Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: International Issues

  • Lawrence Eagleburger: Bush Should be Impeached if He Attacks Syria

    President Bush warned Syria last night not to harbour any fleeing Iraqi leaders and insisted that Damascus has chemical weapons.

    But he stopped short of threatening military action, insisting: “They just need to co-operate.”

    Speaking to reporters after returning to the White House from Camp David, he said: “We believe there are chemical weapons in Syria.

    “First things, first. We’re here in Iraq now and the thing about Syria is we expect co-operation.”

    Mr Bush’s warning followed earlier comments by a former US foreign policy chief that the president should be impeached if he attacks Syria.

    Lawrence Eagleburger, Secretary of State under George Bush Senior, said American public opinion would not tolerate action against Syria or Iran.

    He was speaking as Colin Powell, the current Secretary of State, ramped up the pressure on Syria not to shield Saddam Hussein or his cronies.

    Washington hawks are spoiling for a fight with Syria and Iran following the collapse of the Iraqi regime.

    Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday said there was “no question” that Syria was harbouring senior Iraqi figures. But Mr Eagleburger, who accused Syria of having an outrageous record on terror, said an extension of the war was unthinkable.

    “You saw the furore that went on before the President got sufficient support to do this,” he said. “This is still a democracy and public opinion rules. If George Bush decided he was going to turn troops on Syria now and then Iran he’d be in office about 15 minutes.

    “If President Bush were to try it now, even I would feel he should be impeached. You can’t get away with that sort off thing in a democracy.”

    Foreign Office minister Mike O’Brien arrives in Damascus today to tell Syria it has nothing to fear if it shuns terror and refuses to harbour Iraqi leaders.

    President Assad denies any links to terror groups.

  • Before You Become Too Flushed With Victory, Think About Ali Ismaeel Abbas

    Before You Become Too Flushed With Victory, Think About Ali Ismaeel Abbas

    Ali is 12 years old. He is in Kindi hospital in Baghdad with both of his arms blown off by a missile. His mother, father and brother were killed in the attack. His mother was five months pregnant. Ali asks the reporter from Reuters, “Can you help get my arms back? Do you think the doctors can get me another pair of hands?” It is heartbreaking.

    The reporter for Reuters, Samia Nakhoul writes, “Abbas’ suffering offered one snapshot of the daily horrors afflicting Iraqi civilians in the devastating U.S.-led war to remove President Saddam Hussein.”

    Or, take this report which appeared in The Guardian in London: “Unedited TV footage from Babylon Hospital, which was seen by the Guardian, showed the tiny corpse of a baby wrapped up like a doll in a funeral shroud and carried out of the morgue on a pink pallet. It was laid face-to-face on the pavement against the body of a boy, who looked about 10.”

    The report continued, “Horrifically injured bodies were heaped into pick-up trucks, and were swarmed by relatives of the dead, who accompanied them for burial. Bed after bed of injured women and children were pictured along with large pools of blood on the floor of the hospital.”

    At the hospital, a stunned man said repeatedly, “God take our revenge on America.”

    But on American television we see none of this. The newscasters chatter endlessly about strategy and victory, and engage in inane ponderings about whether Saddam is dead or alive. Their human-interest stories are about American or “coalition” casualties. There is virtually nothing about the victims of the war, including children like Ali.

    We need a new way of understanding war, in terms of children, not strategy. We need to understand war in terms of its costs to humanity rather than in terms of victory alone.

    Wouldn’t it be refreshing to have our newscasters talking to pediatricians as well as political pundits, to professors of international law in addition to retired military officers? Wouldn’t it be meaningful to have reporters speaking to us from Baghdad’s hospitals as well as from their positions embedded with our military forces?

    Ali Ismaeel Abbas told the reporter who visited him, “We didn’t want war. I was scared of this war. Our house was just a poor shack. Why did they want to bomb us?”

    Lying in his hospital bed, Ali told the reporter, “If I don’t get a pair of hands I will commit suicide.” Tears ran down his cheeks.

    The next time you hear our newscasters, our political leaders or our pundits celebrating our “victory,” think about 12 year old Ali in his hospital bed. He is only one of potentially thousands of children who have paid the price in life, limb and loss of parents in what Dick Cheney calls “one of the most extraordinary military campaigns ever conducted.”
    * David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the editor of Hope in a Dark Time (Capra Press, 2003), and author of Choose Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age (Middleway Press, 2002).
    Readers Comments

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    How easy it is to detach oneself from all this horror even for us who are in the peace movement, how easy to go to bed and forget. and yet I force myself to read over and over again about this little boy who lost both his arms, and I think of my own boy who runs and plays without a care. What is there that makes this world so full of mean spirited men like Bush and the deplorable Powell and company? I know that hate is not a good feeling but when I read this I hate until it makes me sick.

