By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator Today Eman spoke at the House of Truth in Alameda to a crowd of the Bay Area’s usual anti-war suspects: compassionate, wonderful people interested to hear about what is going on in Iraq, equipped with thought-provoking questions and big hearts. Below is a rough transcript of her talk.
	Before her talk, Karen (my mom) and I took Eman for a little sight seeing. It was a typically foggy SF day, but it was also especially drizzly and cold. From the look of these photos, it could be November, not April! We went to the top of Twin Peaks for a view of the whole city and to the Golden Gate Bridge. Eman exclaimed, “But it’s not golden!” when we approached. We had a great afternoon together.
	After Eman’s talk a group of us went out to dinner at a local Chinese food restaurant. In this photo you can see June Brashares, fearless and talented Iraqi Women’s Tour coordinator, her partner Woody, Sureya, Eman, event organizer Susan, and my mom, Karen. We had fun reading our fortunes from the cookies. June’s said “You work very hard.” I can vouch for the truth in this one. June has extraordinarily coordinated the tours for the Iraqi women. When looking over these itineraries--complete with logistics, transportation, events at high schools, colleges, community centers, government offices, visits to see Iraqi children, etc.--it is apparent that June is a miracle worker. This tour would have never been possible without her phenomenal coordinating.
Eman’s Talk at the House of Truth, Alameda, California Bombing of Cities Bush announced that the military invasions ended in May of 2003. This is not true because the invasions continue even now and many cities are regularly bombed, such as Fallujah. Last November Fallujah was completely flattened, and since then many cities have been bombed [Eman lists so many names that I cannot type fast enough to get them all on the page]. The Americans say that by bombing these cities they are targeting these individual terrorists who are hiding in homes. According to the Geneva Conventions it is illegal to bomb cities under any circumstance. When you bomb a city from a very high altitude you definitely kill civilians. Thousands of Iraqis have been killed in this way, and not only people, but hospitals, bridges, marketplaces, everything is left destroyed. When they bomb a city they first put it under siege for days, cutting supplies, water, electricity, medicines, from going inside. In many cases families are shot on the highway when attempting to leave the city. When they bomb, nothing is spared. Anywhere where terrorists are suspected is bombed. After the bombing, and they all have Hollywood names like Swarmer, The Spear, Steel Curtain, etc., there are violent invasions and raids of houses. More civilians are killed. Anything that moves in the street is a target and is shot at; in many cases people are killed. During the bombing no medical assistance from hospitals is permitted—ambulances are shot in the streets and destroyed. When there are raids, the men are arrested and taken to the nearest military base where they are held until released, but not before they are beaten, humiliated, and their houses are destroyed. Many families run away from the bombing and look for a safer place in refugee camps which may be tents in the desert, deserted buildings, bombed public buildings, unfinished construction sites, rooms in a friends house, mosques, wherever there is a roof, the people go. The conditions in these places are inhuman; people run away without any of their belongings so they have nothing. This is especially difficult for people with special needs like pregnant women, elderly, children. They don’t have water, fuel, food, etc. The help is limited and what is available cannot reach these places. Example of Ramana, a village across from Baghdad, separated by a river, the bridge was bombed, supplies totally cut. Emergency aid relief organizations could not get there both because it was very dangerous and because they couldn’t physically get there. Detainees Men that are arrested are taken to the nearest base where if they are found suspect they are sent to a detention camp. We know there are 18 detention camps; I personally know about 6, some of which I have visited. You know about Abu Grahib. There is another prison in the airport. There is one in the south, Camp Bucher, near the Kuwait border. The problem with these prisons is that the prisoners are not prisoners in the way you understand. They are just people who are waiting for their cases to be processed. I know about people who have been waiting 2 years only to hear that their file has been reviewed and they have found to be good and clean and are let out, all after two years of hunger and torture and bad conditions. Another prison in the north is called Badush, north of Mosul. Another is near Sureymaniya, called Souzer [note these are phonetic spellings, not correct English names]. This is a new prison that the Iraqis are responsible. [Eman lists more prisons.] The majority of the families of prisoners are very poor and it is very difficult to visit. We all know about the Abu-Grahib scandal. Bush and Rumsfeld said these were isolated incidents, not systematic procedures that are being repeated everywhere. I have met prisoners from all these places that talk about the same kinds of torture. Al Baghdadi is a prison 200 km west of Baghdad where many young men who were released talk about an American officer who calls himself Satan, short, with lots of tattoos, typical torture techniques but the prisoners said they were kept naked in the open in a yard regardless of the temperature—cold or very hot. In one case a prisoner was dragged naked on the ground until he died. The Scorpion is a torture technique where the prisoner’s hands and feet are tied up and the back is stamped on by the foot. The coffin is a wooden box where the prisoner is kept for days without eating, drinking, and without sleeping. After these kinds of torture these people were released, showing that they were innocent, and then they tell me their stories. Their rights have been violated, and their families are left without any financial or moral support or help. Iraqi families are big. After the Iraqi government took office last January 2005, we have a new problem: Iraqi prisons, something unimaginable in terms of torture and maltreatment. In one hall you can find hundreds of prisoners, without enough space to move so they take turns sleeping. The prisoners are left without sanitation. They have rotten body parts and wombs. The torture includes breaking the bones, hanging the people from their sensitive parts, peeling their skin with hot irons. This kind of torture kills. The bodies are later found in out of the way places, like under bridges, and in the deserts. The Missing The prisoners in some of these prisons are not even listed in the records, so that their families cannot find them, especially those arrested at the fall of Baghdad, March 20, 2003-May 1, 2003. I had the chance to meet General Brandenburg, the American advisor to the ministry of justice in Iraq who oversees all the prisons, and I asked him about the people arrested during this period, and I gave him the eyewitness information. I gave him the names and all the information about these people in English and Arabic in print outs and on CD. I did this last summer. He has not met with me since. I gave this information to the ministry of justice and still there has been no reply. Now they tell me that there is a new person, General Gardner, who is responsible for the prisons. Still none of this information has been given. The situation for the missing is even more tragic because their families are looking for them but cannot find them. I don’t know why the American Army would conceal the whereabouts of these people. Women As you know one of Bush’s goals in Iraq was to liberate women. Well, we did not need his help. In our constitution men and women are 100% equal. As far as culture and traditions are concerned, we have many problems, which we used to address with education. I always believe that the development of women is part of the development of society. You cannot develop only women separately. Certainly you are not going to help them with tanks. You are not liberating women with bombs. You are making women widows or orphans. Mothers, wives, or daughters of detained, missing, or killed people would not think about liberating issues; they’d concentrate on their own problems first—legal support, how to support their families without the men, etc. For a girl to be in a refugee camp is very difficult. Houses in Iraq are not just for eating and sleeping; they are each sacred. Women in houses are like queens inside their houses. Being deprived of houses and having to live in tents is incredibly difficult for women. We have many women organizations in Iraq after the occupation, a strange phenomena. Every day we hear about new organizations being created. There are conferences and congresses and meetings, some of which I went to. The women who are there are all women who have come into Iraq after the invasion, very elegant, well dressed, with jewelery and high heels and perfect English. They are talking about problems for Iraqi women but they don’t talk about women prisoners, detainees, refugee camps, etc. They talk about women being involved in the political process. What political process? We had an election and still we don’t have a government. They are happy that 25% of the National Assembly is women, but where is this National Assembly? I have traveled around Iraqi cities in the south [lists names] where there is relatively little fighting, but the situation is much worse, there are people living in hills of garbage; there are thousands of homeless. Where are the women’s organizations there? Elimination of the Intelligencia Assassination of medical doctors and professors. 224 Iraqi senior doctors have been assassinated. 130 senior university professors have been assassinated. Why are these people being targeted? They are not necessarily Sunni or Shiite, they are Sunni, Shiite, Christian, Muslim, etc. In the month that I have been here there have been two Iraqi doctors and one professor assassinated. Why aren’t the Americans or the Iraqis doing anything to stop the killing of the minds of Iraqis? Thousands more intellectuals have left the country out of fear and our now living in neighboring Arab countries and in Europe. Now the hospitals don’t have enough senior staff and the universities are short academics. These are the main issues that I work on. The most dangerous is what is happening now. One of the oldest, biggest mosques was bombed, a Shiite mosque. The Sheik a week ago asked the prime minister to step down because he is not able to create a government in the four months he’s been overseeing the country. This man is very stubborn. This Sheik was the only Shiite to ask Jaafary to step down. Iraq now is in a very dark tunnel and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. It is very important for the Americans to end this occupation immediately. Q and A Do the Iraqi people know about depleted uranium? Yes, I asked the Iraqi doctors about this. There are many cancers and birth defects following attacks in 1991. Now we know that the American bullets and bombs are DU strengthened. The doctors say that it is hard to say now because it takes time to see the effects. There are other chemical weapons we are seeing. What about the threat of a civil war? Things were run over the past three years that would seem to lead this way, from bad to worse. Every day the troops are losing more control of the situation. Everything is getting worse and worse. The fact that the troops are there is the problem because they are targeted and because they continue to bomb and shoot. A very big part of the violence is because they are there. Bush said that when Iraq is stable we will leave, we don’t want to leave; this is a twisted logic—as long as the troops are there, there will not be stability. Bush needs to specify an exit time, an end for the occupation. This is what the Iraqis have been asking for during the past three years—a schedule, a timetable. Many Iraqis boycotted the political process because they only want to know when the troops will leave and they don’t get any answer. At a Cairo political party conference, the one point of solidarity on all parties’ platforms was to demand a timetable for withdrawal and an acknowledgement of the right to resistance. It is not impossible to have this demand met. The Americans need to show some simple goodwill to the Iraqis. They don’t show any sign of leaving. If they leave there not necessarily be civil war. As you have been traveling the country and speaking with people who may have less political involvement, do you have a hope for what people could do differently to make a change? I have been traveling for more than a month and I am really surprised to see how compassionate and understanding people are to the plight of the Iraqis I am also surprised at how little people know what’s really going on in Iraq, asking questions like, “Are our troops nice there?” There are strategic and political reasons in the policymakers’ heads that the American people are not aware of. I am confident that when American people know what’s really going on, they will act accordingly and reject what is happening. I just read the recent poll that 69% of the people think that the US is wrong on this issue. I think it is time and I am very optimistic on this issue that the American people can put pressure on the government. So what was the real interest of the US in invading Iraq? [Basically, imperialism and oil.] Removing the US troops is one piece of the puzzle. What’s the rest—other political parties, UN, etc? UN, etc. Leaders are intelligent, but there are now armed militias inside Iraq and these militias want power regardless of how many Iraqis are killed. If these militias are cut of any kind of support, then they will be defeated. Iraqis are capable of ruling our own country. What about how the US ended the dictatorship of Saddam? Well, there are many dictatorships in the world; why Saddam? Is Saudi Arabia or Kuwait democratic enough to be friends with the US? Tigris and Euphrates: What about the issue of water? Turkey has put tens of dams on these rivers. There are international agreements about the use of rivers that run between countries, but Turkey does not respect these agreements so the Euphrates is a small stream now. There are many articles about the Israeli project of opening a river into Israel. The issue of water is very important for the Middle East, especially for Israel and Turkey. Besides oil, there are many important resources, minerals like iron and gold in Iraq. Iraqi soil has been exported to the Gulf. Do people in Iraq have a memory of the 1953 overthrow of a democratic regime by the US? Yes…. How are the homeless people getting food? People survive. They have small businesses like selling cigarettes, etc. They do anything to eat. They work as servants. There are some charity organizations; mosques help a lot regardless of Sunni or Shiite. It is a miserable situation. Especially in Basra. They live in bombed or illegal housing [like squatting on land]. Poverty is a huge problem. Iraq is now one of the most poor nations in the world. Who has weapons in Iraq? There are all kinds of people holding arms in Iraq now—many armies that are part of the coalition; Iraqi political parties with militias; Iraqi police; military and paramilitary who were trained outside the country by the US before and after the war; intelligence of every country of the world wearing Arabic dress. 2 British soldiers who were arrested by the Sadr movement for car bombs. Took them to the police station; police station was raided by British and two soldiers were freed. And Iraqis who are angry that their country is occupied, fathers whose children were killed; they fight. And people who want to protect their families and don’t feel safe. Violence is everywhere. Everyone is shooting, fighting. What is the most significant thing that Americans do to help? People must be held responsible for what they have done -- Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush, etc. for history and for justice. Put pressure on the US government and expose the reality.

