By KELLY HAYES-RAITT Special to the Daily Press
(Editor’s note: The Daily Press plans to publish updates from Santa Monica resident Kelly Hayes-Raitt while she is in Baghdad. Today is her second report from the field.) BAGHDAD — There’s so much to experience, assimilate and articulate in such a short time.
In three days, we’ve had official tours through a pediatric hospital’s children leukemia ward, a food distribution center, an orphanage and the bomb shelter where a U.S. bomb killed more than 400 civilians during the 1991 “aggression,” as the Gulf War is called here.
We’ve met with government officials from the General Federation of Iraqi Women and from the Iraqi Red Crescent Society. We attended a press conference with the Iraqi liaison to the U.N. inspectors during which a visiting European Union MP delegation asked questions in front of the international press.
It’s too early for me to sort through the layers of government manipulation — of both the Iraqi women and of this American woman. Government officials read from the same briefing page: First we are warmly welcomed as American people, then the effects of the “U.S. sanctions” are dramatically outlined. There is little talk of impending war. Undeniably, the sanctions have had a devastating effect on Iraqi families, and that is the message “Harry” wants us to take home. (Our group has nick-named this country’s leader so that we may have some open conversation among ourselves.) News is state controlled, of course, and we are warned about talking with Iraqis about “Harry.” They are, however, able to criticize Bush — and do so quite freely, particularly about the sanctions. America is not singled out; generally the critiques are more polite when made to our faces, but it’s interesting to be on this side of the spin. Numbers are slippery and elusive, and examples are well-rehearsed. In my ignorance about the Middle East, the information I’m receiving is in a vacuum and I haven’t yet learned to trust my own impressions.
From the deputy director of the General Federation of Iraqi Women, for example, we are told that the sanctions are interrupting children’s education: Lead pencils can’t be imported because the tops could be used to make bombs. While this incredible statement may be true, I mentally noted that her translator was taking notes with a lead pencil.
Yet, I haven’t seen the widespread oppression our government uses to justify a new war. Although armed soldiers police busy corners, they smile easily and are friendly to both natives and tourists. (On our last day, they insisted on posing for photographs with us outside our hotel.) People move about freely with unguarded expressions, women call and wave to us and I’ve had several spontaneous, unscripted conversations with people on the street.
Bombing them doesn’t strike me as a way to achieve their political freedom.
I’m still adjusting from culture shock. It was one week ago today I saw Sting singing “Message in a Bottle” to a global audience during the half time show of our gluttonous Super Bowl. I feel quite isolated — within this country (where the only news I can get is filtered through reporters at the international media center) and within our group.
The “Code Pink” women with whom I am traveling are radically conspicuous, wearing cape-like hot pink signs pinned to their backs that declare “Women for Peace” in English. They hold daily “actions” in crowded squares and call themselves “vigilantes” in their press releases. I compared their demonstrating to a group of North Koreans parading around the streets of L.A. wearing bright neon signs in indecipherable Korean — before I learned how truly upsetting that would be given that country’s statements later in the week.
I have distanced myself, packing away my pink and wearing neutrals. I skip the actions and spend my time talking quietly with people and learning what I can about their opinions about the war (“inevitable”) and how they are preparing (“praying.”) I have no interest in protesting my government’s war anywhere than in my own country. In my limited time here, I am more interested in heart-felt conversations than in headlining sound bites. I’m trying to listen and learn and connect with the individual people my government threatens to bomb. (Kelly Hayes-Raitt is one of nine American women traveling in Baghdad to meet with Iraqi women about the effects of war on women and children. She returns to Santa Monica on Feb. 12.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 12, 2003. Read the original PDF.