Erstellt am: 15. 3. 2013 - 18:33 Uhr

Tattoos And Trauma

Reality Check Special: Iraq 10 years on.

One of the moments during the Iraq war that sticks out most in my memory is the day Saddam Hussein was captured. This was the man who was the Ace of Spades in a deck of playing cards developed by the US military to help troops identify the most wanted members of the toppled regime; the dictator whose rule had cost the lives of some half a million Iraqis. It was Sunday, 14th December, I was sitting in the news studio about to present the 11 am bulletin. There were just seconds to go when the duty editor burst in and slapped a single sheet of paper on to the table in front of me. It was a so-called "one-liner" from the news wires, the first piece of information on a "breaking" news story. The one line of text was something like "Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein captured in Tikrit by US forces". It was one of those "news just in" moments where I had to read from the page without having time to prepare.

EPA/MIKE NELSON

A video image of a haggard and bearded Saddam Hussein is shown during a press conference where US Administrator to Iraq, Paul Bremer (R) announced that "We Got Him!".

Like most of us, I experienced the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent war at a distance, vicariously, through the blanket news coverage punctuated by dramatic graphics and full of reports from journalists "embedded" with coalition troops. As a news editor it was part of my daily routine. Over the years we must have clocked up many hours of reports, interviews and analysis on the latest developments, the troop advances, the liberation of Baghdad, the occupation, the insurgency, the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the horrific sectarian violence, the counter insurgency, the troop surge and then the troop withdrawal. Sometimes it feels like you can’t see the stories for the words.

This is why we’re hearing from Tony Cheng in this week’s Saturday Reality Check Special. Tony has been travelling around Iraq to find out for himself, and for FM4, how things look now and what people think.

The Human Cost

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A couple of numbers first. The Iraq conflict "has killed at least 190,000 people, including men and women in uniform, contractors, and civilians", according to the "Costs of War" project at Brown University in the United States, and it’s the civilians who account for the largest proportion of this tragic statistic - 134,000 deaths, or more than 70 percent. "A disaster" is how Alastair Crooke, founder of the Conflicts Forum, describes what happened in Iraq saying "it had no moral basis" and blaming the United States: "it was the Americans trying to arm one confessional group against another confessional group … and it ended up with ethnic cleansing". Violence continues in Iraq to this day. On Thursday this week more than 20 people were killed in Baghdad in a carefully planned assault on the Justice Ministry, involving car bombs and gunmen disguised as police.

APA/Mohammed Jalil

"Iraqi lives and communities remain war-devastated 10 years on" states the Costs of War website. Its report covers the human, economic, social and political costs. FM4’s Tony Cheng had a glimpse of some of these costs when he went to visit a trauma centre. He describes his encounter with Mohammed, a young boy of about 6 or 7 years old, who "stood in the corner, his face emotionless, frozen". Mohammed still has a mother and a father, where many children have lost their parents, but apparently there is domestic violence in the family. It’s possibly connected to the father’s experiences in the army and then later being involved in the sectarian conflict. Sadly, Mohammed’s lack of emotion seems to be a common phenomenon among Iraqi youngsters: "many young children," observes Tony, "are really not able to express the kind of joy you would expect as they play. You don’t see that around here in many places". In some respects, Mohammed is one of the lucky ones - the facilities for providing help for traumatised Iraqis are just starting up. The centre Tony visited was small and "very basic" with only three staff doctors. They have a monumental task ahead of them, treating a whole generation of young Iraqis who have lost loved ones and experienced suffering on a scale that’s too painful to contemplate.

Tattoos and Rappers

There are some lighter moments in Tony’s accounts - like the tattoo artist who learned his trade from a US soldier who discovered him painting graffiti. He now has a shop and says it has allowed him to "start his life". The tattoos his customers ask for are things like a tiger or a wolf, or tattoos they have seen in the internet or on TV. It’s unusual because tattoo art is not part of Iraqi culture, but the artist says people have seen tattoos on Americans and want to have one too. Some of his customers want a tattoo to remind them of someone they’ve lost. There’s a strange contradiction between Iraqi resentment of the United States because of the events of the past 10 years and the desire to copy American culture.

Tony Cheng

Ghaith

This ambivalence about the legacy of the US troop presence in Iraq is also evident in Tony’s conversation with two rappers, Dante and Ghaith, who talk of how most of what the Americans "brought" was negative, but at the same time they like rap and hip hop and have formed their own band.

Tony also got the official view of how Iraq is doing 10 years after the invasion from Deputy Prime Minister for Energy, Hussein al-Shahristani. Materially speaking, things have improved - wages have increased by 600 percent, according to al-Shahristani, while prices have only increased by 10 percent. Under Saddam Hussein’s regime many people had to take their children out of school and send them to work, or sell their doors and windows to buy bread whereas now, says the politician, you only have to look at how many new cars are parked on the streets of Baghdad, or the fact that nearly every house has a satellite dish, to see that the standard of living has improved. He does acknowledge there is still a lot of rebuilding to be done, and is keen to stress that "a lot of contracts have been signed and work is progressing" but that "a country as large as Iraq needs time to rebuild".

EPA/FALEH KHEIBER

Iraqi builders during the reconstruction of al-Sarafiya bridge in Baghdad

Putting aside the criticism and controversy over the reasons and (false) justifications for going to war in Iraq, the fact remains that the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein was brought to an end. But was it worth it? Are Iraqis better off now, in spite of all that has happened in the last 10 years? Not surprisingly, different people have different answers. Deputy Prime Minister Hussein al-Shahristani has this response: "If you ask an average Iraqi, a simple citizen on the street, he would complain, sometimes bitterly, and he’s right, about the inadequate services. But when he remembers the fear he was living in under the previous regime, the fact that he could not sleep at night comfortably - because if he hears a knock on the door he thinks the security have come for his son or his daughter - he will tell you that at least he can sleep comfortably now."

Tony found that in Basra, which suffered terribly under Saddam’s regime, people feel that life now is better than it was ten years ago, but in Baghdad it’s a different story: "They’ve seen the worst of the invading forces and the sectarian violence that followed and they really are very battered by what they’ve seen. Many people will tell you very frankly that they wish it had never happened at all, that they were much happier under the regime of Saddam Hussein and while they do now have their freedom there are many things they have lost, including friends and loved ones. I think they’ve weighed up the changes that have taken place over the last decade and in many cases have found that things have not improved".