A Southern, Muslim, and American Perspective on Dr. Zidan by Michelle Al-Shishani

Dr. Rashad Zidan finally gave a face to the suffering - the victims, the orphans and widows. For thousands who have heard her message at various venues throughout the country, she has given them a face and given them a voice.  She brought pictures – pictures like those which we have become too accustomed to seeing – and told of her experiences since the invasion - as a mother of four and as a doctor. She speaks of the horrors which now shape their daily lives – of the terror inflicted upon them by the troops of the occupation. When asked what she enjoyed most about America, she remarked on the quiet of the nights - this is the first time in three years she has slept without bombing, without the nightly raids and gunfire.  She spoke of having to give up her pharmacy – because it is no longer safe to travel to and from work alone as she was accustomed to doing. She now runs several organizations which help the thousands of widows and orphans in Baghdad, Fallujah, and Abu Ghraib. A pharmacist who now must watch the sick succumb to the rigors of disease, having nothing to offer but apologies to the mothers for there is no medicine to treat their dying children. Children dying of simple diseases, and children dying of cancer - a cancer brought about largely by America’s use of depleted uranium for three years now, caused by the destruction of the basic infrastructure like water treatment plants. In a land of the Tigris and Euphrates, there is no clean water.  She spoke of the horrors of their daily lives – always on the edge, ready for anything. Life under Saddam was not perfect, but for those who were just interested in their own lives, they were safe. He committed atrocities, it is true - but against those he considered enemies who dared to challenge his power. Now all are seen as possible enemies of the state – no one is safe anywhere - at school – or work – or home. Every day they send their children off to school, to be searched by American soldiers on their way, with just faith in God that they will come home, their school not accidentally destroyed, becoming yet another casualty. Faith and hope that their spouses and children won’t be caught in the crossfire, or in random shooting – or to just disappear from the face of the earth. She is literally exhausted here from her tour of press offices, meetings with government officials, tv studios, and rallies. But the exhaustion she feels is nothing compared to the pure physical and mental exhaustion which they live with every day in coping with the occupation.  She speaks of similar exhaustion, the sheer frustration from dealing with the unknown which is taking its toll on our troops. Youth, unsure of their place, unsure of the players – who in desperation search even the small children on the way to school and hold rooms of women and children at gunpoint. The stress which culminates in scenes like Haditha – where frustrated at death of their colleagues – American troops murdered 15 civilians in cold blood. We’ve seen it before, and it’s happening again.  The doctor’s message: Please leave. End the occupation. Iraq is an ancient civilization which has not only endured, but prospered for far more centuries than America has been in existence. They can take care of themselves.  We have become desensitized to the horror, to the heinous atrocities to which we are silent witnesses - she has asked us only to break our guilty silence. Dr. Martin Luther King realized a generation ago, that “we shall have to repent in this generation, not so much for the evil deeds of the wicked people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.”  She didn’t expect the outpouring of support she has received here – from all segments of society – from mothers who are worried about their children, veterans of the war, even government officials surprisingly willing to listen. Support from every side, but oddly very little from muslims in America. She is returning to Iraq with good news for her people – that the official policy of the American government does not accurately reflect the feelings and wishes of the American public - that there is hope. The American public has stood up before in the face of injustice, and they may hope that we will again. She has heard our message – the question is, have we heard hers? We live here in America where we have the right and the power to effect change. Atrocities are being committed in our name on both sides, as Americans and as muslims. When will we finally stand up for right, stand up for justice, break the silence and just stand up break the wicked silence?

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator

Today was Entisar’s last day in the US. We awoke early to make the trip from New Jersey into Manhattan to attend a women’s conference that was intending to bridge Iraqi and American women. The Iraqi women at the conference had all experienced a great degree of trauma and had opposing views about the US occupation that were not evenly represented or adequately moderated. Faiza will be blogging about this conference on her site (see www.afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com). At noon we went to a wonderful going away luncheon for Entisar that was coordinated by CODEPINK NYC. CODEPINK women sat in a circle and munched on salads while Entisar shared her experiences in the US and her hopes for returning to Iraq and spreading the message that there are compassionate people in the US who are passionately working to stop the war, and also that the ideal of democracy is not fully realized in our country. Entisar said that it will be difficult to explain the massive ignorance about the situation on the ground in Iraq to people in her country because of the pervasive idea that the US is so technologically advanced and well-educated, that surely the populace must understand what’s going on. Entisar described how astounded she was by the generosity of the people who hosted her in their homes and the compassion of the peace organizers that she met. Faiza, Rashad, and Aseel also joined us for the lunch and it was wonderful to have so many phenomenal women in one room. In the afternoon Entisar packed and we ran errands and briefly met with a dean at Barnard College before getting in a cab to go to the airport. At JFK we stood in line for a long time waiting to check in Entisar’s bags. Everyone had huge bags and most people were speaking Arabic. I did not want to say goodbye to this incredible woman who landed in my life and changed me forever, so I told her that someday we would meet in Iraq or in the US again, and she said words to me in Arabic that my heart understood, and I turned and walked out of the airport and back into a surprisingly balmy New York night. When I landed in NYC there was snow covering the ground in Central Park. The morning after Entisar left I awoke to daffodil blossoms, sunlight, and a warm breeze. One month and so much as changed. Thousands of people bore witness to Entisar’s words and her strong presence in classrooms, churches, parks, on bullhorns at rallies in the street, and inside of homes throughout the South and the Northeast. Dozens of news interviews in local and national papers, TV and radio stations reached even more people. There are those brief moments in life when someone runs into your heart, unexpectedly ripping open chambers you did not know existed, expanding your capacity to love and empathize with people around the world. I unexpectedly took on the task of coordinating Entisar’s tour and soon found myself accompanying her to Alabama, Florida, and later the New England states. I watched her break open day after day recalling the bombing of hospitals and ambulances, the death of pregnant women killed en route to the hospital in the middle of the night, her daughters’ struggle to receive an adequate medical education in the middle of a war, the shaking of the ground and the turbulence in her 10 year old’s eyes at daybreak, the way even Valium doesn’t stop fear and anxiety. Entisar said that she feels like an agent of death because she is a medical professional that is unable to deliver care and medicines to those in need. Through her tour in the US, she was an agent of change, breathing life into people through her raw account of daily life in Baghdad, her inspiring vision of hope, and her demand that we stand up and raise our voices to end the occupation. As I was finishing writing this blog at a café in DC, a man saw my pile of pinkness-jacket, sweatshirt, bag, etc.--and came over to find out if indeed I was a CODEPINKer. Upon my affirmation, he immediately told me how moved he was by the experience of attending the event at the Foundry church with the Iraqi delegation during the week of International Women’s Day. He said that it is one thing to read about what’s going on over the internet and in the paper, and quite another thing to meet people in person who describe what it’s like to be a mother in a war zone, saying that it isn’t safe for their children to go outside. We will never know how many thousands of lives the women on this tour have touched, and how their stories will ripple out to the family and friends of those they met with at events around the country. We can say that this tour has been one of the most important projects we have successfully coordinated And I can say that there is one person who has been changed forever: me. I am returning to my hometown, San Francisco, with a stronger sense of dedication to this peace work, a personal reason to continue working with women around the country (and abroad) to stop war: that reason is called Entisar, Faiza, Eman, Rashad, Nadje, and Sureya, six brave Iraqi women who are counting on ordinary American people to stand up and refuse to live silently in relative security and bliss knowing that our sisters and brothers in another country are dying under US occupation and continued warfare. In my heart, I know that we will not let them down.

