January 4, 2003

I suppose if I made a New Year's resolution it should be to write more for folks back in the United States. I feel quite good about my time here in Iraq with the Iraq Peace Team. One of the central reasons for my coming here is to build relationships with Iraqi citizens and cross the political boundries that would otherwise designate us as enemies. I believe doing this is essential to fostering an educated American public and critical to working against the looming war. I'm certain that if Americans were as interested in making these relationships as Iraqis are, that this war would not happen and the economic sanctions on Iraq would soon be lifted. Every day I have opportunities to make very human connections with people and I am very grateful for it. But an important piece of the work that I have not done enough of is sharing about these people with my own people in the US. This is even more important for me than others on the Peace Team because it will be quite some time before I return to the States to share personally.

Yet almost inevitably my days fill with activities and I do not sit down to write. One of the things that takes a lot of our time here on the Iraq Peace Team are planning public actions. One of our main focuses has been to draw out the media to go to places they otherwise would not and cover isues they otherwise would ignore. I believe we've organized about 10 of these, 7 since I've been here. Shortly before I came the group got slammed by the media at one event, producing almost simultaneous articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune that accused us of treason-like charges, and twisted our motivations and message. The team got a bit sheepish after that with the press, but soon enough we began to organize more public witnesses with, in my opinion, consistent success.

These actions included, among others, a press conference at a water treament plant in which experts from our group and the plant spoke of the importance of such facilities to the health of the civilian population, their degeneration under the past years of war and sanctions, and the risk a new war poses to them (Sean Penn came to this as well, drawing more media); a night-time vigil with a couple large Japenese delegations at an electrical power plant that was bombed by US planes in 1991 where we had an Iraqi mother tell her story of giving birth at home with no electricity during US bombing; a visit to a recital of the Baghdad Symphony Orchestra where Canadians in our group gave the Orchestra musical equipment from Canada in an act of breaking the ecomic sanctions and declaring the persistance of the arts and culture in Iraq through these difficult times; a Christmas celebration at one of the churches familiar to us in which Iraqi and international Christians prayed together for peace; and a New Years celebration and vigil outside the main UN compound where we declared our support for the UN and its charter, our hope that a UN that lives up to that charter against the political pressure of the US can be a force for peace, and made our New Year wishes and resolutions for peace in our tortured world.

At each of these events we had a good press turn out, but of course the problem is that even if the coorespondants and journalists cover the issues we present, very little of it is actually aired back in the United States. For the most part we get little snippits of coverage here and there, and the occasional substantive article or interview. The last action at the UN on New Years probably got the most coverage in the States.

These events, and pretty much everything else we do here, must be discussed and organized in the concensus-building, non-hierarchal, participatory way that any of you with experience working in groups of left-leaning activists are familiar with. This in itself takes a great deal of time. Long and frequent meetings of the large group, committee, sub-committee and sub-sub-committee types come near eating and sleeping in importance. Once in a while we have to remind ourselves that ensuring a participatory decision-making process is not the reason we came to Iraq.

Fortunately there are many opportunities to get out and experience this country and the wonderfull people who live here. There are concerts of the traditional Iraqi and classical Western kind, cafes, restaurants, markets to explore, visits to schools and universities, lectures, press conferences, the occasional party or social gathering, church services, hanging out with friends we have met, Arabic lessons, and trips outside the city here and there. It can't be said that Iraq is the most entertaining place in the world, but after you adjust to the place, there are plenty of ways to stay busy.

Today most of the group took a day trip to visit the farm and family of a guy we know. I'm a bit sick with a bug that's going around and decided to stay back and rest and write a bit about how I spend my time here.

My plan at this point is to be in Iraq another three weeks and then go to Syria. When I first came to Iraq I didn't envision things happening the way they have. I didn't think I would be able to stay as long as I have and I anticipated a war beginning sooner than it has. The current situation has offered the opportunity to either go to Syria before my Syrian visa expires at the end of January and focus on my goal of studying Arabic, or to not go to Syria and stay for an unknown period of time in Iraq. I decided on the first option, but it's not an easy choice.

Last week I actually thought my time in Iraq was over when I had to leave the country Christmas Day, mostly for a stupid visa mistake that was my fault. But surprisingly I was let back in several days ago. I'm gratefull for the chance to be here again and hope I make the best use of my time. I'll be busy, doing my best to help coordinate the team while the main coordinator is back in the US a bit.

It'll be a while before I see most of you, but I think of you all and at some point I should have more time to email more personally.

