Russell, Massachusetts

January 2003

Dear Dr. Jennings,

A small but interesting thing happened to me this week. The big propane tank in the back yard ran out of stove gas for my little apartment on the third floor of an old house here in rural Massachusetts. It’s a real winter in New England, the kind we haven’t seen in some years, and I didn’t realize how much I’d miss the hot soup, tea, and cooked meals I had been taking for granted. Our local distributor is several towns away and overloaded this time of year. It will likely be the better part of a week before he comes around. Such a minor thing as cooking. But, because I’m thinking about Iraq right now, night and day, I’m coming to understand how a series of small disconnections like this can cripple a people in a very short time.

Here is my reply to your request for some reaction to or recollection of our trip. I know you wanted something compact and discipline related for your report. Unfortunately, because I wasn’t able to visit a Department of Communication at the University of Baghdad, I cannot offer this perspective. With apologies, I offer all I have to give, my personal journal notes, as I struggle to try and make sense of our experience in Iraq. To face my prejudices, and generally American skepticism of human environments run by a high degree of central control. Ironic at this time that the very freedoms we prize in America and hold up before the world, are being compromised by the new emphasis on internal or Homeland Security, which involves greater central control right here at home. My own quite political view is that less of this would be necessary if we could muster the courage to solve our external, international problems, more fairly and equitably, and not by use of weapons, the very approach we are critical of in the case of Iraq.

As a communications person, I’m perhaps more sensitive than others might be toward being “sold a bill of goods,” as they say, whether by those representing the Iraqi or the American Government. And I’m also more unrealistically hopeful than others might be, in the search for genuine dialogue between parties. So I can easily set myself up for disappointment on a trip like this, which is naturally constrained by the need not to embarrass others or put their position in jeopardy by asking too many direct questions.

Working within these limits, I found myself looking for every small clue to the attitude our presenters and colleagues held toward their work, their institution, and the authorities they had to be sensitive toward. Thus my own observations here are burdened by a keen desire not to be duped by controlled environments of politeness or previously scripted schedules, but rather to try to see what is really happening to us, and why. One of the real tragedies, for me, is the great strain this constant need for awareness and analysis puts on basic human trust, without which, we cannot walk together into a common future.

In the end however, actually well before the end, the thaw, and the cautious openness, and the many gestures of consideration which our teaching colleagues showed to us, let alone their nostalgia for America in their student years, overcame some of my skepticism. Also, ordinary people on the streets, especially young people and children, always lift my spirits. And I found our three graduate students very genuine as we all tried to learn something about each other, and about our countries, through each other.

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So this is an impressionistic reflection of a short but strong encounter with another culture and its people. One that still shakes me, and will not let go. Please forgive the obvious subjectivity of tone. It is really a conversation inside myself, so I speak for no one else. Travel and the chance to meet people who see the world differently, often will jar my preconceived notions. Reflections like this are my own attempt to put the pieces back together again, in a better way. A thousand thanks to you for the opportunity.

John Paulmann

Westfield State College

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Notes from Baghdad, Iraq: January 13-16, 2003

Surviving in the twilight age of “dual use.”

Thanks to the trip organization and many contacts of our group leader, Jim Jennings, we seem to be in no particular danger here as Americans traveling in Iraq just a few weeks before the possibility of another war in the region.

However, the war of information is well underway. On our arrival at Baghdad International Airport, about one o’clock in the morning, the night before last, we were met by an empty and cavernous airport, and a flood of sharp media lights as at least half dozen or more news cameras recorded every movement we made from our first step out of the plane. Some pressed questions, and videoed our replies. Others just rolled camera.

Also there to greet us, were at least eight or ten faculty members from Baghdad University. The President of the University was first in line to greet us, literally as we took our first step out the door of the plane. It was quite a surprise, considering the time of night, let alone our condition after traveling for so many hours.

The President conducted an immediate press conference with Mr. Jim Jennings, our trip organizer and leader. Many cordial statements were made about peace and the importance of academic communication across boundaries of language and culture. With some embarrassment, I quickly realized most of the Iraqis could speak English, and I could say little more than ‘shukran’, or thank you in Arabic.

These were the first Iraqi people we would meet, so even at that hour, I was taken by the facial expressions of the all male welcoming committee. Unlike the warm and bright Palestinian faces and Jordanian faces I had seen before, these Arab faces were serious, almost dour, on the verge of depression, I thought. Of course, it was the middle of the night. The welcome was formal. But the mood was somber. Some of these short, well built quiet alert men could have been security people, in suits. We never would know. Over the next few days, we would come to recognize the lead University of Baghdad faculty members who organized and guided our stay. But, there were always other faces, who were not introduced to us. We never knew who they were. Simply other teachers, or graduate students, or state police in plain clothes? Who knows?

Right away, one of the habits you immediately discover of the host country was to generally “shadow” us with quiet Iraqi men wherever we went. Not so much as companions, with whom we might speak, but just hanging around every little clutch of conversation we might be having. Back up too quickly, and you bump into someone you are surprised to see. I found this off putting, as though we were under surveillance all the time. One of our tour leaders, a sparkling American Iraqi woman with perfect English, and very “American” manners of expression, later apologized to me saying these people were just there to help us out if we needed anything. It was Middle Eastern hospitality to guests, although on this trip, our “minders” were not introduced to us in that way. But sure enough, they did step forth on occasion, to help us with translations or purchasing transactions in the marketplace. They seemed to know just when to step into the picture frame, and step out again. From standby, to active duty so to speak, and back to standby. It was an unusual experience, one of the many gray areas for me, the “dual use” sense that began to overcome me as a metaphor for our experience here in Iraq.

In any case, we stood around the bight camera lights at the airport that first night, exhausted, trying to be friendly at one or two in the morning. Our hosts were doing the same. Not knowing the purpose of the broadcast, I declined a comment, but many of my bleary eyed colleagues did speak on behalf of peace. Jim Jennings carried most of the commentary, speaking into a clutch of microphones.

From that moment onward, and during this past day, our every move was accompanied by a bevy of still and video photographers. We were here to “get a picture” of this sad country, and the tables were somehow turned. They were here to get many pictures of us, interacting with the environments of the pre-arranged visiting schedule.

Who was doing what to whom? Who’s mill were we the grist for? Would I have to go home and say that our presence on a peace mission was being exploited for political gain by a canny government regime here in Iraq? Would we be represented on local news here, or maybe across the Arab World, as “average Americans,” in our thinking on the war issue? Or peace minded college teachers exercising academic freedom to meet and support prospective colleagues from across the world? I did not know.

During this past day of touring Baghdad, a few things are already clear. First, the country is suffering deeply. It’s clear to see, this city was once a place of clean urban lines, modern buildings, and large, wide public spaces. Now, it’s covered with a layer of endless dust and grit, the blue and gray of the winter sky reflected in the landscape and the streets, a blue of mood and gray of tone that pervades the faces and the spirit you can feel here as you walk around. The spontaneous reactions native to Arab people, are hidden here. Worry and somberness are palpable.

It’s not only the economic sanctions. The people we’ve met have clearly never gotten over the war in January of 1991. They can tell you exactly what day and time the bombs began to fall back then, and just where they were at that moment. Physically, psychologically, and of course, economically, this city has been staggering ever since.

