؤلماً للغاية أن تركب الحافلة في ذات اللحظة التي يطلب فيها منك طبيب أن تذهب لإجلاء المزيد من الأشخاص. كرهت فكرة أن مسعفاً يمكنه أن ينتقل بواسطة عربة الإسعاف في حين أعجز أنا عن ذلك ، لمجرد أنني أبدو كأخت للقناص أو واحدة من رفيقاته. لكن هذه هي الحال دائماً ، بالأمس و اليوم و الغد. شعرت بأنني خائنة لمغادرتي و لكنني لم امتلك خياراً آخر. هناك حرب جارية هنا الآن و كغريبة لا بد لي من أنفذ ما يطلب مني ، لمرة وحيدة أضطر إلى ذلك.

كان جاسم خائفاً و ظل ينبه محمد و يحاول جذبه بعيداً عن مقعد السائق حتى و الحافلة تسير. رقدت المرأة المصابة بطلق ناري على المقعد الخلفي ، و الرجل صاحب الحروق أمامها حيث كنا نقوم بتهويته بقطع من الورق المقوى فيما تتأرجح أنابيبه الوريدية التي علقت في سقف الحافلة. كان الجو حاراً ، فلا شك في أن الظروف كانت غير محتملة بالنسبة له.

دخل سعد الحافلة ليتمنى لنا رحلة موفقة ، و صافح ديف ثم صافحني ، فاحتفظت بيده بين يدي و قلت له :"دير بالك"، و حقيقة لم يكن هناك شيئ آخر أكثر غباءاً أقوله لأحد أفراد المجاهدين لم يدخل سني مراهقته بعد فيما يحمل في يده الأخرى مدفع كلاشينكوف. التقت نظراتنا قثبتت عينيّ في عينيه. كانت عيناه مليئتين باللهب ....و الخوف.

ألا أستطيع أن آخذه بعيداً؟ ألا أستطيع أن آخذه إلى مكان يمكنه فيه أن يكون طفلاً؟ ألا أستطيع أن أصنع له بالونة على شكل زرافة و أعطيه أقلاماً ملونة و أخبره ألا ينسى أن يغسل أسنانه؟ ألا أستطيع أن أجد ذلك الذي وضع بندقية بين يدي هذا الصبي الصغير؟ ألا أستطيع أن أخبر شخصاً ما أي تأثير يتركه مثل هذا الأمر على طفل؟ هل عليّ أن أتركه هنا محاطاً برجال مدججين بالسلاح و العديد منهم ليس في جانبه ؟ بالطبع ، عليّ فعل ذلك ، عليّ أن أتركه هنا مثل كل الأطفال المجندين في كل مكان.

كانت رحلة العودة مرهقة ، حيث كادت الحافلة أن تنغرس في حفرة في الرمال . كان الناس يهربون مستخدمين أي شيئ- حتى تكدساً على ظهر تراكتور- فكانت هناك صفوف من العربات و الحافلات و العربات النصف نقل تعبر بركابها إلى الملجأ المبهم : بغداد ، و كانت هناك صفوف من عربات تحمل رجالاً عائدين للمدينة - بعد أن اطمئنوا إلى وصول عائلاتهم لبر الأمان- إما للقتال أو لإجلاء المزيد من الأشخاص. تجاهل جاسم سائقنا عزام ابنه و سلك طريقاً آخر فوجدنا فجأة أننا لا نتبع سيارة الدليل و أننا في طريق تسيطر عليه جماعة مسلحة اخرى غير الجماعة التي تعرفنا.

لوحت جماعة من الرجال بأسلحتها لتوقف الحافلة. بصورة ما بدا أنهم يؤمنون أن هناك جنوداً أمريكيين على متن الحافلة – و كأنهم سيكونون فيها عوضاً عن الدبابات و طائرات الهليكوبتر- و من عربات أخرى خرج الركاب هاتفين:"صحافة أمريكي". هتف أحد ركابنا من النافذة: " أنا من الفلوجة" ، فهرع الرجال المسلحون ليتاكدوا من صحة ذلك فرأوا أن هناك مرضى و مصابين و مسنين عراقيين. استرخوا بعدها و أشاروا لنا بالمرور.

توقفنا في أبو غريب و بدلنا مقاعدنا لنجعل الأجانب في المقدمة و العراقيين في الخلف و خلعنا أغطية الرأس لنبدو غربيين أكثر. كان الجنود الأمريكيين في غاية السعادة لرؤية غربيين لدرجة أنهم لم يهتموا كثيراً بالعراقيين معنا ، و فتشوا الحافلة و الرجال و لم يفتشوا النساء لأنه لم يكن معهم مجندات . ظل محمد يسألني إن كانت الأمور ستكون على ما يرام ، فقلت له : " الملايكة ويانا" ، فضحك.

وصلنا بغداد فقمنا بتوصيلهم إلى المستشفيات. بكت نهى و هم يأخذون الرجل المحترق و هو يأن و يتأوه و ينشج. أحاطتني بذراعيها و طلبت مني أن أكون صديقتها ، فأنا أشعرها بانها أقل وحدة ...أقل عزلة.

في القنوات الفضائية قالوا أن الهدنة لا زالت مستمرة في الفلوجة و قال جورج بوش لقواته في أحد الفصح :"أعرف أننا نقوم بالأمر الصحيح في العراق". هل إطلاق النار على ظهور الرجال العزل أمام منزل عائلتهم امر صحيح؟ هل إطلاق النار على الجدات اللاتي يحملن أعلاماً بيضاء أمر صحيح؟ هل إطلاق الرصاص على عربات الإسعاف أمر صحيح؟

حسناً يا جورج، أنا أيضاً أعرف. أعرف كيف يمكن أن تقمع أناساً لدرجة لا يتبقى فيها لديهم ما يخسرونه. أعرف كيف يبدو إجراء عملية دون تخدير لأن المستشفيات مدمرة أو معرضة لرصاص القناصة و المدينة تحت الحصار والمساعدات تفشل في الدخول. أعرف أيضاً صوت الرصاص الذي يعبر بجوار راسك على الرغم من أنك داخل عربة إسعاف. أعرف كيف يبدو رجل لم يعد صدره بداخله و أعرف رائحة ذلك ايضاً ، و أعرف كيف يبدو الأمر عندما تخرج زوجته مع أطفاله من منزله.

إنها لجريمة و عار علينا جميعاً.


جو ويلدينج محامية تحت التمرين و كاتبة و ناشطة سلام في التاسعة و العشرين من العمر من بريستول في بريطانيا. متواجدة في العراق منذ نوفمبر 2003. تعمل مع برنامج circus2Iraq كمهرجة، يهدف البرنامج إلى الترفيه عن الأطفال الذين عانوا من ويلات الحرب بتقديمه عروضاً في مختلف أنحاء العراق.

الفلوجة 2
17 ابريل 2004

كان الرقيب تارتنر من الفرقة الأولى المدرعة مستثاراً، و كانت أولى كلماته لنا :" تراجعوا و إلا قتلتكم."

قال ليي أننا صحفيون فنظر الرقيب إلى عربتنا في ازدراء و قال: " و تركبون قطعة الخراء هذه؟؟"

أخبره ليي أن هذا يقلل من احتمالات تعرضنا للإختطاف ، و لكن فجأة ظن الرقيب أنه تعرف على ليي كمراسل لذلك التلفزيون الذي يبث من ألمانيا فهو يشاهد البي بي سي و يرى ليي على الشاشة طوال الوقت. ثم أضاف " رائع ، هل يمكنني الحصول على توقيعك؟"

خربش ليي شيئاً ما إذ لم يكن يعرف من كان من المفترض أن يكون، و لكنه كان سعيداً لأننا سنتمكن من عبور نقطة التفتيش التي لم تسماح بالدخول لأي من العربات التي سبقتنا. واصل الرقيب تارتنر حديثه :" يا جماعة عليكم أن تكونوا حذرين في الفلوجة. فنحن نقتل العديد من هؤلاء الأشخاص." ، ثم عندما لاحظ أن التقدير لم يرتسم على وجوهنا عند سماعنا ذلك أضاف:"حسناً ، إنهم يقتلوننا أيضاً. أنا أحب الفلوجة. لقد قتلت كمية من أولاد العاهرة هؤلاء."

تمنيت حقيقة أن يكون الرقيب تارتنر مجرد كاريكاتير أو صورة نمطية، و لكن كل هذه العبارات منقولة نصاً. كنا نحرك أحجبتنا على رؤوسنا في الشمس الحارقة ، عندما قال : "ليس عليكن ارتداء هذه الأشياء بعد اليوم ، لقد تم تحريركن." فذكرت له أن المزيد و المزيد من النساء يرتدين الحجاب اليوم نتيجة تعرضهن لإعتداءات متزايدة.

اقتربت قافلة معونات طبية تحمل أعلام الهلال الأحمر من نقطة التفتيش ، فتردد تارتنر ، ثم وضح لنا :" إننا لا نحب أن نشجعهم." ، بعدها انحلت عقدة لسانه لفرحته بأن يجد من يبادله الحديث:" يا إلهي، إنه أمر جيد أن تجد من يتحدث الإنجليزية . حسناً ، باستثناء مستر و بليز و واي."

سأله شخص ما : "ألا يوجد لديكم مترجمون؟" فأشار الرقيب تارتنر بمدفعه تجاه العربة التي تقود القافلة و قال: " لدي أفضل مترجم في العالم".

سمح لعربة واحدة بأن تدخل معنا و رفض السماح للبقية. كان هناك الكثير من المساعدات – طعام و مياه و أدوية- تم إدخالها إلى الفلوجة من الطرق الخلفية موجودة في العيادة و المسجد عند وصولنا هذه المرة ،. تم بذل مجهودات كبيرة لإغاثة الناس هناك. لكن المستشفى تقع في الجزء الذي يسيطر عليه الأمريكيون و هي مقطوعة عن العيادة بسبب القناصة ، لذلك كانوا عاجزين عن إدخال أي مساعدات إليها أو إخراج المصابين منها.

ملأنا عربة الإسعاف بالمطهرات و المحاقن و الضمادات و الطعام و المياه ثم انطلقنا مجهزين هذه المرة بمكبر صوت. توقفنا عند أحد المنحنيات و غادرنا العربة. كانت المستشفى على مبعدة منا إلى اليمين ، و إلى يسارنا كان هناك المارينز. مشينا نحن الأربعة باتجاه المستشفى . كنا نرتدي أردية طبية زرقاء فضفاضة و أيدينا مرفوعة في الهواء معلنين أننا فريق إغاثة يحاول إيصال المساعدات إلى المستشفى.

لم يكن هناك رد فمشينا ببطء تجاه المستشفى. كنا نحتاج عربة الإسعاف معنا لأن المساعدات كانت أكثر من أن نتمكن من حملها ، و لذلك أعلنا أننا سنحضر العربة معنا و أننا سنمشي و ستتبعنا العربة. برزت مقدمة عربة الإسعاف إلى الشارع ، جديدة و براقة ، جيئ بها عوضاً عن العربات التي دمرتها نيران القناصة.

شقت رصاصات الهواء و سمعنا صوت إطلاق رصاصتين ثم أزيزاً قريباً منا جداً. ارتدت عربة الإسعاف إلى الشارع الجانبي و كأنها قطعة مطاط و هرعنا جميعاً إلى باحة المنزل الذي يقع في الزاوية ، ثم غادرناه من الباب الجانبي لنكون بجانب العربة مرة أخرى.

هذه المرة لم نمش باتجاه المستشفى بل باتجاه المارينز و بدون عربة إسعاف. مشينا ببطء شديد مزودين بمكبر الصوت صائحين من خلاله أننا لسنا مسلحين و أننا فريق إغاثة و أننا نحاول إيصال امدادات إلى المستشفى.

أطلقوا رصاصتين آخرتين باتجاهنا ، فشعرت بالغضب ، و من خلف الجدار الذي احتمينا خلفه أخبرتهم أن ما يقومون به يخرق بنود اتفاقية جنيف." كيف كنت ستشعر لو أن أختك كانت في تلك المستشفى و لا يمكن علاجها لأن رجلاً ما مزوداً ببندقية لا يسمح للإمدادات الطبية بالدخول." جذبني ديفيد بعيداً قبل أن أدعو عليهم بأن يحل على أصابعهم التي تضغط الأزندة طاعون من الدمامل.

و لأن هذا الأمر هو أكثر الأمور أهمية أضعنا بقية الساعات المتبقية من ضوء النهار– الثمين- محاولين أن نجد مسؤولاً ما لكي نتفاهم معه. بحلول الظلام كنت لا أزال غاضبة و لم تكن المطهرات قد وصلت إلى المستشفى بعد. دخلنا إلى المنزل الذي يقع خلف العيادة فأصابتني الرائحة بالاختناق. أثارت رائحة الدماء المتجلطة و الجثث المتعفنة ذكرى تعود لبضعة أيام مضت عندما جلست في مؤخرة عربة إسعاف مع جثث كريهة الرائحة و مع الذباب.

في المساء بدأ القصف الجوي ، فوقفنا خارجاً نشاهد الانفجارات و ألسنة اللهب. لم يخطر ببال أحد أن وقف إطلاق النار النظري كان سارياً. أحضر شخص ما بقايا صاروخ مفككاً إلى قطع من المعدن و الأسلاك و محتوياً على خزان للوقود ، و عرضها على قطعة قماش على الرصيف بجوار العيادة فبدت ككائن فضائي غريب، و حدق فيها الجميع و لكن متفادين الإقتراب منها.

أتى شخص ما ليعطينا تقريراً: أسقط المجاهدون طائرة هليكوبتر و قتلوا خمسة عشر من جنود العدو ، و خلال حرب الشوارع التي جرت هذا المساء قتل اثنا عشر جندياً أمريكياً ، كما قتل ستمائة آخرين في هجوم على قاعدتهم ، و لكنه لم يستطع اخبارنا كيف و أين و متى حدث هذا الهجوم. أضاف الرجل أن الآلاف من جثث الجنود الأمريكيين دفنت بالقرب من الرطبة شرق الفلوجة. دائماً ما اعتقدت أن الولايات المتحدة تقوم بالتقليل من عدد ضحاياها كلما كانت قادرة على ذلك ، و لكنني شككت بأن هناك مبالغة في الأرقام التي أسمعها هذه المرة. همس شخص ما بأن هذا الرجل هو ابن عم "علي الكوميدي " وزير الإعلام العراقي السابق. لم يكن هذا صحيحاً و لكن لابد أنه كان قريبه بصورة ما ! (المترجم: علي الكوميدي comical Ali هو اللقب الساخر الذي أطلق على محمد سعيد الصحاف ، و ذلك لقربه من لفظ chemical Ali علي الكيماوي ، اللقب الذي أطلق على علي حسن المجيد ابن عم صدام المسؤول عن استخدام الأسلحة الكيماوية ضد الأكراد).

استمر ضجيج الطائرات و الانفجارات طوال الليل. انتفضت مستيقظة من نومي المتقطع و أنا على ثقة بأن الصواريخ تطلق من حديقة المنزل الذي ننام داخله. استمر وابل النيران رناناً و عميقاً و ذا إيقاع ثابت ، فأصابني اارعب و توقعت أن أسمع انفجاراً قادماً من السماء ليسكت مطلق الصواريخ. لم أستطع أن أظل جالسة أنتظر فخرجت و عندها اطمأننت إلى أن من يطلق الصواريخ يبعد على الأقل عدة شوارع عن منزلنا.

خف الضجيج و كأن الإنشاد الذي تصاعد من المسجد قد قام بتهدئته. قال شخص ما أنه نداء لإيقاف إطلاق النار. لا أعرف إن كان هذا صحيحاً ، ففي كل مرة أسمع إنشاداً مختلفاً من مئذنة المسجد أتساءل عما يعنيه ، و عما إذا كان نداء للصلاة أو نداء لحمل السلاح أو شيئاً آخر، أو ربما كان مجرد شخص ينشد نشيداً ليساعد المدينة على النوم.

في الصباح و في أحد المساجد – ككل شيئ آخر- بدأت مفاوضات وقف إطلاق النار من جديد . قال الناس أنه لثمانية أيام قاتل الجيش الأمريكي من أجل السيطرة على المدينة التي يقطنها 350.000 نسمة ، و الآن لا زال المسلحون موجودين في الشوارع و لذلك يتفاوضون حول شروط وقف إطلاق النار.

وصلت جثة إلى المستشفى مصابة بجرح في ساقها و لكنها كانت مذبوحة. قال الرجال أن القتيل كان يرقد مصاباً في الشارع فجاء المارينز و قطعوا نحره. ظهرت بعدها عربة نصف نقل مسرعة تحمل رجلاً فقد معظم ذراعه و لم يتبق سوى جزء ممزق ينز دماً. نزف حتى الموت.

سمح لصحفيين فرنسيين بدخول المدينة ، و تحت حماية المسجد و من أجلهما لفت الجثة من قمة رأسها إلى أخمص قدميها بالضمادات و حملت إلى شاحنة بدون أبواب خلفية حيث قادها صبيان بعيداً، وكان أحدهما يدعى عودة و هو أحد التوأمين اللذين التقينا بهما في زيارتنا السابقة. قبل وقت قصير من ذلك جاؤوا بفتاة صغيرة ترتدي إيشارباً منقطاً و تي شيرت وردي اللون و فوقه سترة صوفية مزررة بلا أكمام و في يدها المغطاة بقفازات كان هناك كلاشينكوف.

كانت نظيفة للغاية و في غاية الرقة كما كان هندامها حسناً ، و بعد التقاط الصورة لها ، حملها احد الرجال - والدها على ما أعتقد- بعيداً. اعتقدت و تمنيت أن تكون مجرد طفلة يظهرونها في الصور و ألا تكون مشتركة حقيقة في القتال. لم تكن أصغر من ذلك الفتى – سعد – الذي رأيته في المرة السابقة و الذي أعرف أنه يشترك فعلاً في القتال و إن تمنيت ألا يكون مشتركاً فيه.

و فيما كنا ننتظر تبادلنا الحديث مع شيخ المسجد. قال أن المستشفيات سجلت 1200 ضحية ، و ما بين 500 إلى 600 قتيل في الأيام الخمسة الأولى من القتال و 86 طفلاً قتيلاً في الأيام الثلاث الأولى من القتال ، و أنه لا يعرف عدد الذين قتلوا أو أصيبوا في المناطق التي يسيطر عليها الأمريكيون، و أن امرأة قاربت تمام حملها قتلت بصاروخ أمريكي و لكن تم انقاذ طفلها الذي لم تلده ، و لكنه أصبح يتيماً منذ لحظة ولادته.

" أهالي الفلوجة يحبون السلام و لكن بعد أن هاجمنا الأمريكيون ، فقد فقد الأمريكيون كل صديق لهم هنا. كان لدينا عدد محدود من الضباط و الجنود المدربون من الجيش القديم ، و الآن فإن الجميع يجاهدون قدر استطاعتهم. لا يشترك جميع الرجال في القتال: فالبعض غادروا مع عائلاتهم ، و البعض يعمل في العيادة أو يقوم بإدخال المساعدات أو يشترك في وفود التفاوض.نحن مستعدون للقتال حتى آخر لحظة ، حتى و إن استغرق الأمر مائة عام."

قال أن البيانات الرسمية تقول أن المارينز يسيطرون على 25% من المدينة:" و هذا مكون من أجزاء صغيرة ، أجزاء يسيطرون عليها في الشمال الشرقي و أجزاء أخرى في الجنوب الشرقي و الجزء المحيط بمدخل المدينة الذي يسيطر عليه القناصة و الآليات الخفيفة." قال الشيخ أن الوحدة الجديدة بين السنة و الشيعة تسعده:"الفلوجة هي العراق و العراق هو الفلوجة. لقد جاءتنا وفود من جميع محافظات العراق لإيصال مساعدات و لإظهار تضامنها معنا."

بدأ وقف إطلاق النار في التاسعة صباحاً ، فأخذ سائقوا العربات في تفريغ المعونات من المخزن المواجه للمسجد إلى عرباتهم ليقوموا بتوزيعها في مختلف أنحاء المدينة. كان فتح الطريق إلى المستشفى أحد شروط الاتفاق ، و لذلك شعرنا بأنه لم تعد هناك حاجة حقيقية لوجودنا ، كما أننا بدأنا نشعر بأن هناك برامج لجماعات مختلفة يتم تنفيذها و أننا يمكن أن نعلق بسهولة وسط صراعات سياسية تخص أناساً آخرين ، و لذلك قررنا أن نرحل.

