In 2003, when U.S. troops stormed into Baghdad and the statues of Saddam Hussein were pulled down, I think I must have been elated like many other Iraqis. Today, after the six years of bloodshed and slaughter set off by the U.S.  invasion, it’s hard to remember that feeling, which must have been one of enormous relief and joy.  Instead I am left with mixed emotions, grateful that the horror of Saddam’s rule ended but also deeply saddened by the horrors that followed his fall.

  I was eager to live in an Iraq without Saddam. I always hated his brutal rule of Iraq. He had taken us into wars in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed. Iraqis might also easily face death if they spoke out against Saddam or criticized his government. But if you kept your mouth shut and did not join any political party other than his now outlawed Baath party, you most probably would have been left alone.
    When Saddam was ousted by the invasion, and Baghdad fell to U.S. troops on April 9, 2003, I thought then that Iraq would finally be at peace after a long period of tough times. I never imagined what followed. It never crossed my mind that tens of thousands would be slaughtered simply for being a Shi’ite Muslim or a Sunni, the two Islamic sects in Iraq. Millions would flee their homes. And that bombs laid by insurgents would mow down thousands more.
    I sometimes wondered why did we get rid of Saddam if the killing continued, although for different reasons?
    The violence has begun to ebb, but still my relatives and friends are scattered to the winds.
    As an Iraqi journalist I have explored the social impact of war on my country. I have interviewed orphans and widows, and people whose limbs were blown off by bombs. It has left my heart full of more pain than I ever thought it could bear.
    I have also seen Iraq, amid the violence and fear, embrace new freedoms in politics and also in life: we have cellular telephones and satellite television, both restricted or banned in Saddam’s time. Saddam’s government had long lists of forbidden items.  One of them was satellite television. Anyone caught watching international news shows could be sent to prison for six months.
    It is clear to me that Iraqi society would not have been allowed to develop had Saddam remained in charge. Now despite the dark years that have passed, we can at least cling to hopes of better times. We have a parliament that we elect, and not one-man rule.
    This week, an Iraqi appeals court reduced to one year a three-year prison sentence handed to an Iraqi journalist who dared to throw his shoes at former U.S. President George W. Bush. I was impressed and had to raise my hat to the independence of the judiciary. I asked my parents what they thought the journalist’s sentence would have been had he committed the same offence during Saddam’s times. My mother answered: “He would not only have been executed without trial but all of his family would have been erased from the Iraqi map.”

By Aws Qusay

BAGHDAD - When U.S. bombs rained on Baghdad in 2003, rocking the ground beneath me, I would never have imagined U.S. soldiers would later join my family for a birthday party.

In fact, I and most Iraqis could not believe Saddam Hussein was really on his way out six years ago. Even after his statue was toppled in Firdos Square, many believed his real plan  to eject the Americans would come, and that the easy invasion was really an ambush. In the end it kind of was, though not of Saddam’s doing.

When U.S. soldiers first came, I remember them sitting on their tanks, waving hello. As a student of English, I was curious and eager to talk to them, even though I still worried about what Saddam’s people would do if I was seen. A U.S. soldier told me he’d defend me from Saddam even if he only had the small pistol strapped to his leg, which made me laugh, but my father took him seriously, and was hopeful. Some soldiers shouted “shaku maku”, meaning “what’s up” in Iraqi slang, eliciting shy smiles and nervous waves from Iraqis.

During a regular American house-to-house search they tumbled upon my family celebrating a birthday, and they stayed for a while at our invitation, cheering with us. We swapped phone numbers, took photos together, and they even stayed to watch the Oprah Winfrey Show with us on TV.

Little did we know that a Sunni-led insurgency and Shi’ite militia uprising was brewing, and that I would soon witness people being shot in the head on my way to work.

The sectarian bloodshed began in earnest when militants destroyed a revered Shi’ite shrine in Samarra in February 2006, and the slaughter continued into the following year. Many Iraqis blame the United States for triggering the catastrophe. Every day saw more bodies in the street.

My exchanges with the Americans stopped — being a “traitor” was a death sentence. There were no more “shaku makus” from the Americans either, and the sight of a U.S. troop convoy would put other drivers on edge. Often nervous and young, U.S. troops gained a reputation among Iraqis for shooting first and asking questions later.

The violence has since quietened down, and talk now has turned to the departure of U.S. forces by the end of 2011.A television advertisement urging national unity shows U.S. troops leaving and collecting their gear while children play soccer, with the slogan “They leave, we stay”.

The joke in Iraq is “We are killed, displaced or emigrate. They stay”.