Love,
Nathan Musselman

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December 20, 2002

Iraq can sometimes be an emotional draining place to be. The weight of the sanctions is a load on practically every Iraqi's shoulders. The threat of war adds a sense of anxiety to the tedium of scraping a living from the crippled economy. On a stroll around Baghdad one gets little indication that people are fearful, and perhaps many aren't. But conversations I have had with Iraqis I have been able to get to know a bit often reveal deep worry about what the future brings. Still, it is the daily struggles for the health and life of their loved ones and themselves that immediately concern most Iraqis. And it is regularly hearing their stories that wear at the hearts of those of us who come to listen.

Though living in a hotel can function to isolate us we really don't even have to leave its walls to learn of the most heartbreaking of situations. One I have become familiar with the last couple weeks is that of Mu'ayed, one of the janitors.

Mu'ayed spent seven years in the military during the Iran-Iraq war. He was released for two months before being sent to Kuwait in 1990. Since the 1991 Gulf War he has worked almost every day to provide for his family. But there is simply no way that he can work his family out of poverty. Eight months ago Mu'ayed's wife Haifa gave birth to their first child, Shehadah. But when Shehadah was three months old her parents noticed she had become less active and that she began to cry more often. They took her to the hospital and the doctor told them she had to have surgery for a dysfunctional heart valve or she would die, a surgery Mu'ayed and Haifa have no means to afford.

Voices in the Wilderness is not a humanitarian organization and the Iraq Peace Team is completely incapable of assisting the millions of needy in Iraq. But there are particular circumstances, most often with people Voices has gotten to know over the years, where we find a way to be of assistance. Shehadah's circumstance was not one we could fail to act upon.

When Mu'ayed realized that surgery was a possibility for his child he invited Kathy Kelly and I out to his home to meet Haifa and Shehadah. I was quite shocked to see their living conditions. The family lives in a "new" neighborhood. Meaning they live in a place where basic sanitation and services are not provided. Basically, houses sit on a huge field of churned up dirt and mud. Sewage runs through a ditch in the middle of the street, which looks more like a track for dirt bike racing. It's hard to even walk down the street without stepping in garbage and dirty water. A recent rain made the situation particularly bad. Mu'ayed and Haifa rent one room in a larger house. During the day the room is their living quarters and at night it becomes their bedroom. Their kitchen is a burner outside and the bathroom is a glorified hole in the ground, covered with a roof that doesn't keep out the rain. They have no heater to keep them warm during the winter nights. While we were in their home we were visited by some of Haifa's family. Haifa's mother seems to stay with one or another of her children. She had her leg amputated because of a bad infection and now can only get around with help. I can hardly imagine how the family manages to aid the fairly large woman in using the squatting toilet outside.

The difficulties of their life were striking, but when I walked into their home I was struck by the kind of beauty that only exists among those who create it from the simplest means. Kathy and I, as always, were received with a warmth that verges on overwhelming and were served a very generous meal. I will never forgive the world for not treating people such as these with equal kindness.

Shehadah's situation remains precarious. This past week she went to the hospital for some tests that nearly killed her. Mu'ayed came to the hotel to ask for help and could hardly explain the problem through his tears. The child is so weak from her heart and malnutrition that her body can withstand very little. She had to get a blood transfusion that one of the foreigners in the hotel with the same blood type provided.

The surgery has now been postponed because of the dangers involved. In addition to Shehadah's weakness, no hospital in Iraq is properly equiped for such surgery. One doctor said that even in the United States the survival rate for such surgery is 75%. But doctors in the United States don't work under economic sactions. The kind of surgery Shehadah needs has not been available in Iraq for years because the equipment required was not available. Although the surgery can now be conducted, the hospital still does not have the equipment needed to make it as safe as possible. But Shehadah will surely die without the surgery, so options are limited. Shehadah's life is one of thousands in Iraq struggling against poverty, politics, and economic sanctions. Let us all hope and pray that these forces will not have victory this time.

Nathan Musselman

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November 30, 2002
Report on increase in cancers due to use of depleted uranium during Gulf War

I recently had the opportunity to leave Baghdad and go with others from the Iraq Peace Team to the city of Basra, in the south of Iraq. The trip opened my eyes still further to the situation here and to the challenges Iraq will face in the future.