Baghdad is not a beautiful place right now. There is an attractive structure here and there. But many streets look more like a blighted section of the South Bronx. With one rather startling difference. There are an outrageous number of huge portraits of a young, vigorous Iraqi President, beaming his proud and jaunty smile out from the wreckage of the streets, to those passing by. Never mind he’s now 65 years old. In the words of the old Dylan song, he’s “forever young” in this part of the world. All sizes, small poster size pictures on many lamp posts, hand bill size pasted to walls, up to giant bigger than life billboard size portraits, lit up on these dark streets, all night long. Coming in from the Airport, about 2am, we were driven through the downtown streets of Baghdad to our hotel, streets that were dark and empty, save the frozen smile of this Hollywood face, flashing by us through the night, on street after street in a kind of slow motion animation.

Yesterday morning, we were taken on tour of a few galleries in the Iraq Museum, now largely closed with exhibits placed in storage for fear of the war and destruction. Huge winged bulls, 12 to 15 feet high, from the palaces of the Assyrians, greeted us under the skylights in a large atrium of the museum. Stunning mosaics. Tiny metal sculptures of people, perfect in detail. An ancient harp made of ivory and pearl. The stele of Hammurabi receiving his famous laws from the goddess of the sun, and under it, the laws themselves written out in ancient cuneiform symbols. A copy, that is. The real stele is on display at a famous museum in Paris. Statues dated to 12,000 years ago, strewn about the musty rooms here with antiquated lighting, and crabbed identification plaques. Here in the land where writing was invented. So much to show, so little by way of facilities to do so. No bookstore here. No museum catalog. Not even a postcard. I couldn’t quite believe the wealth of history and the poverty of presentation. Meanwhile, our ever present camera friends, once again, popping endless flashes into our faces as we too somehow became part of Iraq history, such an irony, in this house of old memories.

We were then taken to two highly political sites. A children’s hospital, and an enormous bomb shelter, called AL-Ameriya, built for the war with Iran in the 1980’s. During the 1991 War, Americans acting on apparently outdated intelligence sources, thought it was a command and control center, and that maybe the Iraqi President might have been inside. So they bombed it into total destruction. Very unfortunately, instead of the President and his men, there were over 400 women and children inside, to find refuge from the bombing of Baghdad. They were all burned alive by a special purpose bunker breaking bomb followed by a fire bomb. We could see charred remains of faces burned into the blackened concrete walls. Needless to say, it was horrifying. Like a miniature version of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, which many dignitaries are taken, on the itinerary of a formal visit there.

The Shelter is now a kind of shrine for Iraqis. It is maintained just as it was left 12 years ago, with a huge gaping hole ripped through the concrete ceiling that looked to be about as thick as the height of two people standing one on top of the other, maybe 10 or 11 feet of solid concrete between here and the street above. Multiple interlaced steel rods, about an inch in diameter, were bent like pipe cleaners, as we looked up through the jagged gash in the ceiling. Sunlight poured in where it was never supposed to be, illuminating the dark memory of this holocaust chamber. Around the walls were some pictures of those who died here. Little faces of children. Attractive women, once smiling. Now a national memory. For the Government here, powerful propaganda. For the people here, a hole in the heart that will not mend.

The Iraqi woman who took us through the tomb explained that America apologized, saying it was an accident. But here they feel it was done on purpose. They suspect that with our ever-present satellite surveillance, we would have seen the large numbers of women and children congregating into the shelter at the start of the bombing. America maintains it thought we were bombing a military installation. One from our American party wandered down stairs from the main floor of the shelter, and reported to us later that he saw a room with some old nonfunctioning telephone equipment. Maybe it was a command center at one time, perhaps back in the 1980’s during the Iran-Iraq war.

We may never know what mistakes or intentions were involved in this tragedy. To the Iraqis, that’s not an issue. The reality of this holocaust of innocent civilians, is burned into their sensibility. To this day, it is never far from their thoughts. One of the students who accompanied us, with controlled fury in her eyes, told us the whole neighborhood smelled of burned human flesh for weeks afterward. It is moments like this I want to keep vividly in mind, as our country gathers its experts to plan the moves of a new war.

It’s taken twelve years for the city, build on the River Tigris, just to rebuild the roads and bridges and power stations from the war in ’91. They still haven’t been able to fix the water system which was deliberately targeted for destruction. And internet service, which has just now come into the University of Baghdad, is precarious, because Iraq can’t buy parts to properly fix the phone system. These things are classified as “dual use” meaning they might be used for weapons of mass destruction, as well as for irrigation of the fields, or regular phone service.

Because we are being treated as an official international delegation, we are taxied around, to my discomfort, by a police escort of cars and motorcycles, with blinking lights and mournful sirens. We are escorted straight through red lights at intersections, on to our next stop across town. This was to be a barely functioning children’s hospital with cracked floors, and patches of paint peeling from places in the ceiling. Old metal steps and well warn handrails. Concrete was the general sense of the place. Bare rooms, with bare light bulbs. Only essential furniture. In one large room, we were first taken through, a crying little girl was on display. She sat in the only chair in the whole empty room. If this was advertising, a not so subtle message for what sanctions and America have done to Iraq, we certainly couldn’t miss the message. Her poor little body was grossly swollen and distended by something they called the elephant disease. She just whimpered alone in quiet discomfort, her life, and that room, in a raw and tragic symmetry.

We were taken to the wards with the little children. Many of whom suffered without pro-per medication from curable maladies like pneumonia and dysentery. And many more with incurable cancers. One little boy had cancer of the eye. His face looked like a badly carved Halloween pumpkin, every feature exploding into a mass of unaccountable flesh. The rest of his small body seemed hard pressed to balance the weight of his enormous head. He wept quietly in his mother’s arms. Are they getting our attention? Yes.

In another room, a long open and dreary space, every child had a mother or sisters or both in close contact. Little swarms of intimate life, repeated over and over, clustered around each bed, in orderly rows. Little raised hills of hovering dark and light veils, like small waves rippling down through the sea of beds, of woman bending over their broken children and trying not to look at us. Caring for, protecting, perhaps even hiding this sore of new life, this sick child as a mark on the whole family and it’s future. It was so sad, I could not bear to take a picture.

Incubators. Premature births have skyrocketed here since 1991. Little tiny babies you could fit into a large sock. Even more tiny triplets, their doll size limbs slowly undulating weakly and without a sound. Solemn mothers. Weeping mothers.

Diabetes has also skyrocketed here since 1991. Without medicines. One doctor here told us they think it is due to the tremendous stress people are living under every day. Cancer in mothers and children, up 40%, according to one doctor, since 1991. Scrawny, thin, dirty, unshaved little men, holding their sick children in the unkempt hallway, waiting patiently, for any medical person they might talk to, eyed us mysteriously as we passed by. One asked us for help, in broken English.

Was this a setup? Is this an average hospital here, or one for the poorest of the many poor in this sad country? Are these mothers always here like this? Does it matter, in such an emotional heart wringer of a scene? An inside story of what Iraq is going through, on the inside. Is it also a way to throw the outcome of Americas bombs back into our faces? An opportunity for the ever present pop-eyed photographers, to catch us with our feelings on our sleeves? To teach us a lesson about war? To be sure we go home and advocate no more of this dreadful destruction? All of these and more, I would guess. Massive amounts of dual use in this sad place.

Interesting to notice, our Iraqi academic colleagues seemed as surprised as we were to see some of these visually gripping and sadly memorable situations. As though they had never been here before. As though the schedule may not have been arranged solely by them at an academic level. If this is so, could the tour have been fixed at some higher level, involving government propaganda directly? In Israel, the Ministry of Education, which guided our tour there two years ago, worked directly under the office of Arial Sharon. Maybe here too?