Some Iraqis can’t wait for the U.S. troops to leave, but I’m worried violence will flare when they are gone. Some from both camps do not believe U.S. forces are really leaving.

I personally miss my chats with them, and have rarely seen them recently as they slowly withdraw from towns and cities. A few days ago I saw a U.S. soldier in the street waving to people as they passed by.

It wasn’t clear to me if he was waving hello or goodbye.

By Mohammed Abbas                                      

Many developing countries are mired in dated bureaucratic practice and tangled in red tape, but of all of them, Iraq can perhaps least afford to see its crucial post-war development suffocated under mounds of paperwork.
What hangs in the balance is nothing less than whether oil-rich Iraq can emerge from years of war as a prosperous, democratic and secure state — or whether it sinks back into the bloodshed that almost tore it apart.
A love of official stamps, seals and documents in triplicate is by no means only an Iraqi phenomenon. Receiving shipments at Cairo airport, for example, involves one queue to buy a ticket, another to receive it and a third to get it laminated.

But if Iraq is to rebuild its crumbling infrastructure, develop its oil fields and find jobs for legions of restless unemployed — who have easy access to guns — it must make doing business and governing as smooth as possible.
Would-be foreign investors are likely to steer clear if Iraqis themselves find the country’s bureaucracy a nightmare.
Born in Iraq, I was technically eligible to vote in recent provincial elections, but a trip to a government office to apply for a required residency card was a shocking reminder of the mountain of bureaucracy Iraqis must climb.
Hundreds of people shuffled from room to room down long, dim corridors with unmarked doors, clutching sheaves of faded paperwork. A crowd would clamour at a door whenever an official turned up, but otherwise many sat on the floor despondent.
Some looked like they had been there for days.

In one office, two officials let people in one at a time. Noise and paper-waving from the crowd outside erupted each time the door opened.
“Fake. Fake. This one’s okay, take that to the district office and apply there,” said one official, lazily flicking forged identification cards back at a woman before advising her to go and queue at yet another government building.
Far from instilling order, the bureaucracy has fostered an industry in forged documents and fixers versed in byzantine official process, who can apply on your behalf for a hefty fee. Some of that money probably goes to officials. Iraq came second to last out of 180 countries in corruption watchdog Transparency International’s 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index.
Meanwhile, roads remain unpaved, sewage disposal is abysmal and millions have no access to decent housing and healthcare, partly because bureaucracy has made it hard to execute Iraq’s budget.
For journalists, the insistence on long-winded procedure is maddening.
Recent Reuters requests to meet senior Iraqi officials were rejected because the envelope had not been stamped correctly, or because it did not have a randomly generated reference number.
Many officials insist on lengthy honorifics and encourage obsequious preambles to questions, which eats away at press conference time and takes up newspaper space.
The leads of many Gulf newspaper articles, for example, consist of little but long-winded honorifics.
“Noble Leader, Master of the Seven Sand Dunes, who Blesses us with his Beneficience, Sheikh xxxx of xxxx bin xxxx abdul xxx met …” That’s only a mild exaggeration.
Democracy has been touted as a way for Iraqis to reconcile after years of war, and last month they voted in local polls. Incumbents fared badly, and the result was seen as a vote against years of perceived corruption and incompetence.
The pressure is now on Iraq’s new crop of officials to cut the red tape and show democracy works.

The last time Iraq held provincial elections four years ago, the sole question haunting people’s minds, mine included, was whether or not to venture out to vote, risking life and limb to make our way to polling places as Iraq slid into civil war.

Then, suicide and car bomb attacks were close to their peak, as sectarian violence surged between the Shi’ite majority and Sunnis who were disempowered after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

I remember that day in Jan. 2005, when Iraqis voted for local leaders and an interim national assembly, our first general election after decades of Saddam’s authoritarian rule. My mother, father and I set out on foot — travel by car was prohibited that day — to search for our polling place. We weren’t sure where we needed to be, and we ended up in the wrong spot. We walked to a second voting centre — again wrong.

We became more and more nervous that we might fall victim to a suicide bomber, who often seek out crowds. “If we survived the first and second, we won’t survive the third,” I anxiously said.But we finally found our polling place, and we cast our votes. I felt I had done something great and patriotic for Iraq.I tried to let the best interests of my country guide my choice rather than selecting a candidate along sectarian lines.

In the provincial elections on Jan. 31 this year, fear is no longer dominating Iraqis’ minds. They are too busy deliberating who will be the right person to represent them in provincial councils that are major local power brokers. That is because the sectarian and insurgent bloodshed unleashed by the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, which has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis, has eased.