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator

On Monday night Rutgers Against the War and the Central Jersey Coalition Against Endless War, along with a host of other Rutgers University campus groups, hosted Entisar at a dinner and an evening event. The event was very well attended in a graduate student meeting room—standing room only. Entisar spoke and shared her slide show of images of civilian casualties and the effects of bombing on the infrastructure. There was over an hour for Q & A and the students asked great questions. I noticed that the majority of the question askers were men and encourage more women to speak up, several women then asked some very good questions about women’s health issues in Iraq and women’s rights under the new constitution. The event was a success in large part due to the outstanding organizing efforts of Suzan, a first-year student at Rutgers. It was great to end Entisar’s tour on a high note with this last speaking event. Entisar really enjoys speaking with young people and later told me that this was one of the best events that she spoke at. After the event we went out for coffee with some of the students, one of whom was from Palestine and said that if she closed her eyes and listened to the atrocities of occupation that Entisar was describing, it sounded just like what her family and people were experiencing in Palestine. The Muslim students invited Entisar and the Iraqi women’s delegation to come back to NJ and speak at the mosque. Entisar and I stayed at Dorothy’s home near the campus. Dorothy has a beautiful house and a huge heart. We had a great time staying with her and appreciate that she woke up very early to drive us to the bus station so that we could get to NYC in time for a morning conference. Read about this event in the NJ newspaper by following the link below: Iraqi details war's horrors: Gathering is told U.S. should bring troops back home Star-Ledger, March 28, 2006

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator
	Entisar checks out the wood stove while the pink pancakes cook on the griddle.
	A relaxing breakfast at last!
	Entisar paints a banner for the event.
	Group at the sugar house.
	Peace Pagoda.
	In the forest.
	Setting up for the event at the church.
	Entisar’s interpreter, Huda.
On Saturday night we met with Tish and Priscilla, the co-coordinators of the new CODEPINK local group in Western Massachusetts. These wonderful women drove two hours to Boston to join us for dinner after the organizing conference, and then drove two hours back to Priscilla’s home, where we spent a relaxing evening gathered around the fireplace, chatting and getting to know each other. Priscilla lives in a farm house that is over 200 years old. The house has a splendid life of its own and we explored all the rooms—each room is a different color and is decorated with antiques. Entisar was particularly astounded by Priscilla’s antique cooking stove, which we used to cook pink pancakes for breakfast the next morning. We had a relaxing day in the countryside on Sunday. We painted a banner in Arabic and English that reads “End the Occupation!” Tish and Priscilla took us to a Sugarhouse to see how maple syrup is made. We found out that it takes 40 gallons of tapped sap from maple trees to make 1 gallon of syrup. Then we went into the woods and hiked up to the Buddhist Peace Pagoda—a giant white dome with gold Buddha sculptures and a rock garden at the top of the hill. Halfway up Entisar and I decided to run. We were panting by the time we reached the summit. Entisar turned to me and between deep breaths she said, “Reaching peace is very difficult... Like the struggle of the Iraqi people.” The reward of this long, and in so many ways metaphoric, walk up was a breathtaking view of the valley below and the peace and quiet of being surrounded by trees and this sacred site. The way may be difficult, but the journey is worth it. In the evening we drove into Amherst for an event at Grace Episcopal Church that was packed with people. Entisar spoke, showed slides, and fielded questions. Many people wanted to donate to help Entisar’s work in Iraq. Jo from the American Friends Service Committee spoke about how people in Western Massachusetts can get involved in legislative work and other activist opportunities. On Monday morning Tish and Priscilla drove Entisar and I to New Haven where we took the train to New Jersey.

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator On Friday morning, we took the bus from New York City to Boston, Massachusetts. We were surprised by the very strict security and bag check at the Greyhound terminal. We thought it was almost more difficult to get on the bus than on the plane!
	In Boston we stayed with Susana, a professional musician and activist. Susana played us some of her amazing cello music and we had tea together.
	On Friday night, Pat and Shelagh organized a potluck dinner and discussion about the occupation of Iraq. Many people were in disbelief when they heard Entisar’s experiences about daily life in Baghdad. They had many questions that lasted late into the night. We met George, a man who traveled to Iraq nine times before the war to document the impact of the sanctions and to deliver humanitarian aid to families that he continues to be in touch with. The next morning George delivered a dvd of his trips to us, and showed us photos and artwork from his trips to Iraq.
	On Saturday morning, Entisar, Aseel, and I had breakfast with doctors and physician assistants in Boston who are involved in social justice work, many of whom had traveled to the Middle East before.
	Saturday afternoon Entisar spoke at a regional anti-war organizing conference entitled “From Baghdad to Boston: Organizing for Peace and Justice.”
	Susana gave Entisar a guitar for her daughters to play. Entisar asked Susana to sign the guitar for her.
	Entisar and Susana.
	The main organizers of the conference all went out to dinner at a Cambodian restaurant.

By Eman Ahmad Khamas*

As I have traveled around the US on speaking tour organized by the women’s peace group CODEPINK, I realize how support for the war in Iraq has eroded—even among former supporters. George Bush, seeing his approval rating plummeting to below 40%, is worried and has launched a PR offensive to shore up support. In his recent speeches, he has complained that violent images on TV have undermined public support. So when the US military launched a massive air and ground assault on towns near Samarra, dubbed Operation Swarmer, the Pentagon barred even imbedded reporters. The American public was told that Operation Swarmer was a successful example of US and Iraqi forces working together to wipe out insurgents, but they saw nothing of the effects of the assault on the ground. But while the public is fed rosy propaganda, the reality is far more gruesome. Take, for example, the operation in Isshaqi, a small village near Samarra. At 1:30am on Tuesday, March 21, the American troops, accompanied by helicopters , raided the modest rural home of a primary school teacher, Faiz Mratt. According to his neighbor Mohammad Al-Majma, the 27-year-old school teacher, his wife, their three children, his sister, her three children, his father and a woman who was visiting them were all arrested, tied, and beaten, and then the American troops opened fire on the family. “After they executed them, the troops put explosives in the house and blew it up,” said Mohammad, crying. “They killed even the farm animals” Faiz’s surviving sister was devastated. “They killed my mother, Torkiya Majid, who was 90 years old,” she cried. “They killed Faiz’s three children: Hawra, 4, Aysha 2, and Hussam, who was only 4 months old. They killed my sister Faiza, who was also a schoolteacher, and her children Osama 6, and Asmaa, 5.” Aziz Khalil, 30, and his fiancée Nidhal Mohammad, 23, who were to be married on Thursday, were also killed. All told, the operation to kill “insurgents” left six children and four women dead. Unfortunately, we Iraqis have many more examples of US forces killing innocent civilians. The US public might not see or hear about them, but we do. It pains us to see our people killed, abused, tortured, and these actions fuel the insurgency. A portion of the US public might still think the US is bringing democracy to Iraq. If they only saw the bodies of the dead children, if they only heard the wailing of the mothers, if they only saw the anger in eyes of the survivors, they would call for an end to this horror. Eman Ahmad Khamas is a human rights advocate who has documented abuses by the occupation forces. She is a member of Women’s Will, and traveling the around the U.S. on a month-long speaking tour organized by CODEPINK and Global Exchange.

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator
	Tio interviews Entisar and Aseel.
	Tio, Entisar, and Aseel at WBAI.
	New York Stock Exchange -- surrounded by barricades and police.
	Aseel and Entisar on the Staten Island Ferry.
	The wind was so strong that Aseel wrapped her scarf around her head like a hijab. Entisar loved Aseel’s new look.
	Liberty.
	Entisar and Aseel check out the anti-war exhibit at the Whitney.
	Entisar and Aseel at Washington Square.
Today we were in a New York state of mind—bouncing around the city to see the sights, taste the gritty air, and feel the commotion that we had been for days insulated from while traipsing through the streets in yellow cabs and staying inside at events. We started the day early with an interview at WBAI with Mimi. While Entisar and Aseel were being taped in one studio, I spoke with Tio in the reception area about the military presence on the Reservations in the US, and the heavy recruiting of Native American youth. When Entisar and Aseel emerged from the recording room, Tio spontaneously invited them to be on his show for five minutes, connecting the occupation of Iraq with the struggle of indigenous peoples everywhere, and specifically in the Americas. After the interview, we walked around downtown. We strolled down Wall Street to check out the New York Stock Exchange. Since 9/11 ordinary people cannot go inside to see the trade floor and there is a big barrier set up in the middle of the street, blocking regular traffic. We saw a bomb detector vehicle and mean looking dogs, and many snarling dogs. All this security protects this building which houses the continuous river of money. There are no such guards on the borders of Iraq or protecting the most sacred rivers in the cradle of humanity—the Tigris and the Euphrates. I take a photo of Aseel and Entisar outside this monstrous building with the giant American flag. America, land of the freed... Or land of the greed? We walk further south to the port for the Staten Island Ferry. We board the ferry and travel across the water, looking at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We walk around Staten Island, where there is a memorial to the firefighters and police men who died when the towers fell, and there are seagulls and a cold breeze. Everything is bright white under the beaming sun and the crisp, clear air. It’s as if the whole sky is a recording studio with bright lights, like the world’s camera is on us today as we shuffle around the islands. The whole city is illuminated in this unforgiving splendor of light. In the afternoon we go to the Whitney museum to see the Shocked and Awful exhibit that Deep Dish produced, and we take some extra time to check out the Georgia O’Keefe paintings and other modern art installations. I spend most of my time dodging museum security guards who want to throw me out for attempting to view fine art and field press calls on my cell phone at the same time. Entisar and I look at this one piece that is really mostly a splattering of paint—mostly black, a splotch of white, some red Entisar says the white in the middle is a bird. I say that maybe it is a bird of hope in the darkness, amidst the bloody backdrop. I know it sounds cliché. Entisar says maybe the bird is falling from the sky and portends something else, something darker. We laugh about all these interpretations. There is never a moment when Iraq is not on our minds. There is nothing that Entisar sees that does not relate back to Iraq, to the occupation. The most beautiful things we see—the statue, the ocean, the paintings, the universities, the wide open fields, the houses we stay in, all of them rest against the backdrop of bombing and rubble. We eat dinner downtown and we walk through the village, amused at the lights and the kids bar hopping and all the routine joys surrounding NYU’s campus. We sit in Washington Square and talk about the people we have met, the places we have been. Even in the dark, everything is still illuminated, special, despite that I have been here a thousand times before. There is this heightened awareness that I carry now—seeing at once the beauty, the chaos, and the way that it could all shatter in a war.