    Grace, USA

    At the risk of seeming like a sentimental slob (when the scope of this tragedy is so wide and so deep)—is there any way we could get some medical and financial help to this unfortunate child? (and be sure it gets to him?) i know nothing we do can undo what Rumsfeld et al have done to him and countless others, but i feel we should make a real effort to reach out to the victims, not just en masse, but individually, so they know that we do not share the lack of values that characterizes our leaders. thanks for your wonderful piece.

    Daniel, USA

  • North Korea’s Withdrawal from Nonproliferation Treaty Official

    On January 10th 2003 North Korea announced its intent to become the first country ever to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Though North Korean officials argued that its withdrawal was official immediately, according to Article X of the treaty the withdrawal was not official until today, three months after the notification was issued. This unfortunate event highlights the severe implications of the Bush administration’s refusal to engage North Korea diplomatically. It also draws attention to concerns about the uncertain future of the NPT regime.

    Under the NPT North Korea and other countries not possessing nuclear weapons at the time agreed not to develop or obtain nuclear weapons and the nuclear powers agreed to disarm and not to spread nuclear weapons to other states. Now that North Korea is officially not a party to the NPT, there are few legal obstacles preventing it from developing nuclear weapons and selling such weapons, technology and materials to other countries.

    North Korea had announced its intent to withdraw from the NPT regime once before in 1993. At that time the United States engaged in bilateral negotiations leading the DPRK to retract its withdrawal days before it officially went into effect.

    When North Korea again announced its withdrawal in January its statement of intent clearly called for further negotiation initiatives with the United States. These requests did not, however, result in the skillful diplomatic maneuvering that was employed during the 1993 crisis. Instead, the Bush administration has refused all requests for bilateral talks, urging a multilateral approach that has, thus far, proved entirely unfruitful.

    North Korea now joins India, Pakistan, Israel, as the only countries not currently within the NPT regime. Few of these countries have faced serious consequences for such remaining outside of the regime.

    Although some sanctions were originally imposed on India and Pakistan after they conducted nuclear tests in 1998, these sanctions have been largely abandoned. The nuclear status of India and Pakistan is increasingly accepted by the world’s major powers. They have been allowed to enter into certain international nuclear research institutions, from which they were previously excluded, and the U.S. is investigating ways to aid these countries in securing their nuclear arsenals.

    It currently appears unlikely that the U.N. Security Council will take any punitive action in response to North Korea’s NPT withdrawal. This seeming complacency of the international community in regards to nuclear proliferation begs the question: what is preventing other nuclear aspiring nations, such as Iran, from following North Korea’s lead and withdrawing from the NTP regime?

    As the United States continues to wage a pre-emptive attack on Iraq, in part due to Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction programs, increasing alarm is voiced by other nations accused of such proliferation. It is likely that nations such as Iran will accelerate their nuclear weapons programs due to fears of such U.S. aggression. This is particularly so as the Bush administration continues to increase its emphasis on its own nuclear weapons technology, ignoring its disarmament obligations under Article XI of the NPT. Though these issues will likely be discussed at the upcoming preparatory meeting for the NPT Review Conference this May, the Bush administration is increasingly distancing itself from arenas pushing to find diplomatic solutions to the threat of weapons of mass of destruction.
    * Devon Chaffee is the research and advocacy coordinator at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • The Meaning of Victory

    The Meaning of Victory

    “Day by day we are moving closer to Baghdad. Day by day we are moving closer to victory.”

    –George W. Bush, March 31, 2003
    With these words, Mr. Bush sought to reassure the American people that his war plan is working, moving us closer to “victory.” As the United States continues its heavy and unrelenting bombing of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, inflicting death and suffering on the Iraqi people who we are supposedly liberating, we would do well to explore the meaning of victory. Thus far, few journalists, at least in the corporate mainstream US media, appear ready to do so. Those concerned with the path the war is taking might have added the following observations to Bush’s statement.

    Day by day we are killing more Iraqi civilians. One day US forces bomb a marketplace, killing 62 civilians. Another day a car carrying women and children is fired on by US troops, killing seven. An Iraqi mother describes watching her young children’s heads severed from their bodies. According to news reports, some 500 to 700 Iraqi civilians have died thus far, and many more Iraqi soldiers have been slaughtered.