Car bombs and other attacks are still common, but a semblance of normal life has returned as Iraqi police and army units grow more proficient and prepare to take over from the 140,000 U.S. troops who must leave Iraq by the end of 2011. All this has encouraged people to return to their jobs, to go out shopping, to visit parks and restaurants — and to think more freely about candidates for public office.

Baghdad is still divided by giant concrete blast walls, but they are now adorned with colourful campaign posters. Some candidates have floated giant balloons with their names. In 2005, candidates were afraid to show their faces, and the campaigning that did occur was muted.

This week I saw four campaign vehicles with music blasting out of the windows, like a wedding ceremony. Candidates are holding rallies in parks. These are refreshing sights. Many Iraqis today are very sceptical about their politicians, whom they blame for the years they have lived without proper services, jobs or security. But when I hear people debating the merits of different candidates, even arguing, I am thrilled. The fear that haunted us is fading.

(Reuters photo: Iraqi security forces check policewomen before they vote in Kerbala/Mushtaq Muhammad)

BASRA - It may not be the end-game Britain was hoping for when it ventured into Iraq, but it’s the end of the game nonetheless.

By the end of next May, almost exactly six years after 42,000 British troops joined the U.S.-led invasion and overthrew Saddam Hussein, Prime Minister Gordon Brown says Britain’s remaining 4,100 troops will be out of Iraq and his country’s role in the war over.

The overwhelming question, after 2,200 days of conflict and 178 soldiers killed, not to mention the thousands seriously wounded and the vast sums of money expended, is clearly: was it all worth it in the end?

Brown, who inherited the conflict from his predecessor Tony Blair and has never been entirely comfortable with taking on the mantle of ‘conquering commander-in-chief’, has been at pains to say it was, and spent Wednesday reiterating that point.

Making his fourth trip to Iraq as prime minister, Brown emphasised the training Britain’s troops had provided in Basra and the southern region, helping put 42,000 Iraqi police and soldiers onto the streets to maintain security for themselves.

Insurgent groups in and around Basra, a vital oil hub that at one stage looked liked falling into the hands of the Shi’ite militia known as the Mehdi Army, have been defeated, Brown said.

And as well as plans for another round of provincial elections at the end of January — a sign that democracy is taking root — the economy in the south is showing steady signs of growth, with inflation sharply down, oil exports up and the port of Umm Qasr busy hauling in much-demanded foreign goods.

But compare those outcomes — which remain tentative — with what Britain (and the United States with its claims of weaons of mass destruction) set out to achieve in Iraq, and ask Iraqis what they think, and a very different picture emerges.

Six years on, Iraqis complain about the persistent lack of electricity, which in some areas has still not reached the same level it was at before the invasion. They lament the number of civilians killed in military operations, and the number of Iraqis still languishing in military prisons.

The insurgency may have died down, they say, but it always threatens to return and security on the streets of Iraq is far from guaranteed. Economically, things may be improving, but jobs are few and far between and corruption is rife. The oil wealth the country is beginning to enjoy is not widely distributed.

In terms of politics, the successful staging of national and provincial elections has given Iraqis a feel for the process of democracy, but Iraqis often say they do not feel they have benefitted from the process — politics is a power game played way above their heads with little visible trickle down.

And then there are the persistent threats of internal breakdown, with the Shi’ite majority facing off against Sunnis, the Arab population nervous of Kurdish strength, and Iraqi nationalists fearful of the growing influence of Shi’ite Iran.

Those concerns, as well as the fact that any of the gains are easily reversed, leave many Iraqis (at least in the south) deeply ambivalent about the role that Britain has played.

Come mid-2009, when the last British military convoys are likely to be pulling out of Iraq, even British diplomats admit they don’t expect Iraqis to lay on parades in their honour.

It may not quite be good riddance from Iraq, and Britain may not have to leave with its tail between its legs, but by the same token it may be difficult for the military to leave with its head held high knowing the job had been well done.

(Pool photo of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown with troops in Umm Qasr port in Iraq)

Salim Adil is an author for Global Voices Online, a website that aggregates, curates, and translates news and views from the global blogosphere. The opinions expressed are his own and those of the bloggers he quotes.

Will this become one of those moments in history? In years to come will you recount to your grand children where you were when an Iraqi journalist, Montather Al-Zeidi, threw his shoes at the president of the United States? For me I was at home just getting my kids ready to sleep when my father called me insisting that I simply had to switch on the television immediately.