عند طرف المدينة يوجد مفترق طرق يقود إلى طريق مرصوف يلتف حول آخر البيوت و طريق آخر يمضي إلى قلب الصحراء. كان المارينز يسيطرون على الطريق الأخير ، و قاموا بإطلاق طلقة تحذيرية عندما خرج سائقنا ليتفاوض معهم بشأن مرورنا ، أما الطريق الأول فيسيطر عليه المجاهدون ، المتوارون عن الأنظار حتى الآن. فجأة ، حاصر تبادل إطلاق النار العربة. انتقل ديفيد خافضاً رأسه إلى مقعد السائق و قام بالرجوع للخلف ليبعدنا عن خط النار و لكن المكان الوحيد الذي كان من الممكن أن نرجع إليه كان خطوط المجاهدين. دخل أحد المقاتلين العربة وجلس على المقعد المجاور للسائق و قام بتوجيهنا.

تساءلت بيلي :"نحن رهائن ، أليس كذلك؟".

"كلا" و أخبرتها أن الأمور ستكون على ما يرام ، واثقة من أنهم يقومون بإبعادنا عن مكان كان من الممكن أن نتعرض فيه للأذى و حسب. سألنا المقاتل من أي بلد نكون ، فقالت دونا انها أسترالية و قالت بيلي أنها بريطانية.

"الله أكبر ! أهلاً و سهلاً !" لم يفهم الآخرون ما قال ، و لكن حتى من دون ترجمة كان المعنى واضحاً. قالت بيلي : " أعتقد أنه قال أنه حصل على أثمن رهينتين في العالم."

غادرنا العربة شاعرين بالارهاق و كان هناك رجل يرتدي كوفية يصوب مدفع آر بي جي محشواً تجاهها. أحضروا عربة جيب فركبتها ملاحظة أن السائق يضع قنبلة يدوية بين ساقيه. كنت واثقة من أنه ينوي استخدامها ضد الأمريكيين و ليس ضدنا ، و لكن كان واضحاً أنه لا يوجد مجال أمامنا للاعتراض.

و لكن مع ذلك ، فحتى تركنا الطريق المؤدي إلى المسجد و توقفنا عند منزل ، و حتى تم تفتيش ديفيد و بقية الرجال ، و حتى خلعوا كوفياتهم ليستخدموها في تقييد أيدي الرجال خلف ظهورهم ، كنت قد بدأت فقط في تقبل فكرة أنني أصبحت رهينة.

ساعتها تبحث عن طرق للهروب. . تتساءل عما إذا كانوا سيقتلونك أم سيضعون مطالب للإفراج عنك و عما إذا كانوا سيأذونك. تنتظر السكاكين و المدافع و كاميرا الفيديو. تقول لنفسك أن الأمور ستكون على ما يرام. تفكر في عائلتك و في اكتشاف والدتك أنك تعرضت للإختطاف. تقرر أنك ستكون قوياً ، لأنه لا يوجد شيئ آخر يمكنك ان تفعله غير ذلك. تقاوم فكرة أن حياتك لم تعد بين يديك ، و أنه لا يمكنك التحكم فيما سوف يحدث. تلتفت إلى افضل صديقاتك لتخبرها أنك تحبها ، من كل قلبك.

بعدها وضعوا كلاً منا في عربة ، فتمنيت أن ينقلونا إلى نفس المكان. حاولت دون جدوى أن أعرف إلى أين نذهب و أن أتذكر بعض العلامات المميزة للطريق الذي نسلكه. لكنني في الواقع لا أملك حس اتجاه على الإطلاق ، و أعجز عن تمييز اليمين من اليسار حتى عندما أكون في أحسن حالاتي. لم يكن هناك في الشوارع سوى مقاتلين و لا يوجد مكان للإختباء.

تم تسليمنا أنا و دونا و بيلي و أحرار و ديفيد إلى منزل آخر. كانت هناك وسائد على الأرض مستندة إلى جدران الغرفة التي دخلناها و كان هناك أيضاً فراش في طرف الغرفة بجانب خزانة لحفظ الأواني. جلس رجل طويل وقور يرتدي كوفية بنية و بدأ في استجواب دونا سائلاً إياها عن اسمها و بلدها و مهنتها و ما الذي تفعله في العراق و لماذا جاءت إلى الفلوجة.

قرر الرجل أن يفصل بيننا فطلب من الآخرين أن ينقلوني أنا و ديفيد و بيلي إلى غرفة أخرى . هناك قام شاب يرتدي سروال جينز واسعاً جداً على جسده النحيل و قميصاً و حذاء رياضياً ويغطي وجهه كله عدا عينيه بحراستنا. لم يبد عليه أنه تجاوز العشرين من عمره و كان متوتراً قليلاً و لكن هدوءنا نجح في تهدئته. بعد مضي فترة من الوقت قرر ألا يسمح لنا بتبادل الحديث مع بعضنا البعض فأشار لنا أن نصمت.

لم تكن بيلي على ما يرام ، حيث كانت مريضة و حرارتها مرتفعة ، فرقدت على الوسائد متوسدة ذراعها. أحضر المقاتل مخدة و رفع رأسها بلطف ليضعها تحته ، و أزال كل الأشياء الموجودة على الوسائد ليتمكن من تغطيتها ببطانية. أحضر آخر ملاءة قطنية و رفع البطانية و غطاها بالملاءة ثم أعاد تغطيتها بالبطانية. المجاهدون يقومون بتغطيتها!

حل الدور علي ليقوموا باستجوابي. شعرت بأن الأمور ستكون على ما يرام ، فسأخبره بالحقيقة. أراد أن يعرف الأشياء ذاتها : من أين أنا و ماذا أفعل في العراق و ماذا أفعل في الفلوجة. حكيت له عن السيرك و عن رحلات عربة الإسعاف و عن تعرضنا لنيران القناصة. سألني بعدها عن رأي الشعب البريطاني في الحرب. لم اعرف ما هي بالضبط الإجابة الصحيحة على مثل هذ السؤال. فقلت أنني لا أعرف نتائج آخر استطلاعات الرأي العام و أنا أحاول أن أجد إجابة تجعله يعتقد أنه ليس من المفيد الاحتفاظ بي كرهينة.

سألني إذا كان الشعب حقاً يعارض الاحتلال فكيف يمكن للحكومة أن تواصل القيام به؟ كان مهتماً حقيقةًً و ساخراً أيضاً: هل هناك شك أن المحررين العظام ديموقراطيون و يحكمون وفقاً لإرادة الشعب؟ و قبل أن أسمعه النسخة المطولة من رأي جو في دستور المملكة المتحدة ، بدأ في سؤالي عن بيلي. كنت أعرف بماذا ستجيب و لذلك كان الأمر سهلاً ، و لكنني تفاديت الإجابة على أسئلته عندما سألني عن ديفيد و تمنيت ألا يضغط علي. قلت أنني لا أعرفه جيداً لأنني لم أكن أعرف إذا ما كان ديفيد سيود أن يخبرهم أنه صحفي أم لا.قلت للرجل أن هذه هي أول مرة ألتقي فيها بديفيد و أنني أعرف فقط أن كنيته مارتينيز.

شكرني و بهذا انتهى الاستجواب. كان الدور على ديفيد من بعدي. تحدثت أنا و دونا و بيلي بصوت خافت حول الاستجواب دون ممانعة من الشاب الذي يقوم بحراستنا. تساءل شخص ما إذا كنا نرغب في شرب الشاي ، فتصاعدت بعدها قهقهات من المطبخ . ربما كان الشابان يتخيلان ما سيقوله رفاقهما إذا ما رأوهما على هذه الحال: ملثمين و مسلحين بالكلاشينكوف و يقومان بإعداد الشاي لمجموعة من النساء.

انتهى استجواب ديفيد سريعاً. و عندما عدت من الحمام الخارجي – مفتشة بعيني أثناء ذلك عن طريق للهرب أعرف جيداً أنه غير موجود- كان الجميع قد انتقلوا إلى الحجرة الرئيسية و كان الشاي جاهزاً. أحضروا بعدها حقيبة بيلي و قاموا بتفتيشها فعثروا على كاميرا و مسجل صغير. شاهد الرجل الصور المخزنة على الكاميرا : صورة للصاروخ أمام العيادة ، و قليل من الصور من بغداد ، ثم استمع للحوار مع الشيخ على المسجل الصغير.

كانت كاميرا دونا تحتوي على صور مماثلة للصاروخ و أخرى لأطفال الشوارع و البعض داخل شقتنا. أما شريط الفيديو الموجود في كاميرا الفيديو فيعرض افتتاح مركز شباب جديد في منطقة الدورة ، داعماً شهادة دونا بأنها مديرة منظمة تنشأ مشروعات من أجل الأطفال. أما الشريط الآخر فقد كان تسجيلاً لأحد عروض سيرك بومشاكا ، داعماً شهادتي أنني أعمل مهرجة في السيرك.

لم يحضروا حقيبتي او حقيبة ديفيد مما جعلني أشعر بالارتياح إذ كنت أخاف أن يوجد داخل أي منهما شيئ ما يستفزهم. بصورة خاصة ، فكرت أنه من الأفضل ألا يلاحظوا أي جواز سفر لأنهم حينها قد يفتشون عن جوازات سفر بقيتنا ، و يوجد في جواز سفر بيلي ختم إسرائيلي. صحيح أنها حصلت عليه عندما ذهبت للمساعدة في فلسطين ، و لكن الأفضل ألا نثير أي شكوك لديهم.

كانت أحرار عند انتهاء استجوابها على وشك أن تصاب بالهيستيريا ، فقد كانت خائفة من رد فعل أهلها على مبيتها خارج المنزل الليلة الماضية أكثر من خوفها من الرجال المسلحين الذين يحتجزوننا. احتضناها و قمنا بتهدئتها قدر استطاعتنا و قلنا لها أننا سنخبر عائلتها أنها لم تكن غلطتها. كانت المشكلة هي أنه عندما غادرنا بغداد كان الوقت متأخراً بما لا يسمح لها بأن تعود لمنزلها في نفس اليوم و الآن فهي تخشى أنها ستضطر إلى مبيت ليلة أخرى خارج البيت.

شرعت في الغناء بصوت خافت ، دون أن أكون واثقة مما إذا كان ذلك مسموحاً به أم لا. شاركني الآخرون في غناء المقاطع التي يحفظونها ، و بنهاية الأغنية جفت دموع أحرار و قالت لنا :"واصلوا" ، و لذا واصلنا غناء أغنية تلو الأخرى ، حتى ارتفع صوت الأذان و كان من غير المهذب أن نغني في نفس الوقت.

شرعت أحرار في البكاء من جديد فقالت دونا محاولة طمأنتها :" إن إيماني قوي بالله." فقالت أحرار نائحة :" نعم ، و لكنك لا تعرفين ماما."

قبل الحرب و قبل أن آتي إلى الفلوجة فكرت دائماً أنه من المستحيل أن تعرف ماذا سيكون شعورك عندما تتعرض لإطلاق نار. لم أكن لأتخيل أيضاً رد فعلي على هذا الموقف غير المتوقع ، وعلى هؤلاء الرجال المسلحين الملثمين ، و على الخوف ، و على الشك.

أخبرونا عدة مرات أن لا نخاف :" نحن مسلمون ، لن نقوم بإيذائكم."، و تخبرني غريزتي أن الأمور ستكون على ما يرام ، و علىالرغم من ذلك لا زال عقلي يتساءل عما إذا كانوا سيطلقون النار علينا بعد أن يوقفونا أمام جدار أم أنهم سيفتحون النار على كل الغرفة ، و عما إذا كانوا سيقتلونا واحداً تلو الآخر أم أنهم سيقتلونا معاً ، و عما إذا كانوا سيوفرون الطلقات و يقومون بذبحنا ، و عن المدة التي تشعر فيها بالألم بعد إطلاق النار عليك و عما إذا كانت الأمور تنتهي سريعاً أم أن هناك صدى متبقياً من الألم الناتج عن اختراق المعدن لجسدك يظل يتردد بعد وفاتك.

لم أكن أحتاج مثل هذه الأفكار في مثل ذلك الوقت فطردتها بعيداً عن رأسي. كنت أعرف أن الآخرين يفكرون في نفس الأشياء : ماذا سيكون تأثير هذا على والدتي؟ ما الذي سيحدث ؟ بماذا سوف نشعر في تلك اللحظة ؟ لم يكن من الإنصاف أن أخبرهم بمخاوفي و لذا لم يكن هناك شيئ أفعله سوى أن أجلس هناك مصابة بالقلق ، و لم يكن هناك شيئ نفعله جميعاً سوى أن ننتظر لنرى ما ستسفر عنه الأمور و أن نبقى قريبين من بعضنا.

لكن ما قلته لنفسي كان : لا أستطيع أن أغير مسار الأمور الآن و إذا ما صوبوا بندقية إلى رأسي أو وضعوا سكيناً على رقبتي و عرفت أنها آخر لحظة في حياتي و لا يوجد شيئ يمكنني فعله لتغيير ذلك ، فأنا مصممة على ألا أتوسل أو أرتجف لأنني أعرف أن مجيئي إلى الفلوجة كان أمراً صحيحاً و أن محاولتي إجلاء الناس و إيصال المساعدات إلى المستشفيات و موتي أثناء القيام بذلك ليس مثالياً و لكنه صحيح.

أحضروا حقائبنا فجعلت منديلاً سحرياً يختفي. لم يثر هذا الأمر إعجاب الرجل الجديد الذي يقوم بحراستنا. إنه سحر أسود و حرام و تحد لله. أوبس! أريته سر الخدعة آملة أن يعفو عني! ثم صنعت زرافة من البالونات لأطفاله الذين نقلهم إلى بر الأمان في بغداد.

"لقد قتل أخي و ابن أخي و ابن أختي ، أما أخي الآخر فمسجون في أبوغريب ، و أنا آخر من تبقى. هل تتخيلين ذلك؟ و صباح اليوم قتل أفضل أصدقائي . كان مصاباً بجرح في ساقه فجاء الأمريكيون و قطعوا نحره."

لقد كان هذا من جاء إلى المستشفى هذا الصباح! ياللعنة! هل هناك سبب يجعلهم لا يقتلوننا؟

لكن اليوم يمضي و نستمر في التنفس و النوم و التحدث. أحضروا طعاماً لنا و اعتذروا لأنهم لم يحضروا المزيد منه ، و وعدونا مرة أخرى بأنهم لن يؤوذونا. حل الظلام و من خلف شباك مغطى جزئياً بأجولة الرمل أشعلوا مصباح كيروسين. أخذت حرارة الغرفة في الارتفاع و لذلك شعرنا بالارتياح عندما ساقونا إلى العربة لننتقل مرة أخرى ، على الرغم من أن التغيير قد يبدو خطيراً في مثل هذه الأحوال.

كان المنزل الجديد ضخماً و مزوداً بالكهرباء. قادوا النسوة الأربع إلى غرفة أما ديفيد فكان عليه أن يبقى في الغرفة الرئيسية مع الرجال. كان هذا أكثر شيئ أثار خوفه طوال الأمر كله : أن ينفصل عنا. خلعنا الأحجبة التي ظللنا نرتديها طوال اليوم. طرق أحد الرجال الباب ثم قال – و هو ينظر إلى الأرض- أنهم تأكدوا من كل شيئ و أننا – إن شاء الله – سنعود إلى بغداد في الصباح ، و أنهم لا يمكن أن يتركونا نرحل الآن لأننا سنتعرض للاختطاف بواسطة مجموعة أخرى.

أطعمونا و أحضروا لنا شاياً و بطاطين ، و قمنا باختلاق حجج و أعذار مختلفة لنطل على الغرفة الرئيسية لنطمئن على ديفيد ، محضرين له نصف برتقالة أو قطعة شيكولاتة، حتى يعرف أننا لا نزال نفكر فيه. كان ديفيد في حال أضعف منا لأننا يمكن أن نتحدث و نغني و نضحك معاً. كل المؤشرات كانت تدل على أنهم لن يقوموا بإيذاء النساء أما ديفيد فلم يكن متأكداً من عدم تعرضه لذلك.

طوال اليل كانت هناك ضجة لما بدا كشبكة صرف صحي ضخمة في مكان ما قرب البيت : سلسلة متعاقبة ذات إيقاع قابت من الإنفجارات التي تبدو كصوت صرير هائل ، كان هذا صوت القنابل العنقودية. أمسكت أنا و بيلي بيدي بعضنا البعض طوال الليل لأنه يمكننا القيام بذلك. في الصباح كنت لا أزال أشعر بالشك ، فقد قالوا لنا أنهم سيطلقون سراحنا بعد صلاة الفجر و كانت الشمس قد أشرقت منذ وقت طويل. ربما قالوا لنا هذا فقط ليبقونا هادئين و صامتين.

و لكنهم أطلقوا سراحنا فعلاً ، فقد أخذونا إلى أحد الأئمة المحليين الذي قال أنه سيعيدنا إلى بيوتنا. على أطراف الفلوجة كان هناك طابور طويل من العربات و بعضها قد استدار بالفعل عائداً من نقطة التفتيش. قال الركاب أن الجنود الأمريكيين أطلقوا عليهم النار عندما اقتربوا. غادرنا العربة و خلعنا الأحجبة و بدانا الحكاية ذاتها من البداية مرة أخرى : مكبر صوت و أيد مرفوعة و المشي خلال متاهة الأسمنت و الأسلاك و الصياح بأننا فريق دولي من متطوعي الإسعاف يحاول مغادرة الفلوجة و أننا غير مسلحين و من فضلكم لا تطلقوا علينا النار.

في النهاية استطعنا أن نرى الجنود و في التهاية أنزلوا أسلحتهم و أخبرونا أن ننزل أيدينا المرفوعة و أنهم لن يطلقوا النار علينا. قال أحد الجنود : " يالسوئي"- و أعتقد أن هذا ما يقال باللهجة الأمريكية للتعبير عن إدراك المرء لخطئه- " لن نطلق المزيد من الرصاصات التحذيرية". اخبرناهم أننا نستقل عربتين و سألناهم عن بقية العربات ، فوافقوا على السماح بعبور الأطفال و النساء و الرجال المسنين. كانت المشكلة هي أن معظم النساء لا يجدن القيادة و لذا لا يمكنهن المغادرة إذا لم يقد ازواجهن العربات. أقنعناهم بالسماح لذكر واحد بالمغادرة في كل سيارة طالما كان هناك عائلة معه ، ختى و إن كان في "سن القتال".

كانوا خائفين في الفلوجة من أنه إذا غادر معظم الأطفال و النساء فسيتم تدمير المدينة كلياً و يقتل جميع من فيها بواسطة قصف جوي مكثف أو سلاح حراري أو شيئ من هذا القبيل. حاولت أحرار أن توضح لهم أن الرجال الذين يحاولون المغادرة هم الرجال الذين لا يودون أن يقاتلوا.

قال جندي المارينز:" أوه ، نحن نود أن نبقيهم هنا . هناك مقاتلون يدخلون الفلوجة من كل أنحاء العراق و نود أن نبقيهم جميعاً في الداخل حتى نقتلهم كلهم بصورة أسهل".

لكن هؤلاء هم السكان المحليون الذين يريدون أن يغادروا و لا يودون أن يشتركوا في القتال. لا يهمهم الأمر، و هكذا حصلنا على أاكثر ما نستطبع منهم و أخبرنا حشود اللاجئين القلقة بنتائج المفاوضات و غادرنا تاركين إماماً محلياً آخر ليلعب دور الوسيط. كان الطريق الذي قطعته قافلتنا الصغيرة هادئاً حتى رأينا حاجزاً آخر. تحدث الإمام مع بعض الأهالي ثم أخبر أحرار أنه حاجز أمريكي. خلعنا الأحجبة من جديد و غادرنا العربة من أجل جولة أخرى.

في الصمت المشبع بالحرارة المرهقة كان هناك بعض أصوات لإطلاق نار ، و لكن لم نسمع أي رد على صيحاتنا. رأينا الغبار يتصاعد من بيت بعيد فتساءلنا عما إذا كنا نخطو داخلين أرضاً تشهد معركة. التكتيك الوحيد الذي يسمح لك بأن تتجه إلى خطوط المارينز هو أن تصيح بالانجليزية و أن تحاول أن تبدو أجنبياً قدر استطاعتك، و لكن هذا التكتيك قد يكون خطراً إذا لم تكن الخطوط واضحة. نستمر في الصياح سائلينهم أن يلوحوا لنا إذا كانوا قد سمعونا ، و لكن دون أي رد.

قال ديفيد:"لحظة ، هل هؤلاء مارينز أم مجاهدون؟"
ياللعنة! قل لنا من فضلك أننا لا نتجه إلى خطوط المجاهدين! ترددنا ، فربما كان من الأفضل أن نعود إلى العربة لنحضر الإمام بدلاً منا.
"لا ! أعتقد أن الأمور على ما يرام ، أعتقد أنهم مارينز."
" قرر أيهما و أخبرنا!" و كأنه كان يمتلك معلومات أكثر منا!