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator
	Viewing photos of war with Donna.
	Entisar, Aseel, and Rae with the Deep Dish crew.
	BBQ lunch with Linda.
We started the day with a breakfast meeting with Donna who works with War Resisters League. Donna was interested in viewing the photos that Entisar brought on disk from Iraq. These images show Iraqi civilians wounded in unimaginable ways. I have been reviewing these photos day after day in the process of creating Entisar’s various power point presentations, and somehow I have had to damper the rational innate response to scream and cry and really to throw up when I see the images of mangled bodies and deflated skulls, dead children and bullet wounds. There are also images from Al Jazeera, which shows what people in the Middle East are seeing on their television sets—a stark contrast to what we see on the 10 o’clock news here in the states. Resistance to this war in the US would be very different if Americans saw these pictures. That’s precisely why Donna was interested in seeing the images: She wants to enlarge them and use them at demonstrations and public places to show people the reality of war. After breakfast, we rushed downtown to the Deep Dish production studio, where Entisar was interviewed by David, who has an alternative radio station. This interview was also video recorded, and photographed. The Deep Dish crew were very warm and appreciative. They gave us copies of their films and now I am borrowing their video camera to film Entisar’s tour. After the interview, we returned uptown and we had a real BBQ lunch with Linda, a great CODEPINK NYC (and Westchester!) woman. We had the most midwestern of BBQ lunches in the heart of west Harlem. Linda took Entisar and Aseel shopping for the afternoon. In the evening, we—Entisar, Aseel, Medea, and I—stayed up late talking about stopping the war, corporate hegemony, and reconstruction corruption, and of course joking with each other and dreaming up a different world.

By Christina Stableford, CODEPINK Triangle

I know you are all as disturbed as I am about the ongoing U.S. debacle in Iraq. At the risk - no, with the intent - of increasing your discomfort, I want to share with you an experience I had last evening. Dr. Rashad Zidan, an Iraqi woman pharmacist, spoke to a crowd at North Carolina State University, and I was privileged to be a member of the audience that had gathered to bear witness. This stunningly intelligent, forthright and soulful woman - whose eyes reflect the pain and wisdom of a thousand years spoke to us clearly and cogently about what life is like for the common citizens of Iraq these days. Dr. Zidan has had to close the pharmacy from which she dispensed what critical medicines were available during the extended period of U.S. economic sanctions against Iraq. It is no longer safe for her to travel by car to and from the pharmacy, as she did for many years under the Hussein regime. She has instead turned her energies toward providing support and makeshift schooling for orphans of the Iraq Occupation and widows who have been culturally barred from leaving their homes unaccompanied. Dr. Zidan has four children, two of whom are under the age of 16. She voluntarily left her family behind to make a dangerous and challenging trip to the United States (the process of obtaining a visa took 5 arduous days), along with four other women, explicitly to engage in truthful dialog with the American people about what is going on in the cities and towns where ordinary Iraqis try to remain alive. The news is not encouraging. Under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, most ordinary citizens lived a workable life: as long as they did not challenge the power of the established regime, they enjoyed the benefits of government-funded education and healthcare, supplied most of their own agricultural products and were able to circulate freely in conducting the business of working and raising their families. Sectarian strife was not pronounced or violent in most of the country; Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, and Christians lived, for the most part, in concert with one another in a manageable, if sometimes tenuous, balance. Today, most Iraqi citizens - and most certainly most women and children - are imprisoned in their homes, where they spend evenings in the dark listening to the sounds of bombs and gunfire. Dr. Zidan's work brings her in contact with children whose small lives have been permanently scarred by the vision of watching their entire families die as part of the "collateral damage" of our aggression. I could not listen to her speak of this, cannot even write about it, without tears welling up from a deep taproot in my own sense of common humanity. The numbers of Iraqi dead from this war of aggression have been grossly under-reported. Dr Zidan believes that the correct figure is somewhere between 300 and 350 thousand. It will take many, many villages to raise their children.. By contrast, Dr. Zidan was startled to see a canned goods food collection for Katrina victims at one of the American sites where she has spoken. She was equally startled to hear of the extraordinary costs many of us must incur to obtain needed medical care. She asked us simply and non-aggressively, "If your government can't take care of people in your own country, why do they think they could help ours by bringing us your 'democracy'?" The remarkable part of this experience for me was to watch the incredible mobility and expressiveness of this woman's face - brought into sharp relief by her Muslim head covering. Despite the continuous saga of fear, grief and pain that characterizes daily life for Dr. Zidan and her contemporaries, she remains capable of feeling and communicating hope, wit and genuine good will toward those of us who are willing to acknowledge the failure of our government's policies in Iraq. She is a remarkable testimony to the vitality of the human spirit. Dr. Zidan is undergoing a travel schedule that would bring me to my knees: from Iraq to Washington, DC, to North Carolina, to St. Louis, back to North Carolina, to South Carolina, to New York, back to Washington, DC. She is subjecting herself to this extraordinarily grueling "talk circuit" because she believes that we - the American people - need to hear and know the truth. And she believes that we are better than what appears to be the case to her fellow citizens in Iraq. I hope her presence with us, and her witness to the truth, can inspire all of us to raise up our voices - repeatedly, and for as long as it takes, to prove her right. We are all complicit in this horror unless we are doing whatever we can, in whatever way makes sense to us, to end the human catastrophe in Iraq. That's what Democracy is all about.

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator On Tuesday we had a full day of activities in Manhattan. Here are the photos that tell the story:
	Entisar speaks at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University to a crowd of graduate students and professors.
	Group photo outside the Columbia Law School.
	Entisar and Aseel outside Columbia’s Law Library.
	Entisar tours Barnard College.
	A New York Moment: Ariel, Aseel, and Entisar in a cab... And on the phone.
	Entisar speaks on a panel at Hunter College at the Bella Abzug lecture entitled Engendering Occupation. The other pannelists were Medea Benjamin and Asli Bali. Students asked questions about the media, what to do to stop the war, what would happen if the troops left, and more. Hunter College hosted a reception after the event and CODEPINK NYC had a vibrant pink presence. Many thanks to Rupal Oza for coordinating such a great event! A transcription of this event is below.
	Medea speaks at the Bella Abzug lecture
	Entisar speaks at a Town Hall meeting organized by United for Peace and Justice at 1199 SEIU in midtown. Congressman Charley Rangel listened to Entisar’s testimony of life in Baghdad under US occupation. Entisar was interviewed by CBS news.
Excerpt from Entisar's talk at Hunter College: Mr. Bush claimed that he would be bringing democracy to Iraq, bringing this model to the Middle East, and I can tell you that he has done nothing but take away our rights. Iraq was occupied without the UN approval. Mr. Bremmer entered my country and changed the laws, which is against the law for occupying powers. It is the duty of the occupying power to restore order and keep chaos from happening; that's not what has happened. The military is taking women in the middle of the night, taking the children, using family members as ransom. They let vicious dogs take parts of the woman's limbs if they don't say what they want them to say. They even take the children's rights-children cannot live safely in their homes anymore-they have to stay in camps outside the city or bombed hospitals in some cases. They deprive the children from nutrition, healthcare, safety, all due to the occupation. They deprive us from any civil rights, they can take anyone at any time-men from their homes, universities, they come and put the black bag over their heads, cuff their hands, and they're gone, without an excuse or a reason. The missing person will disappear for months, maybe years, without going to court, and will be beaten and abused in the prisons. They use illegal weapons, such as depleted uranium, and today in Fallujah and Al-Quaem, white phosphorus. They use a type of weapon that, upon impact, shatters the entire body. The environment is contaminated because the clean water has been mixed with the sewer. There is no electricity. Killing innocent civilians is a violation of Geneva laws, bombing hospitals, schools, ambulances. Many ambulances have been targeted. And now, even me working in the medical field, I feel like I participate in the killing of innocent people; do you know why? Because we don't have the supplies to save lives-intravenous fluid, anti-hypertensive drugs, pitocene, etc. Don't you think you would feel the same way if you were in my place? Like you are participating in the killing? We ask the Ministry of Health when they are going to supply us with money to buy the necessary medicine, but they only give us flowers, furniture, and paint for the walls. Many pregnant women died because there wasn't anti-hypertension or pitocene to give them. Doctors quit their jobs because they didn't want to feel the pain of being responsible for the loss of these pregnant women's lives. Don't you think this would be a successful case study for the taking of all human rights and international laws? It must be studied by specialists in this field. Thank you. Excerpt from Medea Benjamin's talk at Hunter College: Medea asked the audience the following questions: How many of you were against the occupation from the start? How man of you weren't sure? How many of you think that we're safer at home because we're fighting the troops over seas? How many of you think that the troops should come home now? By the end of the year? Stay as long as it takes to get the job done? There was a varied number of hands that went up for each question. Medea said that she was glad to see that there were some differing opinions in the room so we could have a lively discussion. She then continued: Being against the war used to be a minority position, but during this past summer, we saw an immense change in the polls so that now those against the war are in the majority, despite the heavy propaganda we are receiving from the Bush administration, which says that things are going well in Iraq and that the war is winnable, and the corporate media that spews lies… As we are seeing in the civilian casualties today, this policy doesn't work… We were told that this war would be a cakewalk, we'd be welcomed with open arms, and the money would come from the oil reserves. When you count all the extra costs… it is 1.3 trillion dollars, and that's coming from our pockets. We were in DC with the delegation of six Iraqi women and congresswomen Lynn Woolsey… who said $19,000 per household is being spent on war. Today we are celebrating the life of Bella Abzug and we know that women must stand up! She was a woman who stood up and called for the impeachment of Nixon during the Vietnam War, talked about the danger of nuclear weapons and the need for disarmament, and addressed corporate crime. We have to think about how to celebrate the life of this congresswoman who gave us such passion and creativity for how to change the world. She showed us true sisterhood and inspired us… Not only are there terrible Republican warmongers but there are Democrats who enable their work, such as Hillary Clinton… We want Hillary to be an example of a beacon of reason calling for an end to the invasion of Iraq… (Medea went on to explain the bird dog Hillary campaign). It doesn't matter what group you get involved with, it matters that you get involved and do something! When we say womenkind, we include our male allies in that. We invite you to join us. One of our recent campaigns is the Women Say No to War campaign which includes a petition and the Iraqi women's tour. The next phase of this work is for Mother's Day-we're asking people to go to Washington DC to camp out with us, write and read letters to Laura Bush. April 29 is the next big mobilization with unions, the women's movement, and more, against the war out in the streets. Elections are coming up-we're part of a new coalition called Voters for Peace-we will only vote for candidates who make a speedy exit from Iraq part of their platform. The Iraqi women are saying that they didn't know that so many Americans were against the war… It's interesting that the US government won't listen to the Iraqi people, and even more interesting that the US won't listen to the US people! It is our responsibility to ensure democracy on our own leaders…

