News & Views 07/11/07

.Photo: A young Iraqi carries a container of gasoline in front of U.S. Soldiers in Baghdad July 11, 2007. REUTERS/Nikola Solic (IRAQ)

Other Photo: A U.S. soldier pours away gasoline confiscated from smugglers during a patrol in Baghdad, July 11, 2007. (Nikola Solic/Reuters)

REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ

Report: Iraq more violent in June

Overall violence in Iraq hit its highest level since the start of the war in June, averaging 178 attacks a day, a U.S. military intelligence assessment said. ABC News Wednesday reported the average daily number of attacks last month was a significant escalation from the 94 attacks per day in March 2006. More than 70 percent of the daily attacks in Iraq in June were against U.S. forces. "Despite our successes in taking out leaders and infrastructure al-Qaida's operational capability appears undiminished," a senior U.S. military official told the network.

Iraqis bemoan lack of services in long, hot summer

Iraqi schoolboy Sarmad Qais sleeps on the roof of his Baghdad home, desperate to escape the stifling heat inside. His family say they have not had electricity for 20 days. Their air-conditioners lie idle. Qais does not bother to set his alarm clock to wake up for school -- the sound of mortars after dawn are usually enough. "Having no power and water really annoys me," said 9-year-old Sarmad, speaking outside his home in central Baghdad's Karrada neighbourhood, which like almost all Iraqi houses has a flat roof reached by stairs inside. "I can't shower, I can't watch cartoons and I can't sleep because of the heat and mosquitoes. I wake up most mornings to the sound of explosions and mortars."

Have the Tigris and Euphrates Run Dry?

The vast majority of Iraqis live by the Euphrates river, and the Tigris with its many tributaries. The two rivers join near Basra city in the south to form the Shat al-Arab river basin. Iraq is also gifted with high quality ground water resources; about a fifth of the territory is farmland. "The water we have in Iraq is more than enough for our living needs," chief engineer Adil Mahmood of the Irrigation Authority in Baghdad told IPS. "In fact we can export water to neighbouring countries like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan -- who manage shortages in water resources with good planning." But now Iraqi farmers struggle to get water to their crops. There is severe lack of electricity to run pumps, and fuel to run generators. "The water is there and the rivers have not dried up, but the problem lies in how to get it to our dying plantations," Jabbar Ahmed, a farmer from Latifiya south of Baghdad told IPS. "It is a shame that we, our animals and our plants are thirsty in a country that has the two great rivers." Iraq now imports most agricultural products because of lack of irrigation.

"I used to sell fifty tonnes of tomatoes every year, but now I go to the market to buy my daily need," Numan Majid from the Abu Ghraib area just west of Baghdad told IPS. "I tried hard to cope with the situation, but in vain. One cannot grow crops in Iraq any more with this water shortage." Some Iraqis talk of the times when this region taught the world how to use water. "Sumerians were more advanced than we are now," Mahmood Shakir, a historian from Baghdad University told IPS. "Over seven thousand years ago, the Sumerians dug channels to water their wheat farms and Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylonia, brought water to his great Suspended Gardens in a way that made them one of the seven wonders."

According to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation, Iraq has a total area of 438,320 square kilometres and 924 km of inland waters. It is topographically shaped like a basin between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Ancient Mesopotamia where Iraq now stands means literally the land between two rivers. Now it is another story around those two rivers. "This gift from God is not used properly by the authorities because of the UN sanctions and then the chaos that followed U.S. occupation of the country," said Jabbar Ahmed. The U.S. company Bechtel, whose board members have close ties to the Bush administration, was to carry out reconstruction and rehabilitation of Iraq's water and electrical infrastructure. But it left the country without carrying out most such tasks.

………The average household in Iraq now gets two hours of electricity a day. About 70 percent of Iraqis have no access to safe drinking water, and only 19 percent have sewage access, according to the World Health Organisation. Unemployment stands at more than 60 percent.

“My mother was killed for not wearing a veil”

Nissrin Muhammad, 19, an economics student, says she is desperate and does not know what to do with her two-month-old brother, Abdul-Aziz, after her mother was killed a few weeks ago for not wearing a veil. Being the oldest daughter and with a handicapped father (he lost an arm years ago in an industrial accident), Nissrin was forced to leave college to look after her youngest brother and their home. She depends on her other two younger brothers, aged 14 and 16, to work and bring food to the family. One works as a cleaner and the other sells things in the streets. “My mother was killed leaving my infant brother without milk. I really don’t know what to do as he won’t take powdered milk and we cannot move around our neighbourhood to look for a woman who could breast-feed him. “I stay awake all night crying because I lost my mother for such an idiotic thing.