Basra was once known as the Venice of the Middle East, but now it's channels and waterways are little more than shallow flows of sewage. The city is wedged between Iran and Kuwait on a small finger of land that reaches toward the Persian Gulf to form Iraq's only outlet to the ocean. The area also holds some of the world's richest oil reserves. This strategic location explains why the area around Basra has been hit hardest by both the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) and the 1991 Gulf War. Always less developed than the center of the country around Baghdad, the wars weakened its people and civilian infrastructure, making them more vulnerable to wasting away under the crippling years of sanctions.

One of the most shocking developments of the post Gulf War period is the dramatic rise in cancers, leukemia, and birth defects. Though this trend is reported throughout the country, the Basra area has by far shown the sharpest increase, particularly in children. Deaths from cancer in Basra increased from 34 in 1988 to 219 in 1996, then soared to 586 in 2000.

During a visit to the Basra Hospital for Children and Infants I had the chance to spend some time with a child suffering from leukemia and his parents. The four-year old had started showing symptoms some six months ago and had lost his hair. One of four children, his middle-aged parents bring him to the hospital regularly for treatment that may or may not be available. When we asked the doctor why there has been such an increase in childhood cancers and luekemia in Iraq since the Gulf War, his answer mirrored those we had heard before- Depleted Uranium (DU).

DU is a metal made from uranium hexaflouride which is the byproduct of the uranium enrichment process. The United States Department of Energy has so much of this nuclear waste (728,000 metric tons) stored at sites such as Pudacah, Kentucky; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; and Portsmouth, Ohio that any use of the substance is welcome. Because DU is very dense and pyrophoric (catches fire) it is ideal for use in armour piercing weaponry, an advantage the United States military has taken full advantage of. Thus far the US has used DU munitions in battle in Iraq, Serbia, Kosovo, and perhaps in Afghanistan. They have also been used during training exercizes in Okinawa, Japan; Vieques, Puerto Rico; Indiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Florida, and Maryland.

But in addition to effectively piercing tank armour, this radioactive substance also effectively destroys the environment and public health. Dr. Doug Rokke was assigned by the Army to a DU assessment team following the Gulf War. He summerizes what the team found in three words "OH MY GOD." Each uranium penetrator can lose up to 70% of its mass upon impact, scattering uranium particals throughout the landscape. If this DU dust is inhaled or injested it can enter the bloodstream and circulate throughout the whole body. According to the US Department of Health, internal exposure to radiation may cause cancers (mainly leukemia and lung and bone cancer), pulmonary and lypmh node node fibrosis, pneumoconiosis, inhibition of reproductive activities, chromsomal damage, depletion of the immune system, and death. These symptoms are frightenly similar to those both Iraqis and coalition soldiers are currently suffering.

Approximately 860,590 rounds (315 tons) of DU ammunition was fired by the US and UK during the Gulf War and is now sitting on the abandoned battlefields of Iraq, seeping into the groundwater or blowing in the wind. The weapons proved very effective in battle, one of the reasons why the fighting during the war more closely resembled a slaughter. While in the south of Iraq we were not permitted to visit the "Highway of Death," where on February 26, 1991 US forced trapped twelve Iraqi divisions as they fled from Kuwait and for the next forty hours bombed and shelled the immobilized convoy, causing 25,000-30,000 casualties and suffering 0 casualties.

The Highway of Death is now strictly off limits because of the intense radiation emminating from it. But on a side trip to Safwan, an Iraqi village near the Kuwaiti border, several of us were able visit a smaller graveyard of sorts for vehicles destroyed by coalition forces near the end of the war. These vehicles had been dragged off the main road and a large barrier of earth was built around them. Our guides allowed us to walk among the twisted remains of several tanks and hundreds of civilian-looking vehicles but told us not to touch anything. It was sobering to see so much destruction. It made me feel better about my long-term health to get as much of the soil as I could off my shoes before I left.

But the real reality check came when we reached Safwan. The village and all the land around it is almost completely barren desert and the town itself is bleak and dusty. Our guides brought us to a home where we sat down on the floor. A woman came in the room and upon my second glance at her I realized there was a small child walking beside her under her black clothing. Naathn must be protected from the sunlight by his grandmother's gown because he is severely afflicted with skin cancer. The cancer reaches across his arms and down to his belly, but the worst of it is on his face, where the cancer has eaten away and blackened his flesh. His nose is as dark as coal and he bleeds from several places. Naathn first showed symptoms of cancer soon after the Gulf War, when he was six months old. His family lived even closer to the Kuwaiti border but moved to Safwan after he got cancer. Somehow he still lives and is now eleven years old. But the cancer continues to worsen. Just a month ago he lost the last of his sight. His family remembers the time when he could still go to school and play. They say he loved learning and playing soccer. But after failed attempts at treatment the doctors can do nothing and it is only a matter of time.