    Day by day the “untold sorrow” mounts. One Iraqi man, whose family was killed by US bombing, cries out in pain, “God take our revenge on America!”

    Day by day more of our young soldiers are dying and being maimed in battle and military accidents. Between US and British troops, more than 60 coalition soldiers are dead. Is this our victory, killing more of “them” than they kill of “us”?

    Day by day we are spending more of our wealth on instruments of war as we relentlessly bombard Iraqi cities. Bush has asked for supplementary budget approval of $75 billion as a down payment on this war. This is in addition to the $400 billion already allocated for our military forces.

    Day by day we are destroying more of the infrastructure of Iraqi cities that we are already allowing US companies to bid on to rebuild. Perhaps we should return to less deadly ways of transferring taxpayer wealth to favored corporations.

    Day by day we are becoming more hated in the Middle East. Middle Eastern newspapers are printing these headlines, “Monstrous martyrdom in Baghdad” (Jordan), “Dreadful massacre in Baghdad” (Egypt), and “Yet another massacre by the coalition of invaders” (Saudi Arabia). Egyptian novelist Ezzat El Kamhawy writes, “This war is affecting civilians primarily. I did not expect to see civilians bombed and I feel exceedingly angry.” Throughout the Middle East, the people don’t seem to be celebrating our presence or our war, let alone our “victory.”

    Day by day we are creating more terrorists intent upon attacking the US and American citizens. “When it is over, if it is over, this war will have horrible consequences,” says Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek. “Instead of having one [Osama] bin Laden, we will have 100 bin Ladens.” Does this fit with Mr. Bush’s concept of “victory”?

    Day by day we are seeing the arrogance of the rush to war by the Bush administration. We have yet to see the Iraqis surrendering in large numbers and greeting the Americans as “liberators,” as the administration boldly claimed would happen. Perhaps Mr. Bush, so focused on victory and so lacking in historical perspective, has forgotten the US experience in Vietnam and the potency of nationalism in the defense of one’s country from outside invaders.

    Day by day the Bush administration is continuing to alienate most of our key allies. The members of the “coalition of the willing” that have actually provided troops in Iraq consist of only the UK, Australia, Poland and Albania in addition to the US. Not even the three countries whose leaders have vocally supported the war–Spain, Italy and Bulgaria–are providing military support.

    Day by day polls throughout the world are showing overwhelming opposition to the US invasion of Iraq, even in most of those countries where the governments are nominally supporting the US.

    Day by day we are watching the erosion of our constitutional system of government. Congress has shirked its constitutional responsibility to declare war, and it seems poised to give the president all the funds he is requesting for his war.

    Day by day, laws pressed by the Bush administration, such as the misnamed USA Patriot Act and planned supplements to this legislation, are undermining our Bill of Rights.

    Day by day Americans are being misled by our mainstream corporate media, which seems comfortable acting as cheerleaders for the war. When veteran war correspondent Peter Arnett said on Iraqi television what he took to be the obvious truth, that the US timetable was falling by the wayside in Iraq, he was summarily fired by NBC.

    Day by day Americans are expressing their support, but also their ignorance about the war. The polls inform us that 72 percent of Americans support the war, but at the same time 51 percent of Americans believe that Iraq attacked the World Trade Center, which is not true. Sixty-five percent of Americans cannot find Iraq on a map.

    Day by day we are ignoring other serious problems in the world, including the dangerous potential for war on the Korean peninsula and the possibility of North Korea’s further nuclear proliferation. The Bush administration ignores North Korea’s pleas for negotiations with the US and its constructive proposals for a mutual security treaty.

    Day by day we are using nuclear-tipped shells in this war to attack tanks and other armored vehicles. The “depleted uranium” in these munitions is transformed into fine dust particles upon impact, and the inhalation of these particles is thought to be responsible for the “Gulf War Syndrome” that has afflicted so many of our troops from the first Gulf War in 1991.

    Professor Doug Rokke, ex-director of the Pentagon’s depleted uranium project, has argued, “There is a moral point to be made here. This war was about Iraq possessing illegal weapons of mass destruction – yet we are using weapons of mass destruction ourselves. Such double standards are repellent.”

    Day by day we are moving closer to using nuclear weapons, the real ones. The Bush administration has promulgated a doctrine of reserving “the right to respond with overwhelming force – including through resort to all of our options – to the use of WMD [weapons of mass destruction] against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies.” The reference to “all of our options” is meant to obliquely send the message that nuclear weapons use is an option.

