clear evidence from north to south. the roots of iraqi tragedy. after the war waiting for peace. taxi on r.t. . coming up.

visiting the general hospital in fallujah is like living it was a nightmare. children with two heads toomas malformations missing limbs and macao been unbearable literally they say every family here is sheltering or hiding a deformed monstrous child. some. of them. get away and the grandmother you know i've got my daughter cries all day long and it is but she hopes to see her daughter get better. i. deeply affected i leave the city with its new born monsters.

we had for baghdad on the banks of the tigris. baghdad can be translated as the garden of peace. but it's a bit of a fragile peace the patrol. those are iraqi wearing uniforms applied by the u.s. the army is divided by political religious and tribal conflicts everyone fights for his own camp. the president is kurd the prime minister shia and the parliament is run by sunnis. in paradise square opposite the royal mosque stands a concrete pedestal. here once through the absolute symbol of power a statue of saddam hussein. on april ninth two thousand and

three it was torn to the ground and the united states believed it of wonderful. nine years have passed the square is empty and the city appears to be in a state of siege. oh is that our passenger alley a theater director back from exile in paris waited for a long time to see his enemy fall and return to his native city. where i was thrown in prison and when i got out i was given five days to leave baghdad and iraq jamie to. put folly the combat continues. and is through theater that he hopes to win it is methodist to reinvest the public with a sense of resistance and a taste for life. i know that out. today i see a country filled with wasn't the overriding color in the city is khaki the color of

soldiers but it was i see young people with no future men and women deprived of any feeling of citizenship the grown people have forgotten their rights and their duties. as if they were lost with them but that i can. simply lost. not. more time to be doing your shoulder but more than that. in baghdad no one knows who the enemy is anymore sunni's shias islamists christians each with their armies and militia each fighting the other. not of lawless i know some of your guys who joined al qaeda just to get some money off some of the hard and. some of it i didn't give the money whereas the government abandons them fire them damn laws how come i don't think i would have paid to kill here on that floor. about michelle obama so they've ruined their futures the lives and their

families find out all my while home. my for nothing goes. on october thirty first twenty ten a terrorist group claiming all kind of affiliation occupied the catholic cathedral in baghdad. five suicide bombers activated their explosive belts fifty eight people were killed. in nine years of occupation of civil and religious wars and attacks a cause more than one hundred ten thousand victims a century civilian. syriac

khaldiyeh and also adults and armenian churches have become choice targets. al-qaeda assassins and sunni and shia fanatics agree on nothing except on effecting the christians they accuse of being western crusaders. baghdad is a raising its a loss tree as christian past. checkpoints abound every hundred meters crossing baghdad is a permanent obstacle course. but i think iraq is a battlefield for an array of foreign forces. iran supports the shia brothers while saudi arabia age there's the sunnis. for the i live in. a sunny district. in two thousand and six i was all for. it was subjected to rocket

fire at least fifty rockets falling on us every day it never stopped. you know me the streets were filled with corpses and there was fighting everywhere to show out of you know their ideas of a new the battles raged for seventy two hours the. al-qaeda the army the militia everyone was fighting. a band and bodies became prey fit to be devoured by stray dogs that my little girl saw dogs eating the dead which i had never seen before in my life packet which has left me. living in baghdad ming surviving attacks but it's also an everyday battle. in the capital of the world's third biggest oil producer the electricity system works for just a few hours a day. the best business in china is selling generators. for

khaled my driver a visit to the barber after ten days on the road should be a moment to relax a moment of peace but nothing is that simple. love and that's why. simply hell here sheer hell. it's not a normal life like other people have around the world. may god act to improve things what do you say to the good of know for sure god is good and. evil. but i'm. sure the schoolteacher she's invited us to.

