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PRIORITIES: THE U.S. IN IRAQ by Lisa Martens Christian Peacemaker Teams, Iraq

1. Safety

"My country is rich in resources, especially oil and metals. Americans came to Iraq to occupy. They are not liberators because they are trying to protect oil wells in Iraq. They don't want Iraq to be safe and secure, so [that] they can stay a long time in Iraq, and they don't care what's happening to Iraqi people and their suffering in life and lack of jobs in the country; no security, no stability. Signed: Occupied Iraqi Civilian"

These words came from one Iraqi respondent to an opinion poll conducted by Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT). Collecting over 1,000 responses from June 1 to 3, 2003, CPT members polled an upper middleclass neighbourhood, a low income neighbourhood, people waiting in line to fuel up at a gasoline station, and people along a street of small businesses.

One section of the poll asked people to indicate their opinion given various choices. Some of the results were as follows:

Question 1. 56% chose "My neighbourhood is a safe place for my family" 44% chose "My neighbourhood is not a safe place for my family"

Question 2. 47% chose "The children in my family are going to school" 7% chose "The children in my family are not going to school because it is too expensive" 46% chose "The children in my family are not going to school because it is unsafe"

Question 3. 23% chose "I believe that the U.S. administration cares about the needs of Iraqi people and will help to meet them very soon."

77% chose "I believe that the U.S. administration does not care about the needs of Iraqi people and will not help to meet them very soon."

This concern for safety and U.S. intentions was mirrored in CPT's attempts to draw the attention of U.S. forces to the problems of unexploded ordnance (UXO) in Baghdad. In pursing this problem, CPT learned something about U.S. priorities.

2. An Example from the Al-Monsour Neighbourhood, Baghdad

On April 22, 2003, CPT members were driving in the Al-Monsour neighbourhood of Baghdad, near the intersection of 14 Ramadhan Street and the Bridge to the Ramady Expressway, when they saw a large quantity of UXO around blownup Iraqi military vehicles on the median between the roads. CPT documented the scene. The ordnance included cases of mortar rounds, small rockets, mines and grenades. From an initial inspection, many appeared to be burnt, but still live and dangerous. When they told a U.S. soldier in the area, he just chuckled and said, "Things like that tend to go away after a while."

The same day, CPT notified Capt. Robbins of the U.S. Army headquarters near the Palestine Hotel. CPT gave the approximate location, and Robbins indicated that he would pass the message up his chain of command. He also said that CPT could find a military detachment closer to the site and should also give this information to that detachment.

On April 23, CPT spoke about the site with military personnel from two units, including Sgt. Ayers in the Al-Monsour district. The team presented a map and photos of the site. Ayers assured CPT that he and his team had been to the site and removed ordnance stable enough to transport. When the team asked about the status of the ordnance left behind, Ayers said that they were very unstable and could explode at any time. When the team expressed their concern about this, Ayers suggested that CPT visit U.S. headquarters in two days if the site had not been cleaned up by then, and ask to speak with Lt. Moore.

CPT members followed the instructions of military personnel for the next several days, and continued to visit the site. Cases of live munitions began to disappear from the site. The site was within 50 metres of occupied civilian houses, and a few metres from heavily traveled streets, and children frequently seen to walk right up to the site. When CPT requested that military personnel guard the site or block it off with barbed wire or bright coloured tape and signs, the military responded that they "did not have the resources" and that they were "out of orange tape."

April 28, a soldier of the Charlie Battery, First Battalion, said that he was not as concerned about children walking around the ordnance as he was about people stealing it and using it against U.S. forces.

Twice, U.S. army personnel from different units travelled in tanks and humvees to the site and looked at it, guided by CPT members. Several times, CPT members brought up the issue of this pile of ordnance at meetings hosted by senior U.S. army officers. On two occasions, military personnel said that the site was too dangerous for their particular unit to clean up and that a specialized UXO team would have to deal with it. Sometime between May 4 and 7 the site was finally cleaned up.

3. Another Example from Al-Wathag Square

On May 21 CPT visited Al-Wathag Square, a commercial area where UXO had been found. The main concerns here were small yellow cluster bomblets, along with grenades, mortar rounds, and rocketpropelled grenades. When the team reported this hazard to Sgt. Coultry at U.S. Command, he said that it was not in his jurisdiction. CPT prepared a written report, but the U.S. army liaison officer at the Iraqi Assistance Mission, Lt. Col. Stewart Gordon, would not accept the report because it did not include Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates for the site. CPT and most Iraqis have no access to GPS devices. Later in the day, Gordon agreed to accept the report. The site was cleaned up on May 23. On June 1, a worker from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) informed CPT that the U.S. military has issued a new UXO reporting form which does not require GPS coordinates.

4. Other Incidents

On April 26, CPT members learned about an explosion at an unprotected munitions dump in Al-Zafarania neighbourhood in southeast Baghdad. Forty civilians were killed in the explosion. Arriving about five hours after the first explosion, the team found that munitions were still burning and exploding in the dump. Shrapnel and other munitions blown out of the site covered a three kilometre radius. Standing about 200 metres away, CPT members could see spontaneous explosions going off in the shallow pit. A few Iraqis were walking in and out of the area. No U.S. forces were guarding the site, nor was it marked off. CPT members could see a few U.S. military vehicles about half a kilometre away.

