on the banks of the tigris. baghdad can be translated as the garden of peace. but it's a bitter fragile peace patrols or iraqi wearing uniforms supplied by the us 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 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. at it 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 doubt. today i see a country filled with weapons the overriding color in the city is khaki. 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 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. and i don't know i know some of your guys who joined al qaeda just to get some money. so out of the car then the model of seven gives them money whereas the government abandons them farther than family for those. that paid to kill here on that. show but 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 caused more than one hundred ten thousand victims a century civilian. syria

khaldiyeh an orthodox 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 it illustrates christian past. checkpoints abound every hundred meters crossing baghdad is a permanent obstacle course. but i think iraq is a battlefield for a ray of foreign forces. iran supports the shia brothers while saudi arabia age there's the sunnis. and as for the month 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 you know. al-qaeda the army the militia everyone was fighting. i battled and bodies became préfet 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 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. i

led 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. yes quite simply hell here sheer hell. 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 that will know for sure god is good and. evil. but i'm. sure the school teacher she's invited us to.

get out of twenty years of war how do you go 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 sound. a little but my first in one nine hundred ninety 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 strangled 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. john i want. i'm open to sort of one of my wife is different but doesn't. we have guests i can drink but we may be

poor but we still have a sense of hospitality. abdu and zara a sunni and a shia from around 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. your message that you. no not one thing that we were hearing. on shia my husband a sunni must have had now after the war the two religions can't intermarry anymore and that's and 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 of sydney it's shameful treating people this way in iraq with all muslims was. so what

a muslim man asks for the hand of a muslim woman according to islamic tradition my friend that's all but i think how it was at the end of the war that this division appears shia sunni. but i guess now we've come to threats was headed how does a sunni down area 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 know if you have a ship now 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 you know she. this morning i'm not just leaving baghdad i'm fleeing baghdad. but the city gates the soldier who checks up households tells us yet another attack a scar to the capital. was. another

checkpoint on the road to babylon we present our passports and passes into shia country apprehensive. the sky is like twilight i feel like i'm wandering in the kingdom of the dead it's raining sand. prayers have 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 was saying 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. they've been living this way since the seventeenth century. their rituals are strict. their communities are reselling.

the clearly missed english between their own and the alien. and guard their family and for the treasure. we speak your language the worn out of the. world news programs and documentaries and spanish what matters to. you breaking news a little turn a tip angles keep these stories. so you hear. the spanish find out more visit eye to allahabad. live.

goodspeed. i wish i. lived. in a. lot of a little. at the end of the road lies come the mecca of vatican and medina of the shia world.

but then the god of the 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 i don't know but they are responsible for so many victims since baghdad fell. you know at the end i would stress that most of the attacks have targeted the shia community cannot just mean one upmanship. pilgrims are well protected him. all the offices 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 want it's obvious that when a country's native sons defend it things go better and they're always better than an occupier. a sheath an invader always has trouble understanding the country they occupy and as the heir proverb says no one knows the roads of mecca better than its

own inhabitants democrat shout. this is. the main prayer takes place in the hussein most. the interim sermons of 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 ali allegedly designated by mohammed to be his only successor you know that there. was. but many on the underside

a million shias were detained and many of them were assassinated then 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 it was an officer who come to interrogate me as we suffered and the prisons were filled with shias only when the f.b.i. . leaving kabbalah is like crossing a graveyard. everywhere all portrayed she a month has fallen for the glory of the prophet hussain mohammed their. little bit of the.

mosque. on the baghdad bass run highway in the middle of the desert a 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 out babs this is the renowned a desert hospitality. we had for a camp for the men who maintained the highway once they were all soldiers and saddam's army. when the americans came many deserted.

them without knowing who we are to make room for us to share that meal. but that of massive daycare aki army was hunger thirst and fatigue. remember your family was taken hostage and she deserves it. it leaves you horrible new days when they called people who ran away they were simply hang out with them one on one and i spent seven years in the army and it was very tough talk in sentiments days a soldier was paid two thousand dinars 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 bask in 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 reach best from the euphrates and the tigris meet. travellers once called the city of venice of the south. who comes to kill us and destroy our country and good it before we said it the americans but the americans have gone and now my general so who else is continuing the job of a 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. 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 by this 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 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 mind that if the 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. no minister has taken the trouble to come and see us to ask how we survived 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 at least provide money and protection. everywhere in the city are portraits of the shia in. his radical troops feed on poverty.

the road ends at our file on the banks of the persian gulf the end of our journey. this is the outback oil terminal rising from the water far from terrorist attacks and under 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 man 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 an old collaborated with the americans. would judge what 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 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 bob alone kabbalah as far as i'll file we've traveled a road where danger is ever present. khaled was under the protection of these god and me maps of providence.

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oh my room is new. and i want my children to win over moscow. russia has become this stepmother land meets migrants working hard to find a way home. when you have nowhere to live. when you don't have a family. when you have no one to ask for help you can always count on. this man is respected by criminals and also as he is a like fields out it's convicts anonymous people like he used to be. home for the homeless on oxy. more news today violence is once again fled the. scene these are the images cobol

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