Iraqi bloggers reacted in much the same way with a number who wrote their first new post in months just to make their comment. Abbas Hawazin went as far to predict that shoe throwing will now be part of mainstream culture and has gone to look for a good-sized shoe to carry in his pocket, “in case I need to make any public expression of anger should the case arise.”

Last of Iraqis broke his once-a-week frequency to share his opinion on the incident. “In the Iraqi traditions or may I say Arabic traditions in general; it's the maximum insult a man can do…it's the maximum humiliation no word can accomplish”, he writes. And he gives his view of the Iraqi Street:

"Today I went to work as usual and all the people I saw were very very happy, it was like a national celebration…A female patient came to me for a filling and as we were waiting for the Anesthesia to take effect she said “do you know doc. That yesterday was an Eid to me; I haven't celebrated Eid for the past 3 years because the Americans “accidentally” killed my husband and son and Bush is the reason why they are here so yesterday some of my revenge has been taken” …all the staff said the same thing “A statue should be built for Muntathar” in fact many of them have used the photo of Muntathar as a background for their mobiles but the really beautiful thing that made me even happier was that no one referred to his sect or anything…they were all proud of him…"

One person who does not think so is Nibras Kazimi who stood alone among Iraqi bloggers to defend George Bush:

"Personally, I got angry. Very angry. I will make a public promise: should I ever run into a certain reporter called Muntather al-Zaidi, presently of Al-Baghdadia TV, I will seriously consider beating the crap out of him… See, I will forever remain indebted to President George W. Bush. He is my hero. He liberated Iraq, and that's how I will always see it. Had there been no President Bush, then Saddam would still be Saddam."

Baghdad Treasure is torn between professional pride and being an Iraqi:

"As a journalist myself, I found what the reporter did was extremely wrong. Journalists have their voices and pens (and now the internet) to express whatever they want to protest against. However, I was kind of relieved. As an Iraqi citizen, I believe Bush deserved this ending that the entire world will remember and cherish. I mean what wrong the man had done was huge. His failure to prepare for an invasion aftermath caused Iraqis and Americans hundreds of thousands of souls, not to mention the destruction of an entire country, the millions who have migrated and the creation of terrorism in Iraq."

For a longer version of this article, visit Global Voices

Not one but two shoes thrown at the president of the most powerful nation on earth! I will never forget those two or three seconds as those leather shoes — size 10s according to U.S.President George W. Bush — spun through the air, missing the president’s head by inches.

At news conferences in the Middle East, it is common for some less professional and obsequious journalists to leap up and sing the praises of a dignitary at the podium. But when Baghdadiya television journalist Muntather al-Zaidi lurched forward and threw the first shoe, I and everyone else in the room was stunned. There was silence, broken only by the shoe thrower calling Bush a dog. And then another shoe flew, and pandemonium broke loose.

Hitting someone with your shoes is possibly the worst insult in the Middle East. The second worst is probably calling someone a dog. Bush got both.

U.S. and Iraqi security men leapt at the journalist, who yelped and shouted as he was dragged into another room. Bush jokingly said the shoes were size 10s, and a visibly embarrassed Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said the shoe thrower was an immature man not worthy of respect.

But for many in Iraq, devastated by years of bloodshed following Bush’s decision to invade in 2003, and for others around the world annoyed by one of the least popular U.S. presidents, Zaidi may be seen as a hero.

Bush and Maliki resumed the news conference after the incident, and answered questions about a recent security pact hailed as a milestone in improving ties between the United States and Iraq — the shoe-thrower’s shouts from another room audible as they spoke.

Bush went on to describe Iraq as having taken an “important step on the road toward an Iraq that can sustain itself, govern itself and defend itself”.

At least one Iraqi on that road will have to walk barefoot for a while — if and when he is allowed to go free.

(Reuters photo: President Bush ducks as a shoe is thrown/Kevin Lamarque)

By Waleed Ibrahim
Before making a recent speech, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said the following: “I was given a specific time in which to talk, so I have to be brief. I was informed that there are other people speaking after me.”

I was shocked. Did I just hear an Iraqi leader sound and act as if he were
an ordinary citizen who had to make way for others? Maybe he was joking, but he looked serious. Could this really be an Iraqi leader who wasn’t going to pontificate on and on to his heart’s content?

During the reign of the former president Saddam Hussein, who was deposed by the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, no one even dared to look at their watch while he was speaking. Saddam’s speeches
lasted at least an hour. Sometimes he would speak for many.