The team then visited ten other residential sites in the area where similar dumps of abandoned Iraqi ordnance or unexploded U.S. ordnance were evident. At one site they saw a live U.S. missile partly buried in the ground. At another there were six twenty-foot long Iraqi missiles lying on the ground with other bombs.

On May 1, CPT members visited a four-year-old boy named Ali at the Al-Acadhumiya hospital. On Apr. 10, he had been blinded and brain-damaged when he touched an unexploded cluster bomblet near his home. His family was desperate for a way to transfer him to a country with better hospital resources. Ali's doctor said that the priority of the U.S. government was clearly oil, and not the protection of civilians. Doctors in other hospitals reported to CPT that their hospitals were receiving numerous people injured or killed by ordnance.

In one primary school visited by CPT on May 14, the principal reported that after the war she had had to ask Iraqi engineers to volunteer to clean up live bullets from her school before she could re-open the building for classes. In a second school, the principal reported that she had had to ask U.S. army officials three times before they came to clean up UXO. A week after the clean-up and the start of classes, a primary-age student found thirty pieces of ordnance on the other side of a wall, about 10 metres from the school. The children were sent home. After one request, U.S. Army personnel cleaned up the ordnance.

5. How Much ?

Estimates on how long it will take to clean up ordnance in Iraq are confused but suggest a time-line of years. On April 29, U.S. army Lt. Matthew Wheeler told CPT, "We don't have enough resources. Iraq is now in the top five countries in the world with UXO, right up there with Bosnia and Afghanistan. It will take five years to clean up all the sites here." An ICRC worker, with whom the CPT team talked later, thought that Wheeler's figure was accurate. On May 15, U.S. army Lt. Col. Everhard reported that there were now about 100 U.S. soldiers working in Baghdad on UXO.

On May 22, CPT's colleagues from Mennonite Central Committee made inquiries about UXO. At three different meetings they heard the same U.S. military officer give radically different sets of figures for the numbers of sites cleaned up and still remaining. When questioned about the disparity in his figures, he said, "I need to check my sources."

The UN reported on June 4 that there is 1.5 million tonnes of UXO in the Basrah area of southern Iraq alone, and that Iraq may have more UXO than any other place in the world.

On June 10, Maj. Dennis Kennedy reported at a meeting attended by CPT that 1665 sites with UXO had been reported in Baghdad and that 1381 of those had now been cleared. However, he said that these figures did not include sites with landmines nor any other sub-surface ordnance. He added (hesitantly) that he thought it could take years to clean all of Baghdad of UXO. ordnance.

6. And Now ?

CPT members see the tanks, the guns, and the fire power of the U.S. every day on the streets of Baghdad. The team does not see to what extent Iraqis also possess weapons, but the slow speed at which U.S. forces are cleaning up abandoned ordnance, provides ample opportunity for anyone who might want munitions to help themselves.

The good news, in CPT's experience, is that although anger with the occupation is increasing, Iraqis want peace as much as any people in the world. Iraqis polled by CPT on this question chose the following options:

14% chose "I believe that the only way to improve security is through the use of guns" 41% chose "I believe that we have to limit the use of guns to improve security." 45% chose "I believe that there are nonviolent ways to improve security."

Three more written responses to the poll were as follows

"This is a chance for America to improve its picture to the world. We are a people that like education and technology and freedom. We don't mind sharing with the U.S. Make benefit for others and yourself at the same time."

"We don't accept occupation. We are asking Americans soldiers' families to call their sons to return home. This is not terrorism, but this is our homeland. We don't want them here. We ask the UN to bring peacekeepers to enter Iraq."

"America will never supply us with security and safety, so Americans should leave this country as fast as possible, because it's an occupation, not liberty, and we will liberate our country by ourselves."

Lisa Martens, from Brandon MB, is a graduate of Canadian Mennonite Bible College, and has been associated with CPT since 1998. She has served on teams in Chiapas, South Dakota, Grassy Narrows ON, Colombia, and, since Feb. 1, 2003, in Iraq.

Claire Evans Personnel and Delegation Coordinator Christian Peacemaker Teams PO Box 6508 Chicago, IL 60680 Tel: 773-277-0253; Fax: 773-277-0291

Christian Peacemaker Teams is an initiative of the historic peace churches (Mennonites, Church of the Brethren, and Quakers) with support and membership from a range of Catholic and Protestant denominations.

Friends: I met Peggy while in Iraq this past February. Below, she reports on what she's seen just recently. mike

The following comes from Peggy Gish who flew to Amman June 6 to rejoin CPT in Iraq.

June 21, 2003

Dear Family and Friends, I will try to share some of what I have been experiencing in the last week and a half since arriving in Iraq.

