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 of 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. i do through theater that he hopes to win it is methodist to re-invest the public with a sense of resistance and a taste for life. i know that out. of their ability day i see a country filled with wasn't the overriding color in the city is khaki the color of soldiers 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 i completely lost. not. more time to be doing a shoulder bit more than that. in baghdad no one knows who the enemy is anymore so. these shias islamists christians each with

their armies and militia each fighting the other. out of lawless 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 i think gives them money whereas the government abandons them by the thumping of laws. but that 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 a cause more than one hundred ten thousand victims a century 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 on a victim the christians they accuse of being western crusaders. baghdad is a raising its illustrious christian past.

checkpoints abandoned 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 as the sunnis. for the month i live in. a sunny district. in two thousand and six i was all for. it was going 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 revenue the battles raged for seventy two hours you know. al-qaeda the army the militia everyone was fighting. abandoned 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 just at the apathetically. 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 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 yes quite simply hell here sheer hell that out of. sadness 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 the not for sure god is good and.

evil. but i'm. sure the schoolteacher she's invited us to. come. out of twenty years of. how if you go through it as a woman. i grew up in email 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 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 anything that lets you down i was. among the 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. i'm doing zara a sunni and the shia from 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 much of the family that give.

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 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 thingy it's shameful treating people this way in iraq where all muslims must. be so what a muslim man 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 i guess now we've come to threats was headed 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 da 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 up passports tells us yet another attack a scar to the capital. was. another checkpoint on the right of 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 nine 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. 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. good leverage surely kirby was able to build a most sophisticated robot which all unfortunately doesn't give a darn about anything tim's mission to teach me the creation and why it should care about humans. this is why you should care only.

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 i don't know but they are responsible for so many victims since baghdad fell. and i would stress that most of the attacks have targeted the shia community not just 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 all it's obvious that when a country's native sons defend it things go better and they're always better than an occupier. and 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 limit that shout i have it if i have it.

is this. 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 . allegedly designated by mohammed to be is only successor that there's not very. many on under saddam a million she has been detained and many of them are assassinated and thrown into mass graves and. 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 all of us we suffered and the prisons were filled with shias on me when i be. leaving caballo is like crossing a graveyard. everywhere all portraits of shia month has fallen for the glory of the prophet hussein mohammed their. little bit. possible.

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. perhaps this is the renowned 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. and.

without knowing who we are to make room for us to share that meal. with out of massive take iraqi army was hunger thirst and fatigue. a member of your family was taken hostage a few deserted. 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 most 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. the highway splits the desert and on each side of the road to bask in the vast oil fields of rumaylah emotional. 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. travel is once called the city of venice of the south. who comes to kill us and destroy our country and good if all we said that 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 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. 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 for ya . we are less and less respected before in iraq you could walk 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 is awash with detritus of all kinds half of the inhabitants are unemployed it's a humanitarian and social disaster area. this year 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 that 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. my head that no minister has taken the trouble to come and see us to ask how we survive or ask us if we. needy 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 shia in. his radical troops feed on poverty. the road ends at our files on the banks of the push and gulf the end of our journey

. this is the outback hoyle 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. been especially on me personally i never thought i know 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 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 ill so the manja kook muscle to create for. baghdad babilonia karbala 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.

live nation and free liquid intake should free live comes for charges free to make humans free live free lives to tide free live download free bug counseling videos for your media projects free media oh god the hard times you. think i've been living this way since the seventeenth century. rituals are strict. there are communities on the silicon. they clearly distinguish between their own and the alien.

and guard their family and faith is a treasure. live live. live. live. that speech. live. with. to come. up with some good. listen to. it and. come out

front of a little. i.