I Can
Still Remember
Their Screaming.
By Dahr Jamail
13 June, 2004
The New Standard
The
student is gone; the master has arrived. This became a very popular
saying in Iraq after the US ousted Saddam Hussein.
The situation continues
to degrade in occupied Iraq. I know Im beginning to sound like
a broken record... but the need to describe life on the ground here
continues, as I see it slipping from the news as of late. Overshadowed
by more dramatic stories like car bombs and heavy fighting, the silent
suffering that has become the daily reality here just isnt catching
much attention.
One exception was the LA Times recently reporting the US military's
claim that in the last 9 weeks over 800 people in Sadr City have been
killed by occupation forces. Doctors I talked to in the main hospital
there confirmed this, adding that the vast majority of them were women
and children.
Salam, one of my
Iraqi friends, asks: Why is the news so quiet about all of these
things? In the last 6 months 20 people I know have been killed, for
nothing! They werent fighters -- they were just living their life.
This is life in
Iraq today.
Im trying
to pay closer attention to these daily occurrences, as I too have become
desensitized by the bombs as Ive grown more accustomed to this
horrible situation. So Ill try to point out more of what Ive
noticed as of late.
It isnt the
huge bombs -- the ones make the news, horrendous as they are -- that
have the greatest impact on Iraqis. It is the ongoing, daily suffering
of the Iraqi people. People dying from bad water and starving to death
because there arent enough jobs just dont grab the attention
that bombs demand from the media.
And other things...
last week Salam was in a car accident, and called to tell me he was
injured. Since it was at night, knowing it was unsafe for me to leave
the hotel he asked me to call a friend to come help him. Thankfully,
Abu Talat was home and quickly drove to his aid. This is the 9-1-1 service
in Iraq. Without much infrastructure to speak of, Iraqis have come to
rely more and more on their friends, families, tribes, and mosques.
Then there are the
constant reminders to Iraqis of how little control they have over their
lives.
Driving across the
double bridge (formerly Saddam Bridge) in south Baghdad there are huge,
black metal sheets along one side of the top of it. On each of them
is written:
By Order Of The
Coalition Forces
Do Not Tamper With Or
Remove Metal Sheets
Under Penalty Of Force
I was with my friends
Hamoudi and Samer as we traveled to see some other friends for a visit
and lunch. I asked Hamoudi how he was doing.
This is like
a bad dream, man. I need to get out of here for a break.
For Iraqis, this
is far easier said than done.
While at our friends',
the laughing and joking is inevitably broken up by someone crying about
the unbearable situation in their country.
At the same time,
of course, the more visible violence continues. Yesterday morning there
was more fighting in Najaf. In the last week alone four Iraqi Police
stations have been blown up. There has been fighting on the outskirts
of Fallujah, several bombs in Al-Adhamiya yesterday, IEDs detonating
under US patrols, political assassinations in Kirkuk, nearly daily fighting
in Sadr City, and the assassination today of Bassan Kubba, the Undersecretary
for Multinational Affairs and International Organizations.
I recently interviewed
another detainee from Abu Ghraib. Some of what she told me reminded
me of a quote from George Bush at the 2003 RNC Gala.
Iraq is free
of rape rooms and torture chambers.
Um Taha was detained
for 4 months. She told me that while in Abu Ghraib she knew that many
of the women in the prison were being raped.
She told of detainees
who would hold their Quran out of their cell bars in order to
have some light to read with. And when they did this, she
said, soldiers would hit them on their arms.
Um Taha added that
soldiers were distributing Christian Bibles in Arabic to the teenage
detainees, and that soldiers were forcing detainees to speak English
to them.
She told of being
forced to use a sieve to separate feces from urine in a waste bucket
from the latrine in Tikrit where she was held prior to her transfer
to Abu Ghraib. Once this job was done, a soldier dumped gas on the feces,
lit them, and made her stir them for half an hour.
During November,
while in Abu Ghraib, she said many of the detainees rioted against their
mistreatment. She stated that as a result, 14 Iraqi men were stripped
naked and sacks were placed over their heads by U.S. soldiers, and brought
into the corridor beneath her cell. Thus, she had a clear view of the
atrocities which ensued.
The soldiers
made them all stand on one leg, Um Taha recounted. Then
they kicked them to make them fall to the ground.
She said that Lynddie
England, the female American soldier made infamous in the widespread
incriminating photos, was dancing around laughing while using a rubber
glove to snap the detainees on their genitals. The soldiers also
made all the men lay on the ground face down, spread their legs, then
men and women soldiers alike kicked the detainees between their legs,
Um Taha said quietly.
After pausing, she
added, I can still remember their screaming.
She said that in
addition to this, the detainees were ordered to crawl around the corridor
on all fours and make cow and sheep noises as the American soldiers
laughed at them.
On September 11,
2001, George Bush said, I dont care what the international
lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dahr Jamail is Baghdad
correspondent for The NewStandard. He is an Alaskan devoted to covering
the untold stories from occupied Iraq. You can help Dahr continue his
crucial work in Iraq by making donations. For more information or to
donate to Dahr, visit The NewStandard.