The United States government continues to deny that DU is the cause of the ailments of either the Iraqi people or the "Gulf War Syndrome" that its own veterans experience. Though small independent efforts to prove the link have been and are being done, large and well-funded international efforts to do so are continually blocked by the United States. Iraqi, Kosoar, Serbian, and Puerto Rican representatives have repeatedly asked for DU contamination management and medical care procedures but they have been continuously rebuffed by US officials. A letter dated March 1, 1991 from a lietenant colonel at the Los Alamos National Laboratory is probably instructive to understand the position of the United States:

"There has been and continues to be concern [sic] regarding the impact of DU on the environment. Therefore, if no one makes a case for the effectiveness of DU on the battlefield, DU rounds may become politically unacceptable and thus be deleted from the arsenal. If DU penetrators proved their worth during our recent combat activities, then we should assure their future existence (until something better is developed)."

Translation: The health and environmental risks of DU ammunition are acceptable until something more lethal in invented.

International law prohibits the use of weapons or tactics which cause unnecessary or aggravated devestation or suffering, indiscriminate harm to noncombatants, and widespread, long-term, and severe damage to the environment. DU has a half-life of 4.468 billion years.

Nathan Musselman

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November 21, 2002

The arrival of an initial team of UN weapons inspectors on November 18th initiates the latest chapter in the ongoing conflict between Baghdad and Washington. The next may be war.

A tense couple of days in Baghdad and around the world followed the unanimous rejection of Security Council resolution 1441 by the Iraqi Parliament on November 12, on the grounds that the resolution is a preamble for war against their country. Saadoun Hammadi, Speaker of the Parliament, said in his speech to the body that the resolution "seeks to create crisis rather than cooperation and paves the way for aggression rather than peace.

Though the Parliament debate and consequent vote on the resolution was by and large a sham of a democratic process, the opinions expressed by the parliament members reflect those of Iraqis in the markets, institutions, and taxi cabs of Baghdad. Iraqis are quite convinced that the Bush administration wants to attack their country and believe that, at best, the inspection process is a concession of the US government to the world community that may postpone a war but not offer a path to avoid one. The feeling is that no matter how hard Iraq tries to comply, no matter what Iraq's weapon's capabilities are, and no matter what the UN inspectors report, that when the timing is right the United States government will find an excuse to invade. Emotional responses to President Hussein's acceptance of the inspections vary. While some are of course relieved that a war can at least be put off, for others postponement only means more anxious anticipation, frustration, and waiting for the inevitable.

That the Iraqi government ultimately accepted the resolution demonstrates the fix that it is in. That the inspections may again be used by the United States to spy on the Iraqi government or choose targets for bombing would be enough, under other circumstances, to keep them out. If President Hussein cooperates with all aspects of the agreement it will be remarkable, not because he is a dictator but because he is the leader of a nation, a disabled nation in a weapons rich region, threatened with invasion by the most powerful military force in the world.

Think of Bush in the same position. Successive US administrations have balked at efforts to build arms control regimes that would include effective monitoring of its own development of weapons of mass destruction. This from a nation that not only possesses more weapons of mass destruction than any other country, but has used them and killed with them more than any other country. This year the Bush administration requested a thirteen percent ($45.5 billion) increase in defense expenditures, the highest increase since President Reagan. This while the economy is struggling and while education, health and transportation continue to be substandard when compared to other industrialized nations, even as the US already spends several times more on the military than all its adversaries combined.

This being the case, imagine if the United States fell from its status as a world power and Bush and his inner circle were being threatened by regime change. What kind of national priorities would Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Perle set to ensure the security of the nation, or more significantly of themselves? What kind of sacrifices would they call the people of the United States to make?

The point is not to compare Bush with Hussein or to apologize for either of them. The point is that what we will all see in the coming months from all sides of this conflict is politics and political survival and, as always, it will be the weak that suffer most.

The people of Iraq, severely weakened by twelve years of economic sanctions, will bear the brunt of this war, people who have done absolutely nothing to the United States or its citizens.

The millions of poor in Iraq are dependent for their daily survival on the food baskets that are distributed by the Iraqi government (and distributed efficiently and equally as any UNICEF, UNDP, or WHO employee will tell you). The food baskets are their lifeline and an interruption would cause a humanitarian disaster.

