A Washington Post Column Talks about Iraqi Bloggers and Journalists

David Ignatius, one of the world’s most famous and most credible journalists, wrote a piece today [Friday 31, 2006] about the coverage of the news from Iraq. In his column, which appears in The Washington Post, Ignatius talked about how journalists work in Iraq and the challenged they face in reporting all sides of the story from here. In addition to that, Ignatius talked about the Iraqi bloggers who are trying to picture the situation from Iraq and portray it for the world to see. In his column, he appears to be one of the few foreign journalists who realize and appreciate the role of the Iraqi journalists in getting the news to the outside world. “Western journalists in Baghdad depend increasingly on our Iraqi colleagues, who are some of the bravest reporters in the world,” he told his readers in his column today.

In the same time when we thank Ignatius for his understanding and appreciation of our work, we encourage the Iraqi bloggers, inside and outside Iraq, to “blog on” and continue the marvelous work they are doing to voice out our situation and do their part of contributing to the future of Iraq.

You can read David Ignatius’ column here.

In appreciation to Ignatius’ column, this entry was posted by 24 Steps to Liberty and Baghdad Treasure

Feeh

My Gun is My Law

I thought I was having a nightmare of someone shooting outside my house. “Wake up,” my mother shook me off. “Don’t panic,” she said. “Some one is shooting at the corner of the street.” I then realized that it wasn’t a nightmare; it was real.

In my night clothes, I ran grapping my jeans pants and my cell phone. I thought I may need them in case we run away from the house. In these few moments dozens of thoughts came to mind. I first thought these were the “men in black” breaking into the houses of my Sunni neighbors trying to kill them, then I thought these might be Sunni insurgent trying to break into the houses of the few Shiite families that live in the same street, including ours. In all cases, we were scared but calm. Well, of course, we are used to these things.

My father cocked his rifle. “Looking at you doing this scares me more than the ones shooting outside,” my shaking mother told my father. “Calm down. It’s not the first time I do it,” he said.

It was so dark, no electricity as usual. I had to use my cell phone’s tiny light to reach the oil-lamp that we use when power goes off. “Quickly,” my mother shouted. I ran to get the lamp which was in the kitchen. “Don’t be close to the windows she repeated several times fearing a bullet might break the windows and kill me or at least wound me.

I had to find the match to light the lamp. I couldn’t ask my parents where the match was because they were inside and I did not want to make any of the shooters outside know that there is someone in the kitchen. Finally, I found the match.

In the corridor in the back of the house, I lighted the lamp. I unlocked the back door of the house which we keep as an emergency exit in case someone breaks into the house. it was our only option to escape through and not let the armed men follows us by the time we lock it. The shooting in our street continued for about five minutes and then continued in another street that is a little bit farther than ours. It was completely unclear who is shooting at whom.

“At least we didn’t hear any one wailing. So everyone in our street seems alive,” I told my parents to cool them down. “Let’s go back to sleep. We have work to do tomorrow,” I said in a calm way as if nothing happened and so we did!

Later, I couldn’t sleep well. I remembered how we, except my father who wasn’t in Iraq, tried to sleep in our shelter room in 2003 during the invasion. It was also dark and we were all scared but calm.

It is now that I am sure of a state that has no law looks like Iraq. The only law is your gun. If you shoot, I will shoot too.

Since I put my head on the pillow, I started thinking of many things: things that we had and we didn’t, things we were deprived from, things that we have now but not enjoying them, the chaos and the collapse of Iraq. I kept asking myself, Was the war worth it? I found no answer.

Iraq is under control... but by whom?!

For Khidhr Mahallawi, the chalk and the blackboard were his only friends. He didn’t know they will be the reasons behind his murder.

Mahallawi, a 35-year-old teacher of English was a resident of Ramadi, a restive city west of Baghdad. He wasn't able to stop ten armed men who broke into the classroom. “Your teacher is an agent to the CIA,” the terrorists told the students whose eyes were staring.

Panicked by the scene, the students hurried away from the classroom except some who were not able to. They saw their teacher beheaded in front of them. The terrorists used one of the desks as their altar.

Mahallawi "looked at us just like he was telling us that we do not have to be scared. Even as we were running out of the door, his looks were still telling us that nothing will happen and we do not have to be scared," the Washington Post quoted a student, whose father asked that his name not be used. "I heard him screaming for a few seconds, then stop screaming."