get out of twenty years of war how if you got through it as a woman. i grew up in email on your head and how first the war with iran then the embargo and the two american intervention i saw. a little but not my first in one thousand nine hundred and a second in two thousand and three. for the iran war my brother was arrested and there was just my dad to take care of the family all those girls had no work my father ran a small business. we barely grown up when the embargo strangle the whole country can you imagine no fruit or vegetables meat we couldn't afford and fish even more so. it's only today that i can buy it but we lived in safety the women could move about without any problem we had peace but in poverty i think that there's anything that lets you down i want. to. among the sort of

one of my wife is difficult but as we have guests i can drink we may be poor but we still have a sense of hospitality. doing zara a sunni and the shia for the rest couple today war and religion have also imposed by hundreds on love. as the lights go out once again the neighborhoods back up generators take over. i do all message that do. not think that we are unique ok i'm shia my husband is sunni must have had now after the war the two religions can't intermarriage anymore and that's when it wasn't the case before and what was important was that people loved each other and what's the distinction between shia and sunni city it's shameful treating people this way in iraq we're all muslims mostly. so it's

a muslim and asks for the hand of a muslim woman according to islamic tradition my faith and that's all but i think how it was at the end of the war that this division appeared shia sunni. but i guess now we've come to threats to take it how does a sunny day or an area see out in the hours as we have to think what if the alternative is to get divorced or dalek you know if you don't agree to get divorced you risk death thinking you know and yet if you've met in our neighborhood they shot a woman in front of her husband and children for the unique reason she was shia and he was sunni said that she. this morning i'm not just leaving baghdad i'm fleeing baghdad. but the city gates the soldier who checks our passports tells us yet another attack a scar to the capital. another

checkpoint on the road to babylon we present our passports and passes and i enter a shia country apprehensive. the sky is like twilight i feel like i'm wandering in the kingdom of the dead it's raining sand. khaled's prayers of punctuated each day on the road i sleep while he converses with his god. amidst the wind blown sand appears the mythical city of babylon. in his delusions of grandeur saddam hussein emerged himself to be its king the heir to the throne

the president of the iraqi republic saddam hussein in one nine hundred eighty eight inaugurated the restored city of babylon first built by nebuchadnezzar between six o four and five sixty two b.c. . at the height of his power like the ancient kings before him. built his palace in the heart of the legendary city. his tower of babel crashed down around him and the dust of pride and ambition. his memory has been left to the ravages of time and the insults of his survivors. the mission free accreditation three years for charges free. range humans three. three stooges free. download free broadcast quality video for your media projects

a free media dog our teeth dot com you. potentially deadly blizzard taking aim for the northeast it's expected to hit stunning in a few hours from new york to maine we have team coverage of the storm. but what we're watching is the very heavy snow moving into boston properly or today it

was very sticky you can see it start to become much more powdery down here the bottom line there is still a lot of snow out here a good place for snowball fight. d.c. it is going to pretty incredible day there and even record snowfall throughout much of in life nobody's allowed to be driving license and emergency vehicles are exceptions. at the end of the road lies the mecca vatican and medina of the shia world. but something of god and other al qaeda is the real enemy of iraq and even of all the arab regions i don't believe several terrorist organizations have been exported by neighboring countries though they are responsible for so many victims since baghdad fell. and i would stress that most of the attacks have targeted the shia

community cannot just line up the. pilgrims are well protected here all the officers and soldiers are shia. several million faithful including many from iran come every year to visit the mosques in karbala a boon for the holy city. religion is a river of gold as the saying goes. we don't know what it's obvious that when a country's native sons defend it things go better than when they're always better than an occupier. and invader always has trouble understanding the country they occupy and as the air proverb says no one knows the roads of mecca better than its own inhabitants limit that shout i have it if i have it. it's this is. the main prayer takes place and he's saying most. the interim

sermons have a political resonance and a broadcast throughout iraq and the shia world and. the shias today are imposing their numbers and their power. in the prayers always and with cries to the glory of the prophet hussein the son of . allegedly designated by mohammad to be is on the successor you never heard. that. but many on under saddam a million she has been detained and many of them were assassinated then thrown into mass graves. i myself your servant spent twelve years in iraq e.j. lost my family only received news of me one or two years after i was released. i

was even afraid of my own brother i thought he was an officer who come to interrogate me yes we suffered and the prisons were filled with us only when the f.b.i. . leaving caballo is like crossing a graveyard. everywhere all portraits of shia mountains fallen for the glory of the prophet hussein mohammed sat. a little bit of the. bus. on the baghdad bass run highway in the middle of the desert our faithful taxi finally gives up the ghost. i feel suddenly vulnerable alone in the wilderness.

