Fragile Glasnost on the Tigris

by Keith Watenpaugh
published in MER228

Sitting in Baghdad’s packed Café Shahbandar on a Friday afternoon in June of 2003, I was overwhelmed by the atmosphere of open discussion and genuine freedom.

A Clean Slate in Iraq

From Debt to Development

by Justin Alexander , Colin Rowat
published in MER228

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Multiplier Effect

War, Occupation and Humanitarian Needs in Iraq

by Sarah Graham-Brown
published in MER228

Despite continual White House assurances in 2002 and early 2003 that “war is a last resort,” the key advocates of invasion in Washington gave a good deal of forethought to the US-led war with Iraq. The Iraq hawks had been considering the military option for years. the option became feasible after the September 11 attacks created a climate in which regime change in Iraq gained wider political appeal.

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Will Iraqis Find Justice in War Crimes Tribunals?

by Hassan Fattah
published in MER229

Muhan Jabr al-Shuwaili no doubt knew the risks he faced when he ventured out of his house in Najaf on November 3, 2003. But the head judge of the Najaf governorate, member of a commission collecting evidence against former Iraqi officials possibly complicit in crimes against humanity, quickly discovered just how dangerous his job had become. That morning, Shuwaili and a prominent Najaf prosecutor, Arif Aziz, were kidnapped by unknown parties who told them that “Saddam has ordered your prosecution.” The two men were driven out into the desert.

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From the Editors

published in MER229

"If Saddam had nuclear weapons, Iraq's geographic location at the head of the Persian Gulf would allow him to threaten the destruction of a number of targets of great importance to the United States. The Saudi oilfields are a particularly worrisome target." These lines do not come from a pilfered Halliburton notepad doodled upon by Dick Cheney before he was summoned to lend gravitas to George W. Bush's presidential ticket.

Le lute de Bagdad

by Elliott Colla
published in MER215

Given the rich lyricism and pointed social quality of contemporary Arabic poetry, it's no accident that politically motivated Arab music is usually vocal rather than instrumental. The close collaborations between Marcel Khalife and Mahmoud Darwish or Egyptian singer Shaykh Imam and Egyptian poet Ahmad Fu'ad Nigm offer vivid examples of politically charged connections between word and melody.

Betwewen Iraq and a Hard Place

Jordanian-Iraqi Relations

by Curtis Ryan
published in MER215

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What About the Incubators?

by Kathy Kelly
published in MER215

It feels oddly like being at a wake in a funeral home. Our Fellowship of Reconciliation delegation members speak very quietly with one another as we wait for a hospital official to brief us about conditions at the al-Mansour Children's wing of the Saddam City Medical Center. Dr. Mekki, the director, is away, so a hospital official went in search of a senior doctor to speak with us. I open my diary and it dawns on me that at this time four years ago, in March 1996, our first Voices in the Wilderness delegation visited Iraq.

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Americans Against the Sanctions

by
published in MER215

As US policy supporting the continuation of sanctions on Iraq becomes ever more isolated abroad, domestic criticism of sanctions also mounts. Opponents of sanctions gained new visibility in February 1998 at Ohio State University, when pointed questions from the audience disrupted the Clinton administration's carefully staged "town meeting." (See Sam Husseini's "Short-Circuiting the Media/Policy Machine," Middle East Report 208, Fall 1998.) Activists now speak of an anti-sanctions movement drawn primarily from faith-based and peace groups.

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Elusive Justice

Trying to Try Saddam

by Joost Hiltermann
published in MER215

Saddam Hussein's regime has long been one of the world's worst human rights violators. But the international community largely ignored Iraq's record of human rights abuse -- brutal repression of internal dissent, atrocities during the eight-year war with Iran -- until after Hussein crossed the red line by sending his forces into Kuwait. Even since 1990, evidence of human rights violations has been marshaled solely to score political points or justify military action, and not to hold a vicious regime accountable for its crimes.

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