Later, the group Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which is responsible for most of the brutal attacks here, issued a statement considering the beheaded teacher a “CIA and occupation agent.” Their statement which was signed by “The Mujaheddin Shura”, a recently formed council of terrorist groups believed to be led by al-Qaeda in Iraq was hanged of a Ramadi local mosque. “The Mujahideen warned him several times. He claimed he stopped working with them but he continued,” the statement read.

In Anbar province, every thing is out of control. Nothing of what the Iraqi government or the US forces are saying is true. The province is in the hands of the terrorists.

No police, army or U.S. troops could be seen there. Only armed men with RPJs, AK47 rifles, and pistols are patrolling and doing whatever they like without any deterrence. They break into schools, have offices in public, hang terrorist statements of their operations wherever they like, kill innocents and non-innocents in public, set up checkpoints wherever they want, and plant IEDs wherever it is possible.

Where the hell is the government and the “Multinational Forces” from all of this?!

Every time politicians along with US officials show up on TV with their fake diplomatic smiles, I feel disgusted. They keep their meetings inside the “Green Zone” ignoring the real danger happening in Iraq. They fight on positions by the time people are being killed day after day. Go out of that damned castle and see what is happening on the ground. Stop fighting for positions. Try to realize that the country is in need of your cooperation, not fights. How do you expect us to help you by the time you don’t care about us?

Yesterday, a friend of mine, who works in the ministry of displaced and Immigrants, said they wanted to go to the Palestinian refugee camps on the borders with Jordan but they didn’t. They have to drive through Anbar province. “We are government employees,” he said, “we’ll be killed. There is no doubt.” The ministry decided then not to send a delegation to see the refugees and will continue their work “on papers only”. Alas! Terrorists control the country, not the so-called government.

Let all the Iraqi and US officials go there and see how it looks like and then let them continue praising their “achievements”

An Accident or Cold-Blooded Revenge?

In every country, all children in their early years enjoy their childhood. Children in allover the world wake up early to go to school accompanied by their parents whom they bid a farewell with a smile on the faces. But for Eman, it is not the same. In one morning, she was left with no one of her family next to her but her eight years-old brother, Abdul Rahaman.

In Haditha, a restless town in western Iraq, Eman, 9, recalled how she and her brother became orphans. Talking to a reporter from Time Magazine, the parentless child remembered how she and her youngest brother became orphans. "We heard a big noise that woke us all up," she told the reporter. "Then we did what we always do when there's an explosion: my father goes into his room with the Koran and prays that the family will be spared any harm." Like everywhere in Iraq during the continuous hard times, the family gathers in one room. The rest of Eman’s family--her mother, grandfather, grandmother, two brothers, two aunts and two uncles--gathered in the living room, she said.

A group of trigger-happy U.S. Marines stormed the house. Eman says she "heard a lot of shooting, so none of us went outside. Besides, it was very early, and we were all wearing our nightclothes." When the Marines entered the house, they were shouting in English. "First, they went into my father's room, where he was reading the Koran," she claims, "and we heard shots." Then, the worst part happened: “I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head. Then they killed my granny."

Shielded by the adults, the other children eventually died of the continuous shooting. Then Eman recalled the troops firing towards the corner of the room where she and her younger brother Abdul Rahman, were hiding. Bleeding, Eman and Abdul Rahman were later rescued by Iraqi soldiers who entered after the marines left.

The incident happened on the morning of Nov. 19, 2005, when a roadside bomb struck a humvee carrying Marines from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, on a road near Haditha, where Eman and her family lived. The bomb killed Lance Corporal Miguel (T.J.) Terrazas, 20, from El Paso, Texas.

After leaving Eman and her brother, the Marines claimed that they heard lots of shootings form the next-door house. They fumed the house of the neighbors killing eight of its residents, including the owner of the house, his wife, the owner's sister, a 2-year-old son, and three young daughters.

Then, they felt thirsty to storm a third house, and they did. They killed all the residents and did not allow and elder son, who lives next door, to go and see his executed family. He found them in the morgue the next day. "The Americans gathered my four brothers and took them inside my father's bedroom, to a closest," Time quoted the son. "They killed them inside the closet."

Eman’s family’s death was false-reported by the US Marines first. On Nov. 20, 2005, “a Marine communiqué from Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi reported that Terrazas and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed by the blast and that "gunmen attacked the convoy with small-arms fire," prompting the Marines to return fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding one other, the Time Magazine said.

