[A-List] A journalist on what it's like in Iraq

["Ralph Johansen" <michele@xxxxxxxx>]

> (For background info, Thorne Anderson was a journalism professor in the
> US, has a graduate degree from the University of Missouri in
photojournalism
> and has lived and worked in the U.S., Far East and Eastern Europe. He is
now
> living in Belgrade with Kael Alford, who is also a photojournalist. They
> have both been published widely in publications ranging from charity
> newsletters to Newsweek to the New York Times.)
>
> From: Thorne Anderson
> Subject: Home in Belgrade
>
> Sorry to unload just one long letter on all of you. I didn't intend it
that
> way, but this is what spilled out.
>
> I am writing to let friends and family know that I am home in Belgrade
> after spending a month in Iraq . Kael was in Belgrade with me last week.
She
> just returned from 10 days in Albania with the NY Times.
>
> Before that, she was in Bosnia with US News. We were lucky we could
> both be home at the same time. She's back in Bosnia with the NY Times this
> weekend. Some of you have written to me with concerns for my safety in
Iraq,
> but I am writing to let friends and family know that I am home in Belgrade
> after spending a month in Iraq . Kael was in Belgrade with me last week.
She
> just returned from 10 days in Albania with the NY Times.
>
> Before that, she was in Bosnia with US News. We were lucky we could
> both be home at the same time. She's back in Bosnia with the NY Times this
> weekend. Some of you have written to me with concerns for my safety in
Iraq,
> but this was easily one of the safest assignments I have taken. In all my
time
> in Iraq , in spite of an intense awareness of the threat of an impending
attack
> by the United States , I never met a single Iraqi who had a harsh word for
> me. Iraqis are very good at distinguishing between the U.S. government
> and a U.S. citizen. Some friends and family are also already wondering why
I
> would want to go back to Iraq , as I am committed and already anxious to
do.
> It just seems to me that as a photojournalist, Iraq is where I might best
play
> a role in making a small difference.
>
> I did some work for Newsweek and Time magazines while in Iraq , but
> that kind of work has really become secondary for me. I do what I can to
> influence (in admittedly small ways) what kinds of stories those big
> magazines do, but ultimately their stories are nearly worthless at
> confronting the inhumanity of American foreign policy in the Middle
> East. I will continue to work with Time and Newsweek (and with other
> corporate media) on stories that I don't find offensive, but the bulk of
my
> efforts are now going into reaching alternative media and in supporting
> anti-war groups in the states. I hope I can find some time soon to come to
> the states for a speaking tour of sorts.
>
> There's a lot of talk about whether or not the U.S. will go to war with
> Iraq. What many people don't realize is that the U.S. is already at war in
> Iraq. I made two trips last month into the "no-fly zone" created by the
> U.S. with Britain and France in southern Iraq. Actually it would be better
> named the "only we fly" zone or the "we bomb" zone. "We" refers to the
> United States who does almost all of the flying and bombing ( France
pulled
> out years ago, and Britain is largely a nominal participant). There is
another
> no-fly zone in the north, which the U.S. says it maintains to protect the
> Kurds, but while the U.S. prevents Iraqi aircraft from entering the
region,
> it does nothing to prevent or even to criticiz Turkey (a U.S. ally)  from
> flying into northern Iraq on numerous occasions to bomb Kurdish
> communities there.
>
> Turkey 's bombing in Iraq is dwarfed by that of the U.S. The U.S. has
> been bombing Iraq on a weekly and sometimes daily basis for the past 12
> years. There were seven civilians killed in these bombings about two weeks
> ago, and I'm told of more civilians last week, but I'm sure that didn't
get much
> or perhaps any press in the U.S. It is estimated that U.S. bombing has
killed
> 500 Iraqis just since 1999. Actually I believe that number to be higher if
> you take into account the effects of the massive use of depleted uranium
> (DU) in the bombing. The U.S. has dropped well in excess of 300 tons of
> this radioactive material in Iraq (30 times the amount dropped in Kosovo)
> since 1991. Some of the DU is further contaminated with other radioactive
> particles including Neptunium and Plutonium 239, perhaps the most
> carcinogenic of all radioactive materials, and these particles are now
> beginning to show up in ground water samples.
>
> I spent a lot of time in overcrowded cancer wards in Iraqi hospitals.