Iraqis grapple with high unemployment

Ali Ahmed is living "the garden life," as a new bit of Iraqi slang puts it. Two years after earning his engineering degree, the 27-year-old is among Iraq's teeming numbers of jobless with nothing to do but hang out in Baghdad's parks. Frustrated, Ahmed says his 16 years of study were "a big mistake" and that he should have dropped out long ago to get a more menial job. "I was dreaming to be a governmental employee or working in the private sector, but I realized later that these were only dreams," said the electrical engineering graduate from Iraq's University of Technology. Iraq's soaring unemployment rate is estimated at 60 to 70 percent, and attempts to lower it are caught in a bloody Catch-22.

Joblessness helps fuel the country's insurgency, since idle young men can be lured into the ranks of militant groups - but that same instability is hampering rebuilding efforts and economic growth that could generate more jobs. Some 4,000 people - mainly young - crowded a weekend job fair in Baghdad's Zawara park, where 25 Iraqi companies and several international businesses were taking resumes. Most of the companies work off contracts from the U.S. or the Iraqi government, highlighting the fact that such contracts - rather than private Iraqi investment - remain the strongest engine in Iraq's economy.

Jobs fair aims to reduce unemployment, insurgency

Soaring unemployment is said to be indirectly fuelling the insurgency but one non-governmental organisation, the Baghdad-based Karkh Chamber of Commerce and Industry, is trying to provide an alternative to the insecurity by organising a jobs’ fair. The fair - held in Baghdad's al-Zawraa Park on 7 July and attended by nearly 4,000 people - had thousands of jobs on offer. Mainly youths with college diplomas gathered in the early morning and submitted their CVs. "We believe that when we ensure people have a good life, the security situation will gradually improve," said Engineer Ali Jamil Latif, head of the Karkh Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In cooperation with Karkh local council in western Baghdad, Latif’s organisation brought together 25 companies as well as several international businesses to offer jobs to people in areas which enjoy relative peace.

….."They [government and US forces] are forcing us to join the terrorists," said Abu Ali, a 44-year-old former army officer who attended the fair with two friends. “They humiliated this country and its people. They should reopen the factories and facilities they demolished four years ago," added Abu Ali, who refused to give his full name for security reasons. "I tried to work as a tailor or carpenter or sometimes as a driver, but couldn't, and I have a family to feed, what should I do? No one has the right to blame us if we join terrorism," he added. It is now over four years since the US-led invasion and the new Iraqi government is still struggling with unemployment rates of between 60 and 70 percent, according to a report issued early this year by the Iraqi Planning Ministry.

Civilians help with raid on al Qaeda

The militants were caught off guard when U.S. aircraft dropped eight 2,000-pound bombs and 14 quarter-ton bombs on river crossings and a bridge in the town northeast of Baghdad, said Staff Maj. Gen. Abdul Kareem. Kareem, who commands the Iraqi Security Forces in Diyala province, said the bombings isolated the terrorists who had infiltrated Sherween. The town's residents fought alongside the Iraqi forces during the raid, helping them kill and capture the terrorists, a U.S. military news release said. "This operation was very important for the people of Sherween because we were able to find a very big hideout for the terrorists," Kareem said of Operation Saber Guardian, which began early Tuesday. "It was a very big surprise for the terrorists and the people that support them." The raid will have a political impact on Diyala, which the U.S. military says has become a hotbed for al Qaeda terrorists who fled Baghdad after the U.S.-led security crackdown there, said Maj. John Woodward, executive officer of the U.S. troops involved in the operation. [Take all this with a grain of salt. – dancewater]

'Arrowhead' Becomes Fountainhead of Anger

Ongoing U.S. military operations in Diyala province have brought normal life to an end, and fuelled support for the national resistance. Baquba, 50km northeast of Baghdad, and capital city of the volatile Diyala province, has born the brunt of violence during the U.S. military Operation 'Arrowhead Ripper'. Conflicting reports are on offer on the number of houses destroyed and numbers of civilians killed, but everyone agrees that the destruction is vast and the casualties numerous. The operation was launched Jun. 18 "to destroy the al-Qaeda influences in this province and eliminate their threat against the people," according to Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek, deputy commanding officer of the 25th Infantry Division. But most Iraqis IPS interviewed in the area say the operation seeks more to break the national Iraqi resistance and those who support it. Adding credibility to this belief is the fact that the U.S. operational commander of troops involved in the operation told reporters Jun. 22 that 80 percent of the top al-Qaeda leaders in Baquba fled before the offensive began.

