CPTnet
December 20, 2004

IRAQ UPDATE: December 13 - 18, 2004

Monday, December 13
Iraq team member Tom Fox left for Amman and Doug Pritchard arrived in
Baghdad. Pritchard's driver said that several bombs had exploded along the
airport road that morning. At 9 a.m., a huge suicide car bomb detonated at a
gate to Baghdad's Green Zone, where most Iraqi government officials,
diplomats, and foreigners live and work. News reports said that thirteen
Iraqis were killed and fifteen injured.

 Tuesday, December 14 At 8:10 a.m., another suicide car bomb detonated at
the same gate to the Green Zone as the previous day. This bomb killed five
and injured seven. A good friend of the team phoned to say that his best
friend had just been assassinated and then he too received a threatening
phone call. He left the country immediately.

Pritchard, Sheila Provencher, and Maxine Nash visited a women's centre in
Baghdad to deliver a letter of solidarity from women in the USA. When asked
about the upcoming election, one woman expressed frustration at the party
lists of candidates. She asked, "I want to talk about policies, not parties
or ethnicity or gender. I am a poor woman. What are their policies for poor
women? Where is my list of candidates?"

Wednesday, December 15
Campaigning for the Jan. 30 election of an Iraqi National Assembly
officially began.

Pritchard and Cliff Kindy had three meetings scheduled in the Green Zone.
However all the roads for miles around were blocked off or gridlocked with
diverted traffic, and they were unable to attend any of the meetings. They
saw three armoured Humvees and twenty U.S. soldiers going slowly down
Karrada Street. Later reports said two large bombs were discovered in the
area. The team heard two explosions in the evening plus three bursts of
gunfire at other times.

At 5:30 pm a suicide car bomb exploded at the gate to the Imam Hussein
shrine in Kerbala, fifty miles south of Baghdad, killing eight and wounding
thirty two, including the top representative of Ayatollah Sistani. The team
spoke with a human rights worker in Kerbala who said that the attack was the
first in Kerbala in several months, and it may have been an attempt to
disrupt the election campaign in a largely Shia part of the country.

Thursday, December 16
Nash and Pritchard visited the Iraqi Red Crescent Society. The Red Crescent
has been the main agency providing relief for the displaced population of
Falluja. Most Fallujans are now living in tents around the city while
temperatures dip to freezing at night. There is no running water or
electricity in the city and U.S. forces say no one can return for at least
another week or two.

On the way home, Nash and Pritchard saw two Humvees and six U.S. soldiers on
Karrada St. beside a car that a U.S. tank had crushed when soldiers found it
on the street during curfew.

Kindy and Provencher visited a women's centre, and interviewed a Palestinian
man who was detained by US forces in four different camps over eleven
months. A friend, who is a Palestinian diplomat, was also detained for ten
months.

Friday, December 17
Pritchard and Provencher stayed overnight with an Iraqi friend and then went
to visit the priest at a Chaldean Catholic church. The church is surrounded
with razor wire and has three armed guards. The priest showed CPT his own
machine gun and ski mask, and said that he sometimes joins the other guards
on duty. "I am a priest. How can I do this?" he said.

Worship services have not been held in the church since the church-bombings
last July. Christian education classes have been suspended. The congregation
worships in a rented hall nearby.He said, "This is not just a Christian
problem. Mosques are also attacked, and the Muslim people are suffering too.
The rich people have left Iraq for now, the middle-class are trying to be
invisible, and the poor - what can they do?" He is hopeful about the
upcoming election as it "starts to open the window." He said that the people
all welcomed the toppling of Saddam, but are disappointed that the U.S.
made many promises about freedom, security and development that it has not
kept.

Kindy and Nash went to visit Sayyid Ali, a Shi'a cleric in Baghdad, to offer
condolences and the gift of a prayer rug on the death of his mother.

The team received word that close Iraqi friends had received a threatening
phone call from unidentified Iraqis warning them not to welcome foreigners
into their home anymore. Pritchard and Provencher visited other Iraqi
friends and shared this news. The friends urged CPTers to visit anyway
saying, "God is our protection. We love you. This is your home."

Saturday, December 18
Kindy and Pritchard visited a professor at Baghdad University. This man and
several colleagues have received threats and are concerned for their own
security. He believes that these threats against the intelligentsia come
from Iraq's neighbours who want to weaken Iraq for their own advantage. He
is pessimistic about the election, fearing that it might only lead to
another puppet government. Higher education is still free in Iraq and
text-books are also subsidized. He said that professors' salaries are low,
but at least they are free to travel now, unlike under Saddam Hussein.

Kindy and Pritchard met with military officers (four U.S., one Polish) in
the Green Zone to maintain relationships with those responsible for
information on detainees. CPT raised a concern about detainees who are
denied family visits while under medical treatment. In some cases this
denial of visitation rights has gone on for a year. The officers admitted
the problem existed but offered no solution.

******
Long queues continue at every gasoline station. News reports attribute the
shortage variously to breakdowns, sabotage, and electricity shortages. The
Christian Peacemaker Team apartment received no electricity from the grid
for twenty-eight hours, reportedly due to a fire at a major generating
station.