> Since U.S. bombing began in Iraq , cancer rates have increased nearly six
> fold in the south, where U.S. bombing and consequent levels of DU are
> mostsevere. The most pronounced increases are in leukaemia and lung,
> kidney, and thyroid cancers associated with poisoning by heavy metals
> (such as DU). But the most lethal weapon in Iraq is the intense sanctions
> regime. The toll of the sanctions is one of the most under-reported
stories
> of the past decade in the U.S. press. I have seen a few references to the
> sanctions recently in the U.S. press, but invariably they will subtly
discredit
> humanitarian concerns by relying on Iraqi government statements rather
> than statistics of international agencies. My careless colleague at Time
> Magazine, for example, recently reported that "the Iraqi government
> blames the sanctions for the deaths of thousands of children under the
> age of five." That's simply not true. The Iraqi government, in fact,
blames
> the sanctions for the deaths of *more than a million* children under the
> age of five. But lets put that figure aside, for there's no need to rely
> solely on the Iraqi government, and let's refer instead to UNICEF and
> which blame the sanctions directly for the excess deaths of
> WHO reports approximately 500,000 children under the age of five,
> and nearly a million Iraqis of all ages.We all have an idea of the grief
borne
> by the United States after the September 11 attacks. Employing the crude
> mathematics of casualty figures, multiply that grief by 300 and place it
on
> the hearts of a country with one tenth the population of the United States
> and perhaps we can get a crude idea of what kind of suffering has already
> been inflicted on the Iraqi people in the past decade.
>
> The greatest killer of young children in Iraq is dehydration from
diarrhoea
> caused by water-borne illnesses which are amplified by the intentional
> destruction of water treatment and sanitation facilities by the United
> States . The U.S. plan for destroying water treatment facilities and
> suppressing their rehabilitation was outlined just before the American
> entry into the 1991 Gulf War. The January, 1991, Dept. of Defense
> document, "Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities," goes into great detail
> about how the destruction of water treatment facilities and their
subsequent
> impairment by the sanctions regime will lead to "increased incidences, if
not
> epidemics, of disease." I can report from my time in Iraq that all is
going to
> plan.
>
> Cholera, hepatitis, and typhoid (previously almost unheard of in Iraq) are
> now quite common. Malaria and, of course, dysentery are rampant, and
> immunities to all types of disease are extremely low. Even those lucky
> children who manage to get a sufficient daily caloric intake risk
> losing it all to diarrhoea. Around 4,000 children die every month from
> starvation and preventable disease in Iraq -- a six-fold increase since
> pre-sanctionsmeasurements.
>
> Treatment of illnesses in Iraq is complicated by the inability of
hospitals
> to get the drugs they need through the wall of sanctions. In a hospital in
> Baghdad I encountered a mother with a very sick one-year-old child.
> After the boy's circumcision ceremony, the child was found to have a
> congenital disease which inhibits his blood's ability to clot, which
results in
> excessive bleeding. The child encountered further complications when he
> took a fall and sustained a head injury which was slowly drowning his
brain
> in his own blood. In any other country the boy would simply take regular
> doses of a drug called Factor 8, and he could then lead a relatively
normal
> life. But an order for Factor 8 was put "on hold" by the United States
> (prohibited for import), so the doctor, the mother, and I could only watch
the
> child die.
>
> Much is made of Iraq 's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction,
> but it is the sanctions, the use of depleted uranium, and the destruction
of
> Iraq 's health and sanitation infrastructure that are the weapons of
greatest mass
> destruction in Iraq . The situation is so bad that Dennis Halliday, the
former
> Humanitarian Coordinator for the UN in Iraq, took the dramatic step of
resigning
> his position in protest at the sanctions. "We are in the process of
destroying
> an entire society," Halliday wrote. "It is as simple and terrifying as
that.
> It is illegal and immoral." And Halliday isn't alone. His successor, Hans
> Von Sponeck, also resigned in protest and went so far as to describe
> the sanctions as genocide. These are not left-wing radicals. These are
> career bureaucrats who chose to throw away their careers at the UN rather
> than give tacit support to unethical policies driven by the United States
.
>
> Being in Iraq showed me the utter devastation U.S. policy (war and
> sanctions) has wrought there and has given me a vision of what horror a
> new war would bring. And, of course, an attack on Iraq would be just the
> beginning of a terrifying chain of reactions throughout the Middle East
> and the rest of the world. Having worked in Afghanistan , Pakistan ,
Israel
> and Palestine in the past year, I am intensely aware of how the fragile
> politics and powers outside Iraq can be dramatically unsettled by a U.S.