To record the crime in history, an Iraqi journalism student videotaped the criminal scene at the local morgue and at the homes where the killings had occurred. Colonel Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad was given the tape by Time. After reviewing the evidence, Johnson passed it on to the military command, suggesting that the events of Haditha be given "a full and formal investigation."

Time reported that a Marines official went to Haitha to probe the incident. The probe concluded that the civilians were in fact killed by Marines and not by an insurgent's bomb and that no insurgents appeared to be in the first two houses raided by the Marines. What a tragedy!

The worst part in the whole crime was the "compensation". The US paid the relatives of the victims $2500 for each of the dead civilians.

A day after Time's revelation of the crime, another crime showed up. In the very early morning of March 15, five children under school age, four women and two men were killed by the US army in Ishaqi, an Iraqi town north of Baghdad, Iraqi and international news agencies reported. As usual, the US army denied the incident. Though, Iraqi police revealed the crime to the public. "It's a clear and perfect crime without any doubt," Faruq Hussein, an Iraqi police colonel told Reuters.

Video tapes showed the dead people, including the children, all in a burned and half-destroyed room. Iraqi police said the ages of the dead ranged from 6 months to 75 years. To shut the mouth of the general public, the US army claimed to open an "investigation".

Now, the question is: what is going on? Was it a self-defense or cold-blooded revenge? Why do the US forces keep doing this? Since, I have started my blog, I received many emails from American people encouraging me not to misunderstand US troops as "most" of them believe in the mission of "freedom" they are sacrificing for. I believed that for some time. But what has changed? A crime after a crime, a scandal after a scandal, how much should we bear? Isn't there a way to stop that? Whether the Americans stop these actions or Iraqis make them stop it peacefully or by force?

From the bottom of my heart, I wish an American soldier or officer reads these lines? I am addressing the US army and marines here: I want to ask you, were these women, children, and old men fighting you? Were they carrying RPJs? Have you seen them planting a bomb on the road?
Let's suppose that one of the men was doing that INSIDE the house. Does that give the troops the right to kill his father, mother, wife and children? Don't they understand that by doing this, they are creating a generation that is going to hate them and hate the whole idea of freedom they brought?
Have you heard that Eman's youngest brother is traumatized? What about Eman, herself? Do you think she is going to forget the day she saw her entire family killed by these troops? I bet not.
Just an advice to the future: if you invade a country, try to be nice with the people. Try to remember that you have a sister, a brother, a mother and a father. One more thing for you to know: the more innocent civilians are killed by you, the more the gap increases and the more hatred and will of revenge increases. I heard many stories by people who lost dear relatives and friends who were killed "by mistake". They said they "will never forget about it and will take revenge whenever they are ready." That's why you find people fighting you, that's why there are people who joined terrorists in their operations and that's why you are not winning the war in Iraq and may never be able to, until you take into considerations that these are people who survived dictatorship and oppression.

Let's all pray that these dead innocents rest in peace.

Is there a Tape or Not?

On March 8, armed men wearing police commando uniforms seized about 50 guards and employees of an Iraqi private security company.

The raid on al-Rawafid took place in the eastern Zayouna neighborhood of Baghdad.
As usual, Interior Minister Bayan Jabur was “upset” by the incident and ordered a detailed report, a high-ranking ministry official told the CNN.

Eyewitnesses and police in the area report seeing up to 50 staff being taken away from the firm's compound interior ministry pick-up trucks.

One interior ministry official told the BBC the raid was being investigated, but that those responsible were not associated with the Iraqi police. However, Reuter’s news agency says unnamed officials have told its reporters that the firm's employees had been arrested by police commandos.

When I first went to report on the incident, I had difficulty in finding the headquarters of the firm. People, mostly men, refused to tell us where the location is. No sign pointed out where the HQ is. “Let’s ask children,” I told my driver. “They are the ones who are going to tell us where the place is.”

After a 30-miniute search, a gathering of children riding their bicycles told us where and how the whole incident happened. When we arrived, three pale non-kidnapped members ran towards us. “Hold on guys! We are not kidnappers,” I said. “They were relieved as neither I nor my driver looked like terrorists or kidnappers. At first, they stammered when I told them I am a journalist. “No comment. That’s it,” one dark-skinned man said. “Yamawwad, alabakhtak, [come on!],” I said. “We are just journalists came to tell the story to the whole world,” didn’t work with him. Then, one of the three interrupted him and told me what happened under the condition not to mention his name.