بدأ الرجال في الإشارة لنا ، ملوحين بأيديهم ، و مشيرين إلى يسارهم – يميننا- بأن نذهب إلى الجسر. كانت تلك الإشارة التي انتظرناها - و لكن هذا لا يعني أنهم ليسوا مجموعة أخرى من الخاطفين - و أخيراً صاح أحدهم . كانوا من "البيريهات الخضر"(القوات الخاصة الأمريكية) و كان هذا هو السبب في أنهم لم يبدوا كالمارينز الذين اعتدنا عليهم. عدت أنا وبيلي تجاه العربات لنشير لهم أن يأتوا. لم نكن نريد أن نمشي المسافة الطويلة التي تفصلنا عنهم مرة أخرى ، و لكن مرة تلو مرة تلو مرة لم تتحرك العربات ، على الرغم من تلويحنا لهم و صراخي في مكبر الصوت أن يأتوا. أخيراً تحركوا فأسرعنا بالعودة لنحتمي بالشجيرات المحيطة بالجسر.

سألنا أحد الجنود :" هل أنم مجانين؟؟"، علي بأن أعترف بأنني شعرت ساعتها بأنني اقرب ما كنت للجنون منذ قيامي بتلك الرحلة إلىالمجهول فيما قذائف الهاون تنطلق من قواعدها . أخبرني الجندي ألا أقلق لأنها قذائف مطلقة. بالطبع أشعرتني فكرة أنها مطلقة و ليست مستقبلة بنوع من الارتياح و لكن بدا لي أن تلك القذائف تمثل دعوة من نوع ما ، و كأنها تحمل عبارة ( برجاء سرعة الرد).

بعد أن تركناهم غادرتنا السيارة الثانية في القافلة ، فاحتضن ديفيد السائق بقوة كأن السائق قد أعاده إلى الحياة بعد مماته ، ثم ركب في عربتنا. لازال علينا عبور أبو غريب و الشعلة و أشياء أخرى لا يعلمها سوى الله قبل أن نصل إلى منازلنا. طلبت أحرار منا التوقف لتهاتف عائلتها من كابينة في الشارع في منتصف حي الشعلة . أطالت في مكالمتها جداً و ظهر الفزع على الإمام ، فعربته الممتلئة بالأجانب تقف منتظرة فقط أن ينتبه إليهم أحد. كنا مرهقين و بدأنا في فقدان أعصابنا فجررناها إلى العربة و هربنا.

لم نشعر بأننا قد نجونا و عدنا إلى منزلنا إلا عندما خطت أقدامنا أرض شقتنا. كنا نصيح و نتحدث و نروي لبعضنا ما حدث و نضحك على تلك اللحظات السريالية و نحتضن بعضنا البعض و نخرج جوازات سفرنا من حيث خبأناها في ملابسنا الداخلية.

قالت بيلي:"إننا نضحك الآن ، و لكن كانت هناك لحظات......"

قالوا في الأخبار أنه قد تم الإفراج عن نايوكو و الرهينتين اليابانتين الآخرتين ، و أن واتانابي المصور الصحفي الذي ذهب معنا إلى السماوة عندما قدمنا عرض السيرك هناك قد اختفى هو و زميل له.

لقد أخذونا لأننا كنا أجانب نتصرف بصورة مشبوهة في وسط حربهم. عندما عرفوا ما نقوم به تركونا نرحل. في طريق خروجنا نجحنا في فتح نقاط التفتيش أمام الناس مما مكنهم من الخروج من الفلوجة إلى بر الأمان. إذا كان هذا هو كل ما قمنا به فأعتقد أن الأمر يستحق. لكن و في لحظة هادئة تالية همست شاكرة الملائكة الشقية التي تحرس المهرجين و متطوعي الإسعاف.



اللاجئون
21 ابريل 2004


قالت لي هبة:" هذا هو شهر عسلي" . كنا في أحد الأروقة المزدحمة في ملجأ الغارات رقم 24 في حي العامرية في بغداد. تزوجت هبة منذ أقل من شهر ثم اضطرت أن تترك الفلوجة مع عائلتها الممتدة ." كان هناك قنابل طوال الوقت، و لم نستطع أن ننام ، و حتى إن تمكنا من النوم فإن الكوابيس كانت توقظنا ، فلم نستطع إلا أن نجمع العائلة كلها في غرفة واحدة و ننتظر."

"الأوضاع هنا أفضل من الفلوجة. صحيح أننا نسمع القنابل و لكنها بعيدة عنا و ليست كثيرة العدد كالفلوجة. لكن لا يوجد مياه ، لذلك نضطر إلى الخروج و شراء الثلج ونستخدمه في الشرب و في الطبخ و في تنظيف أنفسنا و في غسل ملابسنا . ليس هناك ثلاجات و لا مراوح و لا أجهزة تكييف و لا مولدات كهرباء و لا يوجد سوى موقد واحد لنا جميعاً. يجب علينا أن نخرج إلى الحديقة لقضاء حاجتنا و هذا يشكل مشكلة أثناء الليل ، و كلنا نعاني من الإسهال بسبب الثلج الذي قمنا بشرائه."

"أنا الآن عروس و لكنني لم أجلب أياً من ثيابي" و كأنها كانت ستتمتع بأي نوع من الخصوصية اللازمة لإرتدائها بوجود ثمان و ثمانين فرداً من ثمانية عشرة عائلة مكدسين فوق المراتب الممتدة عبر الممر الضيق من الباب و حتى المطبخ . من المطبخ كان يتم تقديم الشاي و بسكويت بالسمسم كجزء من مراسم الحداد على عم هبة.

مات العم منذ سبعة أيام مضت في اليوم الذي وصلوا فيه بغداد. قال ربيع –والد هبة- أن شقيقه مات من الحزن. لم يستطيعوا استعادة جثمانه من المستشفى لأن كل مستنداتهم الثبوتية كانت لا تزال في الفلوجة. قابل ربيع عدداً من أصدقائه الأطباء الذين ساعدوه على استعادة الجثمان بعد يوم آخر.

أرسل ربيع بالأمس اثنين من أولاده إلى الفلوجة مع عائلاتهم ، فاتصلوا به في السابعة مساء ليخبروه ألا يحاول العودة ، و أن الأوضاع أسوء مما كانت عليه ، و أنهم يحاولون الخروج من الفلوجة لكن الطرق كلها مغلقة. حاول ابن أخ ربيع أن يعود اليوم إلى الفلوجة و لكنه لم يستطع لأن الطرق كلها مغلقة." كل من الفلوجة الآن مسجون."

تماثل قصتهم قصص ألوف غيرهم. يعتقد فارس محمد – السكرتير العام للهلال الأحمر العراقي – أن 65% من 300.000 نسمة يمثلون سكان الفلوجة قد غادروا منازلهم بعد المعارك الأخيرة. يقيم معظم المئتا ألف من المشردين مع أسرهم الممتدة في بغداد أو مدن أخرى ، أو قام غرباء يملكون بيوتاً واسعة بمنحهم مأوى ، بينما توجد حوالي مئتا أسرة بلا مأوى.

قال لي ربيع :" غادرنا بسبب القنابل فقد كان الأطفال خائفين و يبكون طوال الليل. غادرنا في التاسع من ابريل. يمتلك العديد من أقربائنا عربات و لكن كانت هناك مشكلة في الحصول على وقود. جمعنا العائلات الثمانية عشر معاً و انتظرنا عند نقطة التفتيش. جعلنا الأمريكيون ننتظر في الشمس لساعات حتى يرهقونا، و كان الأطفال يبكون من الجوع ، و بعدها جعلنا الأمريكيون نسلك طريقاً جانبياً أطول."

" وصلنا بغداد في أوقات مختلفة، فقد نام البعض داخل عرباتهم و غادروا في الصباح التالي. كانوا يسمحون بخروج شاب واحد فقط مع كل عربة و إذا كان هناك رجل كبير في العربة لا يسمحون بخروج أي شاب معها. لم تستطع بعض العائلات هنا أن تخرج أفرادها الشبان معها فاضطر هؤلاء إلى المجيئ عبر النهر. لا يوجد وقود و لا مياه و لا مولدات كهرباء و لا مستشفيات هناك و لذلك لم تستطع العائلات البقاء."

يستيقظ مصطفى - أصغر أبناء ربيع الذي يبلغ من العمر أحد عشر عاماً - كل ليلة من نومه باكياً ليقول بأن هناك قنبلة ستنفجر. قالت ملوك – زوجة ربيع – أن الأمر لا يقتصر على ابنها و أن كل الأطفال يعانون من الكوابيس ، فابن نسيبها يمشي و هو نائم مطالباً بالعودة إلى منزله ، و اثنتان من بناتها – زينب و مها - قررتا أن تتركا المدرسة ، كما أن مها بدأت تعاني من مشكلة في ضغط الدم فضلاً عن اصابتها بعدوى معوية نتيجة المياه الملوثة.

قام ممرض من الفلوجة يدعى هديل بزيارتهم و أعطاهم قائمة بأسماء الأدوية التي يحتاجونها و عدداً من الحقن لامرأة حامل و بعض الأدوية لعلاج قرحة المعدة. قال هديل أنه يدير صيدلية و لكنه قد تبرع بالفعل بكل الأدوية التي يملكها. طلب ربيع من الهلال الأحمر المساعدة و لكنهم لم يقدموا له الكثير، فقام ببناء دورة مياه من ماله الخاص الذي لم يتبق منه الكثير بعدها.

تعمل صبرية –شقيقة ملوك- معلمة للمعاقين في حي الشعلة ببغداد. لم تتزوج صبرية حتى الآن بسبب كل تلك الحروب: "التهمت الحروب شبابنا . عندما كنت في الجامعة أجرينا إحصاء فوجدنا أن أعداد البنين و البنات متساوية. أما الآن فربما كانت النساء أكثر عشر مرات من الرجال."

"لا أستطيع أن أشرح لك. أنا فاقدة للأمل. لا أعرف ما الذي يخبئه المستقبل. ظننت أن الأمور ستتغير و أن الأوضاع ستستقر و أن هذه الحرب ستكون آخر حروب العراق. لقد قالوا أنهم جاؤوا ليمنحونا السلام و حقوق الإنسان و اكتشفنا الآن أن هذا غير صحيح. إنهم لا يفهمون العراق و لذلك يرتبكون أخطاء تؤدي إلى إشتعال الصراعات. لقد قالوا أنهم سيعيدون البناء و لكنهم يقومون بالهدم. سيكون كافياً لنا أن يعطونا كهرباء و مياهاً نظيفة."

لا تنفك تسمع القصة ذاتها أينما ذهبت. النساء يشعرن بالاكتئاب ، و الأطفال متكدرون ، و الناس يحاولون العودة إلى الفلوجة فيجدون الطرق مغلقة ، و من لا يزال في الفلوجة يحاول الخروج منها فيواجه بنفس المشكلة.

كان هناك رجلان و امرأتان و ثمانية أطفال يجلسون في احدى الخيام البيضاء في المعسكر الذي أعده الهلال الأحمر العراقي للنازحين من الفلوجة. قامت أربعون عائلة بتسجيل أسمائها و لكن هاتين الأسرتين فقط هما من يقيمان في المعسكر لعدم توفر دورات مياه. قال قاسم لفتة – مدير المعسكر- أن اليونيسيف وعد بتوفير دورات المياه و لكنهم حتى الآن لم يقدموها ، أما في الوقت الراهن فقد حصلوا على تصريح بأن يستعملوا دورات المياه الموجودة في المدرسة المجاوة لملعب كرة القدم المقام عليه المعسكر.

غادر خمسة و ثمانون فرداً من أسرة سكان المعسكر الممتدة عقب مصرع عدد من جيرانهم نتيجة القصف الجوي. قال لي عادل :" مات اثنين من أقربائي و دفنتهما بيدي هاتين. لم يكن هناك طريقة للوصول إلى المستشفى ، و لذلك حتى و إن لم يقتلوا فإن المصابين كانوا يعالجون في المنزل من دون أي أدوية و لذلك كانوا يموتون. حتى إن حاولت عربات الإسعاف أن تأتي ، يطلق الأمريكيون النار عليها. شاهدت الأمريكيين يطلقون النار على رجل و بقي ملقى على الأرض من الصباح و حتى المساء دون أن يتمكن أحد من مساعدته.أطلق الأمريكيون النار على عربة الإسعاف. لقد رأيتهم. كانوا فوق أسطح المباني".

" حدث هذا مرات عديدة ، ففي أي مرة نرى فيها عربة إسعاف يقوم الأمريكيون باطلاق النار عليها ، بل إنهم قد تحصنوا فوق مئذنة. كما قتلوا عائلة من النساء و الأطفال كانت ذاهبة إلى السوق. و قتلت عائلة من 25 شخصاً بعد أن قصف الأمريكيون منزلهم. شاهدنا طائرة مقاتلة تطلق صواريخها على منزلهم."

يقع منزل عائلة عادل في حي الشهيد و الذي تعرض لقصف مكثف. تقع المستشفى الحكومي في نفس الحي و لم تتعرض للتدمير – كما أشارت بعض التقارير- بل أغلقتها القوات الأمريكية. كانت هناك انفجارات عنيفة عندما غادر عادل و عائلته و لم يكن من الممكن توزيع المساعدات على المدينة بسببها ، و حتى لحظة مغادرتهم كان باستطاعتهم مشاهدة الصواريخ تنطلق.

كان الأطفال يجلسون دون كثير من النشاط . ظلت سارة التي تبلغ من العمر ثلاثة عشر عاماً تمنحني ابتسامات خجولة ، و عندما غادر الكبار اقتربت و جلست بجواري و سألتني :" لماذا دمر الأمريكيون منازلنا ؟ ليست هذه بلدهم. لماذا غزوا مدينتنا؟ لقد جعلونا مشردين ننتقل من منزل إلى آخر لنطلب المساعدة. استمرت الانفجارات طوال الوقت و أرسل الناس عربات من بغداد لتجلب من يريد المغادرة." قالت أن أخاها هديل يبلغ من العمر أربعة أعوام فقط و تعلم أن يكره الأمريكيين بعد أن كان يلعب بلعبة على شكل بندقية في الشارع فاقتحمت القوات منزلهم لتفتشه. كانت سارة في غاية الغضب.

استغرق الأمر بعض الوقت لأنتزع ابتسامة من الصغار. عندما غادر الكبار ليروا المساعدات التي يتم توزيعها ، أخذت في لعب دور المهرجة للأطفال بنفخ الفقاقيع و صنع حيوانات من البالونات لهم. جلس حمودي و هديل متسعا العينين لفترة من الوقت و هما يواصلان الاقتراب مني و معهما الطفل الأصغر منهما مصطفى الذي كان يرتدي ملابس خضراء. كان حمودي أول من أطلق ضحكة عندما تطاير رذاذ الصابون ليصيب وجهه. ابتسم الكبار أيضاً عند عودتهم و رؤيتهم صغارهم يرقصون في وسط سحابة من الفقاقيع الملونة.

قالت لي إيمان – والدة سارة- :" إذا فتحوا الطرق فسنعود، فالحياة هنا بائسة. الهلال الأحمر كان لطيفاً معنا و لكن لا يوجد عمل و لا حتى للرجال."

قام الهلال الأحمر بامداد الفلوجة بالطعام و الدواء منذ 9 ابريل ثم قرروا إقامة معسكر للسكان النازحين من الفلوجة. قال لي فارس محمد :" اخترنا موقعاً في ضاحية النمية التي تبعد سبعة كيلومترات إلى جنوب الفلوجة ، و لكن عندما وصلنا هناك للبدء في اعداد المكان كانت المنطقة قد أصبحت ساحة معركة بالفعل. تراجعنا عشرة كبلومترات أخرى إلى موقع يبعد سبعة عشر كيلومتر جنوب الفلوجة و لكن المعارك وصلت إلى هناك أيضاً ، و وجدنا بعض خيامنا قد احترقت. حاولنا بعدها أن نختار مواقع قريبة من الطريق و لكن المشكلة أن المتمردين كانوا في بعض الأحيان يهاجمون القوات أثناء عبورها الطرق فتقوم تلك القوات بالرد. لذلك قررنا في النهاية أن ننشأ المعسكر في بغداد بعيداً عن الفلوجة."

لكنه كان متأكداً من زيف التقارير التي تزعم بأن عربات الإسعاف التابعة للهلال الأحمر تم استخدامها لنقل الأسلحة. قال أن أياً من عرباتهم لم تفقد و أنهم لم يستخدموها في نقل الأسلحة. خلال المعارك كانوا الجهة الوحيدة التي يسمح لها بدخول الفلوجة أو الخروج منها ، و لم يواجهوا أي مشاكل مع أي من الجانبين حتى كان يوم الأربعاء عندما وصلتهم مساعدات من دبي فرفض الأمريكيون السماح لها بدخول الفلوجة قائلين بأن على كل عربة أن تحصل على تصريح مسبق قبل 24 ساعة من دخولها.

عندما عدت إلى المنزل قال لي رائد بأن الحمرة عادت إلى خدي للمرة الأولى منذ رحلتنا إلى الفلوجة:" أعتقد أنك كنت تلعبين مع الأطفال".
كان هذا صحيحاً فقد كان لهذا اللعب تأثير حقيقي علي. كان العنف يغمر كل شيئ: فعندما غادرت في الصباح كان كارلو يلعب مع الأطفال في شارعنا "خاطفون و رهائن" ، و كان أحمد يضع احدى يديه فوق عيني كارلو بينما يقوم بحركات ذبح بيده الأخرى على حنجرة كارلو.

و الأخبار تقول أن القتال اشتعل من جديد في الفلوجة.

April 26th
Refugees (2)

Rabiia lowered his voice and informed us that two of the women are crazy. They talk all the time and their rooms are untidy. They are the mothers of widow-headed households, more refugees from Falluja. White haired under her abaya, toothless, her face lined with the contour map of her life, Fawzia’s eyes lit up at having new people to talk to. She chattered happily in Arabic to Anna who didn’t understand.

Her daughter-in-law Ikhlas is a Kurdish woman with a tiny daughter, Jwana. The strain cracked her voice as she explained that her sister Sena’s husband died two years ago and now her husband is responsible for all of them, without work and crammed into a room in a house which a local man opened up to families fleeing Falluja, near to the bomb shelter where the rest of the family are staying. There’s no kitchen there for eight kids, six women and a man. Sena too started to cry. Four of her children were with her; the fifth staying in Falluja with an uncle.

Beyda, at 18 the youngest sister, fled Falluja with them and another stayed in Falluja where her husband, only 33 years old, died a couple of days ago from a heart problem. Rabiia told us about him on the last visit: he had to be taken by boat across the Euphrates to the hospital because the roads were closed. He spent a day there and then died. His mother is sick and can’t look after herself and his father is too ill to take care of her.

Sena’s daughter Sheyma sat still white with shock, unspeaking, unsmiling, fourteen years old and utterly despairing. She’s left school. There doesn’t seem any point in it. There doesn’t seem any energy to find hope to invest in the future.

The little ones still smiled and laughed at the bubbles and balloons but when I gave them drawing things, unprompted, they started drawing aeroplanes dropping missiles on houses, some kind of structure with an Iraqi flag firing back at the aeroplane. Iraq is chaotic and dangerous and I’m glad the others left before it all got worse but I wished then that my clowns were here to turn tanks and bombs into magicians and jokers again.

Because they fled with so little, they need almost everything now. Heba and Israa sneaked me away to tell me they needed underwear and sanitary towels. Living from hand to mouth, with no work because all their jobs are in Falluja, there isn’t even enough for obvious basics. Rabiia said he’s running out of money to feed the extended family.

Ali, Heba’s new husband, was in the army for two and a half years, until the war. Waiting in the trenches, there were explosions everywhere. He’d no desire to fight anyway and when two bombs fell nearby and didn’t explode, he got in the pick up and left, took off his uniform and came to Heba’s family’s house. He was lying down when we arrived, in pain with his upper back after being hit by a car, a while ago.

Israa is 23 and a philosophy student in Baghdad university, planning to be a teacher when she’s finished. She normally stays with other family members in Baghdad during the week and the universities have reopened now after the more widespread fighting, so she’s still able to go to university, but most of the Falluja students have stopped going in protest. When she arrived she was told about the boycott and decided to join it, but like Zainab and Maha, like Shayma, a big part of the reason is not protest but exhaustion, depression, homesickness, warsickness, hopelessness.

When gossiping about our lives became too much like a counselling session, we opted for a lighter note, for something utterly insignificant, giggling about Enders’ hair, which was sticking out not unlike a clown’s ought to, except that he’s a journalist, trying to conduct a serious interview with their dad. They wanted to know who cut it. No one, apparently, for quite a while, so I said I’d do it.

