Eman Ahmad Khamas is a member of a delegation of Iraqi women brought to the U.S. for Women’s Month by the Global Exchange and Code Pink. While in the U.S., the delegation met with U.S. officials to call for an end to the U.S. military presence in their country. As part of a cross-country trip, Eman spoke at Maui Community College on April 5, telling students and guests that conditions in Iraq are far worse now than when Saddam Hussein ruled.
“At least it was safe then,” said Khamas. “There’s a complete absence of security now.” Between the U.S. troops, insurgents and increased street crime, Iraq is far more dangerous now and women and children continue to be especially vulnerable to the chaos brought by the American occupation. “It’s definitely worse than before. Of course it’s good that Saddam is gone, but our life was better under a dictator than under the U.S.”
Khamas says that in America news coverage is focused only on military and political news, not what life is like for Iraqis.
“Americans do not understand what’s really going on in Iraq and journalists are far too quick to believe what the politicians and military brass say instead of investigating for themselves,” she said. She acknowledges that, just as it is difficult for Iraqis to go out without fear of being shot, journalists face the same danger. But even at the beginning, most American journalists were embedded with U.S. forces, so they only saw the war from that perspective.
“We’re here in America to tell the truth about life in Iraq under American occupation, because Americans do not hear it. While the public is fed rosy propaganda and Bush is saying things are getting better, the reality is far more gruesome,” says Khamas, who is married with two daughters.
Khamas talked firsthand and answered questions from students about the effects of war on her life, the lives of ordinary Iraqis and the most vulnerable in her society – women and children. She says there is unreliable water, only three to four hours of electricity per day, fewer schools and hospitals and only a fraction of the goods and services previously available. And every family has known death.
Before U.S. occupation Khamas felt that Iraq had one of the best societies in the Middle East. Even after the sanctions, things were so much better than now. Though Islamic, they had women’s rights. In Baghdad women rarely wore hijab or burkas and went out daily – to the marketplace, to visit friends, to work, to school. Things were safe and stable. She belonged to a vibrant community where large landscaped boulevards housed a civil society and where everyone got free education (kindergarten through University) and free healthcare. They had power 16-24 hours a day, clean water and food.
Sunni married Shi’a, people were more or less together, inter-mixing and mostly happy.
“Until Bremmer made them,” she said, “these arbitrary distinctions were not made. The reality is that it never happened in the history of Iraq for six thousands of years. It never happened – a civil war or these kind of distinctions. It is true that there are Kurds in Iraq; there are Arabs and Sunnis and Shi’a and Christians and many other minor religions and groups. But it never happened that we fought each other. Not at all.”
Women’s rights have diminshed under the U.S. led occupation. The war has rolled back decades of Iraqi women’s struggles for equal rights and Khamas is now afraid to go out. When she does, she covers in hijab…and dodges bullets. Her city is a rubble of concrete and rubbish and rot.
“Violence is everywhere and poverty is a real problem,” she said. “Iraq is now one of the most poor nations in the world.”
Khamas estimates that more than 200,000 Iraqis have died in Iraq, and more have gone missing. Half of those killed have been women. The violence brought about by this war has wreaked havoc on the lives of Iraqis. “You are not liberating women with bombs,” she said. “You are making widows and orphans and chaos.”
Khamas runs Operation Watch, a human rights organization that documents abuses of the U.S. military, which she said include rape and murder. She thinks the U.S. doesn’t want the truth. The U.S. Ministry of Justice in Iraq refused to see eyewitness reports and video documentation, and in New York at the UN and in Washington at the White House, they refused to receive a petition of Iraqis asking the U.S. to leave. Instead people were jailed.
When asked if she thought the abuses in U.S. run Iraqi prisons were isolated cases, she replied, “they were not, and they are ongoing. I think it’s policy. Torturing prisoners to get information is U.S. policy. It’s happening in many prisons and now Iraqis are torturing too.
“Unfortunately, we have many more examples of U.S. forces killing innocent civilians. The U.S. public might not see or hear about them, but we do… and these actions fuel the insurgency. A portion of the U.S. public might still think the U.S. is bringing democracy to Iraq. If they only saw the bodies of dead children, if they only heard the wailing of mothers, if they only saw the anger in the eyes of the survivors, they would call an end to this horror.”
Following the initial invasion and ‘Mission Accomplished,’ Iraqis thought the Americans would leave and go home. When they did not, things continued to deteriorate. Bush’s policy of ‘staying the course’ is not a policy based on the realities of the continued occupation. Khamas says that instead of announcing a timetable for leaving Iraq, the U.S. continues to blame the Iraqis for the mess the U.S. government made of their country.
Now Bush says the troops must stay to hold off a civil war. According to Eman this is just propaganda and allows people to continue to support a government whose aim is to build and keep permanent bases and presence in Iraq. Bases, green zones and the largest U.S. Embassy in the world are being built – by and for Americans.
“This signals to Iraqis that the U.S. has no plans to leave, but rather to permanently occupy our country. Of the 260,000 reconstruction contracts awarded, less than 1,000 have gone to women. Corruption is rampant and billions have been stolen,” she said.
“Bush needs to specify an exit time, an end to the occupation. This is what the Iraqis have been asking for the past three years – a schedule, a timetable.” Khamas wants democracy for Iraq but emphasizes, “Iraqis are capable of ruling our own country.”
According to Khamas, there was a time when Iraqis separated Americans from the American government, but once U.S. voters re-elected President Bush in 2004, all hope was lost – and Americans as well as the American government became the enemy of many Iraqis. There is much the United Nations and others can do to help with security and reconstruction and peace, but America cannot stay. Its presence is breeding hatred for America and that is not good for Iraqis or Americans.
“Get the United States out,” she said. “Do whatever you can to get your troops out of our country. It will still be a dark future for us, but at least we can begin. Until then, things can only get worse. It is very important for Americans to end this occupation immediately.”
Eman and the other women in the Iraqi delegation say they risked their lives getting to Jordan to request visas, and they take great risks coming to the U.S. to speak out against the occupation. As they said when they decided to come, “It is worth the risks because the only people who can stop this war are the American people.”