On March 12, Jabur, the Interior Minister accused the abducted group of not doing enough to resist the kidnappers. Jabur said on state television “22 men were kidnapped and not 50” as first reported by interior ministry sources. "People dressed in camouflage uniforms took [the security guards] like sheep," said Jabur. "If they cannot defend themselves, who will do so?" OK now, how did you know, Mr. Minister? If a staff member of the firm told me that 50 were kidnapped, how come you say 22?

On March 18, Irakna News Agency, an Iraqi Newswires, widely read in Iraq, reported “American intelligence operating in Iraq was able to tape the incident”. The agency also said “the Ministries of Defense and Interior had denied any knowledge of the incident.”
An American reporter covering war in Iraq said the US army and embassy officials told her “no one they talked to knew anything about that.”

However, the news agency’s sources pointed out that “the American Ambassador in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, had seen the tape, which shows vehicles of the Iraqi Ministry of Interior as they were kidnapping the employees and the security guards of the company.” The Ambassador has sent a copy of the tape to the Minister of Interior, the agency said.

The new scandal of the Interior Minister, if proven true, would enhance American efforts aimed at relieving the minister of his post following a number of scandals related to the torture and arrest of detainees by the Ministry's forces and elements. But the question remains, if there is the tape, where is it and why wasn’t it shown to the public? And if there is no tape, why didn’t the US embassy tell the Iraqi public that read the news agency’s report if it was true or not.

“The day of your liberation is near,” Bush said three years ago

The day was Monday 17, time was 10 p.m., but the year was 2003. Sitting close to the radio, I was listening to the news on the BBC. Silence filled out the room. My mother and sister were like me, concentrating on every word. The news was about the coming war.

“Bush had declared to the Iraqi people ‘the day of your liberation is near.’”, the BBC anchor said quoting George Bush’s words to the Iraqi people three days before the war. A moment of silence and a sigh followed. “It is going to happen. There is no way out,” I told my anxious mother.

For us, war is not only a word. It's destruction, killings, more suffering and sorrow. The war with Iran, the Second Gulf war and its aftermath uprsing caused a lot of pain and a negative image of the west inside Iraqis’ hearts.

After hearing Bush’s statement, we had to be completely ready. Windows were X-taped, water filled every pot, glass and bottle, can food filled the store, and bread, eggs, chicken, meat, bottled water, tomatoes, cucumber, and other stuff filled our old refrigerator and freezer. The cabinets contained piles of tea, sugar, and salt bags. Our house’s backyard was lined up with propane cylinders and kerosene for heaters and stoves.

During that time, my father was in Libya. He left the country in 2000 to work there as an English professor. His salary, like all Iraqi teachers and professors, did not exceed $1.5 per month, whereas he was paid $600 there. He called everyday and was very careful in what he said as anything he hints might take us all to jail. All telephones were wire tapped. He was so worried. I told him not to worry. “It’s not the first war we go through, dad,” I told him. Silence followed by him saying he wish he was there with us in these hard times. “Don’t worry. We’ll be fine. Just pray for us."

The next day, I went to college to bid everyone farewell. We might not see each other again. This was a war. Nothing was guaranteed. My sister did the same. In the afternoon, the telephone rang. It was my aunt. “Can we come and stay in your house?” she asked my mother. We accepted, of course. They live near the airport! My aunt has two daughters, one of them is married and the other is not. My cousin’s husband has to join the army as he was summoned for the military service at the time. I felt a big responsibility, to be frank. I was responsible for five women. In Iraq, if there is a man, he should be the one protecting and supporting them. However, Iraqi women reflected their utmost bravery in such conditions. My aunt for instance, lost her husband in 1982 when Saddam executed him and his brothers just because their father was born in Iran.

On the 19th, I decided to go out with a friend of mine to see Baghdad at night. Although I am not that religious, I felt I need to visit the Kadhimiya Shrine. My friend, who is a Sunni, and I took the last tour in Baghdad before the war. We went to Adhamiya, the Sunni neighborhood and then Kadhimiya, the Shiite one. It was dark, not because there was no electricity, but because all the shops were closed and no civilian could be seen in the streets. There were just checkpoints set up by armed Baathists and olive-color-uniformed of policemen. By 7 pm, the streets were quiet. We were the only ones driving. “M, do you see? It is dead. Baghdad has died,” a tear dropped on my cheek secretly in the darkness without letting M see it.

When we arrived to Kadhimiya, which is across the river from Adhamiya, the scene looked the same and only the green light of the main gate of the Kadhimiya shrine was glowing. I needed to stop and enter the shrine to pray, but I changed my mind as it was already late. I did not want to make my mother scared more than she was.