There are now 24 families of Rabiia’s extended family staying in Baghdad, three of them headed by widows, totalling 121 people. One son, Ahmed Firas Ibrahim, is still trapped inside the town after he went back. Rabiia said he’s advised all the other families not to try to go back yet. The Al-Jolan district was attacked, he said: the locals were not fighting that day, when the Americans came and started raiding houses. The women were screaming and the Mujahedin came out to try and defend them.

“We had to leave our houses unguarded,” Rabiia said. “We have heard that the Americans are going into empty houses but not taking anything. We have heard that there are some people starting to steal stuff from the houses but the imams are forbidding it and punishing people who do it.”

Rabiia is no Saddam fan: “Saddam is a criminal. I used to be in prison for many years. They put me in a room where I could not see the sun. It started in 1971 and I stayed in Syria for 4 years in exile because my party, the Arab Nationalist Party, was banned. Then he excused us and we came back to Iraq but I was arrested in the mosque and jailed for 15 years for being in the party. They put electricity in my ears. I told them I no longer had contact with the party.

“There are a lot of Baathists in Falluja and a lot of Baathists everywhere in Iraq, but the people fighting in Falluja are just defending their homes and families. I was hoping for something positive from this occupation, but I used to have work, at least, and now there is none. We could throw them out with violence but the violence wouldn’t stop there, once it started. I still believe in my party and I am angry at Bremer.”

He was in the Iraqi Civil Defence Corps, the ICDC, which used Shelter no 24 as a station, so he knew the building would be unlocked and he could bring the family there. He was told to go to the local assembly to register in order to get help but refuses to do it because he’s convinced that there’s a plot between the local assembly and someone from the Red Crescent to get aid and keep it for themselves.

Of another agency he says they make people stand in a line and give supplies every four days. It’s embarrassing, he says, and he won’t do it. As much as I know there is still a lot of mistrust, as much as I know that it is sometimes warranted and that there are dishonest people in power here, as much as I can empathise with his pride being wounded at having to stand in line for handouts, I also know it’s the only way the family can get any meaningful supply of aid but no matter how many times I told him it was the only way, he still repeated, “I cannot.”

The phone has been their main source of news from Falluja, getting through when they can to family and friends who are still inside, but the landline to the shelter has been cut off and now they rely on people getting out. Each day we ask them, ask the Red Crescent, ask the people in the camp; each day they say there’s been fighting, there’s been bombing, there’s no way in through the farms or there’s one way in through the farms. When the terms of the cease-fire permitted a certain number of families per day to return, people hesitated, unsure the cease-fire would hold, reluctant to drive back into the aerial bombardment.

There are 67 families now at the Iraqi Red Crescent camp, seven of them new arrivals today. The toilets are finally being built and should be finished by midday tomorrow; meanwhile the women are using the facilities in the school on one side of the camp and the men are using those in the mosque on the other.

Qusay Ali Yasseen, spokesman for the IRC, said there are a lot of kids, especially, suffering from diarrhoea, either from unclean water they had to drink on the journey or from unhygienic conditions since they arrived in Baghdad, their immune systems suppressed by trauma and shock. Chest infections are also rife among the kids because of the heat. Some of them walked for a day or two to safety.

In the middle of each day, local people arrive and unload trays, boxes and pans of food. They have taken on the responsibility of feeding the increasing numbers of homeless, Qusay said. Through the day, other locals arrived in cars to offer help. A three truck convoy flying Unicef banners unloaded boxes of parts for a water tank, a 70 foot tent for a children’s area and several crates of crayons and paper and other kids’ stuff.

For today though, and until the tent is up, there was nothing for the kids and Boomchucka lived again, yelled through the camp by small people with too much energy and nervous energy to contain. We played parachute games, blew clouds of bubbles and did a good bout of therapeutic shouting on the dusty gap between tents. The kids – proof of how little they’ve got – begged us to come back tomorrow. The trauma is still fresh with them: you can see it when the planes and helicopters scream overhead. You can see it in the desperation of their need for diversion.

Before we left they started chanting, “Zain, zain, Falluja,” [good, good, Falluja]. Kids remember things like this: who made them homeless, who killed their relatives, regardless of any later argument that it wasn’t as simple as that or it was all their parents’ fault. The news, again, says more fighting in Falluja. Some journalists rang to ask us about the new plan that the US has come up with, as if those of us here know anything about it except that they’re making war on another whole generation.

So they told us. They told us if the local fighters don’t hand over their weapons by Tuesday there’s going to be a renewed attack by the US and already the marines have moved into the Spanish base in Najaf ready to invade the city. They say they won’t enter any of the holy sites but Sadr’s a cleric so the chances are that’s where he’d be and Najaf is a minefield of holy sites, including an immense graveyard that’s a guerrilla fighter’s dream and there’s immense potential for antagonising the entire Shia population. I wonder if there's going to come a time when Iraq runs out of 'why's.

April 21st
Refugees

“This is my honeymoon,” Heba said, in the crowded corridor of bomb shelter number 24 in the Al-Ameriya district of Baghdad. Married just under a month, she fled Falluja with her extended family. “There were bombs all the time. We couldn’t sleep. Even if you fell asleep, nightmares woke you up. We just gathered the whole family in one room and waited.

“It is better here than in Falluja. We hear bombs but they are far away and not so many. But there is no water in here: we have to go outside for water for drinking, cooking and washing ourselves and our clothes and we buy ice. There is no fridge, no fans, no air conditioning, no generator and only one stove for us all. We have to go to the garden for a toilet and that’s a problem at night. Everyone has diarrhoea from the ice that we bought.

“Now I am a bride but I couldn’t bring any of my clothes.” As if there would be any privacy anyway, the 88 members of 18 families piled on mattresses in the long narrow passage from the door to the kitchen at the end, from where a stream of tea and sweet sesame biscuits is flowing, part of the commemoration of Heba’s uncle.

He died 7 days ago, the day after they arrived in Baghdad. Heba’s dad Rabiia said his brother died of sadness. Because all the family’s identity documents were in Falluja, they were unable to get the body from the hospital. Rabiia met some friends, doctors who worked in the hospital, and they were able to help him get the body back after a day.

He sent two of his sons back to Falluja with their families yesterday and they phoned him at seven in the evening to tell him not to try to come back. Things are worse than before. They are trying to get back out of Falluja but all the roads are closed. His nephew tried to get back into Falluja today with his family but likewise found all the roads closed. “Now everyone in Falluja is in prison.”

Their story is the same as thousands of others. Faris Mohammed, secretary general of the Iraqi Red Crescent, believes that about 65% of the 300,000 population of Falluja have left their homes in the recent fighting. Of these 200,000 displaced people, most are staying with extended family in Baghdad or elsewhere or have been given shelter by strangers with space to spare. About 200 families are homeless.

“We left because of the bombs.,” Rabiia explained. “The kids were frightened, crying all night. We left on April 9th. Lots of our relatives had cars but there were problems getting fuel. We got all eighteen families together and then waited at the checkpoint. The Americans made us wait hours in the sun to exhaust us. The children were crying with hunger. Then the Americans changed the route we had to take and made us travel by a long side road.

We all arrived at different times – some slept in the cars at the checkpoint and arrived in Baghdad the next morning. They would only let through one young man as the driver with each car and only if there was no old man. Some of the families here couldn’t get their young men through so they had to come by the river. There was no fuel, no water, no generators, no hospitals there, so families couldn’t live.”

His youngest son Mustafa is eleven and wakes up crying every night, saying there’s going to be a bomb. Miluuk says it’s not just their son: all the kids are having nightmares. Her brother-in-law’s child as started sleep walking, asking to go back to his house. Two of Miluuk’s daughters, Zainab and Maha, have decided to quit school. Maha has developed a blood pressure problem and a stomach microbe that was caused by the bad water.

A nurse called Hadil from Falluja visited them and gave them a list of medicines they need, a couple of injections for one of the women who’s pregnant, some medication for stomach ulcers. He runs a pharmacy but has already donated all the medicines he had. Rabiia asked the Red Crescent for help but as yet they’ve had nothing. He built a toilet with his own money but there’s not much left.

Miluuk’s sister Sabriya teaches disabled people in the Shuala area. She never got married because of all the wars. “Wars eat your youth. When I was in college we made a census, boys and girls. There were about half girls and half boys but now there are maybe ten times as many girls.

“I can’t explain to you. I feel hopeless. I don’t know what the future will bring. I thought life would change, things would settle down, this war would be the last for Iraq. They said they came to give peace and human rights but now we’re figuring out that that’s not true. They don’t understand Iraq so they make problems that lead to conflict. They said they would rebuild but they’re destroying. Clean water and electricity would be enough.”

The story is the same wherever you go. The women feel depressed, the children are distressed, people are trying to get back into Falluja and finding the roads closed; those still inside Falluja are trying to get out and finding the same obstacle.

Two men, two women and eight kids sat in one of the white tents of the new Iraqi Red Crescent camp set up for families fleeing Falluja. Forty families have registered but these two are the only residents so far because there’s no sanitation. Unicef promised to provide it, according to Qasim Lefteh, the manager of the camp, but have so far failed to show up and sort it out. Meanwhile they’ve got permission to use the toilets in the school next door to the football fields they’re living on.

Fifty eight members of the extended family left after aerial bombing killed several of their neighbours. “Two of my relatives died and I buried them by my own hands,” Adil explained. “There is no way to the hospital so even if they are not killed, injured people are treated at home and there are no medicines so they die.

“Even if the ambulances tried to come, the Americans tried to shoot them. I saw the Americans shoot at a man and e stayed there from morning till night and no one could help him. the Americans shot at the ambulance. I could see them. They were on the tops of the buildings.

“Many times it happened. Whenever we saw ambulances the Americans shot at them. They even took over a minaret. They shot a family of women and children going to the market and killed them. A family of 25 people were killed when the Americans bombed their house. We saw a fighter plane firing rockets at their house.”

Their house was in the Shahid district which was heavily bombed. The government hospital is in the same district and was not destroyed, as some reports indicated, but closed down by the American troops. There was a lot of bombing when they left and the aid which had come into the town couldn’t be distributed. As they drove out they could see rockets being fired.

The kids were listless. Thirteen year old Sara kept giving me shy smiles and when the grown ups had gone, she came and sat with me, asked why. “Why did the Americans destroy our homes? This is not their country. Why did they invade our town? They made us homeless, to wander from house to house asking for help. Bombing went on all day and night and people sent cars from Bagdad to get the people who needed to leave.” Her brother Hadil is only four but has already learned to hate Americans after he was playing with a toy gun in the street and the troops raided and searched their home. Sara was full of fury.

It took a while to score a smile out of any of the little ones. When the others went off to look at some of the aid that had been given, I started clowning them, blowing bubbles and making balloon animals. Hadil and Hamoudie sat wide eyed for a couple of minutes, edging closer, and Mustafa, little and in green. Hamoudie popped one first, his face transforming as the soap splattered on his face. The adults faces relaxed into smiles too when they came back and saw the kids dancing in the middle of clouds of shiny bubbles.

“If they open the roads we will go back,” said Eman, Sara’s mum. “Life here is miserable. The Red Crescent are nice to us but there is no work, even for the men.”

The Red Crescent has been supplying food and medicine to Falluja since April 9th but decided to set up a camp for the hundreds of people fleeing. “We chose a site in Namiya district, about 7km south of Falluja but when we arrived to start setting up, the area was already a battle zone. We withdrew another 10km to a site 17km south of Falluja but then the battle spread to there too. When we returned we found some of the tents already burnt,” Faris Mohammed explained.

“We tried to choose sites that were near the road but the problem is that sometimes in these situations the insurgents shoot at troops as they pass and the troops shoot back at the insurgents, so we decided to set the camp up in Baghdad instead, away from the borders of Falluja.”

But he was adamant that the claims made about Red Crescent ambulances being used to move weapons and insurgents are false. None of our ambulances has gone missing and we have not been using them to move weapons. During the conflict we were the only Iraqi organisation with permission to go in and out of Falluja. There were no problems from either side until Wednesday, when we had supplies coming in from Dubai. We sent them straight to Falluja but the Americans sent them back saying each vehicle had to have specific permission 24 hours in advance.”

When I got home Raed said the colour had come back to my cheeks for the first time since the Falluja trips. “I think you have been playing with children,” he said. It’s true. It did make a difference. The violence starts to pervade everything: Karlu and the other kids on our street were playing Hostages as we left in the morning, Ahmed holding one hand over Karlu’s eyes and making sawing motions at his throat with the other hand.

And the news says there’s more fighting in Falluja.

April 17th
Falluja (2)

Sergeant Tratner of the First Armoured Division is irritated. “Git back or you’ll git killed,” are his opening words.

Lee says we’re press and he looks with disdain at the car. “In this piece of shit?”

Makes us less of a target for kidnappers, Lee tells him. Suddenly he decides he recognises Lee from the TV. Based in Germany, he watches the BBC. He sees Lee on TV all the time. “Cool. Hey, can I have your autograph?”

Lee makes a scribble, unsure who he’s meant to be but happy to have a ticket through the checkpoint which all the cars before us have been turned back from, and Sergeant Tratner carries on. “You guys be careful in Falluja. We’re killing loads of those folks.” Detecting a lack of admiration on our part, he adds, “Well, they’re killing us too. I like Falluja. I killed a bunch of them mother fuckers.”

I wish Sergeant Tratner were a caricature, a stereotype, but these are all direct quotations. We fiddle with our hijabs in the roasting heat. “You don’t have to wear those things any more,” he says. “You’re liberated now.” He laughs. I mention that more and more women are wearing hijabs nowadays because of increasing attacks on them.

A convoy of aid vehicles flying Red Crescent flags approaches the checkpoint, hesitates. “We don’t like to encourage them,” Sergeant Tratner explains, his tongue loosened by the excitement of finding someone to talk to. “Jeez it’s good to meet someone that speaks English. Well, apart from ‘Mister’ and ‘please’ and ‘why’.”

“Haven’t you got translators?” someone asks him.

Sergeant Tratner points his rifle in the direction of the lead vehicle in the convoy. “I got the best translator in the world,” he says.

One ambulance comes through with us, the rest turn back. There are loads of supplies when we get to Falluja – food, water, medicine - at the clinic and the mosque which have come in on the back roads. The relief effort for the people there has been enormous, but the hospital is in the US held part of town, cut off from the clinic by sniper fire. They can’t get any of the relief supplies in to the hospital nor the injured people out.

We load the ambulance with disinfectant, needles, bandages, food and water and set off, equipped this time with loudspeakers, pull up to a street corner and get out. The hospital is to the right, quite a way off; the marines are to the left. Four of us in blue paper smocks walk out, hands up, calling out that we’re a relief team, trying to deliver supplies to the hospital.

There’s no response and we walk slowly towards the hospital. We need the ambulance with us because there’s more stuff than we can carry, so we call out that we’re going to bring an ambulance with us, that we’ll walk and the ambulance will follow. The nose of the ambulance edges out into the street, shiny and new, brought in to replace the ones destroyed by sniper fire.

Shots rip down the street, two bangs and a zipping noise uncomfortably close. The ambulance springs back into the side road like it’s on a piece of elastic and we dart into the yard of the corner house, out through the side gate so we’re back beside the vehicle.

This time we walk away from the hospital towards the marines, just us and the loudspeaker, no ambulance, to try and talk to them properly. Slowly, slowly, we take steps, shouting that we’re unarmed, that we’re a relief team, that we’re trying to get supplies to the hospital.

Another two shots dissuade us. I’m furious. From behind the wall I inform them that their actions are in breach of the Geneva Conventions. “How would you feel if it was your sister in that hospital unable to get treated because some man with a gun wouldn’t let the medical supplies through.” David takes me away as I’m about to call down a plague of warts on their trigger fingers.

Because it’s the most urgent thing to do, we waste the rest of the precious daylight trying to find someone in authority that we can sort it out with. As darkness starts I’m still fuming and the hospital is still without disinfectant. We go into the house behind the clinic and the smell of death chokes me: the dried blood and the putrefying flesh evoking the memory of a few days earlier, sitting in the back of an ambulance with the rotting bodies and the flies.

The aerial bombardment starts with the night and we stand outside watching the explosions and the flames. No one can quite recall whether it’s a theoretical cease-fire or not. Someone brings the remains of a rocket, unravelled into metal and wires, a fuel canister inside it, and it sits like a space alien on display on a piece of cloth on the pavement near the clinic while everyone gives it stares and a wide berth.

Someone comes round to give us a report: the Mujahedin have shot down a helicopter and killed fifteen enemy soldiers. During the evening’s street fighting twelve American soldiers have been killed. Six hundred were killed in an attack on their base but he can’t tell us how, where or when. He says thousands of US soldiers’ bodies have been dumped in the desert near Rutba, further east. I don’t doubt that the US is under reporting its casualties whenever it thinks it can get away with it but I suspect some over reporting this time. Someone whispers that he’s the cousin of ‘Comical Ali’, the old Minister of Information. It’s not true but it ought to be.

The cacophony of planes and explosions goes on through the night. I wake from my doze certain that rockets are being fired from the garden outside our room. Rhythmic, deep, resonating, the barrage goes on and the fear spreads in my belly anticipating an explosion from the air to stop the rocketer. I can’t keep still and wait for it so I go outside and realise he’s at least a couple of streets away.

The noise quietens as if soothed by a song of prayer from the mosque. Someone says that it’s a plea to stop shooting. I don’t know if it’s true, but every time I hear different songs from the minaret I wonder what it means, whether it’s a call to prayer, a call to arms, something else, maybe just someone singing the town back to sleep.

In the morning the cease-fire negotiations begin again, centred, like everything else, in one of the local mosques. For eight days, people say, the US army has fought for control of a town of 350,000 people and now, with the fighters still armed in the street, they’re trying to negotiate the terms of a cease-fire.

A body arrives at the hospital, a wound to the leg and his throat sliced open. The men say he was lying injured in the street and the marines came and slit his throat. A pick up races up and a man is pulled out with most of his arm missing, a stump with bits sticking out, pouring blood. He bleeds to death.

Two French journalists have been admitted to the town, under the protection of the mosque, and for their benefit the body is swaddled head to foot in bandages, carried to a van with no back doors and driven away by two boys including Aodeh, one of the twin boys we met on the first trip. Earlier a little girl was brought out, a polka dotted black headscarf around her face, pink T shirt under a black sleeveless cardigan with jeans, sparkly bobbles on her gloves, holding a Kalashnikov.

She was clean, her clothes were fresh and she was very cute, eleven years old, and after the photo one of the men, her father I think, took her away as if her job was done. I hope and believe she was only being used as a poster child, that she wasn’t really involved in the fighting. She’s no younger than the lad from the other day who I know is involved in the fighting, but I wish he wasn’t either.

While we wait we chat with the sheikh in the mosque. He says the hospitals have recorded 1200 casualties, between 5-600 people dead in the first five days of fighting and eighty-six children killed in the first three days of fighting. There’s no knowing how many have been hurt or killed in areas held by the US. A heavily pregnant woman was killed by a missile, her unborn child saved, the sheikh says, but already orphaned.

“Falluja people like peace but after we were attacked by the US they lost all their friends here. We had a few trained officers and soldiers from the old army, but now everyone has joined the effort. Not all of the men are fighting: some left with their families, some work in the clinics or move supplies or go in the negotiating teams. We are willing to fight until the last minute, even if it takes a hundred years.”

He says the official figure is 25% of the town controlled by the marines: “This is made up of small parts, a bit in the north east, a bit in the south east, the part around the entrance to the town, controlled with snipers and light vehicles.” The new unity between Shia and Sunni pleases him: “Falluja is Iraq and Iraq is Falluja. We received a delegation from all the governorates of Iraq to give aid and solidarity.”

The cease-fire takes effect from 9am. Those with vehicles are loading stuff from the storage building opposite the mosque and moving it around the town. The opening up of the way to the hospital is one of the terms of the deal, so we’re not really needed anymore. As well it’s starting to feel like there are different agendas being pursued that we could all too easily get caught up in, other people’s politics and power struggles, so we decide to leave.

At the corner of town is a fork, a paved road curving round in front of the last of the houses, a track leading into the desert, the latter controlled by the marines, who fire a warning shot when our driver gets out to negotiate a way through; the former by as yet invisible Mujahedin. The crossfire suddenly surrounds the car. David, head down, shifts into the driver’s seat and backs us out of there but the only place to go is into the line of Mujahedin. One of the fighters jumps into the passenger seat and directs us.

“We’re hostages, aren’t we?” Billie says.

No, it’s fine, I say, sure that they’re just directing us out of harm’s way. The man in the passenger seat asks which country we’re all from. Donna says she’s Australian. Billie says she’s British.