It is clear to us, that people here are still living through the twilight of the 1991 war. It is not forgotten. It still lives, vividly, every day, in the minds of people we are talking to. It is constantly referred to. Apparently, the regime government of Iraq has more or less successfully dodged responsibility for the catastrophe within his own country here during and after that war. Iraqis seem to have forgotten their President’s adventures in Kuwait which, so far as we’ve been told here in America, brought on that war in the first place. Now, years later, his propaganda machinery seems to have successfully deflecting the blame onto the Americans for the extensive destruction in that war, and it’s many outcomes and side effects Iraq is still struggling with today.

Two of those side effects we are being lectured about on this trip. First is the universal catch phrase, “dual use.” America and Britain, prodded by Israel according to the Iraqis, have pushed the UN to be uncommonly strict in their judgment of what kinds of things Iraq can buy from the outside world during this killing embargo, ongoing since 1991.

Any item that could have even a remote connection to the manufacture of war materials, will be banned from outside purchase. This has come to include many agricultural and medical supplies, plumbing and electrical parts, and even, according to one woman, lentils. Yes, lentils are banned under the dual-use restrictions.

This ‘dual-use’ test is what has reduced hospitals here to holding tanks until death arrives. As it has for hundreds of thousands of children here since 1991. We are being told that about 50,000 children die here every year. About this same number of Americans died in the entire Vietnam war. And this is a country with a population less than one-tenth the size of ours.

Apparently, there is also a byzantine procedure for requesting permission to purchase these highly needed medical supplies. Complicated forms and long delays. The UN body which approves or disapproves the requests meets only once every six months, and then usually says no. This has given rise to an extensive series of black market purchasing connections here which seem to favor the Baath Party political cronies of the Iraqi President and few others.

The other “bomb shell” for yesterday, was the emerging story of “depleted uranium” or “DU” as it is called here. The story is that in the 1991 war, American anti-tank shells were loaded with spent uranium, apparently a kind of “dirty bomb.” I’m not yet clear on this. We’ll hear more about it today in the Iraqi presentations at Baghdad University. Apparently, its some kind of pulverized nuclear material left over from “spent” nuclear fuel rods used in power plants. Nobody seems to know what to do with this still radioactive and dangerous material. It’s buried deep under the ground somewhere. Also, recycled apparently into these military weapons. I guess there’s quite a bit of “half life” left in these materials, which can “salt the earth” with radioactivity for years to come.

This is the hypothetical explanation given to us for US soldiers who have the “Gulf War Syndrome.” That is, the American troops could have been caught in a reverse wind, and been exposed to the same radiation as the Iraqi people. The medical people talking to us at this hospital have said that cancers and leukemia especially in woman and children, have definitely spiked in the last 8 or 10 years. A United Arab Emirates journalist yesterday morning at the hospital, pointed out a young girl with a lovely face in a bed near the hallway window. You couldn’t miss her sad eyes. He had recently done an interview with her. It seems she was an excellent student at school and showed real academic promise. Then, all of a sudden, she came down with leukemia. She is dying, he told me.

The medical view here is that “DU” has laced the land. And the air, and the water. And the food chain. And in more and more cases, the people too. Especially south in the area of Basrah, Iraq’s main port city, which received a great pounding during the war.

DU can apparently effect human reproductive cells for two or more generations, bringing disaster to the future life of this country. The US admits to using DU in its weapons. But denies that it has this late blooming chain reaction effect to the human reproduction system. I had no idea of any of this. If it is true, it is surely a shock to hear we Americans have been using some modified form of the same weapons we are now looking for in Saddam’s basement. More dual use, I guess.

A young woman, one of three graduate students assigned to our group, is studying computers. We can’t just live in the past, she says. We have to go ahead, and adopt western ways and western technology if it can help us. The same student, later in the day, while visiting a mosque that was about 800 years old, said it was OK now, to say your five-times-a-day Islamic prayer, all together at one time, at night when you get home from work, because it is less convenient now to pray in busy, western style offices. I wondered in what other ways our western technology and pace have been changing the old habits and traditions of these ancient and modern people here in the Middle East? A place that is caught literally in the middle of the east and the west, in so many ways.

It would seem that Iraq’s President has adopted our western ways with weapons of mass destruction. He also seems to know a thing or two about western media as a tool of publicity and the molding of public opinion. Our little hoard of rude, flash popping camera carriers has grown tired, I guess. They let us alone, as we visited two mosques this afternoon, after a wonderful lunch of famous Lebanese salads. For a delicious moment, there were no pictures.

One mosque had a tower that had survived an attack by the grandson of Genghis Kahn who swept through Baghdad seven or eight hundred years ago. An 89 year old “sheik” mounted the stairs in a pitch black silo spiraling upward 4 or 5 stories to the top, to share a view of Baghdad city with us. Those who followed him were treated to a grand perspective. I stayed on the ground. The old religious leader was gracious to us, spoke five languages, and had a much younger middle-age wife. He also climbed the minaret tower twice a day.

We then crossed a busy street to visit a Coptic Orthodox Church across the way from the ancient mosque. Our clutch of camera operators reappeared, as if on cue. Maybe they are not permitted to photograph us in the mosque, but this was not the case at the Church. This swarm of glum and joyless men, tightly focused on their work, on us, walked backwards with their lenses as we walked forward, our every step covered and recovered. At some point, out close hovering “minders,” countless extras in this strange drama, had become less of a bother, and more of an intrigue to me. Were they actually here to protect us? Eves drop on us? Or like the minders for Iraqi scientists, were they really here to ensure that none of our Iraqi teaching colleagues accidentally uttered a discouraging word about the regime, and the man whose incessant photographs, in every size and shape, peppered the streets and shops here like religious icons? Shades of Lenin and Stalin?

It was clear we could not venture into discussion of this enticing political subject. Gentle hints were immediately deflected. Who was watching who, watch who? The minders watching the host faculty, who were watching us, while we were watching the school children and other students. And all of us “watched” by the brash warren of camera carrying eyes for the State, eyes so hungry they seemed willing to follow us practically into the men’s room, which they didn’t, thankfully. At some point, you just tune out. At some point, you grow tired of all the watching, the big game of using each other for political gain. The point is, the people here are dying, and war will kill more of them. Faster than Saddam will kill them. That seems to be the point, as confusing as it is.

The second mosque was very elaborate with beautiful gold, silver, and inlaid tile walls all about a huge outer courtyard. Many families, woman in black veils, were praying on mats and blankets, and socializing in the cool evening breeze at the twilight hour.

As the hard lights of day diminished into the kinder shadows of evening, we all collapsed onto the bus again, and headed home for supper and bed. What is really going on here? So many things all at once, I guess. Is there room in this game within the game to stand for peace, and not be used by clever propagandists, as fodder for anti-Americanism?

Maybe the best hope is a draw. With multiple layers of messages for all of us to sort out. As long as a peace message is in there somewhere, I’ll have to be satisfied. On the bus trip home, I sat with a woman named Bianca Jagger, once the wife of a well known
British musician. She is a peace and environmental activist, and has visited many traumatized parts of the world. I asked her if she didn’t feel used by politicians in countries she visits to write updated news accounts for international peace organizations. All the time, she replied. She spoke of it with mixed reservations, as the price for getting the other story, not the show business story of her own life. But the one about suffering people, all over the world, who have little or no “face” in the western mind, little or no history in the western press, and a story I think we all want to tell.

Our second day would be spent largely at the home ground of our Iraqi teaching colleagues here. Greeted by the grim and sturdy faces of our minders, and ferocious bumping for position of the incessant camera crew lighting our way, ready to give you a whack in the head with the extended back of their big shoulder mounted video cameras if you didn’t watch out, we mounted the stairs of Baghdad University for our first conference. Clearly, these video photographers had a mission that held a high priority and permitted complete violation of the norms of Middle Eastern manners.

