visiting the general hospital and pfluger is like living it was a nightmare. children with two heads toomas wealth of nations missing limbs and macao been unbearable litany they say every family here is sheltering or hiding a deformed monstrous child. who had to. get it under grandmothers 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 are 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 the paradigm. 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 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. and is

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 with them but i completely lost. not. more than a begin to 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. nine out of us i know so much or guys who joined al qaeda just to get some. money. so out of the hard and

somewhat. of some of it i do it gives the money whereas the government abandons them by the veil of laws. that paid to kill here on that floor still close. michelle obama so they've ruined their futures the lives and their families from now till 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 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 as the sunnis. for the month i live in. a sunny district. in two thousand and six i was all for. it was objected 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 up out of you know that i deserve 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 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 twenty two from 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 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 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 will know for sure god is good. or evil.

the schoolteacher she's invited us to. hear 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 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 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 want. to. come up and it's one of my wife is defunct but as we have guests i can drink we may be poor but we still have a sense of hospitality. do is our a sunni and a shia from a rough 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 that do. none not one thing that we were hearing. on shia my husband is 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 thinly it shameful treating people this way in iraq while muslims there was. so what a muslim man asks for the hand of a muslim woman according to islamic tradition by faith and that's all but that's how it was at the end of the war that this division appears shia sunni. but yet now we've come to threats was headed how does a sunni down area shia it 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 youngish 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 except you know 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. 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 have punctuated each day on the road i sleep while he converses with his god.

amidst the wind blown sound 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 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.

engulfing the neighborhood syria's civil war is frayed across the border into lebanon hezbollah defiantly promises victory over side's enemies indeed it would appear hezbollah interest in ten steadfastly stand by their ally in damascus the taking of sides by complete and the stakes for the entire middle east couldn't be higher. live

. live. live live live. live. live. live live live live. live

. 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 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 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 that shout i have it if i have it. it's this is. 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 a successor to never hurt. but many on under saddam a million years were detained and many of them were assassinated then 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 about us we suffered and the prisons were filled with us only when the.

leaving caballo is like crossing a graveyard. everywhere all portraits she amount has fallen for the glory of the prophet hussein mohammed sad. little. 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 sam's to help us. perhaps this is the renowned a 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 meal. with out of massive iraqi army was hunger thirst and fatigue. remember your family was taken hostage or she deserves it. you horrible in the days when they called people who ran away they were simply hanging. 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. 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 it before we said it the americans but the americans are gone 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 an iraqi 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 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 what. i have no minister has taken the trouble to come and see us to ask how we survive it or ask us if we. need 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 mum and saddam his radical troops feed on poverty. the road ends and i'll file on the banks of the push and gulf the end of our journey. 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 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 i work i am and always have been a taxi driving us. i cross the country no. to south gen from south dakota and follow up 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 and 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 the hope they'll be able so the ammonia 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.

well thank science technology innovation all the latest developments from around russia we've got the future covered. they played in a family jazz bed together. play hijacked a plane together. lots of them from music to tara. twenty five years old questions still remain. just bad hijack.

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u.k. armed forces admit to holding dozens of suspected militants without charge at a british base in afghanistan now the public and parliament want to know why they were kept in the dark over the detentions. one of fishelson top diplomats urged britain and france to drop their plans to supply weapons to the rebels in syria while opposition factions accuse each other of betraying the revolution. plus some jobless and in jeopardy even leaders warned out of walks seven point five million young unemployed need work soon or they'll be driven into the arms of extremism.