In Amman, Jordan, I met 10 other people flying in from the U.S., Canada, and one from the Netherlands. We had a day there for getting acquainted, orientation, and many getting press cards through Jordanís Ministry of Information, in case we needed it to get into Iraq. We left for Iraq Tues. morning, June 10th, after a time of prayer.

In the van I was able to talk extensively with our driver, Sattar, who I have known throughout the past winter, about his perceptions of the situation in Iraq and what he thought a group of international people working in Iraq should be doing. (I include this because though he doesnít represent all Iraqis, his views are fairly typical.)

He said, yes, things were not good in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. People need to have freedom of speech and political freedom. He is a civil engineer, but for years has not been able to work in his profession, so has worked as a driver to earn a living. But things are worse now. Very few people have work, enough food and medicines for their families. There is still widespread looting and robbery; people are afraid to go places. The people heard the promises of the U.S. and expected that our country would quickly rebuild the economy and infrastructure and that life would be better than before, so many welcomed the troops when they came in. Whole units of Iraqi soldiers did not resist the U.S. military because they were promised jobs of good rank in the post-war military. But now the people are disillusioned and angry and do not believe that the U.S. came to liberate them, but are here for U.S. interests, mainly for control of the oil.

Sattar became more tense as we came to the Iraqi border and had to answer the questions of the U.S. military guards. And even though it was exciting for me to return again to Iraq, it was also very hard for me to see U.S. military there taking over the functions of civil society there at the border. And after being in the country for a week and a half, it has been even harder to see, all through Iraq and in the streets of Baghdad, military convoys of armored personnel carriers, and humvees constantly patrolling the streets with soldiers pointing their guns at the people as they go by, and military bases in university dorms, schools, and other public buildings around the city. Sattar said that the soldiers driving up and down the streets intimidates the people and is producing a lot of anger in the Iraqi people. And in my short time here also I feel their presence is like a threatening specter hanging over the society. Sattar suggests we go and work where soldiers are staying, talk to people around about how this affects them and be a public presence in those places (already something the team has been doing)

Since being here I hear the majority of the people saying they were glad that Saddam Hussein is gone, but they do not like the occupation. I hear that if there no progress soon on rebuilding the society and meeting the needs of the people, as well as moving toward Iraqi self-government, there will be "blood" -- much more violence against the occupiers. It is OK to come and buy oil, but not to stay and control and occupy Iraq. As Sattar said, "Freedom means that we can do something about the problems here."

As our three GMC vans traveled further into Iraq that day we got near the town of Ramadi, just west of Falluja, where we knew the road was more dangerous. All of a sudden, a man in a car came toward us, driving our way on the same side of the road, and warned everyone that there were robbers ahead on the road. Our driver and others all made U-turns in the road and went back the other direction until we saw three U.S. military vehicles driving our way. The cars turned around once more and followed the military vehicles, which would not let any cars pass them, until we passed Falluja, and it was considered safer.

But then we discovered that one of our vans was not with us. We went back to Falluja and found they were having car trouble, which they thought was from bad gas the driver bought on the black market at the border, and we ended up towing that car into Baghdad. So it was an adventurous ride, and we were thankful to arrive safely at the apartment building and join the rest of the team (of four).

The delegation of ten left this morning, after having had lots of interesting and informative experiences. We spent time visiting and talking to Iraqi families, international aid organizations, the Al Wathba water treatment plant (where we had camped out during the bombing), a school in a poor neighborhood, religious leaders, a briefing for press with Paul Bremer, a briefing for NGO’s by "coalition" military commanders, observing nonviolent street protests of Iraqi organizations, as well as carrying out one of our own public vigils. We spent a day in Falluja talking with the mayor and group of religious leaders, visiting a school, and talking with U.S. soldiers, hearing their stories and sharing about our purposes in being here. We spent a day and half in Basra, visiting religious leaders, a hospital, a judge, and walking the streets and along the waterfront talking to various Iraqi people. We have been trying to observe the consequences of the war, hear how the Iraqi people view and feel about the situation here, and explore possibilities of future work for the ongoing team.

I saw many changes in Basra since being there in pre-war times. I was sad to see a lot of destruction of buildings from bombs as well as from burning and looting (mostly of government buildings (revenge toward Bathists) or wealthy businesses, including the Sheridon Hotel. The statues along the waterfront of past military leaders from the Iran-Iraq war were torn away. Yet, we sensed that people on the streets were generally more relaxed in Basra than in Baghdad or Falluja. We think this is connected also with there being less "in your face" presence on the streets of the British military, which is in command in Basra. People in Basra still don’t have running water, but have it delivered in containers to their homes. Electricity is off and on, throughout the day, as it is in other places of the country. Local governments and civil offices are still not functioning, and only at beginning stages in a few localities.

I am going to send this now and try to start writing more reports on other topics and experiences as soon as I can. Now I am a part of a group of 4 team members living in an apartment in Baghdad, but exploring the possibilities of moving to another location, and are working on a statement about what we see as our work here. I am slowly working into my time here visits to reconnect with people and groups I had developed relationships with in the past, and have so much that I want to do.

Greetings of love to each of you and thank you for your encouragement, prayers and support for me and the team here. Peggy