opposite the royal mosque stands a concrete pedestal. here once to 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 wonder will. 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 it

through theatre 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 weapons the overriding color in the city is khaki the color of soldiers. 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 but i completely lost. not. more than to be doing a shoulder bit more than that. in baghdad no one knows who the enemy is anymore so nice shias islamists christians each with their armies and militia each fighting the other. nine out of us i know some of your guys who joined al qaeda just to get some money. saw the card and the model of

some of it i did gives the money whereas the government abandons the car that something of yours. would have paid to kill here on that floor. about michelle obama so they've ruined their futures that lives and their families find out oh my while home. might 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 of cause more

than one hundred ten thousand victims essentially civilian. syriac l.d.n. orthodox and armenian churches have become choice targets. al qaeda assassins and sunni and shia fanatics agree on nothing except only fixing the christians they accuse of being western crusaders. baghdad is a raising its illustrious 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 as the sunnis. for the month i live in. a sunny district. in two thousand and six it was all. he 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 i'm out of you know that i deserve a new the battles raged for seventy two hours you know. al-qaeda the army the militia everyone was fighting. i battled 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 ritual for just a very poor. living in baghdad mean 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 town 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 yes quite simply hell here sheer hell that alan. thousand of it's not a normal life like other people have around the world. may god act to improve things so what do you say to the good of will know for sure god is good. or evil.

the schoolteacher she's invited us to dinner. at twenty years old. how do you go through it as a woman. i grew up in the mail on your head and how first the war with iran and then the embargo and the two american intervention i sound. a little but my first in one thousand nine hundred and the 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 anything that lets you down i want. to. come up and it's one of my wife is developed but as we have guests i can drink we may be poor but we still have a sense of hospitality. of doing zara a sunni and a shia from a rough 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 have to mention that. none not in the thing that we were hearing. on shia my husband assume must have had now after the war the two religions can't intermarriage anymore and that's and

it wasn't the case before and what was important was the people of the each other and what's the distinction between shia and sunni of thinly it's shameful treating people this way in iraq with all muslims muslim. and so it's a muslim and asks for the hand of a muslim woman according to islamic tradition by far and that's all but i think how it was at the end of the war that this division appears shia sunni. but yet now we've come to threats with the head how does a sunni dare marry a shiite is that we're seeing as we look at that what if the alternative is to get divorced or dalek you know if you don't agree to get divorced you risk death you could think you're going to have a ship next 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 except you know she.

this morning i'm not just leaving baghdad i'm fleeing baghdad. but the city gates the soldier who checks out passports tells us yet another attack a scar to the capital. was. another checkpoint on the road to babylon we present our passports and passes. a country apprehensive. the sky is like twilight i feel like i'm wandering in the kingdom of the dead it's raining sand. 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 throw the president of the iraqi republic saddam hussein in one thousand eight hundred 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. commission free accreditation free just for charges free. range from and

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markets why not scandals find out what's really happening to the global economy with max cons or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser report on our. they've been living this way since two seventeenth century. rituals are strict. their communities on the solidity. the clearly distinguish between their own and the alien. and guard their family and faith and the treasure. download the official ati application to your cell phone choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorites from alzheimer's if you're away from your

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at the end of the road lies karbala the mecca of vatican and medina of the shia world. but on the 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 that they are responsible for so many victims since baghdad fell. and i would stress that most of the attacks have targeted the shia community that's one of 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 are no more 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 an 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 that shout i have it if i have it. the main prayer takes place in the hussein most. the interim sermons 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 end with cries to the glory of the prophet hussein the son of ali allegedly designated by mohammed to be is on a successor. never to their. menu on under saddam a million shias were detained and many of them were assassinated and thrown into mass graves and center i myself your servant spent twelve years in iraqi jails 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 shias only when the every.

living cabal are is like crossing a graveyard. everywhere all portraits of she amount has fallen for the glory of the prophet hussein mohammed's air. bus. on the baghdad best run highway in the middle of the desert our fate. taxi finally gives up the ghost. i feel suddenly vulnerable alone in the wilderness.

as if by magic a man appears from the sams to help us out perhaps this is the renowned a desert hospitality. we had for a camp for the man who maintained 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 the massive data iraqi army was hunger thirst and fatigue. remember your family was taken hostage and she deserves it. you horrible in the days when they called 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 dina less than the bank he was carrying was worth we can definitely say we were really miserable. the highway splits the desert and on each side of the road to bastra and the vast oil fields of rumaylah. more than half of iraqi production is pumped from this burning desert a treasure chest within the sand. shale 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. travel is once called the city the venice of the south. who comes to kill us and destroy our country and good if all we said that the americans and the americans are gone and now my general so who else is continuing the job of it that nobody knows of there's no work in 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 and as if we were no longer men that's the truth that's honestly what i feel. we are less and less respected before in iraq you could walk with 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 to eat muck where we going but at the other but 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 its like the mother of oil but he doesn't seem to gain from it the inhabitants 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 my pocket i think government doesn't take care of the poor and is only there to save itself until its own pockets i do expect things to change what. maggot 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 in the powerless join the militia and the terrorist groups who would least provide money and protection. everywhere in the city are portraits of the shia in. his radical troops feed on poverty. the road ends i'll file on the banks of the push and gulf the end of our journey. this is the outback oil 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 closed 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. when especially on me personally i never thought collaborated with the americans. which i would show where i work i am and always have been a taxi driving us. i still can't cross the country no. to south legend friends i thought i'd follow all taxi i go wherever i can find work and 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 zoho they'll be real so the ammonia kook muscle to create for. baghdad

babilonia kabbalah 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.

when their own country job offer them a living even loving mothers sometimes have to leave their children behind. i don't like to work just depend longa. it's the dream of millions of migrants that their children might choose their motherland.

i want my children to win over moscow. russia has become this stepmother land meets migrants working hard to find a way home. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. china corporations are all day. south american a coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations in the summer to freeze people. in the world. has allowed us to

continue the policy of return success pledged to bring the us. to split. from. fugitive.