Visiting beautiful, exotic Baghdad

nearly four years later, it's a scene from dante's hell...

What’s in Baghdad

At first sight, the city looked more damaged and brutally wounded, and more devastated than when I left it last year. Not a single hour passes without one hearing an explosion, a car bomb, or devastated women and children screaming for help. I saw people running from a suicide bomber and others trying to pull bodies from a fire. Sirens from ambulances and police cars and helicopters flying day and night all over the city all join in to create a constant roar of horrible noises.

My beloved Baghdad has a 9 p.m. curfew. The government-run power plants provide residential electricity one hour a day, but not every day. Private sources of electricity are available at very high rates so they are only for people who can afford the high rates. One source is a man located at the end of the block from where I’m staying. He runs a huge generator, and his deal is $100/month for four hours of electricity a day. If we remember that the average salary of an Iraqi college graduate is only $300/month, then we have to agree that the price is a little steep. Most of the people are jobless due to lack of security, the fear of kidnapping, and all the other atrocities being committed on a daily basis. Others buy their own generator run on either gasoline or benzene, which cost about $5/gallon. This is also sold by a private enterprise and the supplies are not always available. Therefore, people look for a few liters of fuel in the black market and pay double if not triple the cost.

Drivers line their cars up at gas stations where they often have to stay all night and sometimes for two days in a row, all while taking the risk of getting shot at by terrorists who thrive on finding crowds in open areas. These kinds of attacks are always on the news.

There is also a rationing of water in Baghdad. Some use water pumps to get additional water, which worsens water shortages and causes friction between neighbors, especially with those who can’t afford powering a water pump.

The continuous shortage of fuel is hard to imagine in Iraq, as it is one of the top producers of petroleum oil in the world. Thousands of barrels of this precious commodity are either smuggled out of Iraq or sold by shrewd businessmen to Iran and other neighboring countries. This transportation occurs right under the noses of the Iraqi and the coalition forces.

Jabria Jassim, an Elgin [Illinois] Community College chemistry professor, recently visited Baghdad to see relatives.

it's astounding to me that we've been in iraq for almost four years and that things are as horrible as professor jassim describes them... think of the money spent (unimaginable sums), think of the lives lost (in the hundreds of thousands), think of the on-going human tragedy that will take generations to heal (incalculable)... and why are we there in the first place...? lies...

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