"Americans want Sunni people to leave Diyala or else they face death," Salman Shakir from the Gatoon district in Baquba told IPS outside the U.S. military cordon around the besieged city. "They warned al-Qaeda days or maybe weeks before they attacked the province and so only us, the citizens, stayed to face the massacre." Shakir said many of his relatives and neighbours were killed by the military while attempting to leave the area. "I cannot tell you how many people were killed, but bodies of civilians were left in the streets. We all know now that the U.S. military is using the name of al-Qaeda to cover attacks against our national resistance fighters and civilians who wish immediate or scheduled withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq," Hilmi Saed, an Iraqi journalist from Baghdad told IPS on the outskirts of Baquba. The Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni political group in the Iraqi cabinet, issued a statement Jul. 1 alleging that more than 350 people had been killed in the U.S. military operation in Baquba.

REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS

Iraqi lawmaker quits energy panel over oil law

A member of Iraq's parliamentary energy committee quit on Saturday in protest over a draft oil law, which Washington hopes will help ease violence between Iraq's warring Shi'ite and Sunni Arabs. Usama al-Nujeyfi told a small news conference that the proposal would cede too much control to global companies and "ruin the country's future". He vowed to work to defeat the draft in parliament. "I announce my resignation and distance myself from delivering this draft before this parliament and I will carry out my obligation to repeal it inside parliament with all fellow nationalists," al-Nujeyfi said.

Insurgent Group Condemns Saturday’s Car Bomb

A newly formed influential Sunni Muslim insurgent coalition on Monday denounced a truck bombing that blasted a Shiite town north of Baghdad on Saturday killing more than 100 people, according to an Internet posting. "Such acts are in contrast with God's Book (the Quran) and the example of the Prophet (Muhammad) ... and without any rational or logical base," the Jihad and Reform Front said in an unusual critical statement posted on an Islamic Web forum usually used by Iraqi insurgents. In Saturday's attack — among the deadliest this year in Iraq — the truck detonation ripped through a market in the farming Turkoman Shiite town of Armili as crowds had gathered for morning shopping. The attack killed more than 160 people, according to the latest toll from police and officials. Though no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, it reinforced suspicions that al-Qaida extremists were moving north to less protected regions beyond the U.S. security crackdown in Baghdad and on the capital's northern doorstep. The Front's statement called on all insurgent groups to "disavow of such criminal acts, condemn and denounce those who commit them and expose those who stand behind them."

Sunni extremists seize control of village in Iraq

Sunni extremists seized control of a remote village northeast of Baghdad in a fierce battle with residents who pleaded for rescue by the Iraqi Army and police as they tried to defend their homes, the deputy provincial governor said Tuesday.

….There were few details of the fighting in the village of Sherween, a village of 7,000 Shiites and Sunnis in Diyala Province on Baghdad's northern gates. But the assault appeared to be an attempt by extremists to move into a new area, where residents say the two communities have gotten along relatively well. For the past three weeks, US troops have been fighting to dislodge insurgents who had turned the provincial capital, Baqouba, in to their stronghold and were using it to launch attacks in nearby Baghdad. A Sherween resident on Tuesday called Diyala Deputy Governor Auf Rahim and told him insurgents launched an assault on the village the day before and that fighting was still raging. "Come help us or they will slaughter us all," Rahim said the resident told him in the call. Armed villagers were fighting back, but the attackers appeared to have largely gained control, Rahim told the Associated Press. Rahim said the caller told him 25 militants and 18 residents were killed and 40 people wounded in the fighting, he said. The casualty figures could not be independently confirmed. The resident said the fighters belonged to Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

…..The fight for Diyala has also highlighted the weaknesses of the Iraqi security forces, which US commanders acknowledge are unable to stand on their own despite three years of efforts to train them. [And yet the insurgency rages – got to wonder why the ones who can stand and fight have joined the other side, no? Okay, I am being a smart-a** - dancewater]