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator
	Medea Benjamin and Cindy Sheehan pose backstage.
	Devendra Banhart poses for a photo with Entisar and CODEPINK.
	Sheros on Stage: Enisar, Aseel, Cindy, and Susan Sarandon share the stage together.
	388: Entisar speaks about life under occupation to a full house at the Hammerstein Ballroom.
	Aseel, Entisar, Susan, Cindy, and Rae
	Aseel and Anthony Arnove
	397: Aseel and Rae at the after party downtown
	Spain's El Correo press coverage of the concert with Cindy. Click here to read more.
On Monday night Entisar and Aseel shared the Hammerstein Ballroom stage with Michael Stipe (REM), Devendra Banhart, Rufus Wainright, and other well-known musicians who spoke out against the war in Iraq between rock performances Entisar was photographed with the celebrities at a press conference before the show announcing the release of a new peace postage stamp. Susan Sarandon was one of the first speakers at the show, and she introduced Cindy Sheehan, who talked about the need to protect our civil liberties and rights to assemble here at home. She said that we don’t need a separate area to demonstrate; the United States is our free speech zone! Cindy introduced Entisar and Aseel. When Entisar started speaking, the whole room of over 3,000 people went silent. The audience listened intently to her every word, and to Aseel’s translation from Arabic to English. Everyone cheered for her, and shouted “End the Occupation!” at the end of her talk. The concert was the book release event for two new books by the New Press: 10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military (with a final chapter on non-military alternatives by CODEPINK’s Rae Abileah), and Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal, by Anthony Arnove. The concert was covered by over 125 news outlets, including the New York Times, which ran a story featuring Entisar’s name on Wednesday. Click here to read the story in the NY Times.

Eman Ahmad Khamas came to CT for two days to help us for pre-event publicity for the march and rally on March 18. Here presence here before the rally helped mobilize and inspire many of the activists. We had her on three radio stations, in the local Newspaper (New Haven Register), and on 9 cities in CT by public access TV stations. We also had an informal dinner with key activists who took time out from their rather full time jobs of mobilizing for March 18 to attend and reflect. Her calm, dignified, and reflective demeaner and statements were just the kind of energy we needed to mobilize. She also had excellent political analysis (e.g. on the direct connection between the occupation of/war on Iraq and the oppression and destruction of the Palestinian society). Many media outlets which could not attend her press conference promised to attend the actual rally on Saturday. On Saturday we got 5 commercial TV stations, at least six radio stations, the Associated Press story (which went over the wires nationally and was published in a few newspapers), and several key local newspapers (Hartford Courant, New Haven Register, Waterbury Republican American, Yale Daily News). The rally had 1500 people (the largest for peace in CT in many years). Photos of the event are posted at http://qumsiyeh.org/march18 and all who attended are determined to not let Eman and all other Iraqis down. Thus your bringing Eman to us will continue to have an impact on our activism for a long time to come as we will never forget this brave and honest women. Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD Connecticut United For Peace

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator
	Entisar and Aseel munch on snacks that Lori sweetly throught to pack us for the plane trip.
	Here’s us with all our luggage, including CODEPINK store in a big duffel bag. We may not travel light, but we do fly often!
On Monday morning we said a tearful goodbye to Lori and Al Russell, who hosted us in Ft. Lauderdale for four days. Our South Florida experience was incredible—from high schools to medical college and other universities, to rallies and marches, to churches, to Haitan community center, Entisar covered a lot of ground! Lori and Hillary, co-coordinators of CODEPINK South Florida, did an incredible job organizing all these events.

We were so honored to have Dr. Ariabi and Rae as guests at our events this past weekend! Also our thanks to translator Aseel. It was an emotional roller coaster that served to increase (if that was possible) our committment to ending this war! We were front page of the Sun Sentinel, with an additional article about Dr Ariabi inside, we had a very good article in yesterday's Palm Beach Post, and Please check out this article in the Miami Herald with extra photos online! www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14139898.htm And special thanks to my dear friend and Co-organizer, Lori Russell and her husband for arranging Dr. Ariabi's speaking events and hosting the three women in their home for four days! Peace, Hillary Keyes CodePINK South Florida

By Katie Heald, CODEPINK Portland
	The Women's Convergence in the Park Blocks.
	Eman speaks to a hushed crowd at the Women's Convergence.
	The Women's Feeder March takes off for the rally.
	Eman speaks to 20,000 in Waterfront Park.
	Eman, wearing a sign that says "No Occupation" in English & Arabic (Oregonian photo).
	20,000 in Portland speak out for peace (Oregonian photo).
	Eman telling the story of three mothers whose sons have been missing for 3 years.
Eman Ahmed Khamas spent 2 days here in Portland, Oregon, and our town is much richer for her presence here. She had an extremely hectic schedule filled with interviews, radio segments, press conferences and rallies. The rest of us were completely exhausted after 2 days of this, but Eman has been working like this for weeks, and she is still going strong. When I told her, “I don’t know how you can do this for as long as you have,” she replied, “well, you have the harder job.” As if! On Sunday afternoon, CODEPINK Portland had put together a “Women’s Convergence and Feeder March” of several different local women’s groups. In addition to CODEPINK Portland, Women in Black, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Oregon NOW, and Radical Cheerleaders were represented. All the 125+ women (and supportive men) were so honored to have Eman say a few words to our gathering. She told us that it gave her hope to see that there are people in the U.S. who care enough to speak out against the occupation. When she started speaking a palpable, solemn silence descended on the crowd and everyone gathered closer to hear her words. There wasn’t a dry eye in the square. After marching the mile to Waterfront Park, and picking up many more people along the way, Eman spoke on the main stage at the rally to a crowd of 20,000 people. Her words were quoted in many news stories about the rally the next day: “This is the worst human rights violation that any country can do.” (Media listings below) Everywhere we went all weekend dozens of people would walk up to Eman and thank her for being here, for having the strength to share these stories, and promise to keep working to stop this horrible occupation. She can barely go two steps without getting stopped by someone, or pulled aside for an interview, or asked the same questions again about the “civil war” and “the insurgents,” or simply thanked one more time for taking the risks to come to our country. She has an amazing, and admirable ability to keep answering the same questions over and over, and yet stick to her message: “Leave Iraq to the Iraqis.” It was a remarkable honor and privilege to spend these days with such a powerful, courageous woman. Eman has to not only experience these horrors, but also describe them to others. How has she not come to hate everyone in the U.S. for allowing this violence against her people? But she has not, she is still loving and compassionate and begins new friendships every day. She says I look exactly like her 10- year old niece, and says she will call me “Asma” and I should call her “Auntie.” I had to deliver her to Corvallis, Oregon for her next event on Tuesday, and leaving her at the church there was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I wanted to turn the car around, and continue with her on her travels. I thought more than once about what my partner would say if I told him I wouldn’t be home for a couple of weeks, and could he cover the rent? As I turned onto the I-5 entrance ramp heading north, I couldn’t tell my tears from the rain on my windshield. Even though the rally and all the other events in Portland were over, I hadn’t done enough yet. I needed to get home and get back to work, even harder, to make my government get OUT of Iraq, and let the people handle their own country. So that I can go to Baghdad to see Eman again, and her daughters, and Asma, as soon as possible. So that when she says “Thank you” to me, I feel like I deserve her thanks. Whatever we are each doing to stop this brutal occupation of an innocent country, we need to find a way to do a little bit more. Eman is counting on us. Related Press Coverage: Oregonian Iraqi reflects on ideals of democracy, her view of peace Activist - Eman Ahmed Khamas hopes to educate Americans about what's happening in her country.

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator
	Entisar rides in a pink convertible at the rally and march in Ft. Lauderdale on the weekend of the third anniversary of the occupation of Iraq.
	Aseel speaks out against occupation and interprets for Entisar.
	Lori and Rae shout, “La liekt tilal! End the occupation!”
	Entisar leading the march.
	South Florida CODEPINK co-organizer Hillary.
	Entisar and Aseel were interviewed by many newspapers and TV stations.
	In the evening we were all exhausted and ordered burgers at a local restaurant. Because the car was so full of protesting props, like the cardboard coffins and poster boards, I had to pile all the burgers on my lap.
	Entisar enjoyed a burger and we watched the evening news to see Entisar on many news stations.