“Allahu akbar! Ahlan wa sahlan.” Translated, it’s more or less, God is great. I’m pleased to meet you. The others don’t know the words but the drift is clear enough: “I think he just said he’s got the two most valuable hostages in the world,” Billie paraphrases.

We get out of the car, which in any case feels a bit uncomfortable now there’s a man with a keffiyeh round his head pointing a loaded rocket launcher at it. They bring a jeep and as I climb in I can’t help noticing that the driver has a grenade between his legs. I’m sure it’s intended for the Americans, not for us, but nonetheless it’s clear there’s no room for dissent.

Still, it’s not till we turn off the road back to the mosque and stop at a house, not until David and the other men are being searched, not really until a couple of the fighters take off their keffiyehs to tie the men’s hands behind their backs, that I accept that I’m definitely a captive.

You look for ways out. You wonder whether they’re going to kill you, make demands for your release, if they’ll hurt you. You wait for the knives and the guns and the video camera. You tell yourself you’re going to be OK. You think about your family, your mum finding out you’re kidnapped. You decide you’re going to be strong, because there’s nothing else you can do. You fight the understanding that your life isn’t fully in your hands any more, that you can’t control what’s happening. You turn to your best friend next to you and tell her you love her, with all your heart.

And then I’m put in a different car from her and I can only hope they take us to the same place and try in vain to notice where we’re going, recognise some landmarks, but the truth is that I’m without any sense of direction at all and have trouble remembering left from right, even on a good day, but in any case there’s no one on the streets but fighters, nowhere to hide.

Donna, Billie, David, Ahrar and I are delivered to another house, cushions around the walls of a big room, a bed at one end of the room beside a cabinet of crockery and ornaments. A tall, dignified man in a brown keffiyeh sits and begins interviewing Donna, her name, where she’s from, what she does there, what she’s doing in Iraq, why she came to Falluja.

He decides to separate us, has the others move me, David and Billie into the next room under the guard of a man in jeans too loose for his skinny body, trainers and a shirt, his face covered except for his eyes. It’s not much to go on but I doubt he’s beyond late teens, a little nervous, calmed by our calmness. After a while he decides he shouldn’t let us talk to each other, signals for silence.

Billie’s not well, hot and sick. She lies down on the cushions, head on her arm. The fighter brings a pillow and gently lifts her head onto it, takes all the stuff off the cushions so he can fold the blanket over her. The other one brings a cotton sheet and unfolds the blanket, covers her with the sheet and then replaces the blanket around her: tucked in by the Mujahedin.

It’s my turn next for questioning. I feel OK. All I can tell him is the truth. He wants to know the same things: where I live, what I’m doing in Iraq, what I’m doing in Falluja, so I tell him about the circus, about the ambulance trips, about the snipers shooting at us. Then he asks what the British people think about the war. I’m not sure what the right answer is. I don’t know what the national opinion is these days. I try to compute what’s least likely to make him think it’s worth keeping me.

If people oppose the occupation, he says, how is it that the government could carry on and do it. He’s genuinely interested but also sarcastic: surely the great liberators must be truly democratic, truly governing by the will of the people? Instead of the extended version of Jo’s rant about the UK constitution he starts asking about Billie. I know what her answers will be so it’s easy. I dodge the issue when he moves on to David and hope he won’t press me. I don’t know him very well, I say, because I don’t know if he wants to mention that he’s also a journalist. I tell the man I’ve just met him. I just know him as Martinez.

He thanks me and we’re done. David’s next. Donna, Billie and I talk quietly about the interviews and the boy guarding us doesn’t object. Someone asks if we want chai. Warm giggles come from the kitchen; maybe the two young men imagining that their mates could see them now, masked, Kalashnikov-wielding, brewing tea for a load of women.

David’s interview is short and when I come back from the outside toilet, still alert for an escape route, as improbable as I know it is, the others are all back in the main room again and the tea is ready. Billie’s bag comes in to be fished through, a camera, a minidisc recorder. The man goes through the pictures on the camera, the missile outside the clinic and a few from Baghdad, listens to the interview with the Sheikh on the minidisc.

Donna’s camera has similar pictures of the missile, some of the street kids, some from around the flat. The tape in the video camera is from the opening of the new youth centre in Al-Daura, backing up her testimony that she’s the director of an organisation which sets up projects for kids. The other tape contains a performance by the Boomchucka Circus, backing up mine that I’m a clown.

No one brings in my bag or David’s. I think it’s best not to mention this, in case there’s anything to offend them in either of them. In particular I think it’s best they don’t notice anyone’s passport in case it encourages them to look for all our passports because Billie’s contains a stamp from Israel. It’s from when she was working in Palestine but it’s better not to spark the suspicion in the first place.

Ahrar, the questioning over, is close to hysterical. She’s more frightened of her family’s reaction to her having been out all the previous night than of the armed men holding us. We cuddle and stroke and pacify her as best we can, tell her we’ll tell her family it wasn’t her fault. The trouble was that, by the time we left Baghdad to come here, it was already too late for her to get home the same evening, and now she’s afraid it’s going to be a second night.

I quietly start singing, unsure whether that’s allowed. The others join in where they know the words. By the end of the song her sobs have stopped and her only word is, “Continue,” so we do, song after song until the prayer call begins and it’s impolite to sing at the same time.

Ahrar gets tearful again. Donna tries to comfort her. “I have a big faith in God,” she says.

“Yes, but you don’t know Mama,” Ahrar wails.

Before the war and before we came to Falluja the first time I remember feeling that it’s impossible to know how you’ll react to something like being under fire. I couldn’t have imagined either how I’d react to this, this unpredictable situation, these masked and armed men, the fear, the uncertainty. Repeatedly they tell us not to be afraid, “We are Moslems. We will not hurt you.”

Still my instinct tells me I’m going to be OK. Still my mind wanders to the question of whether they’ll shoot us against a wall or just open fire in the room, whether they’ll take us out one by one or we’ll all be killed together, whether they’ll save the bullets and cut our throats, how long it hurts for when you’re shot, if it’s instantly over or if there’s some echo of the agony of the metal ripping through your flesh after your life is gone.

I don’t need those thoughts and I push them out of my way because I know the others are going through the same thoughts: what’s this going to do to my mum? What’s going to happen? What’s it going to feel like? It wouldn’t be fair to mention it aloud so there’s be nothing to do but sit and stew with it and there’s nothing we can do about this situation but wait it out and keep our heads together.

But what I tell myself is this: I can’t change the course of this at the moment and if they do point a rifle at me or hold a knife to my throat and I know it’s the last moment of my life then for sure there’s nothing I can do then I’m determined not to beg or flinch because I was right to come to Falluja and to try to evacuate people and get supplies to the hospitals and to die for trying to do that isn’t ideal but it’s OK.

They bring our bags in and I make a hanky disappear. The guard, a different one now, is unimpressed. It’s black magic. It’s haram [sinful]. It’s an affront to Allah. Oops. I show him the secret of the trick in the hope he’ll let me off. Instead I make a balloon giraffe for his kids, who he’s taken away to the safety of Baghdad.

“My brother was killed and my brother’s son and my sister’s son. My other brother is in the prison at Abu Ghraib. I am the last one left. Can you imagine? And this morning my best friend was killed. He was wounded in the leg and lying in the street and the Americans came and cut his throat.”

That was the one who came into the hospital this morning. Oh shit. Why wouldn’t they kill us?

But the day goes by and we carry on breathing, dozing, talking. They bring food, apologise for not bringing more, promise again that they’re not going to hurt us. As it gets dark, behind the windows partly blocked by sandbags, they light a paraffin lamp. The room gets hotter and hotter and it’s a relief when they take us out to the car to move again, although change feels somehow threatening at the same time.

The new house is huge, with electricity. The four women are shown to a room and David has to stay in the main room with the men. This was his biggest fear all along, being separated from the rest of us. We take off the hijabs that we’ve kept on all day. One of the men knocks on the door and, looking at the ground, tells us they’ve checked everything and, InshaaAllah, we’ll be taken back to Baghdad in the morning. They can’t let us go now because we’ll be kidnapped by some other group.

They feed us, bring us tea, supply us with blankets and we find pretexts and excuses to nip through the main room to check on David, bringing him half an orange, a chunk of chocolate, so he knows we’re still thinking of him. He’s more vulnerable than us because we’ve got each other to laugh and sing and talk with. Everything that’s happened, although you can never be sure, says they’re not going to hurt women. David’s not so comfortable.

The night is filled with the racket of what sounds like a huge dodgy plumbing system somewhere beyond the house, a rhythmic series of explosions in quick succession like an immense grinding noise: apparently it’s the sound of cluster bombs. Billie and I hold each other’s hands all night because we can. In the morning there’s still a knot of doubt in my belly. They said they’d take us home after the morning prayers, more or less at first light, and it’s been light for ages. Maybe they just told us we’d be released to keep us calm and quiet.

But they do let us go: they take us to one of the local imams who says he will drive us home. At the edge of Falluja is a queue of vehicles, some already turning back from the checkpoint. The passengers say the US soldiers fired as they approached. We get out of the car, hijabs off, and start the whole rigmarole again, loudspeaker, hands up, through the maze of concrete and wire, shouting that we’re an international group of ambulance volunteers trying to leave Falluja, we’re unarmed and please don’t shoot us.

Eventually we can see the soldiers; eventually they lower the guns, tell us to put our hands down, they’re not going to shoot us. “My bad,” one says. Apparently it’s US slang for acknowledging your own mistake. “We’re not going to fire any more warning shots.” We tell them we’ve got two cars to bring through and ask about the rest of the cars. They agree to open up the checkpoint to women, children and old men. The trouble is, most of the women don’t drive and so can’t leave unless their husbands are allowed to drive them. We persuade them to let through cars with a male driver even if he is ‘of fighting age’ if he’s got his family with him.

The fear in Falluja is that, when most of the women and children are gone, the town is going to be destroyed and everyone killed, by massive aerial bombardment or with a thermobaric weapon or something. Ahrar tries to explain that the men who want to leave are the ones who don’t want to fight.

“Oh, we want to keep them in there,” the marine says. “There’s fighters coming from all over Iraq into Falluja and we want to keep them all in there so we can kill them all more easily.”

But these are the ones who want to get out, those of the locals who don’t want to fight. It doesn’t matter though: we’ve got all we’re going to get out of them. We tell the crowd of anxious refugees and leave another local imam as the go-between. The road is quiet but for our small convoy until another roadblock. The imam talks to some locals, tells Ahrar there are Americans ahead. Hijabs off again, we heave ourselves out of the car for another round.

In the sickly, hot silence there are a few cracks but no responses to our shouts. Dust erupts from a house a way off and we wonder if we’re walking into a battle. Shouting in English, trying to be as obviously foreign as possible is the only tactic for walking into marines’ lines but it’s a bit of a risk when the lines are not clear. We keep yelling for them to give us a wave if they can hear us. There’s no response.

“Wait a minute,” David says. “Are those marines or are they Muja?”

Oh shit. Tell us we’re not walking into a Mujahedin line. We hesitate. Maybe we need to go back to the car and get the imam to come instead.

“No, I think it’s OK. I think they’re marines.”

“Decide! Tell us!” As if he’s got any more information than the rest of us.

The men we can see start gesturing, big arm movements, pointing to their left, our right, go towards the bridge. It’s a signal, which we’ve been asking for, but it doesn’t mean they’re not another group of kidnappers. Finally one yells. They’re green berets, which is why they didn’t quite look like the marines we’d got used to. Billie and I go back towards the cars to signal for them to come. No one fancies walking the aching gap between us and them again, but for time and time and time the cars don’t move, despite our arm waving, my roaring through the megaphone. Finally they shift and we scurry back into the relative cover of the bushes around the bridge.

“Are you crazy?” asks one of the soldiers.

I feel a bit closer to insanity than I did before that walk into the unknown, I have to confess, as mortars thunder out of their encampment. He tells me not to worry, they’re outgoing. Of course there’s some comfort in this. An outgoing mortar is preferable in many ways to an incoming one, but it seems at the same time like a bit of an invitation, RSVP written all over it.

Past them, the second car leaves us. David hugs the driver like he’d just brought him back from the dead and joins us in our car. There’s still Abu Ghraib, still Shuala, still who knows what between us and home. Ahrar wants to stop and phone her mum from a roadside booth in the middle of Shuala and even the imam is looking panicky as the call drags on, his carload of foreigners just sitting waiting for someone to notice us. Exhausted and exhibiting the early symptoms of tetchiness, we drag her back to the car and escape.

It’s only when we walk through the door of our apartment that we’re sure we’re coming home, all of us yelling and talking at once, telling the story, laughing over the surreal moments, hugging each other, retrieving hidden passports from underwear.

“We’re laughing about it now,” Billie says, “but there were moments…”

On the news they say Nayoko and the other Japanese hostages have been released, that Watanabi, the Japanese photographer who hung out with us when we took the circus to Samawa, has disappeared with a colleague. They say the cease-fire is holding in Falluja. Harb comes round to tell me off, but I’m unrepentant. I still think it was the right thing to do.

They took us because we were foreigners acting strangely in the middle of their war. They found out what we were doing and let us go. On the way out we were able to open up the checkpoint which meant people were able to get out of Falluja to safety. If that was all we did it would still have been worth it. But still in a quiet moment later on I whisper a thank you to the cheeky angels who look after clowns and ambulance volunteers.

April 11th
Falluja

Trucks, oil tankers, tanks are burning on the highway east to Falluja. A stream of boys and men goes to and from a lorry that’s not burnt, stripping it bare. We turn onto the back roads through Abu Ghraib, Nuha and Ahrar singing in Arabic, past the vehicles full of people and a few possessions, heading the other way, past the improvised refreshment posts along the way where boys throw food through the windows into the bus for us and for the people inside still inside Falluja.

The bus is following a car with the nephew of a local sheikh and a guide who has contacts with the Mujahedin and has cleared this with them. The reason I’m on the bus is that a journalist I knew turned up at my door at about 11 at night telling me things were desperate in Falluja, he’d been bringing out children with their limbs blown off, the US soldiers were going around telling people to leave by dusk or be killed, but then when people fled with whatever they could carry, they were being stopped at the US military checkpoint on the edge of town and not let out, trapped, watching the sun go down.

He said aid vehicles and the media were being turned away. He said there was some medical aid that needed to go in and there was a better chance of it getting there with foreigners, westerners, to get through the american checkpoints. The rest of the way was secured with the armed groups who control the roads we’d travel on. We’d take in the medical supplies, see what else we could do to help and then use the bus to bring out people who needed to leave.

I’ll spare you the whole decision making process, all the questions we all asked ourselves and each other, and you can spare me the accusations of madness, but what it came down to was this: if I don’t do it, who will? Either way, we arrive in one piece.

We pile the stuff in the corridor and the boxes are torn open straightaway, the blankets most welcomed. It’s not a hospital at all but a clinic, a private doctor’s surgery treating people free since air strikes destroyed the town’s main hospital. Another has been improvised in a car garage. There’s no anaesthetic. The blood bags are in a drinks fridge and the doctors warm them up under the hot tap in an unhygienic toilet.

Screaming women come in, praying, slapping their chests and faces. Ummi, my mother, one cries. I hold her until Maki, a consultant and acting director of the clinic, brings me to the bed where a child of about ten is lying with a bullet wound to the head. A smaller child is being treated for a similar injury in the next bed. A US sniper hit them and their grandmother as they left their home to flee Falluja.

The lights go out, the fan stops and in the sudden quiet someone holds up the flame of a cigarette lighter for the doctor to carry on operating by. The electricity to the town has been cut off for days and when the generator runs out of petrol they just have to manage till it comes back on. Dave quickly donates his torch. The children are not going to live.

“Come,” says Maki and ushers me alone into a room where an old woman has just had an abdominal bullet wound stitched up. Another in her leg is being dressed, the bed under her foot soaked with blood, a white flag still clutched in her hand and the same story: I was leaving my home to go to Baghdad when I was hit by a US sniper. Some of the town is held by US marines, other parts by the local fighters. Their homes are in the US controlled area and they are adamant that the snipers were US marines.

Snipers are causing not just carnage but also the paralysis of the ambulance and evacuation services. The biggest hospital after the main one was bombed is in US territory and cut off from the clinic by snipers. The ambulance has been repaired four times after bullet damage. Bodies are lying in the streets because no one can go to collect them without being shot.

Some said we were mad to come to Iraq; quite a few said we were completely insane to come to Falluja and now there are people telling me that getting in the back of the pick up to go past the snipers and get sick and injured people is the craziest thing they’ve ever seen. I know, though, that if we don’t, no one will.

He’s holding a white flag with a red crescent on; I don’t know his name. The men we pass wave us on when the driver explains where we’re going. The silence is ferocious in the no man’s land between the pick up at the edge of the Mujahedin territory, which has just gone from our sight around the last corner and the marines’ line beyond the next wall; no birds, no music, no indication that anyone is still living until a gate opens opposite and a woman comes out, points.

We edge along to the hole in the wall where we can see the car, spent mortar shells around it. The feet are visible, crossed, in the gutter. I think he’s dead already. The snipers are visible too, two of them on the corner of the building. As yet I think they can’t see us so we need to let them know we’re there.

“Hello,” I bellow at the top of my voice. “Can you hear me?” They must. They’re about 30 metres from us, maybe less, and it’s so still you could hear the flies buzzing at fifty paces. I repeat myself a few times, still without reply, so decide to explain myself a bit more.

“We are a medical team. We want to remove this wounded man. Is it OK for us to come out and get him? Can you give us a signal that it’s OK?”

I’m sure they can hear me but they’re still not responding. Maybe they didn’t understand it all, so I say the same again. Dave yells too in his US accent. I yell again. Finally I think I hear a shout back. Not sure, I call again.

“Hello.”

“Yeah.”

“Can we come out and get him?”

“Yeah,”

Slowly, our hands up, we go out. The black cloud that rises to greet us carries with it a hot, sour smell. Solidified, his legs are heavy. I leave them to Rana and Dave, our guide lifting under his hips. The Kalashnikov is attached by sticky blood to is hair and hand and we don’t want it with us so I put my foot on it as I pick up his shoulders and his blood falls out through the hole in his back. We heave him into the pick up as best we can and try to outrun the flies.

I suppose he was wearing flip flops because he’s barefoot now, no more than 20 years old, in imitation Nike pants and a blue and black striped football shirt with a big 28 on the back. As the orderlies form the clinic pull the young fighter off the pick up, yellow fluid pours from his mouth and they flip him over, face up, the way into the clinic clearing in front of them, straight up the ramp into the makeshift morgue.

We wash the blood off our hands and get in the ambulance. There are people trapped in the other hospital who need to go to Baghdad. Siren screaming, lights flashing, we huddle on the floor of the ambulance, passports and ID cards held out the windows. We pack it with people, one with his chest taped together and a drip, one on a stretcher, legs jerking violently so I have to hold them down as we wheel him out, lifting him over steps.

The hospital is better able to treat them than the clinic but hasn’t got enough of anything to sort them out properly and the only way to get them to Baghdad on our bus, which means they have to go to the clinic. We’re crammed on the floor of the ambulance in case it’s shot at. Nisareen, a woman doctor about my age, can’t stop a few tears once we’re out.

The doctor rushes out to meet me: “Can you go to fetch a lady, she is pregnant and she is delivering the baby too soon?”

Azzam is driving, Ahmed in the middle directing him and me by the window, the visible foreigner, the passport. Something scatters across my hand, simultaneous with the crashing of a bullet through the ambulance, some plastic part dislodged, flying through the window.

We stop, turn off the siren, keep the blue light flashing, wait, eyes on the silhouettes of men in US marine uniforms on the corners of the buildings. Several shots come. We duck, get as low as possible and I can see tiny red lights whipping past the window, past my head. Some, it’s hard to tell, are hitting the ambulance I start singing. What else do you do when someone’s shooting at you? A tyre bursts with an enormous noise and a jerk of the vehicle.

I’m outraged. We’re trying to get to a woman who’s giving birth without any medical attention, without electricity, in a city under siege, in a clearly marked ambulance, and you’re shooting at us. How dare you?

How dare you?

Azzam grabs the gear stick and gets the ambulance into reverse, another tyre bursting as we go over the ridge in the centre of the road , the sots still coming as we flee around the corner. I carry on singing. The wheels are scraping, burst rubber burning on the road.

The men run for a stretcher as we arrive and I shake my head. They spot the new bullet holes and run to see if we’re OK. Is there any other way to get to her, I want to know. La, maaku tarieq. There is no other way. They say we did the right thing. They say they’ve fixed the ambulance four times already and they’ll fix it again but the radiator’s gone and the wheels are buckled and se’s still at home in the dark giving birth alone. I let her down.