    We don’t know whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, but we have no reason to believe that they would not use chemical or biological weapons as a last resort if they did. And we have no reason to believe that the Bush junta would not follow through on their threats to use “all of our options,” including nuclear weapons.

    Day by day the US economy is faltering. Since Bush came to office, the US has moved from large budget surpluses to large budget deficits. The stock markets have followed one major trend, downward, and the war seems to be exacerbating this trend.

    Day by day funding is being cut for education, health care, head start programs and other important social programs so that we can pay for war. In 2001, 41.2 million Americans had no health insurance. There has been a 43 percent rise in unemployment since Bush took office. Pell grants, which have funded college educations particularly for worthy minority students, are being cut back from covering 84 percent of the costs to 42 percent of the costs. While important social programs are being cut back or eliminated, Bush is pressing for a $700 billion tax break for the wealthiest Americans.

    Day by day the Bush administration is failing America’s veterans. The House of Representatives recently voted approval of a 2004 budget that will cut $25 billion over ten years from veteran’s health care and benefit programs. This came just one day after Congress voted overwhelmingly to “support our troops.”

    Day by day the most respected moral leaders in the world are speaking out against a war they find to be immoral and lacking in legitimacy. These leaders include The Pope, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former South African President Nelson Mandela.

    The Pope has repeatedly insisted that a preventive war has no legal or moral justification, and has called the war “a defeat for humanity.” Nelson Mandela has called Bush’s actions in Iraq “a tragedy.” “What I am condemning,” Mandela said, “is that one power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.”

    As if to underline Mandela’s insights about him, Bush, according to Time magazine, told three US Senators as far back as March 2002, “F–k Saddam. We’re taking him out.”

    As we race toward the “victory” that Mr. Bush seems so confident will be achieved, what are the consequences likely to be?

    — There will be greater instability in the Middle East as the US attempts to occupy Iraq.

    — The US will be roundly hated in the Middle East and throughout the Muslim world.

    — Terrorism against the US will increase, including terrorism in the US.

    — Our guaranteed freedoms in the US Bill of Rights will continue to be reduced.

    — The US economy will be in shambles, with few social programs left intact.

    — US alliances of long duration will be difficult, if not impossible, to rebuild.

    — The likelihood of nuclear weapons proliferation and use will increase.

    Former US marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has doubts about Bush’s “victory”: “We find ourselves…facing a nation of 23 million, with armed elements numbering around seven million – who are concentrated at urban areas. We will not win this fight. America will lose this war.”

    But Mr. Bush tells us, “Day by day we are moving closer to victory.” General Tommy Franks, the commander of the US war effort, tells us, “The outcome is not in doubt.” In all likelihood, however, it will not be the outcome that Mr. Bush and his administration are anticipating, but one far worse for all of us. It is past time for the American people to wake up to the meaning of “victory.”
    * David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the author of Choose Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age (Middleway Press, 2002) and editor of Hope in a Dark Time, Reflections on Humanity’s Future (Capra Press, 2003).

  • Over 60 People Dead After US Bombs Iraqi Neighborhood in Hilla

    The London Independent is reporting that over 60 people, mostly civilians, have now died since the US bombed an impoverished Iraqi neighborhood in the town of Hilla, south of Baghdad. Hundreds of people are wounded.

    The London Guardian reports unedited TV footage from the Babylon hospital showed horrifically injured bodies heaped into pick-up trucks. Relatives of the dead accompanied them for burial. Bed after bed of injured women and children were pictured along with large pools of blood on the floor of the hospital.

    An Edinburgh-trained doctor at the hospital Nazim al-Adali, told the Guardian: “All of these are due to the American bombing to the civilian homes. He said there were not any army vehicles or tanks in the area.

    And Robert Fisk writes in today’s Independent:

    “The wounds are vicious and deep, a rash of scarlet spots on the back and thighs or face, the shards of shrapnel from the cluster bombs buried an inch or more in the flesh. The wards of the Hillah teaching hospital are proof that something illegal ­ something quite outside the Geneva Conventions ­ occurred in the villages around the city once known as Babylon.

    “The wailing children, the young women with breast and leg wounds, the 10 patients upon whom doctors had to perform brain surgery to remove metal from their heads, talk of the days and nights when the explosives fell “like grapes” from the sky.”

    Agence France Press correspondent Nayla Razzouk reported seeing cluster bomblets all over the neighborhood, but the Pentagon denied using cluster bombs on Hillah. However, the Pentagon has just admitted U.S. forces are using cluster bombs elsewhere in Iraq.