We were ushered into a spacious and attractive auditorium, with what seemed like a large assembly of students and faculty. Hundreds of people ready and waiting for us at this early hour. We were guests, with favorable seating reserved for us, so we wouldn’t miss any of the messages. Formal greetings from the President were followed by a semi-military prompt to order by an attractive, no nonsense, western dressed man, who introduced the various parts of the morning production with cool efficiency.

Jim Jennings repeated some of his themes from the opening press conference. Independent American teachers on a mission to support and conduct academic exchange with our colleagues here, on behalf of peace. A very well spoken American lawyer also summed up our purposes here, emphasizing the independent judgment we brought, and gently criticizing the endless surveillance of our travels. I applauded quietly to myself. At least we’re speaking back to them, I thought. This highly scripted visit, sweeping us forward into some sort of collaborative statement of support, perhaps indirectly for the Regime, was being pointed out for what it was, and put our hosts on guard, that we were watching, as well as being watched.

The morning program was front loaded with political propaganda. The staging of a child’s morality drama was just too stunningly blatant for me, anyway. A dozen or so poor children with Downs Syndrome waddled onto the stage, and labored through the singing of a sad song about sanctions and the embargo. In understandable English. The villain, a dark death-like character, dressed in a black hood, with “Embargo” written across the back of his black cape in English letters that were large and easy for us to read, kept terrifying the children. The little ones would plead for food. No, he would scream, loudly in English, with his hands held up threateningly to the children, a gesture that seemed so antithetical to me here, considering the Arab traditional family love for children. Maybe the powerful negative persuasion message was directed in part to the Arab audience, as well as to us. Anyway, frightened and horrified, the Downs Syndrome children would run away. This little drama of hunger and pleading by the children and crushing rejection by the villain, Embargo, cycled through other essentials in life, finally, peace, and then love, all the while, shrieking rejecting by the villain, who might just as well have been wearing red, white, and blue. A bleak and blunt, if true message, to say the least. A tight and bone hard way to tell us one story of Iraqi children here. The words of the drama were projected on large side screens, to the left and right of the stage, so we could certainly not miss the message. Thankfully, the ghastly little production ended, and we clapped weakly. I guess American marketing people on Madison Avenue invented “in your face” communication. Here in Iraq, they’ve been watching. There were other presentations. Members of an international peace group, “Out of the Wilderness,” sang an original peace song. The son of the straight laced MC, not exactly a hippie but a different cut from his dad, performed traditional “oud” music for us on an ancient-looking stringed instrument, a respectful salute to an old cultural tradition still alive in this proud land. At some point, it was over, and we could leave.

Next we were brought to a charming elementary school, perhaps a teaching school for the university education department. Greeted by more of this overdone hospitality, almost to the point of exploitation, both of students, and of us. Attractive teenage girls in conservative blue and white Muslim school uniforms, lined both sides of the walkway as we approached the entry of the school. Eastern head scarfed girls on one side, Western dressed without head scarfs, on the other. They clapped for us, and smiled graciously as we passed between them, which is quite a charming experience. No doubt calculated. Could this have been simply another example of the traditional Middle Eastern refined welcome? Something in me would really like to believer this. Or was it organized for a certain effect, exploiting warmth and welcome from the long history of Middle Eastern hospitality for reasons of political persuasion? Dual use, I guess. We’ll never know.

Inside the school, a cue was given, and tiny children dressed in red and white uniforms, stood in line, waving small paper Iraqi flags and peace leaves, singing Iraqi songs in their uneven but celestial voices. A choir of these tiny people formed at one end of the room, and continued the informal concert, adding dance steps that would make even a stone man smile. We were each given an artificial white rose flower in a cellophane envelope.

Of course, we popped open our own cameras at this heartwarming scene. And of course, the ever present monitors and state camera people were on hand to capture our charmed reactions to the little ones. How far will they go to pull our heart strings, I wondered? Or are these really sincere people simply telling us how much they value their children, like Arabs do all over the Middle East? Again, dual use. Who knows what the real message is? I find myself both offended at having my emotions played with like this. And at the same time, I feel as though I’m offending my hosts by even thinking about the double purpose, dual use, and manipulation I feel going on around me all the time. Children are innocent. Why use them in the grand scheme of persuasion? Where is the moral wrong? On our side for destroying their children? Or on theirs for exploiting their children to win the sympathy of Americans? Or maybe none of these unfortunate suspicions. Maybe the State is using the simple pride of its common people to show us some humanity, where we could be, at least at the moment anyway, on the short end of this account? Maybe there is no intended double message, only the potential for cynical people like me to be looking for it, where it doesn’t exist. Mirrors and mirrors. What is real and what seems real, in constant conflict. Life in a dictatorship, I guess. Hard to know who you are, living in a world of multiple meanings all the time. Maybe that’s why you hear about Arab jokes so much.

My mind is a blur to remember the schedule after this visit to the grammar school, with so many beautiful little faces that crowd the memory. But I think we were brought back to Baghdad University after lunch, for a series of four talks given by faculty members from various disciplines. I’m struck by the emphasis on science in this school. It’s used as an adjective as much as a noun. To be scientific seems to legitimate what you are doing. I don’t know what this inflection means. But it seems to indicate something deeper in the academic culture. Interesting here in a place that values it’s long history in the land of Mesopotamia, with so much going for it in art, sculpture, writing, literature, and law. Why so much emphasis on science today? One possibility is that science and math are also long standing academic traditions here in the Middle East, especially the contributions made by early Arab scholars. Another, more pragmatic and sinister, is that science is the road to modern development, including military development. A third, more moderate, is simply that the wave of empirical determinism which has surfaced in western universities over the last couple of hundred years and more, to finally offset medieval scholasticism, is still active here as a core paradigm of the modern educational experience. That is, to be western, is to be scientifically oriented. It could be that simple. Where it becomes more complicated, is that UN inspectors think the science labs here are breading grounds for research into instruments for mass destruction. Our Iraqi hosts deny this vigorously. But the suspicion, cultivated in the west, where science took root from here, to become so influential as it returns here, lingers.

The four papers were academic in presentation, and at least semi-polemical in conclusion. My brief notes recall the outline of themes as follows.

1. Economic relations between US and Iraq. Between 1981 and 1991, there were good relations between the two countries. American loans, agricultural credits, diplomatic relations, things were getting better. We sold a lot of wheat and rice to Iraq. Apparently, we also sold them a lot of weapons of mass destruction to help us fight the war against Iran, but this is not brought up here. The 1991 war over Kuwait ended all this. Our speaker warns us that America can’t afford another war with Iraq. It will seriously damage the US economy. I agree with this man. And I am ready to consider his reasonable critique. But once again, to be lectured to about such things in a tone that tingles around the edges with a warning threat, is probably not the most effective method of persuasion here. Now home, in retrospect, I can understand what we really were seeing between the lines at these moments, was the enormous amount of anger for the past and fear for the future felt by so many people we have met. Targeting America is an easy escape valve. In an act of desperation, they were seeing us as the only communi- cations line directly back to Washington. Through us, they were literally shouting at President Bush to stop the war plans. As I think of it now, it brings real sadness to see my academic colleagues, in another part of the world, doing more or less what we all do every day for our students, and suffering through the trauma and anxiety of this time. Deep, chronic, overpowering fear, is also a weapon of mass destruction.