In that speech he gave a short while ago, the prime minister of the post-invasion Iraq, Maliki, spoke about federalism and autonomy for the provinces. He said he believed authority should lie with the central government, not with local executives, but he told Iraqis it was up to them to decide. “I am stating my opinion as an Iraqi person, the decision is yours,” he said in the televised speech.

His opinion? Not a diktat? When Saddam was around, people used to say: “When Saddam has spoken, Iraq has spoken.”

Maliki’s apparent deference to the Iraqi people gives some Iraqis hope that a country still reeling from car and suicide bomb attacks may be on a path toward eventual, durable democracy. A history of authoritarianism in the Middle East and Iraq’s legacy of dictatorship suggest it won’t be easy.

Maliki’s increasing assertiveness as violence drops across the country and U.S. forces prepare to withdraw from cities by the middle of next year and the country as a whole by the end of
2011, has given some of his political opponents — and partners — cause to wonder about his ambitions. But many Iraqis are hopeful.

Ali al-Sai’di, a 75 year-old Iraqi professor living in Jordan, fled abroad during Saddam’s reign. He fled Iraq again after Saddam was toppled and Iraq descended into a frenzy of sectarian bloodshed.
“It is a golden opportunity that is in our hands now … If democracy succeeds in Iraq, all these sacrifices will have been worthwhile,” he said.

Millions of Iraqis, still struggling with little electricity and the threat of violence, are undoubtedly sceptical. But many, cheered by the drop in violence and the prime minister’s tone and demeanour, say they are willing to give hope a chance.

On my day off when I grabbed the remote control, my
22-year-old brother yelled “No! Do not change the channel!”

My brother is interested mostly in sports and movies and
doesn’t care at all about politics. But for once he wanted to
watch the session of parliament.

“They will re-broadcast yesterday’s fight!” he said.

Parliament has been meeting since last week to discuss a
pact calling for U.S. force to leave Iraq in three years, and
the sessions have seen tension, bickering and even blows.

Followers of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who oppose the
pact, have been particularly rambunctious, banging on tables,
sweeping microphones and flower bouquets off of tables and and
at one point getting into a shoving match with bodyguards.

Everyone I know has been talking about it — not about the
pact itself but about the chaos inside parliament.

“Every disease has a cure, except politics, which infects
whoever tries to treat it,” parliament speaker Mahmoud
al-Mashhadi joked, trying to soften the mood inside the chamber.

He told parliamentarians they were treating the house like a
boisterous Baghdad cafe, and carrying on like musicians in a
free-for-all improvisation.

But at a time when Iraq is becoming less violent, Iraqis are
afraid the chaos and disputes inside parliament could spill out
onto the streets again.

“People will see we have differences even over who is
supposed to speak,” Mashhadani shouted at members of parliament.

“Do not behave scandalously in front of the people!”

Iraqi political leaders meet to discuss the Iraqi-U.S. security pact 

Photo credit:Reuters/Pool

(Aws Qusay is an Iraqi reporter who has worked for Reuters
since 2007)

By Aws Qusay

I’ve long since told my family to stop phoning me in a panic
every evening when they don’t know where I am.

I’m not dead, I’m in traffic.

I live just 15 km from the Reuters office in Baghdad. But
nowadays, with the Iraqi capital divided into countless
mini-cities by concrete slabs and roadblocks, my commute across
town usually takes two and a half hours, sometimes three.
Traffic barely moves at all.

“The entire distance we just crossed, the gear shift was in
first gear,” the minibus driver told me the other day.

Before 2003 we didn’t have traffic jams in Baghdad, except
on a few major routes. Today, the entire city is choked. Partly
it is because of the checkpoints, concrete slabs and razor wire
roadblocks that snarl the streets. Partly it is because of the
convoys of military vehicles or 4×4’s of VIP’s bristling with
gunmen who shove everyone else to the side. Sometimes there’s a
bomb that shuts part of the city down. Mostly, the traffic is
just a result of too many cars and not enough road.

So, I spend the equivalent of about five full days a month
in traffic, listening to music on my headphones as the bus
crawls past checkpoint after checkpoint. A friend pointed out
that my daily commute across town each way takes about as long
as flying to Cairo.

When I can, I walk instead. It’s faster, and it can be nice
to listen to music and cross the Tigris River at sunset.

But usually, after a day’s work, I find myself on the
minibus.

The old and tired find the jam a good chance to take a
snooze. Nervous people talk about their suffering. One man
lights up his cigarette, choking the rest of us with the smoke,
which just adds to the smoke from the cars outside the window.

I grumble to myself about him: does he think smoking his cigarette
is a way to indulge in “freedom and democracy”? And I wait
to get home.