my opinion. visiting the general hospital and pfluger is like living it was nightmare. children with two heads tumors malformations missing limbs and a cabin on bearable little they say every family here is sheltering or hiding a deformed monstrous child. who. get it and the grandmother you know my daughter cries all day long it

but she hopes to see her daughter get better. i deeply affected i leave the city with its newborn monsters. we had for baghdad on the banks of the tigris. baghdad can be translated as the garden of peace. but it's a better fragile peace the patrols or iraqi wearing uniforms are blind 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 of the united states believed to have 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 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.

but folly the combat continues. and it's 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 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 a beginner shoulda been more than that. in baghdad no one knows who the enemy is anymore sunni's she is islamists christian. 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. so out of the car then the model of several gives them money whereas the government abandons them fire them damn floors. would have paid to kill here on that floor so close up to 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 cosmoline one hundred ten thousand victims a centrally civilian. syriac khaldiyeh an 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 it's a lustrous 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 is the sunnis. and as for the month i live in. a sunny district. in two thousand and six it was all full of. it was objecting 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 the dead ideas of a new the battles raged for seventy two hours you know. 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 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. thousand of 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. i know for sure god is good and.

evil. but i'm. a schoolteacher she's invited us to. come. out of twenty years of. how you got through it as a woman. i grew up in email on your head. first the war with iran 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 but we lived in safety the women could move about without any problem we had peace but in poverty i think that anything that. done 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. of doing 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. i'm sure message that give.

i'm not saying 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 there was. so much 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 appeared shia sunni. but i guess now we've come to threats head how does a sunny day or an area see out in the hours as yet but then what if the alternative is to get divorced or die you know if you don't agree to get divorced you risk death thinking you know and yet here 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. at 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.

highlands 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 imagine 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 saddam 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. victims multiply here each day. it's very profitable to invest in colombia with that very profitable and there's a very high return on investment. you'll know me and he said that i've been working in this area for thirty years and i've always had to pay the armed groups and a part of me to do that is i knew that out of managers have changed their name and strategy but it just still the same murderous. high ranking suspects give no comment are you upset about that mr president zuma. to president putin. but to me. i won't give an interview i'm sorry but no.

investigation is a dead. end he says he's sick and can't stop it and keep quiet or else you'll suffer the consequences. even if they're your bodyguards to watch themselves to because the same goes for them. blood rivers for goats sake i've never heard of such a case as ours where so much money and gold has been stolen for so many years. for all the gold in colombia on our t.v. . at the end of the road lies the mecca 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. you know at the end 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 a 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 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. this is. the main prayer takes place and i say most. of the interim sermons have a political resonance and a broadcast throughout iraq and the shia world and. the shias today are imposing their numbers on the. power. in the prayers always end with christ to the glory of the prophet hussein the son of ali allegedly designated by muhammad to be his only successor it's never care.

but many on under saddam a million years were detained and many of them were 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 yes we suffered and the prisons were filled with shias only when you be. leaving cabal or it's like crossing a graveyard. everywhere all portraits she amount has fallen for the glory of the prophet who say mohammed there. was

a good. thing. possible. 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 sams to help us out perhaps this is the renowned 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 massive data iraqi army was hunger thirst and fatigue. a member of your family was taken hostage or she deserves it. you horrible in the days when they called people who ran away they were simply hang out with them while you were one of you and 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.

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 bass from the euphrates and the tigris meet. travellers once called the city the venice of the south. who comes to kill us and destroy our country and good 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. we are less and less respected before an iraqi 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 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 what. i have no minister has taken the trouble to come and see us to ask how we survive or ask us if we. need anything but 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 marked out saddam is radical troops feed on poverty.

the road ends at our file on the banks of the push and gulf the end of our journey . from this is the outback of 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 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 taunt us a reminder that americans have gone leaving pandora's box wide open. an israeli army personally i never thought i know collaborated with the americans. just what chile i work i am and always have been a taxi driving se. i still can't cross the country north to south gen from south dakota and follow all taxi i go wherever i can find work i 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 they'll be ill so the manja 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.

oh this land. by conflict. has changed. islamic nation. had a peaceful life the stone islam the first of course a secular law a second. session. in place of. traditions still a motto cannot go on the catwalk in a swimsuit. republican country. see.

the. way things are going the republican. better off with the state of. texas has got its own life. has got all the hauling and everything in the sky. everything can survive. the united states would say the first. minute it was. striving for bread and an independent future. republican texas analyse. a high speed right the government unleashes its forces on prime reform demonstrators in bahrain just ahead.