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator
	Here are photos from our excursion to the beach this morning. We watched the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean. Entisar said that the photo of the back of her head looking out at the sea makes her think of hope, a brighter future.

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator
	Tonight Entisar spoke at St. Maurice Catholic Church in Ft. Lauderdale. This emotional and intimate talk and the question and answer dialogue that followed were excellent. Below is a basic transcript of what Entisar said at this talk. At the end of the event we screened the CODEPINK DVD. Everyone was interested to learn more about getting involved with CODEPINKand taking action in an effective way to stop the war. CODEPINK South Florida brought refreshments served on pink dishes.
	One man in attendance at this event was Mo Dagstani, who heard about our events in Tampa after they happened and was so disappointed that he didn’t get to hear Entisar speak in his town, that he got in his car and drove South 4 hours to hear her speak in Ft. Lauderdale. He is staying in South Florida for the weekend and attending the peace rallies with us. He is an Iraqi from Baghdad and was very grateful to meet and talk with Entisar. Pictured here are Mo, Entisar, and Aseel.
EXCERPT FROM ENTISAR'S TALK: Peace upon you. I came from Baghdad, the heart of the action. The reason I came to the US was because I watched on the TV what President Bush was telling the American people about democracy, freedom, security, and the help that is being given to the Iraqi people, I couldn't believe the lies. So I decided to take the risk to come to the US and share with you what's really going on. A lot of newspapers ask me what my political affiliation is and I tell them that I don't have a political affiliation. I am a human being only. I work at Yamook Hospital. The number of dead and wounded is increasing every day. I walk into the emergency room and I see these beautiful human beings that G-d has created with so much effort, and it took only one shot-women, children, husbands, sons, dead, limbs gone, part of body blown up. I stand there and I feel helpless. In the operation room there isn't anesthesia, sterilizing agents, feeding tubes for babies. Most of the top specialist physicians have left the country because they can be killed. When we have injuries that need a specialist, we have to send the injured person in an ambulance to another hospital. There is a huge risk that while en route to the other hospital, the person will either be shot at or the journey will take too long because of road blocks and the person will die. In my hospital there are two refrigerators for dead bodies and this is not enough anymore. The only contribution that the American troops have made to our hospital is to give us another refrigerator for bodies. In Baghdad alone we receive about 1,600 dead people a month. For each dead person, there are 10 injured people from the same incident, making 16,000 injured a month. For each of these patients, their chances of survival are very slim because we don't have the equipment to help them or the sterilizing agents to keep out infection. No one expected that the American invasion would be this bad. We watch TV and we see the American lifestyle-we admire it, we see how in the court system each person gets a representative, the rights of humans are well protected, that's what we wished for. Just in my own neighborhood, in the middle of the night several Hummers came into the street, shot at the houses, kicked the door in, took the men, put black bags on their heads, and left, leaving screaming women in the doorways. The women were left in a miserable condition with destroyed houses. They were in tears, having no idea why their husbands and sons were taken, especially since in one case the son had just been married the day before. I visited some of the cities that were under heavy air attacks from US troops, like Haditha and Al-Quaem. The hospitals, schools, courthouse, and even the children's playgrounds were all bombed. It looks like a bad earthquake has hit the area-everything is destroyed. In Haditha Hospital all the areas where medicine were kept were blown up. We tried to talk to the doctors but they had been beaten up and refused to talk. Only one doctor dared talk with us. After interviewing him we asked him why he was beat up, and he said that he was accused of treating the resistance. He told them that he was a doctor and treated whoever was in need, they didn't listen. President Bush claims that he wants to liberate Iraqi women. I can tell you from my experience as a woman, and I lived under the awful Saddam regime, which I must stress was horrible, and I am not a political person, I am a doctor and a mother, but I want to tell you what I experienced. Everyone has the right to an education and to college. I have five kids. Every time I had a baby, I had by law a year of paid maternity leave with my child-that was my right as a woman and a mother. I could wear anything I wanted, covered or not as I chose. I had my own pharmacy and I could close up shop as late as I chose. I could take my kids anywhere anytime-shopping, to the institute to learn German, French, English, etc. Two months after the invasion, I had to close down my pharmacy because I saw a person shot in front of my building. I can't take my family anywhere. By 5 pm we have to be home because the militias are everywhere and it is not safe. We only get 1 hour of electricity a day. Random arrests are all over the place with no excuse and no one claiming responsibility-there is no way to find out where people go. In the prisons women are being exposed to rape and assault. One woman I spoke to had been raped so many times that she asked the local religious leader for permission to kill herself because she feels violated every time she walks in the streets. The rape and the assault and the psychological war is terrible. Soldiers go into a house and demand to know where the man is, when the women say they don't know, the soldiers torture the women with dogs. In our society it is very bad for women to be arrested. Men will turn themselves in just to free their women. Please don't believe the new election-it's all phony. This new government doesn't have the right to govern anything. It's the ambassador that has control. Women were encouraged to work and go out. Now we have a fundamentalist government that extremely limits women's rights. There are death squads today in Iraq that come in the middle of the night and round up 60-70 men at night. There are no records of where they are. Months later they are found tortured. When you look at the way these bodies have been treated and abused, you would never believe a human being could do this. It looks like they have drilled into the bodies. They have iron burn marks. One eye witness who left the prison said that there was a 5 kilo weight on a man's private parts for 3 years. This is the democracy that Bush is speaking of today. And he says that this is going to be a model for the Middle East. The democracy among the Iraqis today is defined as the killing, kidnapping, random arrests, theft, opening the borders to all kinds of militias, bombing, unclean water, no electricity. When I came on the plane from DC to Alabama, at the airport I got a special treatment because of my Iraqi passport. I had sadness on my face and Rae said, please don't be sad… I said, no, I think each country should have strict security. I wish that we had such security, and that the US troops did not invade with all their weapons, leaving all our borders open. These are some stories about what is going on in Iraq today-there are so many more to tell. It's so nice that since I've been in this country I can sleep at night, but while I sleep I wake up in the middle of the night screaming or crying because of the effects of the war zone I've been living in. It's also very nice to wake up in the morning to the birds singing and the trees and the wind. I miss that. We've been waking up to the sound of gun shots and airplanes and sirens. Q and A What do you want to happen now? The longer the American troops stay, the more they're going to promote violence. I see no hope unless the Americans leave. For what reason do you feel that this violence has been perpetrated on your country? Before the invasion, there was a government and the government was protecting the borders, there was security, there were police. Now anyone that wants to harm the US or the Iraqis comes to harm us. The longer the US army stays, the more the resistance will intensify. The world knows that Bush created lies to go to Iraq and take over the oil. Everyone in the middle east said that they knew that the interest the US has in Iraq is the oil, but people were so desperate to unseat Saddam, that they welcomed the US with the idea that things would get better. Are there local women's organizations there that promote women's rights? There aren't any specific organizations. If you need medicine, you can go to the hospital, but it's rare that they have anything. As an alternative, you can buy medicine for high prices on the black market. There is a neighborhood treatment center for light injuries. What about nutrition, food? Food is rare as well. We depend on some humanitarian organizations from Spain and Germany. Where do you get the strength to survive, physically and spiritually? Every human being is given this power from G-d. Iraq today has turned into hell. Anyone who goes there will be burned. Since I've been in the US I feel hope-people connecting with me and believing in this cause. My only hope is for people to speak out and get the troops out.

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator
	Entisar addresses the rally.
	Aseel is wearing a pink motorcycle helmet that was donated to CODEPINK after Entisar’s speaking event in St. Petersburg!
	Entisar's profile, taken by Al Russell.
	South Florida CODEPINK co-organizer Hillary poses with a peace sign.
Rally in West Palm Beach South Florida peace and justice groups organized a march and rally in West Palm Beach, a very affluent community not known for anti-war demonstrations, to highlight the continued violence in Iraq on the third anniversary of the occupation. The rally was held in the median green between two very busy streets. In the heat of midday, the Raging Grannies gathered to sing and cheer, and Entisar spoke about life under occupation, not as a politician, but as a doctor and as a mother. Entisar was interviewed by several newspapers and other media outlets. During the march, some people on the streets cheered and others jeered; it was clear how divided the area was over the issue of a troop withdrawal. One police officer got on the loud speaker of his police car and shouted “The occupation! The terror!” and later said Shokran, thank you, to Entisar and Aseel for being present at the rally. I have never met such a supportive cop. He told us later that as an Arab he feels responsible for educating the police force about Islam, and protecting the rights of Arabs in these times of heightened discrimination and bigotry. The demonstration also featured coffins covered in American flags, graves reading “How many more?” and a variety of pickets and signs.

