Early March, 2003
Ed Kinane
“Let the American people awake and shed our blankets of complicity and dishonor. Friends, I urge you to resist this war in any way you can. Now is the time to be sand in the gears of this war.”
Ed, a local peace-worker, left Syracuse on February 8, 2003 for Baghdad, where he joined fellow CNY peace activist Cynthia Banas, who has been there since October 2002. They are among the 28 people currently in Baghdad as part of the Iraq Peace Team (IPT) and are there indefinitely. IPT has been in Iraq since September 2002 and remains alongside Iraqi families in solidarity during the US attack. Below are excerpts from messages IPT members sent out in the days immediately following the beginning of the US bombing of Iraq.
March 22, 2003
Jeff Guntzel
In Baghdad as I write, things are relatively quiet. Today IPT delegate Wade
Hudson had a chance to take a limited drive around Baghdad with a driver and
a government minder. After passing by the still smoking Ministry of Foreign
Affairs building, he drove to a residential neighborhood where he reports having
seen a bomb crater 8 to 12 feet deep “in the middle of a wide, divided
street. Traffic in one direction was blocked.” He also reported passing
by “many small homes in the neighborhood with all of their front windows
blown out, presumably from the blast that created the crater.”
It is expected that the worst is yet to come. This grim forecast is not mitigated
by Gen. Tommy Franks’ promise earlier today of “a campaign unlike
any other in history, a campaign characterized by shock, by surprise, by flexibility,
by the employment of precise munitions on a scale never before seen, and by
the application of overwhelming force.”
Today we are neck-deep in a conflict millions of us worked tirelessly to stop.
Still, the protests grow. As the war-makers threaten a “campaign unlike
any other in history,” let us continue to match their promise.
March 23, 2003
Cathy Breen
One thing seems clear. The US is meeting with a resistance that they’ve
not counted on. And this as they move from the south toward Baghdad, a city
of 5 million people. Here the skies are filled with gray billowing smoke, and
the sirens and bombs are becoming constant companions. I couldn’t help
but think as I lay in bed last night (or was it in the early morning hours between
bombs?) that every bomb which drives fear and terror into the heart, or takes
a life or maims a loved one can only serve to ignite anger in each Iraqi. God
knows how angry and distraught I am. How can they not respond accordingly when
faced with advancing US soldiers? How could we ever think that the soldiers
would be welcomed triumphantly as liberators?
I am so anxious to get some word off to you while there is still time. Even
as I write you there is a bomb exploding, threatening to blow out the glass
door/window in my room. While I am not getting less fearful of the bombs, I
think I am getting more used to them. Or maybe it is the overall lack of sleep
that has me moving more slowly. I slept in my room last night with Bettejo in
the bed next to me. Despite the periodic bomb blasts through the night that
caused the building to strongly quake, only once did we actually flee downstairs
to be closer to the ground floor. This waiting to be hit is a terrible thing.
But then this war is a terrible thing – too horrible to describe.
March 24, 2003
Kathy Kelly
Yes, we are angry, very angry, and yet we feel deep responsibility to further
the nonviolent antiwar efforts that burgeon in cities and towns throughout the
world. We can direct our anger toward clear confrontation, controlling it so
that we won’t explode in reactionary rage, but rather draw the sympathies
of people toward the plight of innocent people here who never wanted to attack
the US, who wonder, even as the bombs terrify them, why they can’t live
as brothers and sisters with people in America.
The Bush administration says the war has been successful because so far there
have been only 500 casualties. From our March 24, 2003 report on visits to the
Yermouk and Al Kindy hospital trauma centers, where hundreds of wounded and
maimed patients have been treated over the past five days, here are some of
the success stories:
Roesio Salem, age 10 is from Hai Risal. She went to the entrance of her home
and shouted to her father, “Bomb coming!” at which point she was hit
on the first day of the attack. She is 10 years old and has sustained severe
chest injuries. We simply couldn’t take our eyes off of her as she gently
smiled at us from her hospital bed.
Fatima, 10 years old, from Radwaniya. She suffered multiple fractures when she
and her family ran from their home, in an urban area, on Friday evening, March
21. A wall fell down and she suffered a fractured tibia. The family had no means
of transport and had to wait until the next morning to get her to a hospital.
Her father, Abu Mustafa, who works as a farm laborer, said, “We are like
brothers and sisters to people in the United States. We don’t attack American
people. Please give this message to American people. This is an invasion, it
has nothing to do with democracy.”
March 25, 2003
Ed Kinane
Yesterday was a pretty quiet day for me. After one of our lengthy team meetings
— which are happening more and more often as the crisis sharpens —
I joined several others at the Al Wathba Water Treatment Plant. This is one
of a handful of treatment plants in Baghdad striving mightily to provide clean
water to this city of four or five million. Al Wathba serves its nearby neighbors
including Baghdad’s extensive complex of hospitals — formerly the
Mideast’s premier medical facilities.
The plant was damaged in the last war. Thanks to the sanctions, keeping it repaired
and providing nontoxic water is a struggle. Some weeks ago the team held a press
conference there: our photo op was a banner we had strung up in Arabic and English,
“To bomb this site is a war crime. Geneva Conventions article 54.”
Our banner is still up. With the beginning of the bombing, we established a
round-the-clock presence out there. We have a little cottage and a couple of
tents (in deference to local sensibilities, one for each gender) for our overnights.
We’ve been using the plant as a base for forays into the neighborhood and
over to the hospitals. It’s one of several ways the team seeks to accompany
the Iraqi people during this crisis.
…I know that our being here – like when some of us have been in prison
– is much more stressful on those at home. Like prisoners of conscience,
the solidarity at our back is mighty sustaining. One thing to keep in mind is
that much of what you’ve surely heard in the US media is distorted and
geared to keep US people in a state of fear and to also keep “the enemy”
off guard. Hence, to be taken with a grain of salt.