By the time, we returned back to our neighborhood, I farewelled my friend. We promised to call each other everyday to make sure everyone is still alive. My mother, aunt, sister and cousins were all sitting in the living room which was surrounded with empty white, newly pained walls. We removed everything breakable from these walls in case they fall and break when a rocket falls here or there. The state TV stations were not mentioning anything about the war, as if nothing would happen. I remember one TV station broadcasting a movie by Vandam! So I decided to turn on the radio. This time, the news came from Radio Mont Carlo, an Arabic-speaking radio station broadcasting in France. My father’s old Panasonic radio set was in my lap. I was listening to all the news about Iraq. It is the time for war, the news said. We surrendered. Nothing we can do, just to wait and see what will happen.

While I was listening to the news, I had a mixed and strange feeling. “How do these forces look like?” I asked myself. What will they do? Will they break into our houses and kill us? Do they look like the Israeli heavily-equipped soldiers? Are they enemies invading my country? Did they come to kill us and destroy everything to get rid of Saddam? These are the photos I could have in my mind at the time.Then, the picture of the previous two wars flashed back into my mind. The vision of the Baathists chasing my father from house to house to force him join the battle against Iran woke me up. I was confused. Whom should I support? The Americans, Saddam, or Iraq? I hid this confusion in my heart as I was taught not to say any such feeling in public as it might cause to my entire family’s execution. I turned off the radio, locked all the doors and windows and fled to the shelter room we had prepared. No place for beds was available. We had lined-up matrices. I had put the telephone next to my pillow in case something happens and I can not go to the living room to bring it. We expected to be locked in this shelter for days.

At 5:30 a.m., the war has officially started. “wake up, wake up,” my mother shouted to wake all of us. “Siren,” she said. By the time, I wasn’t even asleep. I heard it clearly but did not want to scare them and wake them up. Huh! They were all awake, I discovered. None of us was sleeping. I looked into my mother’s face. It was pale and full of fear and pain. Pulling the Quran, she started reading. By every Booom we hear, her voice goes louder. “Allahu Akbar”, she screamed. The sounds of explosions were so scary. They were like when we heard them in 1991.

Shortly after the start of war, my other aunt called and said Iraqi tanks had been located in front of their house to attack the Americans when they reach the airport road. I told her to come with her two children and she did until the battle reached our neighborhood. My aunt’s husband came to take us to his house where the battled was over. We refused at the beginning. We did not want to leave our house. My sister and mother were sobbing. “I don’t want to leave our house. We grew up here and we will die here,” my sister said with tears washing her face. By this time, we were able to see warplanes bombing locations near the neighborhood..

We had no other choice but to leave. A few families remained in the neighborhood. everybody was leaving. I took all our documents and money in case we never return to our house and then went to my aunt’s house, the one living near the airport. My uncle was driving. He drove in the canal road which was full of families walking to an unknown destination fleeing the bombings that may take their lives. Iraqi army soldiers were lined up along the canal road waiting for the enemy to shoot and kill. My mother was crying all the way to my aunt’s house imaging all the poor soldiers being killed one after the other.

This is one of the million stories that were not told. This is how we woke up everyday during the war. This is how we lived, talked, and cried.

When Saddam’s statue was downed, I was stunned. Oh my God! Saddam is gone. We are free. Yes, we are free. The Americans liberated us. I was so happy. A huge burden was removed. We can work, study, have fun, and live like others. I did not expect that I was too optimistic to the extent that I believed what was said. When I first saw the US army in the streets, I said these are the ones who broke all the locks that Saddam and his gang have imprisoned us with. I didn’t know that the locks coming later are bigger and much bigger than Saddam’s.

Three years have passed. I feel so disappointed. I thought this war was the last as we were told and promised. I did not expect it would be the opposite, the beginning. But what beginning? beginning of horror, fear, civil war, destruction, and death.

I wonder how long this will last. Happy War Anniversary!

Uprising Anniversary

While I was watching the news last night, I recalled how Iraq looked almost the same fifteen years ago. When the gulf war in 1991 started, we fled to Karbala to stay in the house of my mother's cousin. Baghdad was falling apart by the heavy bombings the Coalition forces had launched as a response to Saddam's invasion to Kuwait. I remember that day and how my father drove the car all the way to Karbala while my mother kept reading verses from Quran. I was 10 years-old at the time, but I remember every single moment we went through then.