    Amnesty International yesterday condemned the Hilla bombing and U.S. use of cluster bombs. The human rights group warned, “The use of cluster bombs in an attack on a civilian area of al-Hilla constitutes an indiscriminate attack and a grave violation of international humanitarian law.”

  • Rep. Kucinich Calls for an End to the War on the Floor of the House

    Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH), a leader in the opposition to the War in Iraq within the House, issued the following statement on the House floor:

    “Stop the war now. As Baghdad will be encircled, this is the time to get the UN back in to inspect Baghdad and the rest of Iraq for biological and chemical weapons. Our troops should not have to be the ones who will find out, in combat, whether Iraq has such weapons. Why put our troops at greater risk? We could get the United Nations inspectors back in.

    “Stop the war now. Before we send our troops into house-to-house combat in Baghdad, a city of five million people. Before we ask our troops to take up the burden of shooting innocent civilians in the fog of war.

    “Stop the war now. This war has been advanced on lie upon lie. Iraq was not responsible for 9/11. Iraq was not responsible for any role al-Qaeda may have had in 9/11. Iraq was not responsible for the anthrax attacks on this country. Iraq did not tried to acquire nuclear weapons technology from Niger. This war is built on falsehood.

    “Stop the war now. We are not defending America in Iraq. Iraq did not attack this nation. Iraq has no ability to attack this nation. Each innocent civilian casualty represents a threat to America for years to come and will end up making our nation less safe. The seventy-five billion dollar supplemental needs to be challenged because each dime we spend on this war makes America less safe. Only international cooperation will help us meet the challenge of terrorism. After 9/11 all Americans remember we had the support and the sympathy of the world. Every nation was ready to be of assistance to the United States in meeting the challenge of terrorism. And yet, with this war, we have squandered the sympathy of the world. We have brought upon this nation the anger of the world. We need the cooperation of the world, to find the terrorists before they come to our shores.

    “Stop this war now. Seventy-five billion dollars more for war. Three- quarters of a trillion dollars for tax cuts, but no money for veterans ‘ benefits. Money for war. No money for health care in America, but money for war. No money for social security, but money for war. We have money to blow up bridges over the Tigris and the Euphrates, but no money to build bridges in our own cities. We have money to ruin the health of the Iraqi children, but no money to repair the health of our own children and our educational programs.

    “Stop this war now. It is wrong. It is illegal. It is unjust and it will come to no good for this country.

    “Stop this war now. Show our wisdom and our humanity, to be able to stop it, to bring back the United Nations into the process. Rescue this moment. Rescue this nation from a war that is wrong, that is unjust, that is immoral.

    “Stop this war now.”

  • Three British Soldiers Sent Home after Protesting at Civilian Deaths

    Three British soldiers in Iraq have been ordered home after objecting tothe conduct of the war. It is understood they have been sent home for protesting that the war is killing innocent civilians.

    The three soldiers – including a private and a technician – are from 16 Air Assault Brigade which is deployed in southern Iraq. Its task has been to protect oilfields.

    The brigade includes the Ist and 3rd battalions of the Parachute Regiment, the 1st battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment, a Royal Horse Artillery regiment, and a reconnaissance squadron of the Household Cavalry.

    The three soldiers, based in Colchester, Essex, face court martial and are seeking legal advice, defence sources said yesterday.

    The Ministry of Defence said it was not prepared to comment on individual cases. It said it had “no evidence” to suggest the soldiers had been sent home for refusing to fight.

    Soldiers could be returned home for a number of reasons, including compassionate and medical, as well as disciplinary grounds, defence sources said.

    But it is understood that the three soldiers have been sent home for complaining about the way the war is being fought and the growing danger to civilians.

    The fact that they are seeking legal advice makes it clear they have been sent home for refusing to obey orders rather than because of any medical or related problems such as shell shock.

    MoD lawyers were understood last night to be anxiously trying to discover the circumstances surrounding the order to send the soldiers home.

    Any refusal of soldiers to obey orders is highly embarrassing to the government, with ministers becoming increasingly worried about the way the war is developing.

    It is also causing concern to British military chiefs who are worried about growing evidence of civilians being killed in fighting involving American soldiers around urban areas in southern Iraq.