as if by magic a man appears from the sands to help us. perhaps this is the renowned desert hospitality. we had for a camp for the men who maintain the highway once they were all soldiers and saddam's army. when the americans came many deserted. and. without knowing who we are to make room for us to share that. with out of massive data iraqi army was hunger thirst and fatigue.

remember your family was taken hostage a few deserted. you horrible in the days when they caught people who ran away they were simply hang on. i spent seven years in the army and it was very tough. in santa maria days a soldier was paid two thousand dinos less than the bank he was carrying was worth we can definitely say we were really miserable. marotta by sharing. the highway splits the desert and on each side of the road to bask in the vast oil fields of rumaylah and mushroom. more than half of iraqi production is pumped from this burning desert a treasure chest within the sound. shell b.p. exxon mobil and the chinese cineplex of already got their hands on the bulk of it.

at last we reached bastrop where the euphrates and the tigris meet. travelers once called the city the venice of the south. comes to kill us and destroy our country and good if all we said at the americans but the americans are gone and now my general so who else is continuing the job of a that nobody knows of there's no work and the situation is unlivable i say yes it was better before. conversely if we talk about security and civic respect we can say it was a hundred percent better under saddam saramago today there's no respect for the citizens as if we were no longer men that's the truth that's honestly what i feel

for ya. where less and less respected before an iraqi could walk of his head held high anywhere in the world and especially at home as long as the state was not affected or undermined things have changed a lot i can tell you that the situation was much better before. the venice of the self was awash with detritus of all kinds half of the inhabitants are unemployed it's a humanitarian and social disaster area. here we have absolutely nothing. where we going but at that event in this oil rich country we can't find work. this is how we live the children of this country why is it fair does god accept this master is in the middle of all the country's oil wealth it's like the mother of oil but he doesn't seem to gain from it clean habitants are poor and the streets are filled with the unemployed and it.

was once one of the richest cities in iraq today it seems to have been forgotten by both god and mankind because of oil is cruel indeed. and yet in the heart of the shantytowns is always given freely. and sweet offering . by our government isn't he in when it could i think government doesn't take care of the porn is only there to save itself until it sound pockets i do expect things to change while the focus of all my heart that no minister has taken the trouble to come and see us to ask how we survive or ask us if we. need and i think we have

nobody to talk to. and so since the americans left the poor and the powerless join the militia and the terrorist groups who at least provide money and protection. everywhere in the city are portraits of the she. is radical troops feed on poverty. the road ends i'll file on the banks of the persian gulf the end of our journey. from this is the al back of all terminal rising from the water far from terrorist

attacks and on a constant military surveillance where iraq's fortune oil flows in and out. the country's fortune and perhaps misfortune two. wars here have always been clothed in the same color black. and foul was at the mouth of the shuttle our best during where the tigris joins the euphrates forming the border with a ramp. on the iranian bank a gigantic portrait of the m.m. how many is there to talk to us a reminder that americans have gone leaving pandora's box wide open. been especially on me personally i never thought collaborated with the americans. which i would show i work i am and always have been a taxi driving us. i still can't cross the country no. to south gen from south

dakota and follow up taxi i go wherever i can find work and that i don't hesitate god be praised all i want to still live my. twenty days on the road perhaps one hundred checkpoints. with my friend khaled we've crossed a country which is officially no longer at war but where peace is not being restored a country divided by sectarian shia sunni and kurd communities a country where tara is a daily issue. from

the hope they'll be able so the ammonia kook muscle to create for. baghdad babilonia cabala bastra as far as i'll file we've traveled a road where danger is ever present. khaled was under the protection of his god and me maps of providence.

you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so horrifying you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harvey welcome to the big picture.

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