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This Is Your Country Now
Kathy Kelly, Iraq Peace Team
21 April 2003
I'm sitting in Amman now because of Sattar. Yesterday morning,
he drove me here, from Baghdad. Silently, we passed through the shattered and
wrecked streets. It was his story that persuaded me to leave.
For three weeks, we had waited anxiously for news about Sattar
who, since 1996, has been our closest Iraqi companion. What a relief, four
days ago, to see him finally walk into the hotel lobby.. "Please, Sattar,"
I begged,"Share some of the oranges and dates we have upstairs."
"Thank you," he said, "but I am fasting." He didn't tell us exactly what
motivated his fast,nor would he disclose details about the swollen knob on his forehead.
When the war began, he took his family to live with relatives outside
of Baghdad. After several days, he returned to check on the family
home. A missile had hit a house nearby, and two brothers were missing. Sattar
went to the Saddam Hospital in the impoverished and dangerous Al Thawra
neighborhood to look for them. "I found it terrible,"
he said. "Many, many people were asking for help. One family with five injured people
had gone from place to place, seeking help, and by the time they came to
this hospital, five of the family members were dead. I was coming to
ask about two, but I thought, here there are so many, all needing help, so
I asked a doctor if he could use me."
Sattar joined thirteen volunteers who assisted three physicians
as they tended hundreds of patients. "At first, I just helped to bring
the medicines and move patients. You know, always before, I could not even look
when people suffer blood and wounds. But I began to learn how to insert
IV injections. I could clean wounds and wrap bandages." He worked
at the hospital for twelve days. "There is one doctor, his name is
Thamer," said Sattar, with a measure of awe, "and he stayed in the operating
room for two days and nights, without a break, performing 75 emergency operations.
We heard gunfire outside, but fortunately several sheiks and imams
were able to protect the hospital."
"If you go to that hospital you can see many pictures in one
moment," he continued. "Some people trying to kill, some people trying
to steal, some
people trying to help by cleaning the hospital, making food, and
delivering
patients, some sheiks and imams giving advice."
Some western press came to the hospital and talked with Sattar.
An
interviewer pressed the idea that Iraqis should be grateful for
liberation.
Sattar attempted to explain how much suffering he'd seen, but the
reporter
insisted on a positive spin. Sattar said, "Leave now."
His eyes welled up with tears when describing what he saw on the
roads while
driving in Baghdad. "I saw myself many tanks protecting the
Ministry of Oil.
They need the maps, the information. But they do nothing to help
the people,
the hospitals, the food storage. American companies are already
trying to
repair the oil refineries so that they can produce 2 million to
6 million
barrels per day; this will bring the price of oil down. They can
control the
price of oil to serve American interests."
He also encountered a US tank in front of a huge storage site,
where one to
two years worth of grain and rice were stored. He heard a US officer
with a
Kuwaiti accent order the tank to blast open the entrance and then
tell
people standing there, "Take what you need. Then you can burn
it."
After 12 days, Sattar returned to his family to let them know he
was all
right and to bring his brother Ali back to Baghdad. At a checkpoint,
a US
soldier questioned him. "I was wearing blue jeans and, trying
to be
friendly, he touched my pant leg and said `These are good.' I told
him `Yes,
but these were made in China, not in America.'" The soldier,
surprised that
Sattar spoke English, asked him, "Are you glad that we're here?"
"I said, 'No,' - again, Sattar's eyes filled with tears--`I
wish I could
have killed before you could destroy us. You have destroyed our
homes, and
our `big home.' (Baghdad). Now you should go home.'"
His brother tried to restrain him. "Are you crazy?" asked
Ali. "What are you
saying?"
The soldier told Sattar, "I could shoot you now."
"Yes," said Sattar, "You can do it. Nobody can do
anything to you. You are
strong now, but wait three months. After that what will you tell
the people?
You can't manage the situation yourselves. You can't protect the
civilians
from themselves."
Like many Baghdadis, Sattar is mystified about what happened to
the
Republican Guard and the regime in Baghdad. "Umm Qasr is a
small village.
They could resist for 15 days. Can you imagine that all the power
in Baghdad
couldn't resist for two days?"
He was silent for a few bleak moments. "Nothing has changed,"
he said. "Only
Saddam has gone away."
"Sattar," I asked, "what will you do now?"
"Tomorrow," he said, "I will go
to Jordan and start driving again."
I winced. A talented, courageous and kindly man, a well educated
civil
engineer aching to use his skills, one who never joined the Baath
party, who
strove for over a decade to preserve the simple values of his faith
and
culture, must return to work as a driver, fetching more westerners
to
rebuild his war-torn country.
"Well, Sattar," said Cathy Breen forlornly, "now
you won't have so many
problems helping Americans cross the border."
"You are right," said Sattar. "This is your country
now."
Shortly after Sattar left, Cathy Breen and I decided to pack our
bags.
Thomas Paine once said, "My country is the world. My religion
is to do
good." I don't want a country. But enormous work lies ahead,
in the United
States, trying to convince people that our over consumptive and
wasteful
lifestyles aren't worth the price paid by people we conquer.
When we reached the Abu Ghraib dairy farming area, while driving
out of
Iraq, a terrible stench filled the air. We're told that many corpses
of
humans and cattle littered the ground of this area. It was on that
stretch
of the road that we passed a long line of US Army vehicles, headlights
on,
arriving to replace the Marines. The olive green convoy resembled
a funeral
procession. I felt a wave of relief that Voices in the Wilderness
companions
remain in Baghdad. Sometime, in the not so distant future, I hope
to rejoin
them. But, for now, I must find a way to say, clearly, "No,
Sattar, Iraq is
not my country."
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