  • Iraq Peace Team Reports on Civilian Causalities

    On March 22, Stewart Vriesinga and Wade Hudson toured a residential neighborhood about two blocks west of 14 July Bridge.Street, between Amar Bin Yasir Street and Jamiaa Street. They drove by an eight-to-twelve-foot-deep crater in the middle of a wide, divided street that connected these latter two streets. Traffic in the westerly direction was blocked. They saw large gardens on both sides of this crater. No building was within eyesight of the crater. Mr. Mohammed, IPT’s principal driver, said that the gardens were not public parks, but private gardens associated with private homes, one of which is owned by an uncle of his. Around the corner on Jamiaa street, many smaller homes had had all of their front windows blown out, presumably by a blast from the bomb that created the crater.

    Although this incident does not suggest either the strong possibility of civilian injuries or major damage to civilian infrastructure, it does illustrate once again that some bombs either do not hit their intended target or are directed to non-military targets.

    On March 22, April Hurley, Zehira Houfani, and Robert Turcotte saw, around the corner from a street with buildings that appeared to be governmental offices, a whole block of mixed residential-commercial units with almost all of their windows knocked out.

    On March 23, several IPT members, including Doug Johnson, Robert Turcotte, and Jooneed Jeeroburkhan went to the Alyarmouk hospital. This university teaching hospital, one of the largest and most modern in Iraq, is one of three medical centers prepared by the authorities to receive victims of the American attack; the two others are Al Mansur and Al Kindi hospitals. Many foreign doctors and surgeons, Americans included, are in Bagdad to offer their services to these hospitals in the war context.

    One of the patients was Rahab Wedad Mohammad, age 25,who had just come out of surgery under general anesthesia. Her right cheek was swollen and her right forearm was heavily bandaged. According to the lady doctor, she had severed tendons which they had to sew back, together with nerves and blood vessels, in the women’s section of the hospital.

    According to answers to our questions, Rahab was at her home, in the esidential district of Hayy Jamiya, when a bomb hit nearby. It was Saturday night, on the 3rd day of US bombing, and she was hit by shrapnel that severed the tendons on her right arm.

    Zaha Seheil lay quietly on a bed opposite. She is six years old. The doctor said that she was hit in the back, suffering spinal injury that has made her paraplegic. In the men’s section, Rusul Salim Abbas, 10 years old, had been hit by shrapnel in the chest and on the right hand. That was on Friday night, when the bombing was the heaviest for four hours continuously. <He went to close the door when he was hit, says Salim, his father, seated on the edge of his bed.

    Salah Mehdi, aged 33, was walking on the street Saturday night in the residential district of Amariya when a missile exploded nearby. <I just saw a huge fireball and I lost consciousness, he says with difficulty. He had been hit by shrapnel in the stomach, on the right hand and on the right ear.

    On the next bed, Omar`Ali, 12 years old, was one of 12 members of his family injured Friday night in the residential district of Al Shorta when a bomb hit near their house. There also also Majid Mahmoud, aged 57 and father of two, injured the very first night of bombing, and Hussein Jassim Fleh, aged 36 and father of a young daughter, injured Saturday night in the back, and on both arms and legs.

    Was the shrapnel from US missiles and bombs, or from falling Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery? Given the delicate hospital conditions in which these visits were made, and the lack of expert ballistics evidence, it is difficult to tell what actually caused these injuries, and scores of others in hospitals across the country,. <Whatever the origin of the shrapnel, Bush must bear full responsibility because he chose to impose this war on Iraq. These people would not have been injured otherwise, commented an Iraqi TV reporter filming the wounded.

    Members of the delegation were able to take photos of some of the injuries.

    On March 24, several IPT members were taken on a tour of sites that have been bombed recently. These sites included one entire block in the Karadat Miryam district that included three- and four-floor buildings with commercial storefronts on the ground floor and residential dwellings on the upper floors. No military or governmental sites were noticed nearby. Almost all of the windows and frames and the iron gates that covered windows in these buildings had been knocked out on all floors. At least some injuries likely resulted from the tremendous blast(s) that caused this extensive damage

    On March 24, an IPT team went to a home that had been hit by what appeared to be a missile. The house was a 2-story home in a residential neighborhood. The weapon came through the roof and landed in a second-floor room that appeared to be a bedroom. There was what seemed to be a picture on the wall of some female pop star. The team was unable to meet any of the family who were in the home at the time of the attack; they are now staying with family members. A brother of the owner gave us an account, which was recorded in Arabic and will be translated later. He said the weapon hit about 7:30pm on Saturday, March 22, as the family was eating dinner, or getting ready for dinner. There were no serious injuries even though there were 8 people in the home at the time.