> invasion within Iraq .
>
> It's easy to imagine an impending tragedy of enormous proportion before
> us, and I ask myself who must step up and take responsibility for stopping
> it. Clearly the U.S. government is the most powerful actor, but it is
equally
> clear that we cannot turn aside and realistically expect the U.S.
government
> to suddenly reverse the momentum it has created for war. So I feel the
> weight of responsibility on me, on U.S. citizens, to do whatever we can
> with our individually small but collectively powerful means to change the
> course of our government's policy. I try to picture myself 10 or 20 years
in
> the future, and I don't want to be in the position where I reflect on the
> enormous tragedies of the beginning of the 21st century and admit that I
> did nothing at all to recognize or prevent them. I don't know how this
letter
> will sound to my friends and family who are living in the U.S., in a media
> environment which does very little to effectively question U.S. policy and
> almost nothing to encourage ordinary people to participate in making a
change.
> I imagine this letter may sound like the political rant of some kind of
extremist
> or anti-American dissident. But that's not how it feels to me. This
doesn't feel
> like a political issue to me so much as it feels like a personal issue. I
am
> appalled on a very human level at the suffering which U.S. policy is
already
> inflicting and I am terrified by the prospects for an even more chaotic
and
> violent future. And let's be honest about U.S. policy aims. Those in the
U.S.
> government pushing for war say they are doing so to promote democracy,
> to protect the rights of minorities, and to rid the region of weapons of
mass
> destruction. But is the U.S. threatening to attack Saudi Arabia or a host
of other
> U.S. allies which have similarly un-democratic regimes? How many of us
would
> advocate going to war with Turkey over the brutal repression of its
Kurdish
> minority and of the Kurds in Iraq? And do we expect the U.S. to bomb
> Israel or Pakistan which each have hundreds of nuclear weapons? Let's
remember
> that leaders in the previous weapons inspection team in Iraq had declared
> that 95% of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities were
destroyed.
> And let's not forget that in the 1980s, when Iraq was actually using
chemical
> weapons against the Kurds and the Iranian army, the U.S. had nothing to
> say about it. On the contrary, at that time President Reagan sent a U.S.
> envoy to Iraq to normalize diplomatic relations, to support its war with
Iran,
> and to offer subsidies for preferential trade with Iraq . That envoy
arrived
> in Baghdad on the very day that the UN confirmed Iraq 's use of  chemical
> weapons, and he said absolutely nothing about it. That envoy, by the way,
> was Donald Rumsfeld.
>
> While Iraq probably has very little weaponry to actually threaten the
United
> States , they do have oil. According to a recent survey of the West Qurna
> and Majnoon oil fields in southern Iraq , they may even have the world's
> largest oil reserves, surpassing those of Saudi Arabia.
>
> Let's be honest about U.S. policy aims and ask ourselves if we can, in
good
> conscience, support continued destruction of Iraq in order to control its
oil.
>
> I believe that most Americans -- Republicans, Democrats, Greens, Purples
> or whatever -- would be similarly horrified by the effects of sanctions on
> the civilian population of Iraq if they could simply see the place, as I
> have, up close in its human dimensions; if they could see Iraq as a nation
of
> 22 million mothers, sons, daughters, teachers, doctors, mechanics, and
> window washers, and not simply as a single cartoonish villain. I genuinely
> believe that my view of Iraq is a view that would sit comfortably in
mainstream
> America if most Americans could see Iraq with their own eyes and not
> simply through the eyes of a media establishment which has simply gotten
used
> to ignoring the death and destruction which perpetuates American foreign
> policy aims.
>
> While the American media fixates on the evils of the "repressive regime
> of Saddam Hussein," both real and wildly exaggerated, how often are we
> reminded of the horrors of the last Gulf War, when more than 150,000 were
> killed(former U.S. Navy Secretary, John Lehman, estimated 200,000). I
simply
> don't believe that most Americans could come face-to-face with the Iraqi
> people and say from their hearts that they deserve another war.
>
> I believe in the fundamental values of democracy -- the protection of the
> most powerless among us from the whims of the most powerful. I believe
> in the ideals of the United Nations as a forum for solving international
> conflicts non-violently. These are mainstream values, and they are exactly
> the values that are most imperilled by present U.S. policy. That's why,
> as a citizen of the United States and as a member of humanity, I can't
rest
> easily so long as I think there is something, anything, that I can do to
> make a difference.
>
> Love, Thorne