2. Talk two: Education in Iraq. I lost the thread here. The topic seemed to wander into another rhetorical projection. Death and disease. Loss of a whole culture. For America, how can you take so much from us in war? Hammurabi said, an eye for an eye, and then stop, no more. Take no more than was taken from you. Iraq says they have a just case of international sovereignty, a legal demand that we not attack them. And if we do, they will be afraid of nothing. This is a proud people, she says, and we shall spare no effort to speak to the justice of our cause. Again, the imperative case is favored over the interrogative, or even the declarative. And again, all fingers point to America, as the cause celebre of Iraq’s problems. I wonder if they are really trying to convince us of this, or themselves?

3. Talk three. Human rights violations. Once again, least we forget, fifty thousand children are dying here every year, a huge increase in infant and child mortality over the norm. Indirectly, the effects of uranium poisoning are blamed for this. Out of sympathy, one of our American colleagues stands up and inquires about the need for a “Marshall Plan” here in Iraq? But wait a minute. Wasn’t Hitler killed before the Marshall Plan went into effect? Where is history here? Sixty percent of children under 5 years of age, we are told, are suffering from malnutrition in Iraq. Some don’t survive. A father says to a mother here, “are you going to look at him until he dies?”

To the Iraqis, the embargo, sanctions, and blockade are themselves a weapon of mass destruction, reaping collective punishment on a whole nation.

The speaker continues. The war in 1991 destroyed almost 4000 buildings. Included here are 159 religious sites, 39 schools, 76 court houses, 44 child care centers, 272 banks, and 145 oil and energy installations. The environmental pollution is a catastrophe.

4. Depleted Uranium. Apparently, in 2001, Germany, Spain, and Portugal criticized the US for using depleted uranium in Kosovo. It seems to be killing people there. A huge scientific-political debate is going on now, on the effects of this uranium contamination, on water, soil, the food chain, animals, and people. It seems there is a latency period of about 4 years, between exposure and cancer. This is the key. According to Iraqi people here, it’s the reason a spike in child cancers didn’t appear until about 1995. This talk described the quantitative method of gathering information about DU poisoning. It’s basically a giant detective story, matching locations where heightened statistics of cancer and leukemia are reported, with areas hardest hit by the US in the 1991 war. This is the low key, fact oriented type of research presentation academics cannot help but respect.

Recalling that day from back home here in New England, most memorable for me was the tone of strong feelings, at times, real anger, that came out of some presentations. It would seem these feelings of outrage were targeted at us, the west, at America, the war, the embargo, the new threat of more war. That was pretty clear. The was an implicit demand for respect, for the humanity of their land, the tradition of their people, and the value of their culture. If buried in the message here was an indirect cry from the pain and constriction brought on by the regime’s strict control of academic expression, it was never identified as such, and was well painted over by projecting the blame safely to the outside world.

But there was pain here. That was plain to see. Our colleagues here cannot get visas to travel to America any more. Prior to 1991, almost 100 percent of University of Baghdad professors received their advanced degrees from American Universities. They have been proud of this prestige, this connection to the west from personal experience. Since 1991, there is no more academic exchange, no more advanced study at American Universities. The number is now about 50%, we are told, of older professors who remember their American academic years. It has created a divide in the faculty culture here. Younger faculty members, with local degrees, have less respect for American systems of scholarship. Older faculty, have nostalgia, but feel they have to play down their American connection now.

One powerful woman, who was greatly critical of American war rhetoric, privately told me later, she can never forget her experience at the Colorado School of Mines. As a child, she said, she had never seen mountains. In America, this school was surrounded by mountains everywhere you look, with the beautiful movement of seasons seen through trees that changed color. In her mind, she thought the colored leaves on these beautiful mountainside trees were like flowers, that changed with the months of the year. I sensed a great turmoil in her, the joy she found in this sweet memory, and now, the deep anger so many Iraqis have for America. One of our party spoke to her daughter, who lived 10 years in America while her parents were teaching and studying here. Two weeks after she returned to Iraq, then 12 years old, the bombing began in 1991. She was paralyzed, she said, for about 18 hours, unable to move or speak. Not so much from fear of the bombs. But to try and comprehend how the people who had been so good to her for 10 years, were now bombing her homeland.

Several Iraqi professors sought out members of our group from specific universities, which they had attended. How is Professor “so-in-so,” a fellow from the University of Kansas later told me, as one of the Iraqi’s took hold of him. Is he still working? Has he retired? I so want to get in touch with him. He was my mentor, and was very kind to me in my years there. According to our man from U Kansas, the Iraqi professor held back strong emotional in his speech, so eager was he to remember the generous support of his long ago American colleague. Correspondence between them is no longer permitted.

One gentle and conscientious man who helped me find some history articles, a professor of English literary criticism, actually begged me to try and send any journals I could find, from his field. This is a difficult and humbling thing to express, considering the pride of the people here. We are so out of date, he said. We haven’t been able to receive American scholarly publications since 1991.

More reflection on talks given the second afternoon, in the large lecture hall. One of the lecturers began in a quiet drone like college professors can do. At some point, a tightening of the throat and a hint of anger crept up in his voice, and caught my attention. As the tenor of accusation grew stronger, I found myself becoming offended. This man was preaching to the choir. Once again, we were told to go straight to the President in the United States, and tell him not to bomb Iraq. He has no right to bomb Iraq, a sovereign nation. This professor’s tone became so forward and challenging, the Iraqi panel moderator actually cut him off, which further surprised me.

We talked about this later on, over dinner. Our intelligent and sensitive young Iraqi graduate student in architecture, stopped me cold. “Didn’t I expect to see the rage,” he asked? It was one of those startling moments that opened up the door. He want on, in a deliberate, calm voice, more that of an artist or a contemplative, surely not that of a firebrand: “I’m not asking you, he said, to please not bomb my country. I’m telling you, you have no right to take my country away from me.” There were several conversations going around the table, an d I had to pause to be sure I had heard him right. He nodded. I had. It was not a threat or a demand. It was an insight. Given almost as a gift. Part of the ground and source of deep tension here among his people. Given so I might understand.

A clear message, which came through the ground of our entire stay here. Am I looking at people who are anxiously looking forward to another war, to kill off their leader, and once again, much of their country side? To cripple their roads and bridges, knock out their electric and phone lines, destroy their water supply all over again, risk the loss of their homes and their very lives, by the thousands? Would they like us Americans to do this favor for them? Could they ever forget the enormous damage we wrought on their land and spirit in 1991? Or the rage in their mothers today, as they raise up diseased and dead children in a land we have “salted” with uranium poisoning? In a land with a long history of powerful rulers, could they get along better under a repressive dictatorship, or better under a repressive democracy? There is no doubt, at least in this one area, the answer we received about their choice in the matter. They’ve seen bad leaders and good ones come and go for ten or twelve thousand years in this part of the world. If they have to wait for the current leader to go, they will do so.

There were other moments, other doors into the Iraqi disposition. Mostly at crowded restaurants, where the minders might be off among themselves. One professor finally admitted that, in his words, the President of Iraq, sometimes acted in haste. That simple statement had to pack so much. I took it to mean that mistakes were made, and people here knew it. All the blame couldn’t really be heaped on the Americans. It wasn’t much, but a breach, nonetheless. A tiny hole through the wall of absolute and one-sided blame, a whisper of reciprocity, of mutual responsibility for the terrible circumstances that have come to beset this sad country.

Usually dinners in the middle east can go on for many hours, and without alcohol. Music, appetizers, beverages, salads, more music, the swell of conversation, the opening of hearts and minds. But not so easily in this well monitored country. Rather more tedious actually, as we hit the wall of what so many of our hosts simply could not talk about. Which is the nature and causes of the real conditions here, and the challenge of living with no academic freedom, or freedom of expression to address the problems.