  • Iraqi Students Wonder What U.S. Goal is With War

    Few dialogues have taken place between Iraqi and American students on the topic of war in recent months. It seems remarkable that even when governments have ceased talking, students across the time zones are able to find a way to communicate their fears, concerns, angers and dreams to one another.

    Recently, eight students from Santa Barbara and seven students from Baghdad talked to each other in radio stations for nearly two hours. The talk was candid. We asked them about liberation, an argument for the war that has won over many Americans. Answering honestly, they felt anything but grateful for the prospect of 3,000 bombs falling on their city. What good will liberation be if they’re all dead?

    The students asked what authority we Americans have to impose our will on them. They reminded us that their nation in the 1950s had risen up to overthrow a monarchy that did not serve the people. What right have we, they asked, to determine who should rule their country, and how? Even if they exist in an imperfect system, the only truly democratic reform could happen from the inside. No one mentioned the end of the first Gulf War, in which the first President Bush asked the Shiites in the south to rise up against Saddam Hussein only to be disavowed by the U.S. military, which had promised the resisters protection.

    Our Iraqi friends not so gently reminded us that ours is the only country to have used nuclear weapons of mass destruction in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    The students grilled us about why we don’t do more to end war. Those of us sitting in the room were speechless. We all feel like we do so much: We write, we speak, we organize, we demonstrate and we work nonviolently to persuade public opinion that this war is one of the saddest, most unhealthy and insane policies ever proposed on Earth. Yet, they struck the Achilles’ heel of the peace movement, the well-intentioned people here in the United States who cannot get it together enough to galvanize voters to elect true representatives and initiate real reform, even with all our constitutional freedoms. We pacifist Americans who have had nominal successes and noble failures need to start playing to win, said the Iraqi students. Regime change starts at home, they prodded.

    Joining most recently two career U.S. foreign diplomats and a host of other United Nations officials such as Hans von Sponeck and Denis Halliday, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook resigned, stating that he could not accept responsibility for what Britain was prepared to do in concert with the United States and Spain. These folks have put their careers on the line for peace. What’s holding us back? Why did we not speak out before, addressing some of the real underlying concerns? Few address the issue of the sanctions, the more than 12 years of deprivation at the hands of the United Nations Sanctions Committee, commandeered by the United States and Great Britain. No one talks about the relocation of the marsh Arabs in Iraq, done by the current Iraqi regime under the watchful eye of the United States and Great Britain in the southern no-fly zones. And who in the United States was mourning the Kurdish massacre last year at this time? CNN certainly wasn’t.

    I couldn’t help but think of my freshman seminar in college called “The Decline and Fall of Empires.” We studied the last days of Greece, Rome, Sweden, Spain and Great Britain. The Azores Summit smacked of irony, placing two of the world’s great fallen empires on podiums next to the United States. It seems like we are following the legacy of all those nations, cutting spending on social programs, over-extending our military resources and acting not in our own self-interest on crucial domestic policy issues.

    Despite the United Nations, our former allies — France, Germany and Russia and maybe even China — the pleadings of Iraqi students and a massive people’s movement worldwide, my country has decided to plunge further into the wrongness of this war.

    The conversation with Iraqi students punctuated all the experiences I have had with friends there. Our group concurred that bombing Iraq is different now that we know people, now that we have heard their stories and their frustrations. We lamented that if more people had a personal connection, it would be harder to support the war.

    And all of us sank in our chairs when our friends said they hoped to be alive to have another conversation with us, feeling both guilty and lucky that we are bound to our friends in Iraq because we know each other’s stories and names.
    * Leah C. Wells recently returned from her third trip to Iraq. She is Peace Education Coordinator at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • This Present Moment Living in Baghdad on the Eve of War

    “The present moment is the only moment available to us, and it is the door to all moments.” – Thich Nhat Hanh I am in Baghdad with the Iraq Peace Team, and we will stay here throughout any war. We will share the risks of the millions who live here, and do our best to be a voice for them to the world. Our risks are uncertain.

    Thousands here will surely die. But most Iraqis will survive, and so too, I hope, will I.

    A banner the government put up a few blocks from where we stay reads simply, “Baghdad: Where the World Comes for Peace.” It’s meant as propaganda, I’m sure, flattering Saddam Hussein. But without knowing it, it states a simple truth: that the world must be present for peace. We must be present in Baghdad as in America – in Kashmir or Chechnya, the Great Lakes, Palestine and Colombia – where there is war, and rumors of war, we must be present to build peace. We are present.

