Twenty-seven-year-old reporter for Pacifica Radio, Aaron Glantz, had spent much of 2003 warning of a catastrophe if the United States invaded Iraq. However, after the fall of Saddam, the joy throughout the country prompted him to doubt his pessimism.

Since America was beginning to wonder more and more about the Iraq debacle, it seemed an advantageous time to bring his views front and center for a second look:

At the same time, Asron’s friend, filmmaker James Langley, had wanted to film Iraqis after the invasion, and contrast their views with what they would experience later. The writer and filmmaker made a matched team.

Less than a month after the invasion, Saddam was toppled in central Baghdad and the U.S. troops took over as the new rulers, leaving free reign for foreign journalists.

Even with 100,000 American troops in Iraq, looters burned the National Museum, National Library, and robbed the most precious antiquities from Ancient Mesopotamia. It was rumored that armed gangs roamed the streets – some criminals, some vigilantes.

Aaron tells us that American authorities had also allowed the universities to be looted – which meant no libraries, no science labs, no desks, and no chairs. Electricity remained a persistent problem.

In Jordan, Aaron met up with James and a French colleague, Raphael Krafft, he of a quick wit and warm smile, who was also a reporter for Pacifica. The next day, April 29, 2003, James crossed Iraq’s western desert from Amman toward Baghdad in a white, air-conditioned General Motors SUV, outfitted with an extra-large gas tank, which allowed drivers to cross the desert without stopping for a fill-up.

Since there was no more room in the van, Raphael and Aaron rented the services of a cab driver with a 1970 Chevrolet station wagon, and a full tank of gas strapped to its top, along with 1,000 cans of Pepsi, a luxury Saddam never allowed.

Amazingly, no American tanks or humvees were on the highway. They drove past Ramadi and Fallujah into Baghdad, with no checkpoints. It wasn’t until James and Aaron rode into central Baghdad, with the intention of staying at the Fanar Hotel, a block away from the Palestine Hotel, where most foreign contractors and international media had their offices, that they ran into the belligerence of an American soldier, described by Aaron:

“Turn the car around!” the soldier, a young man, not more than 20, yelled in English. His helmet, which reached down to his eyes, seemed too big for his head, mused Aaron.

“Turn the car around!” he yelled again. The cab driver and Aaron got out of the car to talk with the soldier.

“Hello, soldier, I’m American” Aaron said, but he the soldier wasn’t listening. All he heard was his Arabic accent in his English, developed over a few months in the Middle East. He had also grown a mustache in the Arabic style to blend in with regular Iraqis, and now he was in big trouble for looking like one.

When he reached into his pocket for his passport, the soldier yelled again, and aimed his gun in Aaron’s direction, then decided he wanted to talk to blond Raphael in the back seat, whom he told to remind his translator to show his documents, not just walk around.

Aaron was surprised to find most of the buildings in Baghdad were still standing. When he visited the bombed Turkish village of Ozverin, more than 800 miles from Baghdad and 200 miles from the Iraqi border, the farmers weren’t surprised that their fields had been bombed. An elderly resident, Burhan Yucal, spoke for the villagers: “Bush is bombing all the civilians. The hospitals, the mosques, the shops, and the bazaars. If a war begins in a country, this means destruction for all the people there. In a war, only an army should be bombed, but war is destruction all the time.”

Although no one was hurt in the attack, the villagers were terribly upset, and when American soldiers were sent to clean up the mess, the people surrounded the jeep and pelted it with eggs.

Since almost all the reporters had been embedded or confined to their hotels, Aaron felt there were many more bombs that had gone astray, but the civilian casualties had not been reported.

On April 7th, an American tank fired into the hospital’s maternity ward and the medical staff fled. A week later, the doctors found 26 patients dead in the emergency room. The doctors first buried the dead patients in a mass grave in a lawn on the hospital grounds before cremating them and sending their ashes away.

However, the doctors didn’t blame the Marines entirely, for a Syrian fighter had been firing his machine gun at the tank, which fired back its cannon. Nothing is simple in war time.

One of the Iraqis in a fine neighborhood said many didn’t want to fight because they wanted to protect their homes and families from destruction.

Falllujah would not be so fortunate, for on April 29, 2003, U.S. troops opened fire and killed more than a dozen demonstrators, who had gathered to celebrate Saddam’s 66th birthday.

This was a Sunni city of 200,000 on the banks of the Euphrates River, which had developed a comfortable way of life under Saddam, which made it a likely place for armed resistance.

The two Americans asked where they might find a special Friday sermon for Friday prayers. It was suggested that al-Kabir Mosque would be a good choice, presided over by Imam Shakur, where they heard him say:

“The United States has killed innocent women and children and is guilty of crimes against humanity.” Then, he went on to remind them that, “Islam is a religion of peace. Do not confront the Americans and do not turn out to protest.”

When Iraq fell, the U.S. Army had allowed mobs to loot Iraq’s arms caches, with 380 tons of powerful explosives. Kalashnikovs and RPGs were plentiful and thieves were numerous. The tanks could do very little to stop the violence.

U.S. Staff Sergent Jaime Phillips told Aaron that his forces did the best they could to control the violence, but “They don’t give us identification, they don’t tell us nothing. ...We can’t help them if they don’t help us.”

Aaron asked what happened when the forces caught someone. Phillips couldn’t tell him anything... Most of all, he couldn’t figure out why the people were killing one another. It didn’t make sense to him.

“If I were George Bush,” Aaron later told James, “I would be putting every cent into fixing the electric grid and the telephone grid. If America could get this country to function again, people might love them enough that they would elect a pro-American government.”

At another time, Aaron spoke about putting little money into civic affairs. “Is it because the Bush Administration doesn’t care about the reconstruction of Iraq, or is it because all the money is going to big companies like Bechtel or Halliburton?”

He explained that the two companies had been given giant “cost plus indefinite quantity” contracts to reconstruct Iraq. That meant all their costs of doing business would be paid by the American taxpayer, plus a tidy profit for their shareholders. It also meant they would get taxpayers’ money whether they fixed anything or not. (Italics, mine) Initially, San Francisco-based Bechtel was given $1 billion to repair and refurbish the country’s electric, sewage, water, and school systems. Houston-based Halliburton, meantime, was given $2 billion to rebuild the oil industry and provide logistical support to the Army, including meal service, laundry, communications, and housing. Both numbers would climb as the occupation dragged on, but little would be fixed.

Does anyone doubt, even now, that Halliburton and Bechtel are salivating over the prospect of the same kind of contracts, and more lucrative.

Is there no one in the Congress with sufficient just anger to begin the process to fire those two companies and send honest American workers over to Iraq to hire and supervise Iraqi workers to get the job done right and expediently?

With 70 percent unemployment, jobs would go a long way toward building self-respect and better feelings toward the United States. Why not give good, Christian policy a chance to work in the Middle East?

Somehow, I think Christ would approve. And we might begin to build up our self-respect in the bargain by declaring for the people: Jobs, not bombs. Schools, not guns. Electricity, clean water, decent housing, and, above all, peace in the land.

Please, God. Amen.

(To be concluded)

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