By Debra Penna-Fredericks

I wanted to send you an update about Dr. Rashad's visit to St. Louis, MO. We wound up having a very busy visit, which is good. Many people heard her speak and I think they listened with their hearts. She is very good and reaches people in ways we could not reach them. Dr. Rashad arrived in St. Louis Saturday evening, which gave us a few hours to get to know one another before we retired for the night. She has been staying with my husband, Mark Fredericks, and myself, while she is here. The first evening, my co-coordinator, Laural was also here visiting. On Sunday morning, Dr. Rashad attended St. Louis Religious Society of Friends Meeting (Quakers) with me. After the meeting, she showed a video presentation about the war during potluck. She was well received by the Quakers who are one of the organizations donating funds to bring her to St. Louis. Immediately after Meeting, we went to events for a peace march and rally commemorating the 3rd anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. First, we went to the History Museum, where Dr. Rashad said some words of inspiration to a group of women who had gathered to march to the main rally. We also collected some food brought by the marchers which was donated for the people whose hunger was caused by the money that has been spent on the war. (There were marches made up of different groups of people gathered in many locations, all heading toward the rally.) After cheering on the women, Dr. Rashad and I went to the location of the main rally so we could unload our car and watch the marchers come in. The rally was located at the World's Fair Pavilion in Forest Park in St. Louis City. Around 2pm, we began to see the women marchers, then the children and family marchers, then the student marchers, then the faith group marchers, then the artists marchers all come pouring into the rally site. By the time everybody gathered, there were over 900 people. Given that it was a very cold day and an outdoor venue, that was a good crowd. There were many talks given that day. The focus of the day was the cost of the war. We looked at the jobs that were lost, the homelessness, the effects on the soldiers, and so on. Dr. Rashad was the feature speaker for the event. The crowd found her to be very moving. Today, we were up very early. Dr. Rashad was supposed to have an interview with a radio station in New York, but when they called, they thought they were going to interview someone else. They did not know about her. We got going a little late and I had to have them call my cell phone. Unfortunately, they also called a little late and so we had to go into the building with the radio station where Dr. Rashad was doing the live interview by the time they called. My cell phone cut off when we entered the building and would not work again. I think it was just the building. They only had her for a couple of minutes. We had a live radio interview at 7am central time on radio station WGNU 920 am. It went very well. The host, Lizz Brown, was very moved by Dr. Rashad, and she wanted to get copies of the pictures for herself. She looked at them during breaks and it really moved her. She is a very dynamic woman and well connected. A good show to have had her on! The show lasted for an hour. Immediately after the show, we went to a class in Edwardsville, IL. This is a class on Modern Middle Eastern History taught by Steve Tamari at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. It was a good class to have attended. There was a real mix of students in the class, including some soldiers. One of the soldiers asked a couple of challenging questions, including whether Dr. Rashad's point of view could be trusted when she was brought here by such a "fringe left wing group like Code Pink". : ) She handled the young man well. A few of us had coffee after the class. That soldier came along. Dr. Rashad put on her video and he watched it carefully. He did not speak about it, but he will think about it now. (Steve, the professor, told me things that make me think the soldier has PTSD. So sad.) After coffee with the students, we went to the main Mosque in St. Louis. Dr. Rashad met with the Amam for a time. This was good because the Muslim community here has made a conscious decision not to get involved in politics, including the peace movement. (I won't go into what happened with them not showing up for her talk, etc.) After she did her afternoon prayers, we showed her video to the school children (I was a little worried about that. Many were so small). Even the adults had tears in their eyes. They did say things like, "we have to limit where we give our charity", etc., when I spoke to them after. I encouraged them to get involved in the peace movement. I told Dr. Rashad I would let her know if they choose to do so. We will continue to reach out to them, anyway. After the Mosque, we went to Plowsharing. I told her about Fair Trade organizations that help women (and men). We copied information on the organizations and I encouraged her to follow up on this. I hoped she might talk to Global Exchange, for example. Next, we went to a class in Theology and Peace at Saint Louis University. The class was taught by Andrew Whimmer. This is the University where I teach. The students had already been learning a fair amount about Iraq and so Dr. Rashad was able to show them the video and Power Point without so much lecture. It was clear to me that the students enjoyed her presentation very much. They asked the same question we heard so many times, "If we get out, will there be a civil war?" She answered it with the same clarity she always did, by explaining that the Iraqi people got along and there is really no difference between Sunni and Shiite, that is misperception. But the American people are causing a civil war by opening the borders and arming the militia. I think the students understood. Finally, we rushed off to our last business of the day. That was a reception offered to the people from organizations that paid to bring Dr. Rashad here. We had threats of very serious weather starting at the same time our reception was starting and so very few people came. But those who came were very glad they did so. We saw the video and the Power Point and Dr. Rashad spoke until after 8pm. I think Dr. Rashad has reached many people while she was here. She changed some minds and she renewed the spirits of many in the peace community. We enjoyed her visit very, very much.   Copies of her radio interview will soon be available at http://www.lizzbrown.com/.

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator
	Entisar and Aseel speaking to the group.
	A packed audience at the event.
	Lavarice, our event organizer and radio host.
	A Brazilian band at the little Haitian restaurant.
VeYeYo Haitian Meeting Friday night we were invited to a meeting at VeYeYo, a Haitian organization in Miami. VeYeYo means “we’re watching you,” and translates to keeping an eye on the occupiers. When we walked in we felt instantly that we were among friends. Lavarice, a great organizer and host of a radio program, had interviewed Entisar on the radio the night before, and introduced her to the feisty crowd. Entisar spoke with more passion and conviction than I can relate here. She spoke with strong statements in Arabic, Aseel interpreted her words into English, and the English was then translated into French! At the end of the talk, Entisar and Aseel taught everyone how to say END THE OCCUPATION in Arabic, which sounds like La Li Ekt Tilal! Everyone got really into it. Then people started passing me little scraps of paper and pencils so that I could write down in English this phrase and they could remember it. There was a grandmother sitting in the front row who recorded the whole thing on her tape recorder. Her grandson was sleeping in her lap. It was a magnificent meeting, showing that people across continents, across hemispheres, can unite and join hands and rise up against occupation everywhere. After the meeting at VeYeYo, we went to South Beach for a night on the town We went to a great little Haitian restaurant and bar that was entirely covered with murals. There was a Brazilian band playing and when they heard that Entisar was there, they played a Brazilian song that was a prayer for the children affected by war and conflict. We had hoped to meet Father Jean Juste at the meeting, but due to his recent chemotherapy he had to stay home to rest. We are sending our love and prayers to him.

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator
	The group eats lunch in the cafeteria and discusses military recruitment on campus.
	Entisar poses for a photo with Mark, the international relations teacher at Terra Vella.
	Entisar is interviewed by the school newspaper.
On Friday Morning, Lori Russell, the Broward County CODEPINK Coordinator who has organized the wonderful schedule of events for Entisar in the Ft. Lauderdale area, brought us to Terra Vella High School for a morning presentation that had been organized by Chelsea, a high school CODEPINKer. When we arrived there were already five classes of students in the media center/library. Entisar asked for a volunteer student to stand up and go through a normal day with us—what time she wakes up, what she does in the morning, what she eats, how long it takes to get to school, what she does at school, what she does after school, where she works, how late she gets home, etc. Then Entisar said what a usual day for an Iraqi kid, such as her daughter in high school, would look like, including waking up worried and afraid in the dark because there is no electricity, trying to find school books without light, the journey to school that used to take 15 minutes and now takes 2 hours because of road blocks and altered routes, lack of classes available to medical students because professors have fled the country or been killed, and curfew. Entisar talked about what life is like under the occupation of Iraq, what life was like before, and how she thinks her country can rebuild and return to safety—contingent on the US troops leaving. After the bell rang, more students poured into the library, and this pattern continued all day. We had thought that we would speak to the big group in the morning and maybe to one or two more classes, but we ended up staying in the school for the whole day, speaking to four classes each period. Many students had us sign permission slips so they could stay for two or three periods. At the start of each class Aseel showed a sketch of Iraq that she drew on the chalk board and explained where Baghdad was and a bit of context about Iraq. Entisar spoke and then they spent the majority of the time answering questions. The students were mesmerized and we all agreed that they asked the best questions of anyone we’ve spoken with thus far. They wanted to know about the threat of a civil war, Saddam, the role of the media, the hospitals. Many times Entisar was asked the question, “Who is bombing? Is it really the US doing this?” There was also the question about whether the violence will get worse when the US leaves. To this, Entisar explained how the US troops are not even able to defend themselves, needing the Iraqi military and police to escort them. How, Entisar asked, are the US troops doing anything to protect the civilians? She then explaned how not only are the troops not protecting the Iraqi people, but they continue to abuse and kill innocent people. One very conservative teacher started the day by asking Entisar a barrage of very pointed questions emphasizing the US motives for going into Iraq and the reason for staying. He teaches international relations and he brought all his students. At the end of the day he wanted a CODEPINK for Peace shirt and had great follow-up questions. Many students signed up to continue getting information about Entisar’s life and work and to find out more about creating peace. Students stayed after school to see video and photo footage of the situation in Iraq. By the end of the day, Entisar had spoken to over 1,000 students at Terra Vella.

