Letter from Baghdad

by Elizabeth Roberts

Guest Commentary

Denver Post

Thursday, December 26, 2002 - I left Colorado for Iraq on Nov. 3, knowing that my government was likely to invade and occupy that country during my stay in Baghdad. While there is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein is a cruel and vicious dictator, I am here to stand in solidarity with the innocent Iraqi people, not their government.

So, how do you prepare to be attacked by the most powerful military in the world? When I ask Iraqi people about their feelings and preparations I understand how utterly vulnerable they are. Every day they wait for tons of explosives to rain from the sky. They wait and worry and go on living.

I asked Amal, an older, educated middle-class woman, "How are you preparing for the war?" She responded with anger in her voice at President Bush. "I just don't understand how he can do this! How can he discredit the inspections, and still talk about attacking us? He will kill innocent people. He won't even leave us our hope! Does this man have no blood in his veins?"

Amal's house was hit by an American bomb in 1991. I asked if she had a bomb shelter. "No, bomb shelters are no good, we will just sit together in a room so if something happens we will all go together." Her daughter reminds me of the disastrous bombing of the Aamayria air raid shelter. It was hit directly by a U.S. missile in the Gulf War, killing 415 mothers and young children. Now there is the general suspicion the U.S. will deliberately target bomb shelters, so few people plan to use them.

The Iraqi government gave a combined November and December food ration, urging people to save some. But many people either ate the extra food or sold the ration for much-needed cash. Iraq was nearing first-world status at the time of the Gulf War; now it is clearly third-world and struggling, thanks to Saddam Hussein's disastrous wars and 11 years of harsh international sanctions. In fact, I have have more medical supplies with me than does the local hospital.

A few days ago we visited the U.N. Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq. The director there told us, "Sanctions paralyze every single aspect of Iraqi society." Then someone showed me this statement by Denis Halliday, the former U.N. assistant secretary general and humanitarian coordinator for Iraq:

"I had been instructed to implement a policy (in Iraq) that satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed well over a million individuals, children and adults. ... What is clear is that the Security Council is now out of control, for its actions here undermine its own Charter, and the Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions. History will slaughter those responsible. ... We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that."

Many people here tell us they will fight if America invades Iraq. They may not like their government, but the thought of being invaded by a foreign power rallies them together. "If American soldiers come," Amal says, "we will resist, just like the Palestinians, we will resist."

When the U.S. invasion begins here, I feel afraid of being useless. But perhaps the service is simply to be here, to share in the suffering of a people attacked by my country. I am more convinced than ever that it doesn't have to be this way, and that it is up to us to change the future.

There is one bright light for me that erases all my thoughts and anxieties. Every morning I go to work at an orphanage run by the Missionary Sisters of Charity of Mother Teresa. There are 20 boys and girls with severe cerebral palsy. Only two can speak a little and some cannot even raise their heads. But they all have shining eyes and beautiful smiles - surely these are the angels everyone speaks of. I spend three hours holding them, massaging them, singing and playing.

Their gaze never leaves my face. They squirm across the floor to put their heads in my lap. They are completely present and so am I. This is the only time I am not ambivalent. I belong here. I feed them and clean them. They stay focused on my face. This smile is all they want in the moment. Toys come and go, but the face of a smiling adult is their heaven.

Elizabeth Roberts lives in Boulder and is in Baghdad as a member of the Iraq Peace Team ( www.iraqpeaceteam.com).