We can’t go out again. For one thing there’s no ambulance and besides it’s dark now and that means our foreign faces can’t protect the people who go out with us or the people we pick up. Maki is the acting director of the place. He says he hated Saddam but now he hates the Americans more.

We take off the blue gowns as the sky starts exploding somewhere beyond the building opposite. Minutes later a car roars up to the clinic. I can hear him screaming before I can see that there’s no skin left on his body. He’s burnt from head to foot. For sure there’s nothing they can do. He’ll die of dehydration within a few days.

Another man is pulled from the car onto a stretcher. Cluster bombs, they say, although it’s not clear whether they mean one or both of them. We set off walking to Mr Yasser’s house, waiting at each corner for someone to check the street before we cross. A ball of fire falls from a plane, splits into smaller balls of bright white lights. I think they’re cluster bombs, because cluster bombs are in the front of my mind, but they vanish, just magnesium flares, incredibly bright but short-lived, giving a flash picture of the town from above.

Yasser asks us all to introduce ourselves. I tell him I’m training to be a lawyer. One of the other men asks whether I know about international law. They want to know about the law on war crimes, what a war crime is. I tell them I know some of the Geneva Conventions, that I’ll bring some information next time I come and we can get someone to explain it in Arabic.

We bring up the matter of Nayoko. This group of fighters has nothing to do with the ones who are holding the Japanese hostages, but while they’re thanking us for what we did this evening, we talk about the things Nayoko did for the street kids, how much they loved her. They can’t promise anything but that they’ll try and find out where she is and try to persuade the group to let her and the others go. I don’t suppose it will make any difference. They’re busy fighting a war in Falluja. They’re unconnected with the other group. But it can’t hurt to try.

The planes are above us all night so that as I doze I forget I’m not on a long distance flight, the constant bass note of an unmanned reconnaissance drone overlaid with the frantic thrash of jets and the dull beat of helicopters and interrupted by the explosions.

In the morning I make balloon dogs, giraffes and elephants for the little one, Abdullah, Aboudi, who’s clearly distressed by the noise of the aircraft and explosions. I blow bubbles which he follows with his eyes. Finally, finally, I score a smile. The twins, thirteen years old, laugh too, one of them an ambulance driver, both said to be handy with a Kalashnikov.

The doctors look haggard in the morning. None has slept more than a couple of hours a night for a week. One as had only eight hours of sleep in the last seven days, missing the funerals of his brother and aunt because he was needed at the hospital.

“The dead we cannot help,” Jassim said. “I must worry about the injured.”

We go again, Dave, Rana and me, this time in a pick up. There are some sick people close to the marines’ line who need evacuating. No one dares come out of their house because the marines are on top of the buildings shooting at anything that moves. Saad fetches us a white flag and tells us not to worry, he’s checked and secured the road, no Mujahedin will fire at us, that peace is upon us, this eleven year old child, his face covered with a keffiyeh, but for is bright brown eyes, his AK47 almost as tall as he is.

We shout again to the soldiers, hold up the flag with a red crescent sprayed onto it. Two come down from the building, cover this side and Rana mutters, “Allahu akbar. Please nobody take a shot at them.”

We jump down and tell them we need to get some sick people from the houses and they want Rana to go and bring out the family from the house whose roof they’re on. Thirteen women and children are still inside, in one room, without food and water for the last 24 hours.

“We’re going to be going through soon clearing the houses,” the senior one says.

“What does that mean, clearing the houses?”

“Going into every one searching for weapons.” He’s checking his watch, can’t tell me what will start when, of course, but there’s going to be air strikes in support. “If you’re going to do tis you gotta do it soon.”

First we go down the street we were sent to. There’s a man, face down, in a white dishdasha, a small round red stain on his back. We run to him. Again the flies ave got there first. Dave is at his shoulders, I’m by his knees and as we reach to roll him onto the stretcher Dave’s hand goes through his chest, through the cavity left by the bullet that entered so neatly through his back and blew his heart out.

There’s no weapon in his hand. Only when we arrive, his sons come out, crying, shouting. He was unarmed, they scream. He was unarmed. He just went out the gate and they shot him. None of them have dared come out since. No one had dared come to get his body, horrified, terrified, forced to violate the traditions of treating the body immediately. They couldn’t have known we were coming so it’s inconceivable tat anyone came out and retrieved a weapon but left the body.

He was unarmed, 55 years old, shot in the back.

We cover his face, carry him to the pick up. There’s nothing to cover his body with. The sick woman is helped out of the house, the little girls around her hugging cloth bags to their bodies, whispering, “Baba. Baba.” Daddy. Shaking, they let us go first, hands up, around the corner, then we usher them to the cab of the pick up, shielding their heads so they can’t see him, the cuddly fat man stiff in the back.

The people seem to pour out of the houses now in the hope we can escort them safely out of the line of fire, kids, women, men, anxiously asking us whether they can all go, or only the women and children. We go to ask. The young marine tells us that men of fighting age can’t leave. What’s fighting age, I want to know. He contemplates. Anything under forty five. No lower limit.

It appals me that all those men would be trapped in a city which is about to be destroyed. Not all of them are fighters, not all are armed. It’s going to happen out of the view of the world, out of sight of the media, because most of the media in Falluja is embedded with the marines or turned away at the outskirts. Before we can pass the message on, two explosions scatter the crowd in the side street back into their houses.

Rana’s with the marines evacuating the family from the house they’re occupying. The pick up isn’t back yet. The families are hiding behind their walls. We wait, because there’s nothing else we can do. We wait in no man’s land. The marines, at least, are watching us through binoculars; maybe the local fighters are too.

I’ve got a disappearing hanky in my pocket so while I’m sitting like a lemon, nowhere to go, gunfire and explosions aplenty all around, I make the hanky disappear, reappear, disappear. It’s always best, I think, to seem completely unthreatening and completely unconcerned, so no one worries about you enough to shoot. We can’t wait too long though. Rana’s been gone ages. We have to go and get her to hurry. There’s a young man in the group. She’s talked them into letting him leave too.

A man wants to use his police car to carry some of the people, a couple of elderly ones who can’t walk far, the smallest children. It’s missing a door. Who knows if he was really a police car or the car was reappropriated and just ended up there? It didn’t matter if it got more people out faster. They creep from their houses, huddle by the wall, follow us out, their hands up too, and walk up the street clutching babies, bags, each other.

The pick up gets back and we shovel as many onto it as we can as an ambulance arrives from somewhere. A young man waves from the doorway of what’s left of a house, his upper body bare, a blood soaked bandage around his arm, probably a fighter but it makes no difference once someone is wounded and unarmed. Getting the dead isn’t essential. Like the doctor said, the dead don’t need help, but if it’s easy enough then we will. Since we’re already OK with the soldiers and the ambulance is here, we run down to fetch them in. It’s important in Islam to bury the body straightaway.

The ambulance follows us down. The soldiers start shouting in English at us for it to stop, pointing guns. It’s moving fast. We’re all yelling, signalling for it to stop but it seems to take forever for the driver to hear and see us. It stops. It stops, before they open fire. We haul them onto the stretchers and run, shove them in the back. Rana squeezes in the front with the wounded man and Dave and I crouch in the back beside the bodies. He says he had allergies as a kid and hasn’t got much sense of smell. I wish, retrospectively, for childhood allergies, and stick my head out the window.

The bus is going to leave, taking the injured people back to Baghdad, the man with the burns, one of the women who was shot in the jaw and shoulder by a sniper, several others. Rana says she’s staying to help. Dave and I don’t hesitate: we’re staying too. “If I don’t do it, who will?” has become an accidental motto and I’m acutely aware after the last foray how many people, how many women and children, are still in their houses either because they’ve got nowhere to go, because they’re scared to go out of the door or because they’ve chosen to stay.

To begin with it’s agreed, then Azzam says we have to go. He hasn’t got contacts with every armed group, only with some. There are different issues to square with each one. We need to get these people back to Baghdad as quickly as we can. If we’re kidnapped or killed it will cause even more problems, so it’s better that we just get on the bus and leave and come back with him as soon as possible.

It hurts to climb onto the bus when the doctor has just asked us to go and evacuate some more people. I hate the fact that a qualified medic can’t travel in the ambulance but I can, just because I look like the sniper’s sister or one of his mates, but that’s the way it is today and the way it was yesterday and I feel like a traitor for leaving, but I can’t see where I’ve got a choice. It’s a war now and as alien as it is to me to do what I’m told, for once I’ve got to.

Jassim is scared. He harangues Mohammed constantly, tries to pull him out of the driver’s seat wile we’re moving. The woman with the gunshot wound is on the back seat, the man with the burns in front of her, being fanned with cardboard from the empty boxes, his intravenous drips swinging from the rail along the ceiling of the bus. It’s hot. It must be unbearable for him.

Saad comes onto the bus to wish us well for the journey. He shakes Dave’s hand and then mine. I hold his in both of mine and tell him “Dir balak,” take care, as if I could say anything more stupid to a pre-teen Mujahedin with an AK47 in his other hand, and our eyes meet and stay fixed, his full of fire and fear.

Can’t I take him away? Can’t I take him somewhere he can be a child? Can’t I make him a balloon giraffe and give him some drawing pens and tell him not to forget to brush his teeth? Can’t I find the person who put the rifle in the hands of that little boy? Can’t I tell someone about what that does to a child? Do I have to leave him here where there are heavily armed men all around him and lots of them are not on his side, however many sides there are in all of this? And of course I do. I do have to leave him, like child soldiers everywhere.

The way back is tense, the bus almost getting stuck in a dip in the sand, people escaping in anything, even piled on the trailer of a tractor, lines of cars and pick ups and buses ferrying people to the dubious sanctuary of Baghdad, lines of men in vehicles queuing to get back into the city having got their families to safety, either to fight or to help evacuate more people. The driver, Jassim, the father, ignores Azzam and takes a different road so that suddenly we’re not following the lead car and we’re on a road that’s controlled by a different armed group than the ones which know us.

A crowd of men waves guns to stop the bus. Somehow they apparently believe that there are American soldiers on the bus, as if they wouldn’t be in tanks or helicopters, and there are men getting out of their cars with shouts of “Sahafa Amreeki,” American journalists. The passengers shout out of the windows, “Ana min Falluja,” I am from Falluja. Gunmen run onto the bus and see that it’s true, there are sick and injured and old people, Iraqis, and then relax, wave us on.

We stop in Abu Ghraib and swap seats, foreigners in the front, Iraqis less visible, headscarves off so we look more western. The American soldiers are so happy to see westerners they don’t mind too much about the Iraqis with us, search the men and the bus, leave the women unsearched because there are no women soldiers to search us. Mohammed keeps asking me if things are going to be OK.

“Al-melaach wiyana, “ I tell him. The angels are with us. He laughs.

And then we’re in Baghdad, delivering them to the hospitals, Nuha in tears as they take the burnt man off groaning and whimpering. She puts her arms around me and asks me to be her friend. I make her feel less isolated, she says, less alone.

And the satellite news says the cease-fire is holding and George Bush says to the troops on Easter Sunday that, “I know what we’re doing in Iraq is right.” Shooting unarmed men in the back outside their family home is right. Shooting grandmothers with white flags is right? Shooting at women and children who are fleeing their homes is right? Firing at ambulances is right?

Well George, I know too now. I know what it looks like when you brutalise people so much that they’ve nothing left to lose. I know what it looks like when an operation is being done without anaesthetic because the hospitals are destroyed or under sniper fire and the city’s under siege and aid isn’t getting in properly. I know what it sounds like too. I know what it looks like when tracer bullets are passing your head, even though you’re in an ambulance. I know what it looks like when a man’s chest is no longer inside him and what it smells like and I know what it looks like when his wife and children pour out of his house.

It’s a crime and it’s a disgrace to us all.

Dear friends,

Most of the news coming from the Middle East these days is discouraging,
both from the Holy Land and from Iraq. This report I hope will serve as a
point of light amidst the darkness.

On the anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq, March 20th, a group of
religious leaders came together in Baghdad to pray for the peace of Iraq and
of the whole world. I was part of an interfaith delegation that traveled to
Iraq to join a prayer gathering at the National Theater in central Baghdad.

We met in Amman, on Wednesday March 17th. James Twyman, a musician and
spiritual peace activist, invited me to be part of a colorful group to
travel overland from Amman, Jordan to Baghdad. In our group was Jose
Arguelles, an expert on the Mayan calendar and prophecies and his
apprentice; Chief Arvol Looking Horse, chief of the Sioux nation and 19th
generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo pipe and his 20 year old
daughter Grace. Also joining us were Yarovit, a shaman from Russia and his
translator; Warigia, a spiritual teacher from Kenya; and Sofia van Surksum,
from Durango, Colorado, who helped with the logistics of the trip.

As we first gathered together in our hotel in Amman, we heard on the news
that night that a hotel in downtown Baghdad had been bombed and many people
killed. The news just strengthened our resolve about the importance of our
mission and we decided to continue with the journey.

On Thursday morning we left Amman for the Iraqi border, driven by two
Iraqi Chaldean Christian drivers. On the way, I said 'Tfillat Haderech', the
Jewish prayer for a safe journey and Arvol said a Lakota prayer. In my car I
learned a little spoken Aramaic from our driver Sahel, e.g. 'hashlama
alukhum' means 'peace be upon you'.

After we crossed the Iraqi border we stopped and held a small prayer
circle for the safety and success of our journey to Baghdad. Jose Arguelles
offered a Mayan blessing. Chief Arvol said "creator help us make this
journey of peace...many people are praying for world peace and harmony and
are praying with us." Warigia offered a prayer in Swahili, I offered a
prayer in Hebrew and Yarovit shared an invocation in Russian.

Just inside the border I noticed a monument in the form of missiles
pointed towards Israel. I had been on the receiving end of missiles from
Iraq during the first Gulf War, so it was a bit unnerving. Our drive took 10
1/2 hours, and after hours of driving through vast and seemingly empty
desert, we finally saw lots of trees and green as we approached the
Euphrates River and passed the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah.

When we arrived to the Arab Palace hotel in downtown Baghdad, we were
welcomed by Donna, an Australian, and Ra'id, a young Iraqi. Donna talked
about her work in Baghdad- the centers she founded to help Iraqi youth to
heal from the traumas of war. We also found out that our hotel was just 3
blocks from the hotel that had been bombed the night before. Indeed from
the window of my hotel room on the 7th floor I could see the damaged hotel.

That night there were rolling power blackouts, which are a regular part of
life in Baghdad. We heard the sounds of tanks driving by. We were a bit
anxious when we heard a very loud explosion outside. We soon learned that
such sounds can be heard on most nights.

On Friday the 19th, several from our group went to the largest Sufi mosque
in Baghdad to invite Sufis to come to the next days' prayer gathering.
Approaching the main gate, we walked past vendors selling prayer beads,
scarves and holy books. Standing in the alley were some young Sufis singing
and chanting with their drums, with an aura of joy around them. We entered
the large sanctuary, which surrounds the tomb of one of the most revered
Sufi saints, Abdul Qadir al-Jilani.

Inside the courtyard we were led to meet with the head sheikh. He welcomed
us to his office and said "Islam is a religion of peace... we respect all
religions, including Judaism and Christianity". Leaving the mosque, we
approached the Sufis we saw earlier and handed them a flyer inviting them to
the gathering at the National Theater.

That afternoon, Friday, we walked to the National Theater and were
welcomed by the director who explained that the theater was being renovated
after its furnishings were looted after the war. The theater staff welcomed
us all warmly, even me when I told them I was Jewish and live in Israel. We
sang a few songs in rehearsal for the ceremony the next day.

On Saturday afternoon, March 20th, leaders representing the diversity of
Iraq's religious traditions, some local Iraqis and camera crews from
different media outlets began to show up at the National Theater. The first
Iraqi religious leaders to arrive were several Sunni Muslim sheikhs from
Baghdad followed by the group of Sufi drummers who we met the day before. A
Chaldean bishop and several Christian mystics also came.

In addition we were joined by a Shiite cleric, who teaches at a very
unique theological institute, the Hilla School of Religion in Hilla, south
of Baghdad. This school teaches young Iraqis about tolerance between the
religions, including teaching Christian and Judaic texts.

To read more about this school see the article 'New Iraqi school spans
chasms between religions' at:
www.christiansciencemonitor.com/2003/1007/p01s04-woiq.html

James Twyman opened the ceremony by singing the Lord's Prayer from the
Christian tradition. "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace...where
there is hatred let me bring love."

Then Chief Arvol Looking Horse told a story from his people the Lakota,
Dakota, & Nakota Great Sioux nation. After a great race in the Black Hills
of South Dakota between all of creation the two leggeds (humans) won. The
eagles offered to protect humanity by flying high in the sky to bless the
earth. However they could only be held aloft if people prayed for them with
offerings of tobacco, song and prayers. The prayers became weak and now
eagles are found in trash pits. Since we are all connected humanity is
unhealthy- we see now black clouds of viruses and disease. It is a warning
from the Animal Nation to humanity that we must again pray for peace and
care for Mother Earth.

Jose Arguelles played a flute and spoke as a messenger of the Mayan
tradition. He explained that in the Mayan calendar, time began in 3133 BC in
Uruk (ancient Iraq) and that this cycle will close in 2012. According to
the Mayan prophecy, as the end of that cycle approaches things will
accelerate and seem chaotic. Only if we can learn to live in harmony by the
closing of this cycle then the coming universal religion will be the
religion of peace. "I came to take this message to Baghdad, close to the
original Uruk, to help fulfill the prophecy".

Then Sufi Sheikh Ahmad Aziz and three other Qadiri Sufis chanted in Arabic
and played their handheld drums, which was quite moving for everyone. Three
Iraqi children sang, bringing the voice of the next generation. Then
Yarovit, dressed in leather and fur offered a shamanic ritual dance and
chant. He then chanted "for peace, for love, al-hamdulilah", getting
everyone to sing with him.

Warigia from Kenya brought blessings for the Iraqi people from the elders
of her country. Then she read out a letter written by her 10-year-old
daughter Nyambura. "War won't solve anything. If they just put their guns
down...they will see that killing is only hurting. They don't see we are all
one big family in heart and spirit. So find peace and love within yourselves
and there will be no more wars." The letter touched everyone's hearts.

The Shiite cleric from Hilla, Shiek Abd Al-Jalil Al-Taei told us: "I
believe in the love religion everywhere I go, this is my religion. How much
we need the dew points of clemency instead of the hell of begrudgements...
Our mission for peace and unity is an urgent necessity. Putting the bridges
between us is better than deepening the pits. We must realize the sanctity
and hugeness of the message we carry, which belongs to all the prophets."

The Sunni sheikh had some harsh criticism of the policies of Israel and of
the American presence in Iraq. He added an invocation calling for peace and
justice.

Then the Asst. Patriarch of the Chaldean Church in Baghdad, Shlemone
Warduny, spoke about his ancient Christian community in Iraq and offered
prayers of peace for the people of Iraq and the world. Sister Nadira Khayyat
from the Carmelite monastery in Baghdad offered a prayer for peace in Jesus'
name in Aramaic.

As the last speaker I was uncertain how I would be received as an openly
religious Jew, wearing a kippah and peyot. The audience relaxed when I
spoke in Arabic, apologizing that I only speak a little of the Palestinian
dialect and not the Iraqi. I said "I come from Jerusalem, the holy city for
all our religions. Remember that the Jews lived side by side with their Arab
neighbors here in Iraq for thousands of years. The second most holy book in
our tradition was written here and is named after Babylon-- it's called the
'Talmud Bavli'."

And then I said "we are near Ur, the birthplace of Abraham, our shared
father and therefore we, the children of Isaac and you the children of
Ishmael, are brothers. Also know that many Jews are working with their
Palestinian friends for peace and understanding. Of the Holy Land, everyone
agrees it is G-d's Land. Ultimately we are all the children of Adam and Eve
and thus all one family, the human family. " The Iraqis could all be seen
nodding in agreement.

Then we all went outside to dedicate a peace pole in front of the National
Theater, adjacent to one of the busiest traffic circles in Baghdad. As we
reached to touch the pole and offer a blessing for peace, I got everyone to
chant together first in Arabic "a-Salaam il'alam ajma'u", and then in
English, "may peace prevail on earth". It was quite a magical moment to see
us all openly gathered at such a public spot in the center of Baghdad.

We then held up the peace banners and posed together for pictures. Even
though we were told it was risky if we lingered outside as a group for much
longer, no one wanted to leave. Many felt it to be a historic moment. Ra'id
shaking his head in disbelief, said, "It¹s a miracle - what happened here
today," he said. ŒA miracle for Iraq.' "People will talk about this for a
long time."