    My country may arrest me as a traitor, or kill me during saturation bombing, or shoot me during an invasion. The Iraqis may arrest me as a spy, or cause or use my death for propaganda. Civil unrest and mob violence may claim me. I may be maimed. I may be killed. I am nervous. I am scared. I am hopeful. I am joyous, and I joyously delight in the wonder that is my life.

    I love being alive. I love the splendor of our world, the beauty of our bodies, and the miracle of our minds. I bless the world for making me, and I bless the world for taking me. I feed myself on the fellowship we inspirit, in standing one with another in this, this present moment, each moment unfolding to its own best time.

    Different things move different members of our team, but all of us are here out of deep concern for the suffering of our brothers and sisters in Iraq. 20 years of almost constant war, and 12 years of brutal sanctions, have killed hundreds of thousands of innocents in Iraq. We are here, today, because most of the world refused to be present, then. What more right do I as an American have to leave then all the people I’ve come to love in Iraq?

    An accident of birth that gives me a free pass throughout the world? All of us are here out of a deep commitment to nonviolence. Peace is not an abstract value that we should just quietly express a hope for. It takes work. It takes courage. It takes joy. Peace takes risks. War is catastrophe. It is terrorism on a truly, massive scale. It is the physical, political and spiritual devastation of entire peoples.

    War is the imposition of such massive, deadly violence so as to force the political solutions of one nation upon another. War is the antithesis of democracy and freedom. War is the most bloody, undemocratic, and violently repressive of all human institutions. War is catastrophe. Why choose catastrophe? Even the threat of war is devastating.

    On March 11th, when we visited a maternity hospital run by the Dominican sisters here in Baghdad, we found that eight, new mothers that day had demanded to have their babies by Caesarean section – they didn’t want to give birth during the war. Six others spontaneously aborted the same day. Is this spirit of liberation?

    Don’t ask me where I find the courage to be present in Iraq on the eve of war. 5 million people call Baghdad home. 24 million human beings live in Iraq. Instead, ask the politicians – on every side – where they find the nerve to put so many human beings at such terrible risk. We’re here for these people, as we’re here for the American people. The violence George Bush starts in Iraq will not stop in Iraq. The senseless brutality of this war signals future crimes of still greater inhumanity. If we risk nothing to prevent this, it will happen. If we would have peace, we must work as hard, and risk as much, as the warmakers do for destruction.

    Pacifism isn’t passive. It’s a radical challenge to all aspects of worldly power. Nonviolence can prevent catastrophe. Nonviolence multiplies opportunities a thousand-fold, until seemingly insignificant events converge to tumble the tyranny of fears that violence plants within our hearts.

    Where violence denies freedom, destroys community, restricts choices – we must be present: cultivating our love, our active love, for our entire family of humanity. We are daily visiting with families here in Iraq. We are daily visiting hospitals here in Iraq, and doing arts and crafts with the children. We are visiting elementary schools, and high schools. We are fostering community. We are furthering connections. We are creating space for peace. We are not “human shields.” We are not here simply in opposition to war.

    We are a dynamic, living presence – our own, small affirmation of the joy of being alive. Slowly stumbling, joyous and triumphant, full of all the doubts and failings all people hold in common – our presence here is a thundering, gentle call, to Americans as to Iraqis, of the affirmation of life. We must not concede war to the killers. War is not liberation. It is not peace. War is devastation and death.

    Thuraya, a brilliant, young girl whom I’ve come to love, recently wrote in her diary: “We don’t know what is going to happen. We might die, and maybe we are living our last days in life. I hope that everyone who reads my diary remember me and know that there was an Iraqi girl who had many dreams in her life…”

    Dream with us of a world where we do not let violence rule our lives. Work with us for a world where violence does not rule our lives. Peace is not an abstract concept. We are a concrete, tangible reality. We the peoples of our common world, through the relationships we build with each other, and the risks we take for one another – we are peace.

    Our team here doesn’t know what is going to happen any more than does Thuraya. We too may die. But in her name, in this moment, at the intersection of all our lives, we send you this simple message: We are peace, and we are present.
    * Ramzi Kysia is a Arab American peace activist and writer. He is currently in Iraq with the Voices in the Wilderness’ (www.vitw.org) Iraq Peace Team (www.iraqpeaceteam.org), a project to keep international peaceworkers to Iraq prior to, during, and after any future U.S. attack, in order to be a voice for the Iraqi people. The Iraq Peace Team can be reached through info@vitw.org