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 won the 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 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 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 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. so out of the car then the model of several. gives the money whereas the government abandons them by the way

of laws. 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. 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

a cause more than one hundred ten thousand victims essentially civilians. syria 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 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 from iran supports the shia brothers.

the age there is the sun it's. for the month i live in. a sunny district. in two thousand and six it was all. 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 that i deserve a new the battle raged for seventy two hours in. the army the militia everyone was fighting. i banged 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 just a few 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 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. 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 will know for sure god is good and. evil.

the schoolteacher she's invited us to dinner. 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 saw. a little but the 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 the only thing that

lets you down i want. to. come up with a sort of 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. after doing a sunni and a shia for 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 have your message that you. 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 see it shameful treating people this way in iraq where all muslims. so it's a muslim and asks for the hand of a muslim woman according to islamic tradition by and that's allowed 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 to take it how does a sunni shiite in the years as we look at that what if the alternative is to get divorced or dalia you know if you don't agree to get divorced you risk death you can think 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. but 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. 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 as 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 on a mission. his memory has been left to the ravages of time and the insults of his survivors.

wealthy british style. sometimes the tireless. markets why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to cause a report on a potentially deadly blizzard taking aim for the northeast it's expected to hit stunning in a few hours from new york to maine we have team coverage of the storm. but what we're watching is the very heavy snow moving into boston proper earlier today

it was very sticky you can see it start to become much more powdery down here the bottom line there's still a lot of snow out here a good place for snowball fight. decent it is going to be pretty incredible day there and even record snowfall throughout much of in life will be a slug three drug dealers and some emergency vehicles are exceptions.

the international airport in the very heart of moscow. at the end of the road lies come the mecca of 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 a lot of i would stress that most of the attacks have targeted the shia community want us to one up 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 i 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 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. this is. the main prayer takes place in the hussein 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. and.

the prayers always end with cries to the glory of the prophet hussein the son of ali allegedly designated by mohammed to be his only successor you never heard them . 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 about yes we suffered and the prisons were filled with shias only when the abbey.

lincoln boller is like crossing a graveyard. everywhere all portraits of she amount has fallen for the glory of the prophet hussain mohammed saffi. that. possible. on the baghdad bass run highway in the middle of the desert our faithful old 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 because she deserves it. you horrible new days when they called people who ran away they were simply hang 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 genomes less than the bank he was carrying was

worth we can definitely say we were really miserable at the moment not rock the boat. the highway splits the desert and on each side of the road to bask in the vast oil fields of rumaylah and much known. 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 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 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 one 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 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. where we going but at that event in this oil rich country we can't find work there 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 and when it could 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 heard that no minister has taken the trouble to come and see us to ask how we survived 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 marked out saddam is radical troops feed on poverty. the road ends i'll file on the banks of the persian gulf the end of our journey. from 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 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 around. 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. in this valley on me personally i never thought i know that collaborated with the americans. just what chile i work i am and always have been a taxi driver 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 karbala as far as i'll file we've traveled a road where danger is ever present.

khaled was under the protection of these gaunt and me perhaps of providence.

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logs are going to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture as i speak law enforcement agents are scouring massachusetts for the surviving boston marathon bombing suspect and we have reports the shots have been fired just in the last few minutes could we have identified and caught the suspect sooner if the n.r.a. hadn't blocked chemical to requirement for gun powder back in the one nine hundred ninety s. what about this and more big picture rubble and events in boston this week have reignited debate about how to fight terrorism is it possible to defeat an idea we'll find out in tonight's edition of the bigger picture panel discussion. it's friday are you ready to rumble joining us for tonight's big picture rumble are huey newsome member of the national advisory council of project twenty one black leadership network member of move on up dot org and blogger of the objective citizen sam bennett president and.