To say nothing of economic conditions. One Iraqi faculty member revealed he had three jobs to keep his family afloat. Apparently, low pay University positions have some prestige attached which can be parleyed into consultant work and other part time jobs. The Iraqi dinar, traded 3 to 1 with the American Dollar before 1991. Today, it trades at over 2000 to 1 with the American dollar. This savage inflation has ruined the economy, and the standard of living of most Iraqis. The lowest denomination we could see on the street or in the shops, was a 250 dinar paper bill. Next door meanwhile, the Jordanian dinar, still trades about 1.4 to the American dollar, something like the British pound.

Our dinner spot tonight was a fancy restaurant in Baghdad, apparently once a kind of “motel” for camel caravans, with rooms for both animals and people. Abandoned, and reclaimed, it’s now a hot night spot, I guess. Despite the reputation, I still felt a disconnect here. Restaurant service and personal attention seemed like a large signature of Arab custom in Jordan. The feeling I found here among the waiters was more like unhurried disinterest. As though nothing mattered very much. Maybe it was just the slow pace of serving a group. Perhaps I’m reading a larger sense of despondency into the people here than is really the case. But I felt sorry for those I saw. The naturally spontaneous Arab personally seemed somehow in withdrawal here. In a state of fitful watching, and half hidden anxiety, never sure when something might erupt or from what direction. Alert and passive. It made my own mood somber as well. We tried to make small talk among our own American colleagues. Even turned to discrete table hopping to find some good conversation, as the long evening wound a slow path into the night. Those of our band who had the energy, took the opportunity to button hole one or another Iraqi teacher or graduate student to continue some earlier moment of interaction.

We returned to the hotel more than ready for sleep, only to hear there was a command appearance of a high official from Saddam’s inner circle, who wanted to see us back at the school even at this late hour. Confusion all around. Usual exhaustion. At first, it was thought only Jim, our leader would have to go. Then a delegation. At some point, we all just slogged back onto the bus, and let it happen to us.

The lady who came to see us was quite a story. A person of moderate height, and slight build. Soft spoken and discrete, she walked up to the mike and offered the usual polite opening and flowery courtesies. Then she sat down, appeared satisfied just to listen in on more of the rhetoric from Iraq faculty members, and the increasingly sharp reply of my American counterparts, who would not allow the American side to take all the blame for conditions in the country. At some point, it ended. Silly me, I thought we could go home and sleep. But she slowly returned to the desk, and asked for a few words. Her timing suggested she was listening to the back and forth, and would like an opportunity to reply to the challenges offered by the Americans.

But there was no reply. No connection to what had been said. Just another scripted speech, waiting for its moment. Another slow building demand for us to dial the President in America and be sure he cancels the war. It’s up to us. All of Iraq demands this of us, she was saying. Iraq invented law and technology (by this, I think she means the “wheel” from ancient civilization) for the whole world. Because of this huge contribution to civilization, we in the west must now protect the greatness of the Iraqi people and their heritage. We, the American professors, now must lower our standards, our distaste for mixing it up with gritty journalists. We must take a step down off our high academic horse, and become activists for Iraq back in America. Dirty our hands and deal with the press directly. Carry the message of Iraq’s innocence(!).

To show respect and solidarity for Iraq, she is inviting International students, from Europe, America, and Canada, to Iraq for a big rally on February 19 and 20. Unfortunately, due to the sanctions, the students will have to pay their own way here. Reference to “sanctions” in this country, the all-purpose justification for any action or reaction from the political leadership, sound oddly similar to use of the term “terrorists” in our Homeland Security obsessed America at this time. It’s the magic word.

Teachers and students alike, she says, should create internet sites to promote the justice of the Iraqi cause before the world. Make them and give them to us, she says. A very alert lady, aware of American politics and media. But becoming a bit imperious in her manner. Once again, not a whisper of shared blame for the wretched circumstances so many poor Iraqi people find themselves in here. If the rhetoric was tiresome, the manner of her presentation was interesting. Several of our Iraqi colleagues zealously anticipated her every move. One eagerly sought to accept the pages of her speech as she turned to the next one. He rested them carefully, upside down, on the table next to her. Another made pains to adjust her microphone. Once, she nodded tellingly, and a glass of water was instantly whisked into her hand. No acknowledgement. This is what royalty looks like, I thought. Another time, she allowed the slightest grimace to trace across her face, and one more of the attentive men raced to open a door for some fresh air. Maybe she had lots of very good friends here. Maybe Middle Eastern hospitality extends to academic presentations. Maybe she is in a position to give these people a lot of grief. Maybe all three.

We are not naive, she says. We know that media in the west represents the institution (as though it doesn’t here). By this, I assume she means the government. When in actuality, over the past 20 years or so, our media responds more directly to the corporate marketplace. So, go back to America, she says. We must speak out on radio and television, stand up for Iraq. She says we in America are not a democratic country, but the media allows us to pretend that we are. Now that’s something that calls for a pause, but there is no pause. Write to the Write house, she suggests, to the government committees, to your congress people, get your teacher and student friends to stand up for Iraq. The American government must be made to know the righteous position of Iraq and it’s place in the world. And this is very important, she says: you must begin a dialogue with the extreme right of the Republican Party, which has captured the presidents ear on this matter. They think all Iraqis are terrorists. So now go back to America, and convince the media that these right wing people are the real extremists. Disconnect Iraq from terrorism in the public mind. Work through the churches.

She lets out a small triumphant chuckle: the American president has failed to prove that we are terrorists. Making this claim is outrageous. Iraq is ruled by a contemporary modern ideology, she insists. It is progressive, and social. It is against fundamentalism. So no one has the right to accuse us of terrorism or fundamentalism she concludes with a calm smile, as though putting the last piece of her logic into place. I warn you, she says pointedly, how much the world will hate you if you attack Iraq.

Her last issue was the level of insult and inconvenience caused by UN inspectors who constantly check on science labs here at the University, even if students are doing their work at the time. She seemed to imply that University science labs should never have to be suspect in the research or manufacture of dangerous substances. Knowing so much about America as she does, I wonder if she remembers reading about the rumor several years ago, that anthrax was being secretly researched in the science labs of the University of Massachusetts, not very far away from where I work and live? Well, with that flourish, she was finished. Hopefully soon, we can go home for some merciful sleep.

More unfortunate than her stridency, for me, is the fact that neither she nor the others responded to any of the criticisms the Americans brought forward. Are they are simply not hearing us when we speak about opening up the ingrown culture of the university? Or is it just politically impossible to address this without serious consequences from the government? When one of us brings up environmental degradation caused by the Regime, all we hear in reply is a previously scripted text having no connection with the question or challenge. Two completely separate conversations are going on here.

Though bone weary and blind with fatigue heading back to the hotel, I was quietly becoming aware of a growing sense of loss inside of me, of sad separation, a bigger than ever tug on the thin string of professional credibility we are trying hard to maintain as teachers from two very different cultures. I really want to believe in the disciplinary integrity of our hosts, Iraqi professors from the University of Baghdad. And I want to believe they are really trying to speak with us in whatever way that they can. But, we were pretty well challenged today. Rhetorically beaten up, one might even say. If our replies had been heard, they were not acknowledged.

Were the professors here so slavishly ensconced in the protected grip of loyalty obligations to the government that no one could step up and share even a tiny bit of internal blame for the tragic circumstances the last ten years have brought to this sad land? Were we just to be clobbered at every turn, rhetorically speaking, subjected as we were to one-sided explanations that surely looked and smelled like propaganda to me? Did anyone have another idea about the recent history of this country and the reasons for its poverty and suffering? Did they really think we could go home and carry this monophonic message to the American people with a straight face?