A UN official recently told me that UN employees are being instructed not to talk about the potential impact of a war on the humanitarian situation, but other independent institutes are making their own scientific appraisals. A recent report by MEDACT, the British affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, estimates that the possible Iraqi civilian death toll during an invasion could reach 80,000, with 320,000 injuries. The report estimates higher figures in the event of the use of weapons of mass destruction, a civil conflict between Iraqis or a refugee crisis.

It's hard to conceive, walking around Baghdad, that such destruction is in store for the city. Though worn by the sanctions, the streets of the capital are lively. A determination to continue with life in the face of outside aggression lives in the people here as it did among some Americans after 9/11, though with a weary steadfastness born by long suffering that few Americans would understand. If the survival of the common man and woman was as important as the politics and profit of the powerful, the people of both Iraq and the United States could be spared another war.

Nathan Musselman

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November 2002
(submitted Nov. 13, 2002)

Dear family and friends,

By way of introduction, Baghdad is a wonderful city, or rather a shadow of a wonderful city. It is a surprisingly green city, much more so than others I have visited in the Middle East. Semitropical trees and shrubs cover much of the space not occupied by concrete, nourished by the river Tigris that Baghdad straddles. The hotel in which I stay is on the bank of the Tigris. The river and the reeds and trees it feeds dominate the view from my balcony. Looking across the river I can also see examples of the diverse architecture that is common here. Several thin, odd looking towers, a few gold and turquoise domes, a ziggurat-type building and a monument of two enormous swords that cross as they point toward the sky emerge from the palms along the bank of the Tigris.

One architectural beauty that I visited recently is the monument to those lost in the Iran-Iraq war. After walking through the gates you walk over a floor of polished granite for about a quarter mile before arriving at a huge turquoise dome that is split in two halves. Surrounding the granite floor are beds of flowers, surrounded again by a wide horseshoe-shaped lake, surrounded yet again by more gardens, museums and children's areas. Stairs lead you under the dome itself to a circular hall where a staggering number of names of those that have fallen cover the walls. Another museum fills the area within the ring of the hall. The idea is that the souls of the deceased rise up through the open dome to heaven.

Another feature common to the Baghdadi skyline are contruction cranes, trying to construct and reconstruct the Baghdad of the past. It is evident that the city is but a shadow of what it once was before the coalition forces attacked in 1991. The architecture has fallen into disrepair, the streets are dirty, the Tigris is polluted, the parks and gardens unkept. The UN sanctions severely restrict Iraq's ability to import the necessary materials and parts to sustain it's civilian infrustructure. During the 1991 Gulf War the US-led forces bombed Iraq's bridges, power plants water and sewage treatment plants, communication infrustructure, roads, schools, mosques and churchs, and residential neighborhoods in addition to military targets. In the context of the sanctions, the task of rebuilding all this while at the same time sustaining that which was not bombed and meeting the needs of the growing population has been an enormous one.

The restrictions the sanctions impose find very real expression in the Iraqi mother who cannot aquire the basic medicines to treat her malnourished child, the young student who's school has too few books to go around, the coorporate executive who drives a taxi because his business floundered, the cancer patient that must wait months on a waiting list to receive treatment from one of the country's three radiotherapy machines, and the guy who dies in a automobile accident because the machanics don't have the parts needed to make his beat up car safe to drive.

Baghdad is better off than the rest of the country and it's reconstruction has come a long way since 1991. Now we wait and wonder how it will withstand the plans George W. has for it. In the most recent war plan aquired by the US media the attacking American forces will try to keep the destruction of Baghdad to a minumum in order to uphold the image of the US as liberator, not aggressor. Apparently the attacks from the skies will use laser guided missles 60% of the time, as opposed to the 9% in the 1991 War.

I don't believe that bombs of any kind will do much to convince the Iraqi people of the United States' benevolence. It is, of course, difficult for anyone, even those of us living here to judge how the Iraqi people will respond to a US attack. Iraq is a diverse country, and each social, ethnic and religious divide comes with a slightly different political interest. But I do believe that the overwhelmingly emphatic opposition to an American invasion of their country that I hear as I talk to Iraqis I meet is also largely sincere and honest. It seems as though a US occupation of Iraq will be equally if not more unacceptable.

In the meantime Iraqis get on with their lives the best they can. I'm guessing most Iraqis learned long ago what survival means and have steeled themselves to the task, come what may. Many seem too absorbed in the daily task of securing enough income to feed their families to worry about war. At the same time investment, entrapenurship, planting, and long-term planning in general has fallen into a lull as a forboding future decends upon the country.

Nathan Musselman