Donna later wrote 'we had been warned that it was dangerous to bring a Jew
into Iraq. The anti-Jewish feeling here is strong and deep. "Muslims sitting
with a Jewish man to pray for peace! It¹s unheard of," Ra¹id exclaimed.

That night at our hotel we gathered to sing for James Twyman on his
birthday and to honor him for this amazing gathering that he, Donna and
others had organized. Yerovit led a shamanic meditation. Then I led our
group, with Iraqi friends in attendance, to sing and dance together for
havdalah, the traditional Jewish end of Shabbat ceremony.

In our last night in Baghdad, Grace, the daughter of the Sioux chief, and
I were invited to the home of our driver Sahel in New Baghdad. There we met
his family- his parents and siblings and their wives. We spent the evening
comparing words in the Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic and Lakota languages.

On Sunday morning we drove back to Amman feeling both a sense of
accomplishment and relief. At the Iraq-Jordan border I noticed that the
monument of missiles had been taken down. It seemed a sign.

In the lobby of our hotel in Amman, some of us came across a group of
Iraqi tribal leaders, each representing the largest tribes in central Iraq.
They were delighted to hear that we had just come from downtown Baghdad to
pray for peace with the people of Iraq. One sheik said, "we are proud that
Abraham is an Iraqi...anytime you want to come back to Iraq you are most
welcome as our guests".

I returned to the Holy Land to news of increased tensions after the Yassin
assassination and of even deeper crisis in Iraq. Nonetheless I can't help
but feel that seeds were planted that day in Baghdad. Our Iraqi friend
Ra'id said about our gathering: "We have a long way to go, but maybe this
is the first step."

This report was prepared with the help of Donna Mulhearn.

To see some great pictures of this gathering, visit:
www.emissaryoflight.com/_.aspx?content=iraq_pictures

Shalom, Salaam,

Eliyahu McLean,
Rodef Shalom, 'Pursuer of Peace'

April 8th
A Year Later

I expect everyone knows by now about the kidnapping of three Japanese civilians and the threat to burn them alive unless the Japanese government withdraws its troops from Iraq. Anxious, everyone huddled round the satellite TV in one of the apartments. The tape from the kidnappers showed them crouched, blindfolded, knives to their throats.

“It’s them!”

Nayoko used to bring food for the street kids and wash their clothes for them, the boys who later stayed in the shelter in Bab a Sherji and now live in the Kurdish House. She wasn’t with an NGO at all, just an individual who raised some money to come over and help the kids and did it, learnt some Arabic, quietly got on with it. As a result no one, no embassy, no organisation, knows anything about her. The Japanese embassy thought all three of them had just arrived.

And it makes no difference, of course it makes no difference, that I know them; it makes no difference to the terror on her face, the young woman who used to help the street kids on Abu Nawas, the man who was investigating depleted uranium contamination. It makes no difference that their faces are familiar, that I used to see them at the internet on Karrada Dakhil and wander down the street with them. But it feels horrible.

Because you know that the Japanese government won’t accede to the demand and you know that the kidnappers won’t go back on their ultimatum and you know there’s not much chance of them escaping and it’s no different from all the other violent deaths that people have suffered out here, a lot of them pre-planned in one way or another, contemplated by the pilot who fired the missile into the civilian area or the commander who sent the pilot, but to see them alive and to know what is coming is almost unbearable.

Karrada on Thursday evening was the usual pile of traffic, hooting at inanimate objects as if that might ease the gridlock, the smells of popcorn and petrol mingling around the weekend shoppers.

Most of the day’s plans were thwarted by closures. The schools in Sadr city and lots of other bits of town are closed. Those that are open are mostly empty because parents are keeping the kids at home where they can try to keep them safe. The colleges and universities are deserted, more or less. The Magreb youth centre was closed because it’s near to Adamiya where there have been battles.

Instead I went to look for Akael, the man I met in the hospital last year after the bombing of Palestine Street outside the Omar Al-Faroukh Mosque. He was 20 then, a piece of shrapnel embedded in his forehead, the doctors unsure, because the scanning equipment didn’t work any more, whether it had pierced his brain. I was kicked out of the country a couple of days later and never managed to find out what happened, but I did have their address.

We drove for ages looking for street 9, house 12 which, in theory, had to be close to a mosque. “The streets are all in a mess,” the lad by the side of the road explained, not referring to heaps of festering rubbish that you find on a lot of streets or even to the craterous holes in the road but to their order.

The streets have numbers rather than names, which ought to make it easier to find the one you want: street 9 might be expected to sit somewhere between 8 and 10. But no. “This one is Street 3 and that one is Street 43.” He gave us an apologetic look. What could you do when the world around you made no sense?

No one we asked knew where street 9 was. They could tell us what this one was and the one next to it. This is fourteen and that one is twenty six, they would say, with an apologetic gesture. The streets are all in a mess. Someone suggested we ask the responsible for the district, the Mukhtar. There’s one in each area, the senior gentleman of the district, a source of information and social authority. He came out from his siesta, pulled up the metal shutter of what looked like a garage next to his house to reveal a tiny shop but he, too, was unable to tell us where street nine was and didn’t know the family.

Since it was the mosque that was closest to the bombing, we went there and Dhafur went in to ask. Yes, they knew the attack we meant and the street where the houses had been damaged. A man who was leaving offered to lead us there in is car, but the way was blocked by tanks and armoured personnel carriers, a group of young men close by. The soldiers waved guns and Dhafur remarked that there was only one God but also only one death and with that he reversed up the street and we decided to find Akael’s family another day.

Raed ran up the stairs breathless. On the streets of Sadr city, Sadr’s people are telling everyone that if they get the chance they should kidnap a westerner and they’ll offer prisoner exchanges for their own people who have been seized by the americans. After we’d promised not to go anywhere for a couple of days, his eyes lit up. “This Boomchucka Bus, I think it is the best idea I’ve ever heard. The children need this.”

He can sort out the bus for us and a driver, will equip it with a microphone, music and speakers. “Music is my job.” He’s been dreaming of the bus tour, what size of bus we need, where the circus flag will look best, the sound of all the kids yelling Boomchucka again. He says he’ll go and spread the word in the places before the bus arrives that it’s coming and it’s on their side, so people won’t be nervous or suspicious. Raed misses the circus.

Then he nipped up to the roof to check on the security arrangements, pronounced himself satisfied with the three men with Kalashnikovs on the roof and the three more outside, shouted Boomchucka and darted next door to cook some pastry parcels.

We’re constantly reassessing. You ask yourself whether what you’re doing is worth what appears to be the level of risk on any given day. If there are a few days when it looks a bit dodgy then you sit it out in the apartment and see what happens. If things improve then you get on with it. If not then you try and work out a safe way to leave.

The last few months things have been intense at times but not too dangerous and I think what I and we have been doing has been worth the risks. If that changes, if I can’t do the stuff I’m trying to do, if it’s too dangerous to run the Boomchucka Bus Tour, if the schools and youth centres and universities don’t reopen so we can do the twinning and solidarity projects, then I’ll leave. I’m lucky enough to have that option.

My good friend Nada has been getting kidnap threats by telephone for about the last three weeks. They tell her they will kidnap her and beat her and kill her, or perhaps her kids, for five million dinars in ransom, about $3500. They, whoever they are, object to her being friends with foreigners and she refuses to give in to them, although it was only today that she told us and made us promise we wouldn’t give in to them either.

Al-Sadr is now in control of Najaf, Samawa and Kut, or parts of them. The good thing about travelling is that you get to meet loads of interesting people but, on the down side, then you have to worry about them when you hear their city is being fought over. I can’t get hold of any of the people I met in Samawa to find out if they’re ok.

The Italian NGO Un Ponte Per managed to get a truckload of relief supplies into Falluja today and a huge demonstration stormed through the US military checkpoint that was meant to keep people out of the city, bringing aid for the people there. They were Shia and Sunni, chanting their common interest in fighting the Americans.

A child was brought into the Red Cross hospital in Baghdad after his parents took him to his grandad in a safe area. His grandad took him out for a walk and an F-16 fired a missile into the people, killing 9, including his grandad. He’s lost both legs and one of his arms.

The bombers are roaring overhead tonight: even the moon is on fire, rising enormous and orange beyond Karrada Kharitj.

April 7th
Women’s Rights

“I had a letter from some women students in one of the colleges,” Layla said. “They are being threatened with suspension if they do not wear a veil. There are also some women students in the Fine Art College. They have had threats and been stopped from making music and singing and putting on theatre shows. They want to stop them making any art unless it is religious.”

There’s a billboard near one of the colleges advertising the opinion that veils make you beautiful and respectable. Unfortunately there are some who prefer a more direct method of promoting veils. I’ve no objection whatsoever to veils. My disagreement, and I think I can say Layla’s and that of the young women who contact her, is with the attempt to force them, the denial of their right to choose.

Supporters of Moqtada Al-Sadr have threatened Layla, the Organisation for Women’s Freedom in Iraq which she directs and the Workers’ Communist Party which supports the organisation, as well as individual women, other women’s groups and labour organisations. The threats were reported to, and ignored by, the CPA. The recent suspension of the Al-Hawza newspaper came in response to the extension of threats to the Americans.

The practice of declining to protect women’s rights is not new. The CPA appointed thousands of judges, including only fifteen women. Wen male lawyers protested, at the swearing in ceremony of one of the women, against the promotion of women to the judiciary, the CPA suspended her appointment, acquiescing in the denial of women’s rights to participate in high level public life.

From high level public life, we moved on to the camp at Shuala and the needs of the women there. Layla dropped her voice, even though there was only Aala, Jenny and me in the room with her. “They need underwear. They would never tell a man or a male translator or a stranger but they came to me and said they need underwear.”

Of course. When your family is hungry and needing medicine and there is no work, there’s no money to spend on underwear. But that doesn’t mean you need it any less. Sanitation, drinking water, blankets and such like are more visible needs for anyone assessing on a passing visit or even on regular visits. Likewise they need sanitary towels. There is water on site but it has to be carried from one of three taps. “Normally we use rags, since the sanctions, if we couldn’t afford sanitary towels,” Aala explained, “but it’s so hard for them to wash things now.”

Aala lied to her family about where she was going when she came to meet us. They’re scared for her and try to persuade her to stay at home. “But if I just stay at home I am already dead. Women who have no jobs don’t go out, they don’t do anything, there’s no entertainment. They just cook and clean and wash clothes.” Social life is centred much more on the family than on friends these days. “I see my friends across the fence or in the street but to sit down and drink tea and talk for hours, maybe once or twice a year.”


One of her sisters is a teacher, another is unemployed and the third is looking after their parents and brother. Her mum suffers badly with asthma, her dad has got cancer and one of her three brothers has had epilepsy since collapsing while training in the Al Quds army, reputedly an army for self sacrifice. More highly paid than the regular army, it was also a lifetime commitment. Theoretically, at least, you only spent three years in the conscript army, although a lot of people were refused discharge papers for much longer.

“Every household was supposed to supply someone for Al-Quds Army. If you would not then you were identified as not supporting Saddam. They would write things down about you. Women joined as well. If you wanted to be a teacher or a professional in something then you had to join the party and that means you had to train in the Al Quds army.”

Meanwhile Sadr’s people say that the Sunni and Shia of Iraq are uniting to fight the Americans. In reality there are both Shia and Sunni fighting the Americans but the united part of the claim is doubtful and those actually fighting are still a minority, though the level of support for them could be much greater. Still there’s always a way of making a disaster expand to fill all available space.

Today there was a mosque bombed in Falluja, maybe forty people killed, insurgents, according to the US. It may be true, though the fact there were insurgents inside doesn’t mean there weren’t unarmed people in there too, and besides, bombing a mosque is possibly the quickest way to make the moderates really angry. No one expects anyone to turn up for a meeting these days, let alone on time, with all the bridge and road closures.

There are planes overhead but this part of town is still pretty quiet. There’s been fighting in Abu Ghraib. Marwan called to say things were happening in Adamiya, Iraqis and American soldiers killed in the streets again. In the Abu Khanifa mosque people were queuing to give blood, food and money, chanting while they jostled for the too small supply of blood bags.

Who can say if there’s some kind of plan behind all this?

April 5th
Jawdat

“I was one of the leaders of the uprising in 1991 in the town of Hilla. I had to leave in 1992 with my wife and children and go north to Erbil,” Jawdat Al-Obaidi began his story. “The uprising failed because we were not organised and because the US government under George Bush promised to help us but then supported Saddam to suppress the uprising.

“I joined the Iraqi opposition in the north, organising in secret political cells until 1996 when I was captured after the unsuccessful uprising. We asked the US forces who were operating in the north to provide air cover for us because we could take the cities but we couldn’t hold them without air cover because they had given helicopters to the Iraqi government.

“They promised us air cover and we made a successful attack on the Republican Guard at Kirkuk but they did not give us the air cover. Saddam’s army counter attacked, surrounded and seized the city of Erbil. It was a terrible day. We lost about two hundred resistance fighters. I was captured by the intelligence services on November 25th 1996.

“The first six months in jail I was tortured. The two years in jail were very bad to me because there were bad psychological conditions and bad food. The Red Cross elped a lot, tracking me from jail to jail, keeping a file on me, asking about my situation, bringing me letters from my family. They arranged a visit with my wife and brought me books and clothes and toiletries. There were some procedures but they were allowed access to me.”

Released on July 7th 1998, after 20 months in prison, Jawdat and his family crossed the border into Syria on foot, a twelve hour walk, then travelled by car and bus from the first village into Damascus, where he claimed political asylum to the US. Several of the detainees from the 1996 uprising were released at the same time in some kind of amnesty. “I was not a criminal. I was a politician. I was not charged with any crime.”

Arriving in the US, he studied English and computing part time and Portland Community College and worked for a computer company for a year and a half before setting up his own computer business with his younger brother who left Iraq with him.

Despite the double betrayal by the US, when he heard about the Free Iraq Force through the e mail and telephone network of Iraqi opposition members, he volunteered for the exile militia which would train in Hungary and travel into Iraq with the US troops. “It was a different situation from 1991 and 1996. It was their decision to enter Iraq then so I believed they would carry it through, unlike the other times when it was our decision and we asked for their support.”

On April 9th they drove into Baghdad on tanks, making straight for Firdos Square and the Saddam statue next to the Palestine Hotel which then housed the entire international press. “The army and Republican Guard had disappeared. Possibly they could have been turned against the government instead, at some other time. The sanctions had a negative effect on the Iraqi people. They lost their power because tere was not enough food so they could not use their minds to organise resistance. Instead the sanctions strengthened Saddam. He lived well.

“We gathered by the statue. It was an unbelievable and emotional moment. We were happy because felling the statue marked the start of a new chapter. We were so optimistic. At first 90% of my hopefulness was fulfilled; now it is about 30%. But I am still optimistic. Many doors of hope are still open. 30% is enough for me to keep working.

“For example, my first opinion on the Governing Council was that we should support them and give them a chance to serve and to provide humanitarian assistance. But unfortunately after a few months the GC failed to deal with many issues. People no longer trust them. They lost the trust; they have no role anymore. They have used their power to build their own parties, not to build the country, not to work as leaders.

“They have benefited from hundreds of millions of dollars through contracts and used it to build their own parties and put their relatives in charge of ministries. The children’s hospitals are miserable. They are under threat because of the GC, because the GC is not working to help them. They are dealers, not politicians.”

The contracts issue makes him angry. “They must deal with the contracts issue fairly and Iraqi companies should have a share. They are not getting enough of a share now. With the mobile phones, for example, the company is foreign. No Iraqi company has a share and they deal badly with Iraqis. The signal is bad, the network is bad. When you buy a card for $30, almost $10 is for the line rental and the calls are expensive and the handset and the line.

“There are a lot of problems with the contracts. They should be managed by independent Iraqis, not by the Governing Council. The GC takes bribes for contracts or gives them to its own companies. Iraq needs an independent media enterprise as well. The media is controlled by the GC. They pay under the table for favourable reports and tell them what to cover. It is bad for democracy.

“The members of the Governing Council are the first reason for the attacks in Iraq because they have their own militias, which is against democracy and civil rights. They are threatening people in the street, spreading terrorism, spreading false information to Bremer and he bases his decisions on it.”

Jawdat is now a leader of the Iraqi Democratic Conference, a coalition of 192 of Iraq’s approximately 250 political parties. Their shared purpose is to build a political coalition to take part in the new parliament or national assembly, to make positive changes and play a role in the political future. A three month research programme on alternatives for the leadership of Iraq included a three day, six session conference to which Bremer and other representatives of the CPA were invited.

They didn’t bother to participate, not to come and introduce themselves and meet the representatives of almost 80% of Iraq’s political parties. “Many of us were political prisoners under the old government but none of tem came for dialogue with us. Life can’t go on like this. The CPA doesn’t respect us. Bremer meets only Chalabi and Alawi, who are ugly to Iraqis. Actually I don’t oppose them. The CPA has a right to support them but it must deal fairly with all of us.”

It is of course arguable that the CPA has only a very limited right to give its support to a couple of individuals and to refuse to consult with the leaders of the majority of parties in the country, but Jawdat needs and wants to stay positive so he gives them a lot of leeway.

“I was an opposition leader since 1991 and we suffered for a long time but when I came back on April 9th, I saw some of them, some of those who are now part of the Governing Council, holding guns to defend Saddam Hussein. A former intelligence officer and a high ranking Baath party member became GC members. Some of the GC left forty years ago. They did not suffer with us. How come they became members of the GC? They are not eligible.

“Most Iraqis hate Chalabi. He’s a criminal. Too many civilians have been killed by his militia after liberation, at checkpoints, in attacks. They stole property, money, cars, through looting and confiscation. The US supports Chalabi and Alawi because they cooperate with the administration but they are also associated with bad things which bring the US administration no credit.”

On the troubles of the last couple of days he again points to the passing of misinformation by GC members to Bremer. “They say Moqtada Al Sadr did this, Moqtada Al-Sadr did that. I’m not defending him, but the rights of innocent people. You cannot blame all the bad things on Moqtada Al-Sadr and his followers. There are many bad people in Iraq, as anywhere, but Bremer acts on the bad information.” He doesn’t know exactly why Moqtada’s newspaper was closed. There is no media legislation yet, nothing to specify what can and cannot be done.

Jawdat explained that the law is weak. While he thinks the law is the appropriate way to deal with the problems, he pointed out that the courts are barely functioning and are still controlled by former Baathists, millions of whom are still in power. “The solution is to deal with all cases individually. The Baath party ruled for thirty five years. Some of the old members are just normal Iraqi citizens and some are not and should be deposed.

“The Iraqis know each other. There would have to be an office in the ministries to collect and filter information, to avoid acting on false information. It happened a little at first but some of the GC were firmly against it so now it has almost disappeared. Bremer needs to deal with all the political parties and listen to more channels instead of accepting this misinformation. He must read everything to make the right decision.”

Jawdat is now head of a relief organisation called Freedom Organisation for Iraqi Children which is in fact concerned with taking sick children overseas for urgent medical treatment which they can’t get in Iraq any more, and not apparently related to freedom at all. I met him through a woman called Hind who did some translating for us before the war, who was then working as a translator for FOIC and asked me to elp tem contact the British consul, which is how I came to be discussing statue toppling and the new constitution with the leader of the Iraqi Democratic Conference in his office in the Sheraton Hotel.

On the constitution, he says there are gaps and mistakes and two major problems. The first is religious federalism. He was in favour of local and regional federalism but feels that the version created by the interim constitution, based on race and religion, is divisive. Secondly it gave a power of veto to a minority group, the Kurds. “Iraq has been ruled by a minority since the state was established. There are other minorities, Turkomens, Christians, Yazidis, Assyrians who are not protected and one with a power of veto.”

Perhaps surprisingly, for a man who dislikes the Governing Council so much, he’s not in favour of elections yet. “It would be no good because Iraqis are not practised so they would vote for someone according to religion or emotion and destroy everything. It would be better to wait and educate people through democratic institutions, television, radio, meetings.

“I say no to the Governing Council and no to elections. We should hold an election conference in each village and town and city to choose a national assembly, to choose who should go up from each village to the town and the city and up to the province and up to the capital. There might be a representative for each hundred thousand Iraqis, or some other number, from a conference in each place which would give more opportunity to discuss, rather than simply voting.”

April 3rd
When do the clocks change?

The clocks changed yesterday. Or the day before. Or possibly tomorrow. They went forward an hour. Probably. It depended on which newspaper you read. That more or less sums up Iraq in spring 2004, even time only staggering forward, no one knowing what hour we’re on because there’s no one to tell them.

Yesterday was a day of goodbyes for the rest of the clowns: the Mother Teresa orphanage, the camp at Shuala, the boys in the Kurdish house, Mama and Damia and Happy Family, the kids on our street, in the falafel shop, in the juice shop.