I know a good number of my American colleagues didn’t feel this way at the end of the day. I am simply oversensitive to hints of polemical rhetoric and mechanical surveillance, and respond poorly to it. But others of my American colleagues here understand the politics and the poverty behind the rhetoric and responded directly to the desperation at hand. Under these extreme circumstances, my colleagues felt what was asked of us were generally reasonable requests, by generally reasonable people.

All during this time of being escorted about from site to speech to site, we were trying, within the limits of a crowded schedule, to meet alone as an American group. We needed to talk out what we were seeing, clarify our own internal reactions, and try to maintain a united voice, at least formally. Actually we had scheduled a meeting right after dinner, which had to be cancelled due to the Baath Party lady who just talked to us tonight.

Our group of about 32 American teachers, to me anyway, seemed divided roughly into uneven thirds on what was happening here. The first group felt the entire visit was a large propaganda script, hoping to use us to effect American attitudes and public opinion back home about the war. That in helping to ward off another disastrous war to this impoverished country, we would indirectly be working to keep the current regime in power. According to this line of thinking, every move we made, and every comment was being weighted and tested by the government watchers here. Even the room we were meeting in could be bugged. We were literally being drawn into the state game of total communication control, and total manipulation of outcomes. We should be on our guard to do nothing and say nothing that would aid the status quo of the administration. And also be very careful not to say anything that could get our teaching colleagues here into trouble with the state.

The second group of us, I think, felt that everyday Iraqi people were suffering so much, that most any sensible assistance would be helpful. If we found ourselves being used by the government in the process, it was the price we had to pay to bring even a little relief to very hard pressed people, which was the ultimate goal anyway.

The third group, where I found myself, was sort of mid-ground, uncommitted, listening hard to try and get it straight. Feeling some merit to both the conservative and liberal ends of our viewpoints. Actually, saying yes to both perspectives doesn’t seem so conflicted to me right now. I do think there was a contest to use us for one form of persuasion or another through media. But I guess our government is basically doing the same thing over here, staying on top of the media agenda, the vast game of spin, that ultimately makes everything that happens, look like it supports and justifies the administrations point of view. And to try and keep ahead of the curve with ever new and challenging statements, positive momentum which takes up regular news headline space that might otherwise begin to explore opposing views. Thus, stories like the effects of uranium poisoning, which might throw a questionable light on the ethics of our own war conduct, take a low profile here in the American press.

We are vilifying the Iraqi President here in the American press, just like the Iraqis are blaming everything terrible about the sanctions and the 1991 war on the Americans, conveniently forgetting about their own invasion of Kuwait which apparently brought these things about. So maybe, there is less difference than I thought between the media approaches taken by each country. In each respective home market, each leader is finding reasonable success in blaming the other side for most everything. The difference however, is the Iraqi people still suffer enormous economic pressure and personal deprivation.

One woman told me that fear of war has literally taken the smile out of her life. The joy of everyday contact with her friends, the growing up of her children. Something has died inside of me, she said. I’m not at home in my own home anymore. The grip of fear, every day, had taken a big toll. One of the graduate students noted that many people she knows, are stockpiling food and water in their houses, out of fear for the war they are sure is coming again. A high school teacher told us that she can hardly teach any more. Her students don’t believe they have a future. After twelve painful years of rebuilding the country under the yoke of sanctions, her young people feel it will be destroyed all over again. Our graduate student in architecture is very upset at the possible loss of priceless archeological remains, and the few buildings of Islamic architectural design still in use after so many centuries.

Our bus splashes through the somber rainy streets of Baghdad tonight. A winter thunderstorm passed through in the late afternoon. The sound of our wheels swishing through puddled water on the streets seems novel for the Middle East. The doleful wailing of police sirens from our ever present escort vehicles has a hollow sound tonight. Maybe the neighborhoods are quieter than usual. We continue to cross intersections through red lights as though we were fire trucks. The rain-fogged window of the bus throws a strange other worldly cast over the rhythmic flashes of pink and yellow street lighting along the dark alleys as we pass by. Hurtling on from no where to no where. Getting no place, but still moving. It seemed strange, and somehow hopeless, like a game, with circular dialogue, that never became linear, or headed for the finish line.

I have left out and should recount some important stops on our trip today. We spent the better part of a morning traveling to Babylon, an archeological reconstruction of the ancient and fabled city where Nebuchadnezzar built the hanging gardens for his bride, who missed the lush greenery of her homeland in Iran. The city was originally built on the Euphrates River, but over time, the river changed it’s course and today, it’s several miles away. Our American-Iraqi historian and tour guide, who could speak better American English than many Americans, explained that as the river gradually shifted it’s location away from the legendary walled city, it made the dynasty more vulnerable, and ultimately contributed to its defeat. The tower of Babel was also here, although archeologists think it rose up out of a square base, rather than a round one. Its function seemed to be religious in nature, with sacrifices offered at the top level, in some way similar to the less ancient stepped temples found in Central America.

A copy of the famous Ishtar Gate to the city stands here today, about two-thirds the size of the original, which has been taken to a museum in Germany. D.W. Griffith, the American silent film director, copied this gate and the giant bulk of its walls, for a famous battle scene in his early movie, Intolerance, made around the time of World War I. The tour in Babylon was a nice relief from the difficulties I was experiencing with our communication over the issues. Out guide pointed out the reconstruction of a famous wall in the once royal chamber. Here, so long ago, the Old Testament Israelite prophet Daniel was summoned to read curious writing left by a mysterious hand on the wall, and interpret it for the king. The news was not good. It’s always a stunning thing when stories from childhood, suddenly stand before you in the silent stones of history.

After an extensive picnic lunch under colorful tents just outside the Ishtar gate, we boarded the bus and headed north back to Baghdad, stopping along the way to visit an Iraqi home. The woman living there sold native art and crafts items, and her living quarters were attractively appointed as a type of domestic museum to exhibit them. Her father built the house about a hundred years ago. It was damaged during the bombing in 1991, due to it’s proximity to one of the bridges crossing the Tigris River. Fortunately she’s been able to rebuild it, and so maintain the tradition of her family as long as she can. A woman of refined speech, and excellent English, she apparently receives guests from many parts of the world, and gave us an attractive recounting of her life and times there.

Two of the artists who exhibit there were on hand to describe the painstaking process of producing their unique pictures, which they make together, as a team. The entire work surface of the picture, whether urban, rural, or pastoral, is constructed, piece by tiny piece, from flower petals, seeds, and stems, built up to form the color, texture, and design of the subject. Upon close inspection, it’s quite extraordinary. Reminds me how relatively easy it is to take apart a city or a society. How difficult is to build one up again. In a quite refreshing way, the two woman were much more interested in telling us about their art, than they were in selling us their art. But, guess what? Several of us bought pieces of their work anyway.

It was the evening of our last day here. Tomorrow, we would leave about 6am for the airport. Tonight, our last hurried moments were pre-arranged to meet and formally end our sessions together here at the hotel. So much was left unfinished, as broken pieces of conversation left high in the air, to float around, seeking their grammatical connection somewhere, in another lifetime perhaps. Life in the east, where courtesy draws the heart. Life in the west, where clocks and schedules rule. All these parts of speech, fragments of hope and different traditions are whirling and clashing in the air, bumping, spinning, seeking to embrace, missing their connections, and saying goodbye all at the same time.