In the wake of the 1991 Gulf War that drove Iraqi troops out of Kuwait and on March 1st, Karbala was strangely quiet. The war was over as we heard on the BBC which we used to listen to by a small radio that works on two double A batteries. We made the decision, we should go back to Baghdad and we did. Of course, nothing in Baghdad was left but destruction: no water, no electricity and no food. Until now I can't imagine we managed to live and restore our life until 2003.

The news came as fast as thunder. Uprising occurred in Iraq after the seize fire was announced. We were stunned. Who dares to get rid of Saddam? What a huge challenge! Who were they and how did they manage to do so? To discover that, it wasn't that difficult. They were the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south. Baghdad remained as it is because Saddam's forces were in complete control of it despite the complete destruction of the infrastructure.

On March 5th, I recalled my cousin coming to our house beating on his head. He had a serious break down. " Khalu [my uncle] They killed him," he said to my father with tears washing his face of my other cousin. Thamir, who was killed was a thirty-five year-old University Professor. He was assigned by the government to teach in Erbil in northern Iraq. One of the government's condition at that time to be accepted as a University professor was to join the Baath Party and that's what Thamir did. He did not know this will be the cause of his death.

Peshmerga, I recall my other cousin saying, killed him just because he was a Baathist. "They did not understand he had to join the Baath Party," he said. Then I remembered how Thamir's wife and her two babies came from Erbil to Baghdad after he was killed. Iman, the wife was putting on torn black clothes, bare foot carrying one of her babies on her shoulder and walking with her other baby all the way to my aunt's house. The moment she arrived in the house, she fainted at the main gate. Women and men ran towards her. She did not wake up until they threw water at her face several times. Weeping and wailing for the loss of her beloved husband, she narrated what happened. I was looking in daze. I didn't understand what was really going on.

"Where is your husband," she recalled the Peshmerga saying. "He is not here," she said and of course, she was lying because she felt they came to kill him. They did not believe her and broke into the house and pulled Thamir from the room he was hiding in. "No, No, please. He is a father of two babies," she pleaded to them. They did'nt care. Instead of kidnapping him, they killed him in front of her and the two children. "They cut him into pieces in front of me," I recall her saying.

Bad news was coming like bullets in our chests day after day. While we were in the funeral of Thamir, My mother's cousin came from Karbala to Baghdad. Crying, his wife hugged my mother and said, "They broke into our house and burned it down. We are not even Baathists. Why did they do that?"

We did not know what to do. Our fate was ambiguous as it is right now. Would we flee? Where to? All Iraq was burning. We had to sit and wait for the day we die or see others die.

We all wanted to get rid of Saddam and the start of the uprising was moving in the right road. But when the Badrists, supported by Iran and the Kurds supported by US and Britain started to do it randomly, the uprising started to be different. It moved away from its main aim in fighting Saddam. The revolutionaries preferred to kill all the Baathists even though some of them were forced to join the party. Saddam, who was the most powerful dictator in the modern history, seized the opportunity to kill the Shiites and the Kurds whom he and his party oppressed for decades. It was his chance to do so. He ordered his men to use bulldozers and bury the revolutionaries and their families alive. No mercy was ordered. All should be dead and that's what exactly happened except for the Iraqi Kurdish areas as they were supported by the US and Britain.

Hundreds of thousands of Shiite families were missing. Their remains were finally found after the dictator's fall in 2003. Even children with their dolls were found buried alive in hundreds of mass graves.

In my own point of view, the discovery of these remains in the mass graves and the 35-years oppression to a specific sect and ethnicity, problems still exist. The Badrists, who came back from Iran after failing in ousting a strong regime, came back with full hatred to the Baathists. This time, they were not random. They were under a militia and a political party that paved the road to them to continue their plan in getting rid of the Baathists. I heard from people in contact with the Badrists that this time, they have lists of Baathists names. They started in 2003 in killing them in allover the country and the list has not been emptied yet. It still has as many numbers as they expected. Some senior Baathists were able to flee the country and went to another Baathist country, Syria or maybe to Jordan.

These men, the Badrists, are in power now and they are using the same way Saddam did in dealing with the people. "If you are against me, you are my enemy," is the slogan they raised for almost three years after the fall of the first dictator. No one can criticize them in public and no one is able to stop form their continuous assassinations that reached even non- criminal Baathists now. And oops, I might be killed if anyone of them discovers this post and knows who I am!

Happy Uprising Anniversary!