U.S.-Iraqi forces retake village attacked by insurgents northeast of Baghdad

U.S. and Iraqi forces drove out Sunni extremists who had attacked a remote village northeast of Baghdad, a U.S. commander said Wednesday. The militants had fled north from a U.S. offensive in the city of Baqouba, where American forces are fighting to uproot al-Qaida in Iraq fighters and other Sunni insurgents who used the area to attack nearby Baghdad, Lt. Col. Fred Johnson told The Associated Press in Baqouba. The fighters attacked the village of Sherween, 35 miles to the northeast, on Monday, sparking a fierce battle with armed residents trying to defend their homes, according to the deputy governor of Diyala province, Auf Rahim, who received a call from residents Tuesday pleading for help from the Iraqi army. Rahim said he was told by the residents that the fighters had taken over the village in fighting that killed dozens from both sides. A U.S. and Iraqi army force moved into the village Tuesday night and drove out the insurgents in a battle that left at least 19 extremists dead, Johnson said. He did not comment on any casualties among the coalition forces.

REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ

US Blunders Cause of Iraq Violence

The Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council has rejected assertions that Iran has been supporting extremists in Iraq. "The Americans themselves know Iran has been supporting the political process in Iraq. The Americans also know from which countries those terrorists come to Iraq," said Ali Larijani at a news conference in the city of Najaf following his meeting with one of Iraq's top clerics, Ayatollah al-Sistani. "These terrorists have come from countries that are friends of the US.'' Larijani also said the violence which has plagued Iraq, is a result of the actions of the US. 'Without a doubt, the terrorist operations which rock Iraq are due to mistaken American conduct which give rise to wayward reactions'', he said.

US Faced With Iraqi Army Turncoats

As the US military continues to move through Diyala Province to uproot Al Qaeda fighters hidden amid its villages, an emerging foe may be helping to erode many of the successes the Americans are having in the three-week-old operation "Arrowhead Ripper." According to Iraqi soldiers and US officers, militants linked to Al Qaeda are using tribal and family connections and, in some cases, also providing financial incentives to members of the Iraqi Army to help them remain strong and evade capture. Al Qaeda's position is also bolstered by a broader internecine sectarian struggle for survival, power, and resources between Sunnis and Shiites that has spilled into the Army itself. This fight within Iraqi security services often pits elements of the Army against the Shiite-dominated police force. In interviews with Iraqi soldiers from the battalion based in Khalis, about 10 miles northwest of the provincial capital Baquba, some troops allege that Sunni and Shiite officers cooperate, respectively, with Al Qaeda-linked militants and Shiite militias. They say that this ranges from turning a blind eye to illegal checkpoints to actually facilitating the transit of weapons, ammunition, and cash through the checkpoints manned by the Iraqi Army.

US-Iraqi forces struggle to clear and hold Iraq's Diyala province

A Sunni tribal sheikh was on the phone. Sixty Al Qaeda fighters had returned to a nearby village Friday. Could the Iraqi Army commander in western Diyala Province please send help? The militants had been chased out just 10 days ago by Iraqi forces, who were backed by American air cover. At the same time, the US-led operation "Arrowhead Ripper" was under way to reclaim the nearby provincial capital of Baquba. But Col. Ali Mahmoud's 750 soldiers were tied up, struggling to secure one of the country's main north-south highways (at night, militants plant roadside bombs; in the morning, soldiers clear them). He told the sheikh he didn't have the manpower or equipment to return to the village. Colonel Mahmoud's dilemma is one of the key challenges facing US and Iraqi forces in Diyala. Without more men, weapons, and vehicles, Iraqi forces are a long way from holding the areas cleared so far, such as the western section of Baquba where Al Qaeda had been entrenched, says everyone from Gen. Mick Bednarek, commander of the Diyala operation involving 10,000 US troops, to the average US soldier.

To even get back to the village of Sufayet, where the sheikh says some 60 fighters believed to be part of the Islamic State in Iraq – an Al Qaeda-linked umbrella group – are now hunkered down, his men would have to wait for US mine-clearing vehicles and tanks to lead the way as the roads to the village have been rigged with improvised explosive devices (IEDs). His US advisers tell him that's impossible now since US forces and equipment are tied up elsewhere in the province. US and Iraqi officials, analysts, and even figures close to the insurgency all say that well before the start of the high-profile US operation, many leaders of Al Qaeda in Iraq fled to the tiny settlements and villages that dot this province.

