my daughter cries all day long on it but she hopes to see her daughter get better. i deeply affected i leave the city with its newborn monsters. we head for baghdad on the banks of the tigris. to. baghdad can be translated as the garden of peace. but it's a better fragile peace the 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 through 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 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's 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. 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 time to be doing your shoulder but more than that. in baghdad no one knows who the enemy is anymore sunni's she is 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 several gives them money whereas the government abandons them farther than three of those how come i don't think i would have paid to kill here on that floor so close up the show but so they've ruined their futures their lives and their families find out all my while home. when 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 of caused more than one hundred ten thousand victims essentially civilian. syriac an orthodox and armenian churches have become choice targets. 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 last tree as christian past. checkpoints abound every hundred meters crossing baghdad is

a permanent obstacle course. and although 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 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. you know their ideas of a new the battles raged for seventy two hours in. the army the militia everyone was fighting men. 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 ritual for just a few apathetically up. 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. yes quite simply hell here sheer hell without a. 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.

for them. so hard she got a school teacher she's invited us to dinner. i'm . out of twenty years of war how if you go through it as a woman. i grew up in ala 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 one 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 strength. 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. that's really fun i was. almost in the store when it's my wife is devout but as 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 for the rest couple today war and religion have also imposed boundaries on love. as the lights go out once again the neighborhoods back up generators take over are you on a mission that gives. 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 thinly it's shameful treating people this way in iraq where all muslims muslim. and so it's a muslim and asks for the hand of a muslim woman according to islamic tradition by faith and that's all but i think 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 bear nary 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 janish if not 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 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 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. a mission free credit cation three years for charges free. range from three to three stooges free. download free broadcast quality video for your media projects a free media old dog a hearty dot com in. wealthy british style.

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the big picture. at the end of the road lies come the mecca of vatican and medina of the shia world . but something of that 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 but that's been 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 know what 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 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. that. this is. the main prayer

takes place and he's saying most. the him i'm 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 and with cries to the glory of the prophet hussein the son of . allegedly designated by mohammad to be is only successor there's not very. many on the underside a million she has been detained and many of them were assassinated and thrown into mass graves and. 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 shias on me. leaving kabbalah is like crossing a graveyard. everywhere all portraits she amount has fallen for the glory of the prophet hussein mohammed sat. a little bit of the. bus.

on the back to pass rush 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 renown to 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. without knowing who we are to make room for us to share that.

with out of massive 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 sentence 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 sound. shell b.p.

exxon mobil and the chinese soon a pack of ready got their hands on the bulk of it. at last we reach 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 it before we said it the americans but the americans have gone and now my general so who else is continuing the job. 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 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 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 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 it's 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 it sound pockets i do expect things to

change while the focus of oh my god 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 she might outside his radical troops feed on poverty. the road ends at our file on the banks of the persian gulf the end of our journey.

from 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 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. when especially on me personally i never thought collaborated with the americans. which of what chile i work i am and always have been

a taxi driver se. i still can't cross the country north to south general from south dakota and follow all taxi i go wherever i can find work have 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

zoho abil 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 his god and me maps of providence.

choose your language. because we know if the materials going today still some of us . choose to use the concerns you. choose the opinions that invigorated your mind. choose the stories that in high life

choose the access to your office. when you have no way 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 all stars he's a like fields out it's complex and i was people like he used to be. so loud let's. say.

live. in the street. i wish i. was so good. and i'm a. little.