Tonight, the dynamic clash of voices prevailed once again. The main announcement of the evening was that a co-signed document of cooperation, would not be forthcoming. Which was a gracious way of saying, we were not seeing eye to eye on some main issues here. After a flurry of formal acknowledgments, and congratulations for even attempting to bridge so wide a gulf in world academic cultures, the formalities were ended. With a breath of relief, and already a whiff of nostalgia for our new found colleagues both Iraqi and American, we realized it was over. A quick dinner, a short sleep, and a long flight home.

On the way out of the sizable, mostly empty hotel conference room, two small personal events framed the human side of our encounter here in lasting punctuation for me. A quiet tempered little professor of nutrition I had met over the days, was introducing me to his wife and two daughters. We had not said much to each other, but he had a warm Arab welcome in his smile. One of his daughters, dressed in conservative Islamic garb, was particularly bright eyed asking about schooling opportunities in America. Her father, obviously proud of her, had gone to an American university somewhere in the Midwest, maybe Utah. She was asking some questions about current application procedures, which, under the political circumstances, are somewhat premature. But I was encouraged that she might be interested.

In the haste of the moment, I reached out to shake hands with the man’s wife. She recoiled as though I had touched her with a lit match. Glaring in my face, and with reasonably good English, she shouted that I had no right to kill Iraqi babies. American murderer! I was stunned. Too late, I realized my mistake. Islamic woman do not shake hands with unfamiliar men in public. Yet, it was a complete lapse of the courtesy code to be so blunt at such a moment. The modest tirade of this poor woman’s labored English went on for 1 or 2 painful minutes, her eyes like daggers pinning me down. Finally, her husband, less embarrassed than I thought he might be, led her away, the two daughters dutifully following.

Quietly standing to one side, was the graduate student who is studying computers. She had been excellent company for us all, on the entire four days of the trip, and now she waited patiently. It was our last moment, forever. Neither of us said anything about the distraught Iraqi mother. She had come to say goodbye with a small gift.

This is the same woman who held back her anger and tears just two days ago while describing the horrible smell that hung over the city after more than 400 women and children had burned to death in the 1991 shelter bombing. Tonight, with joy and softness of mood, she told how she copied a CD of her favorite “oud” player, Nasser Shamma, a musician who is widely admired in Iraq, and wanted us to take it home. She wanted us to remember her country. The music was instrumental, so it crossed all national boundaries. But the soul and inspiration was Iraq, her birth country, the land she loves. Interestingly, Shamma’s live concert was recorded in Boston, my own adopted home state in America. What more poignant connection between cultures could one find to say goodbye?

Friday morning, 4am. January 17. We’ll be leaving for home today, in just an hour or so. No sleep tonight, awash with so many emotions, so many faces, passing before me in these last hours before dawn, and departure.

The sweet, gentle, communications graduate student, suffering from health problems, and trying to study violence in American television programs. It caught me by surprise, such an ironic a topic. She is asking for help in her search for sources. We talked all the way to Babylon on the bus. Or tried to talk. It was nearly impossible. I have no Arabic fluency. Her English was barely passable. And her voice was soft and shy. We laughed as we bounced over the bumps in the road, but it was soon clear the bus was louder than we were.

The impressive woman scientist who talked to us about Depleted Uranium, but could not reply to a question from one of our Americans from California, who asked about the environmental degradation brought on by President Hussain’s order to torch the Kuati oil fields in 1991.

The little kitchen helper at breakfast, who cautiously asked if I might try to contact a friend from back in America. He’d lost touch since the 1991 war, but never forgot his friend.

The burly young man in the music store, who not only sold me the little tiny model of the “oud” standing on his speakers, which at first he didn’t want to do, but then gave me a tape of his favorite music as a gift. He didn’t stop there, but went to the back of his small shop, and returned with his own full-sized oud, to give me a sense of the instrument, and to play some of his own music for me. And he surely knew where I came from.

The mother and children at the modest Greek Orthodox Church in the rain flooded street, who gave us a tour of the interior. All we could do with the children was smile, but that was enough.

The teacher who left his job because he could make more money changing the bed linens at our hotel.

The university publicity lady, who lost her father in the 1973 war with Israel. An Iraqi fighter pilot during the war, he never came home, and they never received word of what happened to him. She was two years old at the time, and has missed him all these years, to the point of tears when she thinks about him. Now, she lives alone with her mother. Very warm and gracious lady, like the Arabs I remember from Jordan and Palestine. We prayed for him together, inside the Greek Orthodox Church. She cried.

The tiny faces of the deformed, disabled, and diseased children at the special hospital, and the silent grief stricken faces of their parents. Especially the sad hollow eyes of the scruffy unshaved little man who seemed lost in the long hallway, and asked us if we could help his little boy. I didn’t know what to say.

The President of Baghdad University, who just about boarded the plane to greet us on our arrival, at one o’clock in the morning. He let Dan Rather, the newsman, walk by, and shook our hand instead.

The absolutely wonderful graduate students who accompanied us the whole way, and will be forever memorable, so that someday if I ever encounter an Iraqi from Baghdad University, I will be saying, do you know “so-in-so,” I so want to be in touch with them. They were so kind to us on our visit to your country, and I can never forget them.

I’m still living in a vivid pulsing blur of images from Iraq. A once proud capital city, falling into disrepair and urban blight. The destitution of public spaces, parks, and side streets. Dust and grime. Litter all about. Not much seemed to be green or growing. A scatter of dusty palm trees, and patches of dirt where gardens may have been. Once bright, cream colored bricks, like the ones used to reconstruct the city of Babylon, are the main building ingredient for many of the shops and apartment houses in the city. Endless Soviet style poured concrete public buildings vie for sameness block after block. An overtone of gray. Sad gray, dingy gray, end of the day gray. I sensed the same mood in many of the ordinary people here.

The National Assembly building, perhaps like a state house building in America, though much more spare and modern in design, is in the midst of repairs that seem to have been put on hold for some time now. Scaffolding outside, broken sections of steps and walkways. Inside, holes in walls, floors torn up, a large interior fountain, now a dry pile of broken parts. Doesn’t seem to be much happening. Yet, we were allowed inside to meet a very articulate speaker of the National Assembly, and several of his co-workers, to present some of our views. We were politely received.

The hotel window, where I’m staying, looks out on the Tigris River and through the lattice, I can see the golden sun rise once again over the horizon of this very old part of the world. Increasingly covered with urban sprawl and gathering smog in the air. From the window, two large bridges can be seen, spanning the river here in downtown Baghdad. New cement construction since 1991. I wonder if we can ever rebuild our bridges to this ancient land, so long ago, the cradle of our own civilization?

I’m still looking for that spontaneous Arab welcome, and bright smile in the heart of the people here. You can find it, but you have to look harder. Bursts of momentary warmth, smiles, hugs all around could be seen the night before we left, as we caught the end of several wedding parties crossing the lobby of our once fine, now faded hotel. We looked on eagerly, and even shook a few hands. Because Friday is the Islamic day of prayer, Thursday is a popular day for weddings here. The young men stand erect and proper for the photographs, hardly a hint of smile crosses their lean shaven faces. The brides in traditional white, surrounded by their cooing brides maids, smile awkwardly, as though it were an effort. Is it the times? The fears? The coming war? Rising rates of premature birth, and cancers in children? The dust of poverty? Twelve years of economic sanctions and blockade have strangled the normal process of building a life and a family here. I can imagine how difficult it must be to be optimistic at such a wonderful moment. Maybe it’s courage, more than joy that I’m looking at. Unspoken pride in a history that must go on. Families that never stop doing what families do: come war, poverty, or death, ever a new hope for the future.