Explosives found in truck heading from Syria to Iraq

Iraqi security forces have seized 200 explosive belts from a truck they say crossed into Iraq from Syria today. That word comes from a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. The driver of the truck is being held for questioning. Iraq's government and US authorities have been accusing Syria of allowing foreign fighters to cross into Iraq. Syria denies the charge, but acknowledges it's impossible to control the long desert border between the two countries.

Wars Costing $12 Billion a Month

The boost in troop levels in Iraq has increased the cost of war there and in Afghanistan to $12 billion a month, and the total for Iraq alone is nearing a half-trillion dollars, congressional analysts say. All told, Congress has appropriated $610 billion in war-related money since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror assaults, roughly the same as the war in Vietnam. Iraq alone has cost $450 billion. The figures come from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which provides research and analysis to lawmakers. For the 2007 budget year, CRS says, the $166 billion appropriated to the Pentagon represents a 40 percent increase over 2006. The $12 billion a month "burn rate" includes $10 billion for Iraq and almost $2 billion for Afghanistan, plus other minor costs. That's higher than Pentagon estimates earlier this year of $10 billion a month for both operations. Two years ago, the average monthly cost was about $8 billion.

Audio: A Letter from the Front: A Soldier in Iraq

NEWS OF THE WEIRD

Dearborn man pleads guilty to spying for Saddam

In 1997, Al-Awadi gave the Iraqi Intelligence Service information about the number of refugees coming to Dearborn, members of the Shiite groups Al-Da'wa and Hezbollah, the rules of the Iraqi Muslim Students Union, and a retired physician in Iraq whom Al-Awadi said had been critical of Hussein's Baath Party, the complaint alleged. He later provided information about the Iraqi Free Officers Movement, a group opposed to the Hussein regime.

Sensitive military files readily available online

Detailed schematics of a military detainee holding facility in southern Iraq. Geographical surveys and aerial photographs of two military airfields outside Baghdad. Plans for a new fuel farm at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. The military calls it "need-to-know" information that would pose a direct threat to U.S. troops if it were to fall into the hands of terrorists. It's material so sensitive that officials refused to release the documents when asked. But it's already out there, posted carelessly to file servers by government agencies and contractors, accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.

COMMENTARY

Opinion: Resolute Amid the Wreckage

Don't think it's over, folks. Even though Republican senators are coming to their senses about George of Arabia's tragic war in Iraq, and even though Democrats seem to have remembered why voters put them in charge of Congress, no one should be lulled into thinking there's any guarantee that sanity will prevail. This is the Decider we're talking about, after all.

…..Three more Republican senators ( Pete Domenici, Judd Gregg and Lamar Alexander) gave up on Bush's current Iraq strategy over the past week, and at this rate there will soon be a Senate majority for "timetables" or "phased withdrawals" or "redeployments" -- whatever you want to call the beginning of a pullout. But Bush has options. He is already demanding more time, beyond September, for his "surge" to work. If that doesn't fly, he can announce yet another "new" approach to fighting the war. If no one buys that, he can agree to simply shuffle U.S. forces around. And if all else fails and Congress summons the will to mandate a timetable for withdrawals, Bush can counter with an offer to bring some troops home. After all, he boosted troop levels by more than 28,000 for the surge. He could withdraw that number and there would still be as many U.S. troops in Iraq as there were at the beginning of the year. Democrats and war-weary Republicans on Capitol Hill are doing what their constituents want them to do -- push George Bush to face reality in Iraq and bring American troops home. I just don't see any signs that their message is getting through.

IRAQI REFUGEES

Aid agency appeals for help for 1,000 IDPs in desert camp

Urgent relocation is needed for 185 displaced families stranded in the harsh conditions of a desert camp in southern Iraq, the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS) says. "Three infants aged 1-3 have died due to soaring temperatures in the al-Manathira internally displaced persons (IDP) camp, about 20km south of Najaf, where 185 displaced families, or about 1,100 individuals, are living in about 200 tents," said Dhia Zuwaini, head of the IRCS’s Najaf branch. Zuwaini said these families were part of an estimated 5,500 displaced families in the Najaf area, about 200km south of Baghdad. He said the IRCS, the only humanitarian relief agency on the ground nationwide, had distributed drinking water, food, mobile toilets and other items. "But this is not enough as they face death because the tents do not protect them from high temperatures of over 50 degrees centigrade in July and August." Some family members were developing waterborne diseases, asthma, skin irritations, malnutrition and typhoid, he said. "We call on the government and international humanitarian bodies to help as much as they can to relocate these families to a safe area where we can protect them from these conditions," Zuwaini said.