Their last meetings – for now anyway – coincided with Jenny’s first, introduced in a single day to several crowds of kids who know that the word “Boomchucka” means colour and laughter and any friend of the circus is a friend of theirs.

We took a load of modelling balloons to the kids in the orphanage and made an animal for every child. When we left, after maybe three quarters of an hour, we collected all the bright rubber fragments from the floor, bitten, beaten and sat on till they burst. Neither the nuns nor the kids care that they don’t last long: all that matters is that they were there. For Little Omar it had to be a bird: they call him Asbur, Bird, because he’s always flying from cot to cot, clambering out of one and into another, visiting all the other kids.

Ilyas called Donna’s name and Donna and I started singing the Ritchie Valens song, “Oh Donna”, holding her hands so that first her arms and then her whole body danced with us. She’s got very little language and has trouble putting words together but after we finished Ilyas kept singing, putting a tune to the two words, “Oh Donna”.

I gave Aala the small pot of bubbles and for several minutes his head crumpled in concentration, twisted arms working hard to bring the plastic bubble blower to his mouth at the right angle. Perhaps a dozen times he tried, blowing at the loop and making nothing but a soapy splatter. Eventually a single bubble emerged and floated away. Aala’s eyes widened with pride at his own achievement. There’s nothing wrong with his mind, but his body makes it difficult.

Shuala was the same as always. We get out of the car and the shout goes up. Kids come running from every direction and Saba and the littlest Marwa usually land in my arms first. Abdullah gets bolder and cheekier every time he sees me. Abbas is running about, his toes still not quite healed from the burns but his legs are good now. Marwa the older didn’t come out. I saw her looking through the window of their house. We went through the details of the water project – the lengths and diameters of pipes needed to extend the water supply to everyone in the camp.

The boys were playing football in the garden at the Kurdish House. They’ve replaced the grass and bare earth with sand because it’s better for the boys to play football on. The karate lessons at the Childhood Voice youth centre are going well, giving the boys loads more confidence in their movements. They’ve all had their hair cut really short: It shows all the scars on Aakan’s head from when he was living on the streets. He came for cuddles and tickling as always.

It’s been better than I dared imagine it could be. We’re setting up the circus long term to do the shows and games and skills teaching but also to maintain and coordinate the twinning links, to build capacity among Iraqis working with kids to do this kind of work and to take on projects like the school and the drainage and water systems in Shuala. We decided to call the organisation Boomchucka Circus, with Circus2Iraq being the first project.

We arrived back just after the incident in Falluja where the contractors were shot, burnt, mutilated and dragged through the streets. The scenes themselves, on satellite TV in a friend’s house, were shocking, all the more so because the dead men were described as civilians.

But what if they were soldiers, armed men who signed up for war and were paid to fight it. They were shot dead in an ambush. What was done to their bodies afterwards was distressing no matter what, but if they wee soldiers, they were killed in action. The truth, of course, is that they were somewhere in between, mercenaries from a US company called Blackwater Security, given a contract by USAID to protect contractors.

They travel in armoured vehicles, ostentatiously carrying powerful weapons and they shoot people and arrest people, precisely like the soldiers do but without the uniform. They’re paid about $1000 a day for the job, considerably more than the regular soldiers which most, if not all, of them used to be. The advantage for the US is that their deaths and injuries don’t show up on the figures for troop casualties.

The legal position, as if it mattered, is unclear. Not being regular soldiers, they don’t fit into the protection of the military parts of the Geneva Conventions. Not being unarmed civilians, they are not covered by the Fourth Convention either, relating to non-combatants. Nor could they be classified accurately as spies or intelligence agents. Perhaps the new category invented by the US for its prisoners of war from Afghanistan: unlawful combatants.

I’ve talked a little about unionisation with some of the people I’ve met because workers, including professionals, are struggling with things like the CPA trying to set a wage scale whose bottom two levels were unliveable. Order 39 of the CPA opened Iraq’s utilities and industries up to 100% foreign ownership. Protests forced the change to permitting 100% foreign leaseholding rather than ownership, with the lease locked for forty years.

The managers who collaborate with the American administration on privatisation are being threatened and assassinated. Bit by bit, the theory goes, the will to privatise, given the cost, will be dismantled. Unions, despite international labour law, are much more vulnerable, much less immediately effective than a bullet.

Julia just rang. The US troops have been attacking Sadr City this evening, as well as Najaf in the day. The Iraqi guards at the end of the street where you go into the fortress surrounding the Palestine / Sheraton hotels have stopped searching bags and are warning the people they like that they're going to walk away. Five US tanks have driven out of the complex. There have been demonstrations all day against the 'suspension' of Moqtada Al-Sadr's newspaper. Al-Sadr is the less moderate of the two main Shia leaders. I don't know - maybe someone decided this was a good time to start provoking a lot of people. You can still walk along Karrada and not know there's anything too badly wrong - at least I hope you can, because I'm about to leave the internet and try to do exactly that, but I can hear a helicopter overhead. By the way, the 'civilians' killed in Falluja were armed mercenaries. I'm not saying that makes it all OK, but it casts a different light on the stories as twisted out by the media.

March 31st
Basra

Basra starts suddenly, as you approach from Samawa. On one side of the railway tracks there is nothing but desert, immense trails of oil tankers oozing along the highway, similar sized hordes of camels traipsing the other way, the Japanese troop carriers on the way out of Samawa giving way to British ones further south.

On the other side are houses, densely packed, expanding to fill all available space, washing and children and bricks erupting out of them and the cars slicing through, its central reservation, pavements and part of the road covered with stuff for sale, old kitchen ware, old clothes, old electrical goods, like a giant drive-through car boot sale without the car boots. After a while, stalls selling new goods start to intersperse and in a while you reach the centre of the city.

Security is getting worse in Basra, people say, as unemployment rises, electricity remains erratic, on for eight or nine hours a day but cutting out at unpredictable intervals, and power struggles drag on. There have been a few attacks on British troops in recent days as frustration and the heat intensify. The soldiers used to walk the streets, much less under fire than the ruder Americans, but have stopped since the sniper incidents started.

Explosions, people say, are daily now and the BBC doesn’t report the killings of individual soldiers. Kidnappings of contractors are on the increase. Security firms are making things worse by calling themselves NGOs because they think it’s safer for them. They travel armed and create uncertainty about what it means to be an NGO, exposing organisations to increased risk.

Rehab just wants to leave. She lived in Cardiff for ten years while her dad was studying for a PhD in civil engineering. What’s wrong with Iraq, I asked, for her point of view more than because I didn’t know. She pointed at the headscarf on my lap. “That’s one thing,” she said. “I don’t wear it. I won’t.” in Samawa women have been threatened for not covering their hair. Not here, Rehab said. “They just whisper and point, but I am defiant. I drive a car as well.”

A computer engineer from a Shia family, she wants to get a scholarship for a post graduate degree in the UK and escape from Iraq for a while. Her dad would let her leave if it was to take up a scholarship, she thinks. He wouldn’t go back himself though: “He says he likes being able to say hello to everyone in the street.”

The first show had to be cancelled. The newly opened play space set up by Intersos is suffering the effects of the wranglings over power. The sheikh who lives and rules near the centre thinks he ought to have control over everything and has tried to get all his friends and relations jobs in the centre, to have the teachers fired, has forced the centre to do without a theatre and a music room, such as the centre in Bayaa, in Baghdad, has got.

Instead our first Basra performance was in a school for deaf and dumb children. Rehabilitated by Save the Children after a comprehensive post war looting, the school caters for 119 children altogether. From the show in the deaf school in Samawa, we learnt that though they can’t hear, the kids still recognise and respond to noise and to variations in noise, so we made lots.

Luis’s didgeridoo was a big favourite again and instead of communal shouting, they signed approval and disapproval in unison, very politely suggesting that I on my stilts ought to give back Luis’s hat when he started to howl. A little girl called Hanaan was the star translator, signing for the kids less adept at lip reading. The headmistress told us at the end that she’d never seen the kids so animated.

In the old days, Ali said, deaf people were singled out for special persecution because they were harder to control. Using sign language, they couldn’t be listened to the way everyone else could and the security police couldn’t tell whether they were up to something or not. They weren’t allowed to wear hearing aids because Saddam thought they might be secret communication devices and people shunned them, even taxi drivers wouldn’t stop for them, for fear of being implicated by association. In times of war they were tortured to make sure they couldn’t scream properly, to make sure they really were deaf and mute.

Zaid's brother-in-law is deaf and has worn a hearing aid since he was a small child. "No one has ever told him you cannot wear it," Zaid said. Vehemently against Saddam, and unequivocally happy that he was removed, still he said, "None of this happened to him. Perhaps it was only in the south, or in the north."

The next new challenge was a show for blind children and orphans in the Ministry of Social Affairs. One of the women working in the Ministry showed me a booklet of phrases and quotations which formed an exercise for teaching English, including a line about how it’s possible to look without seeing, to listen without hearing. It reminded me that the reverse is also true: the deaf kids heard us through some other sense. We didn’t know how the blind children would see us, how they used other senses to compensate, so we did exactly the same show we always do.

A boy of about twelve with a scarred face looked intently into the top corner of the room. His friend beside him had one eye which hardly opened at all and another which was fixed, the pupil rolled back so it was barely visible. The two sat with an arm around each other’s shoulders, laughing frequently and turning sometimes to hug one another. Two little girls whispered in each other’s ears for the entire show, giggling.

It was different. They loved the boomchuckas at the beginning and the didgeridoo. They could understand the music box routine and enjoyed it. The juggling was a little lost on them, but the presence of the kids who could see, from the orphanage, was helpful because their excitement infused the whole atmosphere. Again their teachers said they could hardly believe the effect the show had on them.

When they left the children walked in clusters, arms around each other’s shoulders, the almost-blind leading the blind. Not one of them had so much as a stick to guide them. Eman said the kids at the corresponding institution in Baghdad have sticks but here there is nothing. There is a little teaching and a new project to teach them some gymnastics, but no real resources.

Outside, Rafaa watched her boy, Abdullah, laughing at Fisheye’s magic tricks. In English she told me his father was dead. “They cut off his head,” she said. “Saddam cut off his head.” It was in 1991, after the uprising, when Abdullah was a baby. She has brought the kids up alone since then.

One of the men outside wanted to talk about the British troops. I was curious, because in Baghdad they believe that the British troops are much better than the US ones, much more polite, fairer. “Noss oo noss,” was his opinion: so-so. The Spanish and Japanese soldiers were good, he thought, in Samawa and elsewhere in the south. “The Americans,” he made a brushing away gesture with his hands. “No. No good.” He said he was glad Saddam was gone, but were things better now, he asked himself. Human rights were not respected and the soldiers still caused many problems.

Basra has thousands of displaced people living in camps. The bombing in 1991 destroyed countless houses. In the mid 1990s a movement formed to overthrow Saddam. The young men were arrested and killed, their homes burned in punishment. The latest bombing made still more people homeless. The biggest city outside Baghdad, Basra has also seen an influx from the smaller and poorer towns and cities in the south.

Abeer works in the logistics department at Save the Children. She used to work in the community participation programme but left because she believes that one of her superiors was misappropriating funds. Before that she was in the IDP [Internally Displaced People} team at Save the Children but the programme came to an end when its funding stopped. As with IDPs throughout the country, no one is responsible for them and noone has funding to look after them. There are moves to evict them from a lot of the squats and compounds where they’re living without services but no real alternative housing on offer.

Like Samawa, Basra’s so-called ‘youth centre’ is in fact a sports club for boys with a theatre for religious lectures. Two girls came in, hidden behind the abayas of mothers who work there as cleaners. When I sat down to take off my stilts, Abeer came to bring me a message. “There is a little girl there who was really happy to see you. She told me to tell you she loves you, but she was too shy to come and say it.” In the end, though, Suha did come for a photo with me and a chat.

Abeer says life is better for women in Basra than elsewhere in the south. A bigger city, close to the border with Kuwait and to Iraq’s only port, it has been more influenced by the people passing through and women are freer, safer to walk about, though she still couldn’t smoke a narghila in public, and it’s easier for them to find work, but still since the war she and her friends are more afraid to walk outside, more afraid of kidnapping, violence, robbery. Like everywhere, “security” is the first concern, the first word on every woman’s lips.

Abeer is clever, funny, gorgeous, cheeky. She, her sister and another woman run an organisation called Women for Peace and Democracy. “I don’t like the word democracy in the name but my sister insisted,” Abeer explained. Her sister said you get more money for projects with the word ‘democracy’ in the title and it’s true. Their funding so far has come from different sources including the CPA. They don’t like it but don’t have much choice.

They’ve been running computer classes, first for housewives and then for women in unskilled jobs with little education, to improve their prospects. Later they started English and literacy classes as well as providing clothes and abayas for poor women in rural areas, which helps them feel more able to go out. The classes were full immediately they were advertised. “You couldn’t do that in Nasariya or Amara,” Abeer said. “The women would want to go but they wouldn’t be allowed and you would find the classroom empty every week.”

They do it quite quietly, but these women set the world on fire, Abeer and Rehab and Maha. And then it was over and we were driving back to Baghdad, the time in Basra far too short.

March 29th
Samawa

At sunset swallows dive among the washing lines and satellite dishes on the flat rooves across the town of Samawa, about 120km north of Nasariya, and the market comes to life, dead chickens lying in trays, the insides of half sheep hanging in doorways, pungent fish and bags of sour yoghurt and cheese curd, cages of pigeons, fruit and vegetables, a tea stall here and there between clusters of stalls or shops all selling the same thing, a whole row of trays of eggs, a few selling buckets and hoses, a few selling stationery.

The taxis are the same as everywhere, white with orange panels, and the fire engines with “Sides” printed on the sides so you wonder if they came in self assembly kits until you realise it says the same on the front and back. All the women are in black from head to foot, yet there are headscarves of every colour in the market. I stopped to buy a couple and talked to the man in the shop about what we’re up to. I don’t bother to bargain any more, just tell the shopkeeper about the circus and wait for the foreigner tax to be cut.

Peat got one of the black things that wraps around the head to hold the kaffiyeh, the men’s head covering. It only led to trouble though because when he and Luis went for a narghila later, they got arrested and dragged away by four police men with guns. Apparently someone reported that there were funny looking foreigners in town, one of them wearing his kaffiyeh like a terrorist.

Ali and I went to get them out of the police station, where there was also a big bucket of cold beers seized from “Ali Baba”, and he promised to show Peat how to wear the kaffiyeh the non-terrorist way. How considerate of the terrorists to adopt a different way of dressing so as to protect other people from suspicion.

It was the second time today that the police had come to take us away, the first being outside the Department of Youth and Sport, which has organised some shows for us. They took Peat and Fisheye because they wanted to watch the film on Fisheye’s camera, drove them to the police station, gave them tea, didn’t notice that Fisheye was still filming and let them go again. They have to check up on all the foreigners, find out who they are and what they’re doing.

Apparently kidnapping people is something of a habit with the police down here though. They once picked up three of the Dutch soldiers and kept them in the cells overnight. It’s impossible to imagine the Baghdad police doing the same with an unsuspecting group of US soldiers.

The Dutch soldiers walk around otherwise unmolested in small groups on patrol. The Japanese soldiers I’ve only seen in vehicles. Saad said as they passed, “They are afraid of the Iraqi people.” In Nasariya, the first guess on nationality is Italian. Here people ask if you’re Japanese or Dutch. In Baghdad, for some reason, the first assumption is that you’re Russian, then American. Either way, it feels much safer here than Baghdad, much quieter. There are no bombs here. A bit of gunfire earlier had everyone looking out of their front doors.

Our street is sectioned by ditches of dirty water, the kids hopping over them, the cars slowing down to bounce through. A footbridge across the Euphrates is partly collapsed and people pick their way carefully across. The main urban centre in Muthanna province, Samawa has only about half a million people, mostly Shia, as is the case throughout the south, and you’re quickly out of town.

On the road to the rural youth centres we’ve been to each afternoon are small groups of men carrying vivid green, red and black flags. They are walking to Kerbala from all over the south for the end of the mourning for the Imam Hussein. Tents of all sizes, surrounded by the same colours, offer food and rest for the pilgrims. Cars hoot in support as they pass. Mr Abu Zina tutted at the continued playing of the devotional music in Salam’s car on the way to a school: “Ashura is over,” he pointed out, apparently tired of the chanting and crashing of cymbals to mark the time for chest beating.

The youth centres are each used by about a hundred boys and no girls, with no facilities for anything except sport. Today about three girls, yesterday about nine, made little rows at the back of the theatre. A family of swallows had made its nest at the front of the theatre and a pile of turd on the stage, swooping in and out of the absent windows. The day before that there was no theatre, only a improbably hot tarmac games court with boys playing basketball barefoot and a crowd of non participants leaning in the shade.

There were coaches for basketball, volleyball, handball and football, one of them the sports teacher from the boys’ school, who volunteered the information that his father had died a month ago. The manager, one of three albino men I’ve seen in as many days in Samawa, who must suffer agonies in the heat of summer, looked shocked at my asking whether any girls used the centres.

The girls are in the fields either side of the road with the women, picking stuff in rows, carrying it down the dirt tracks. It was notable for its rarity when two women came into the internet and talked to Fisheye after he did some magic tricks while he was outside smoking a cigarette. Conservatism and fear mix thickly.

Yesterday’s first show was supposed to be in the big sports hall on the edge of town but there were no kids. The head of the Department of Youth and Sport in Samawa insisted that the heads of the schools knew about the show, but the heads said there was no way they could take their children there: they were too scared for the kids’ safety if they walked them through the streets.

Instead we went to them, to a girls’ school with about six hundred pupils. Through the gates, as we got ready in the headmistress’s office, came a constant stream of boys, two by two, holding hands, until the original crowd had doubled, the visitors packed into the balconies around the inside so it looked like the kids were all crammed into shelves around the yard. There were far too many of them, all edging forward as the ones at the back pushed to be able to see, like at Sadr City, so we had to keep stopping for the teachers to coax them all back again and make room for us to perform in, which makes it all a bit chaotic, but the kids loved it.

This morning we finally managed to do the stadium show, with a school full of girls’ packed into the stands. The headmistress told them before the show to be quiet and keep still. It lasted a couple of minutes before we got them shouting and laughing, all leaning forward together when they yelled.

Much quieter, in fact our quietest show yet, was the school for deaf and dumb children. We left out the ‘boomchucka’s but the advantage of a show that’s not based on language is that it’s quite easy to adapt for people who can’t hear you. They can still laugh out loud though and do the gasp of amazement when Fisheye shows them the multicoloured pictures that have magically appeared in the colouring book.

There are 71 pupils aged up to twelve, after which there’s nothing for them in Samawa, studying the same primary school curriculum as all Iraqi schools teach, using lip reading and sign language. The headmistress is keen to communicate with teachers of deaf children outside Iraq to improve their methods of working with the kids.

There are no other activities or arts, although the school’s in a better state than a lot we’ve been in, with pictures on the walls, running water and carpet. The Dutch military have embarked on a lot of school rehabilitation, but there are still no facilities for making food or for sick kids, which means there are a lot of deaf kids in the area who aren’t coming to the school because they can’t be looked after enough.

Saad has had four contracts from the Dutch military for school rehabilitation. He doesn’t have much time for the likes of Bechtel who take contracts at inflated prices and just siphon off the money and don’t do the work properly but he’s more irritated still with the translators working for the Dutch army, who are diverting the contracts to their own relatives and friends, he said.

Yesterday a contract worth $91,000 was given to the brother of the translator, a nineteen year old with no experience as a building contractor or engineer. The money is good on these contracts and the translators know they can get away with securing them for their own families, even when they’re not professionals. As a civil engineer with twenty years of experience, Saad felt aggrieved and decided to go and challenge the decision in court.

I was dubious that there were any processes through which he could challenge it, any system of judicial review for procedural impropriety, any appeals process. Sure enough, when I saw him later, he said nothing happened in court because the translator was a friend of the Dutch military.

But Saad says that everything is better now Saddam is gone. He doesn’t care how long foreign troops stay or what they take, he says, as long as the Baathists are gone. It doesn’t matter to him who runs the country so long as it’s not the Baathists. He spent four months in the jail in the security police headquarters in 1994, showed us the scar on his ankle where a cigarette was put out. He pointed out the jail where he was held. “I burnt it with my own hands, “ he said, miming striking a match. Bush, he said, is a gentleman.

The men and women in jail now without charge, trial, lawyers, without their families knowing where they are, he insists, are all from Falluja, Ramadi or Tikrit. Nothing will convince him that there are detainees from anywhere else in Iraq, nor that merely to be from those places is not a valid reason for internment. Everyone from the three towns was directly oppressing the people of the south, he says, every one, including the children.

Sometimes reconciliation seems a long way off.