Number of IDPs tops one million, says Iraqi Red Crescent

One of the dreams of tailor Ahmed Khalid al-Timimi was to make a school uniform for his oldest daughter so she could boast about it to her peers at school. However, his dream was dashed when he and his family were displaced as a result of the country's spiralling sectarian violence. He is now jobless and his daughter has not been able to go to school. "Leave or else have your wife and daughters decapitated," al-Timimi, a 39-year-old Shia father of two girls, recalled the note stuck to his door in Baghdad’s southern Sunni-dominated suburb of Dora. According to an Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS) report, 142,260 families - about 1,037,615 individuals - have become internally displaced persons (IDPs) since 22 February 2006, when a revered Shia shrine in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, was bombed by what many believe was a Sunni extremist group. Sectarian violence has increased sharply since that time.

….."The education sector has been negatively affected by displaced families in different governorates as schools saw a significant increase in the number of students per class. There is also a shortage of educational materials and stationery," the report said. IDPs have limited access to health care. This was having a serious effect especially on women and children: "Pregnant women, infants and children are unable to get the required medical care and illegal abortions have become the norm," the report said. Many IDPs also had psychological problems and some sought refuge with armed groups "as they [the armed groups] represented the true authority of the land for them... Rape, armed gangs, theft and drug addiction was common among IDPs", it said.

U.S. Failing to Help Iraqi Translator and Family Targeted for Execution

He's not the kind of guy you'd expect to want to serve the U.S. military, but just a couple of weeks after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Andy lined up to enlist. He couldn't wait to help the United States bring democracy to Iraq. Since April 2003 Andy has served faithfully with the Army despite being in dire danger almost all the time. He and his wife and two babies have been under sporadic but serious threat of execution because of Andy's work with the U.S. Army. The stress is wearing on Andy and Alysse -- physically and mentally. Andy is well aware that it is only a matter of time before his luck runs out. He is ready to get out of Iraq. His army colleagues and commanding officers think the world of Andy, but despite his four-plus years of almost nonstop service, Andy can't get out of Iraq. The U.S. Army seems to be quite powerless in this case.

That's because Andy is Iraqi. He has been an interpreter/translator for the U.S. military this whole time. The commanding officers of his units have written letters attesting to his competence, loyalty, resourcefulness, reliability and utter trustworthiness -- please forgive the redundancy, I'm quoting from their letters -- as well as to the fact that he must be evacuated to the United States quickly before he and his family are killed because of his work with the U.S. Army. His family has been threatened too many times to count, and two-and-a-half years ago the threats proved all too real. Their house was bombed. Andy's father and brother were kidnapped. They were butchered the next day, their bodies dumped back at on the doorstep of the house before the family had time to arrange some kind of ransom, had one been demanded, or even to patch up the house or evacuate to relatives' homes.

…..I had been refusing to face it, but I finally had to concede the obvious: The stumbling blocks being put in our way were not simply the bumblings of a bloated bureaucracy; this was all very deliberate. The USCIS staff had to have been following orders from a higher source to make this process as difficult as possible.

Video: Little Baghdad in Damascus

Iraqi refugees in Syria are settling in a great many areas of the country due to the sheer size of the emigration. However, many, perhaps the majority, have settled in a neighborhood in Damascus named Saeda Zeinab, after the daugher of Imam Ali, who is buried in the gold-domed shrine that dominates the area. The Iraqi dialect of Arabic is more common on Saeda’s streets than any other, and rumors abound about violence, kidnappings, and crime reminiscent of “Old Baghdad” taking hold in the neighborhood.

How to Help Iraqi Refugees

Quote of the day: "We are not greedy, we gave up on the hope of living like the rest of the world long ago ... all we want is the luxury of water and a good night sleep." – Lamia Hasan, a Baghdad mother of three

Second Quote of the day: "I just remember thinking to myself, I just brought terror to someone else under the American flag, and that's just not what I joined the Army to do.” ~ Sergeant Westphal