Nadje: I am not living inside Iraq. I'm living in London; my family lives in Baghdad. I am an academic, writer and researcher working on two projects right now. I think that people can't understand the current situation in Iraq in 2003 if they don't understand the historical context, so I've been interviewing over 200 Iraqis from many different political perspectives and experiences both before and after the occupation. The second project I've been involved with is to document the role of women in Iraq over the course of the past decades, so that people can better understand the trajectory of women's rights in Iraq, and understand their societal role in both an economic and a political context. Entisar: Entisar and Eman I work in a hospital in Baghdad. I want to talk specifically about the bad situation of health in Iraq. The sanctions continued for 15 years in Iraq and made the conditions for Iraqis miserable. The occupation made it worse. We didn't see any kind of development in the medical healthcare system. We suffer from shortage of medicines and emergency supplies, there is no sterilization of the operation rooms and anesthesia is unavailable. There was money given to repair the hospitals and medical system. We suggested that we use this money to buy things that we need but they refused and bought furniture and flowers instead. I am the director of the pharmacy dept in Yarmook hospital, so I refused to sit on a new chair while there were no sterile operating rooms. Many of the Iraqi hospitals were bombed and destroyed in Baghdad and Al-Quaim, and in Fallujah. Many of the doctors in these hospitals were either killed or beaten very badly or arrested by the American troops. Many ambulances were attacked in these areas as well. Many of the diseases that were under control under the regime of Saddam have now returned to haunt the population, especially the children, because there are no vaccines or immunizations. Specifically Hepatitis, meningitis, caused by environmental contamination (water, sewage, etc.) are raging where they used to be under control. Death due to cancer increased because treatment programs stopped and medicines were not available. Many Iraqi doctors, especially specialists, have either been assassinated or have left Iraq, many have been kidnapped or threatened. More than 1,000 have left, and more than 200 kidnapped. 80% of the Iraqi civilians injured are dead. Iraq is now the 36th country in the death of children who die under 5 years of age, before the occupation, Iraq was the 80th country with this statistic. One last thing about women, pregnant women suffer of malnutrition. Women in labor prefer to give birth in the home because of the risk of being shot en route to the hospital. Eman: I am a writer and translator. For the last 3 years I have documented human rights violations in Iraq. There was a news piece about what happened yesterday [on International Women's Day], a picture with three or four lines in the Washington Post that said women protested war on this day. And Bush said that women in Burma, North Korea, and Iran are the focus of his work, supposedly meaning that women in the rest of the world are happy. I bring this up because it is true that there was a demonstration in Washington and that there were demonstrations elsewhere in the world, and it is true that Bush said that about women in those three countries, but this is not the complete truth about the way things are. This kind of incomplete truth is the way that the issues of Iraq are covered, unfortunately. This is what Americans know about Iraq. They hear of a rosy picture that doesn't exist. Again, tens of thousands of detainees are in jail for the last 3-4 years. We don't know the exact number, We hear about terrible stories of torture to death. We have a very big problem of the missing-thousands of Iraqis have disappeared and when we go to the Iraqi authorities to ask about them, we are left with no answer. 100,000 Iraqis have been killed, over 50 percent of them women and children. Whether it be by sectarian violence, thugs, guns, on the street, bombings, sickness, or any number of other daily dangers, death is everywhere in Iraq. It is the thing of the streets in Baghdad. Another big problem is the continuing military operations. Bush said they ended on April 1 2003, but this is not true. All cities were heavily bombed, buried under the rubble. When a city is bombed, all life stops. Bridges, hospitals, homes, public buildings are destroyed. Needless to say the people of Iraq live in very bad conditions. The problem is very big. The last attack was called Steel Cut; in the operation, 8,400 families left the area of the bombing. And you can imagine how big the problem is. Now in America we are talking about civil war, but you must understand that right now we live in fear in Iraq, We are worried, all the time-we havelived in fear about ourselves and our families for years. You can be killed, disappear, or be arrested at any time. We live just to survive our day. I think the occupation is 100% responsible for what is happening in Iraq and that the Bush administration should be held responsible for the destruction. Faiza: Faiza I am a civil engineer, a blogger and mother of three boys. I used to live in Iraq, but now I live in Amman, Jordan. I have started to write about the situation in Iraq, so have changed from a civil engineer and mother to a blogger. The goal of our visit to the United States is to tell the people the real story because the media is not telling this story. At the beginning it was fun to blog, but now it is a big responsibility, a kind of documentation for everything that is happening in Iraq. Blogging is something that I didn't design, but has become a regular part of my life. I write from my personal experience. After 6 months of the war, a man came with a gun in my face and kidnapped my son. For four days my son was in the Interior Ministry with his hands tied. They were the worst four days of my life: I thought that he was killed, thrown somewhere in the garbage. This is the situation for Iraqi women. We are holding pictures of our sons and wondering if they are being killed, thrown in the trash. I went to the US Troops and they said they couldn't help. The police said the same. Who cares about the Iraqi people? The answer we always hear from your government is "We are sorry but it is not my business." Who cares about the Iraqis? The government is sitting in the Green zone, the forces are sitting in their tanks, and the people are being killed. After four days somebody helped my son. A kind person in the jail gave him a cell phone to contact his parents. He called us and told us how much money we would have to pay to get him released. We paid the money and fled to Jordan. This is the familial story of thousands of Iraqis, who face the panic that is Iraq. This is our new government, our great liberation? In terms of reconstruction, the healthcare, education, and infrastructure systems are all in shambles. Year after year it is the same-nothing has been done to help the Iraqi people. If the occupation tells you that they are in Iraq to help the people, where are the facts on the ground? This is what you have to ask your administration-for facts on the ground! I will never ask about policy first. If you really care about Iraq, you must bring witnesses from Iraq, real innocent and independent families to tell the story of Iraq. Your media is telling you everything is going well, but this is not true, and you must hear the truth. This is your responsibility as Americans. I want them to know that you, the American people, are not partners in these crimes with your administration. People are asking about civil war, but from the beginning of the fall of Baghdad, from the beginning of U.S. involvement there, Iraq was divided in Sunni and Shi'a areas by the occupiers. Bremmer divided Iraq into triangles and squares and regions. This is a very nice story, helping Iraqis with their sectarian identities, but now Iraq is torn, destroyed after 3 years. The principles of this new constitution are based on sectarian policies-before the occupation began, we never asked what someone's background was. The occupation created the sectarian story. Before, we were all neighbors, sisters, and now we are separated. How could I trust you to stay for another three years in our country? What is the proof that we will do something better? I have been working with a woman who supports the occupation. I know that some people in Iraq support the occupation, but they do not see the full picture. The occupiers put Iraq in the hands of the militias. They destroyed our cities and now Iraq is full of militias. The key to the end of this violence, the key of Iraq, is in the hands of Iraqis. I want you to hold this responsibility to do something to help the Iraqi people because you are mothers and we are mothers. We accept the risk of coming to the US because there is no option, no alternative, we cannot hide in our homes with locked doors, we must speak out and say that this is wrong. You can understand our suffering. our people are dying. Maybe something will happen, maybe somebody will help, it's risky to come here, but I accept the risk because I have no other options. After three years of destroying Iraq, we Iraqis have to say no. Everything you have created here is violence. It's chaos. It's wrong, and you must stop. What is the solution? We need a national army and government, not a sectarian country. Have Iraqis build a national unified government with no sectarian army and no sectarian divisions. This is the only solution. Q: I am a mother with two sons in their 20s. Part of the administration's rhetoric is that they are saving the Iraqi women. Can you speak to the issue of the condition of Iraqi women before the "great American liberation" and the condition of Iraqi women today? Nadje: One of the lies about why the US went to war was that they would be liberating women. I've heard this several times: now I women can go to University and school! people don't know that under Saddam women could actually could go to school. Obviously there were human rights violations, but Iraq had one of the highest rates of employment for women in the region. In 1978 Iraq issued a law that all adults-male and female-had to undertake a literacy program and go to school. You saw Iraqi women in all professions. Since 1978 there was a very progressive family law in Iraq that made it very difficult for Iraqi men to marry a second wife. The man needed consensus from a judge and a good reason to marry again. Divorce was very difficult for men to obtain without women's input, and women had a right to obtain divorce and custody over their children. One of the first things the Provisional Authority tried to push through was article 137, which actually makes women's rights go backwards, making it easy for a man to marry a second wife and obtain a divorce, while making it very difficult for a woman to do so. In the constitution, there is a provision that says everyone is equal before the law -- but that's not exactly the full story either. Islamic law is not a book of set policies; rather it's open to interpretation. It's now the main source of law, and it's interpreted primarily by men. If interpreted by progressive men, no problem - but in the hands of a Taliban-like man, then it's very dangerous. There's nothing to protect women from very conservative religious interpretations of Islamic law. The current constitution is increasing sectarianism-why? Because now every Iraqi can use specific laws relevant to their particular sect. Women in the north might have different legislation than those living in the south, there is no united law. If you just look at the legal rights, women have lost big time. [Maxine Waters and Faiza get up to leave.] Maxine: We need to look at whatever we can do to make women's lives better in Iraq. Faiza: (Pointing to Lynn Woolsey and everyone in the room) You need to promise me that there will be change on the ground. You have to promise me. Lynn Woolsey: I'd like to give you the pledge and the proof that these women are not alone in this country or the House. First of all, CODEPINK and Peace Action exist; also, the majority of Americans know we're doing the wrong thing in Iraq. Here in the House I was the first voice to say: turn this around, Mr. President, put together a plan to bring the troops home - and that was may more than a year ago. Maxine Waters put together the Out Of Iraq caucus, which has 78 members. We are dedicated to leaving Iraq ASAP. I speak out against the war every time we're in session; I have five minutes on the floor every time we convene to speak, and I always use it to talk about the war. People say "why are you wasting your time? No one is listening," but people are listening all over the country. Besides, it's my 5 minutes and nobody can tell me what to do with it, and I choose to talk about what's happening in Iraq and why we must leave. When this is over, we must do something about how we handle conflict in this world. Are we doing enough? No, we're not. But things are changing. Representative John Murtha, the top democrat on the Defense Appropriations Committee, has come out against the war and proposed a resolution to bring our troops home. That's a big step, when anti-war policy jumps from coming from me to coming from a moderate democrat. My counterpart Mike Thompson put together legislation yesterday that says that no later than September, we're out of Iraq. (It's about time!) I'm not saying we're doing enough here in Congress, but the media isn't helping anything either. I've been there, in the Green Zone, I knew it was some other world. But even from that bubble, I knew that the commanders on the ground fully knew they would be in Iraq for a long time. What have we done? We held an informal hearing here in Congress. We had wonderful witnesses to the hearing on the exit strategy, 20 members of congress. And it was bipartisan; Walter Jones joined us. Talk about brave people! Walter came because he knew that it was important for legitimacy's sake to call the independent hearing bipartisan. Things are changing. We saw this kind of shift later as well, when there was an amendment to the spending bill on the floor. The Republican-controlled Congress let me talk on the floor thinking that they had an opportunity to embarrass the Democrats by allowing me to speak about it. But no one complained and no one looked embarrassed.. The amendment says, "Tell me how we'll bring the troops home," and my own colleague, a Democrat, asked me not to bring it to a vote because it would be embarrassing. But then, one Republican spoke in support of the amendment. 5 voted for it, and 122 Democrats voted for it. No, the amendment didn't pass, but it also didn't embarrass anyone. Members of Congress knew they could speak out against the war from that moment on. But that's all just the backdrop to what really needs to start happening. Talking is not enough - we've got to make it really happen Congress is way behind the public, in knowing this war is a mistake, so the public has to remind Congress that we represent you, and so we need to bring the troops home now. It's also a matter of constituency. The radicals in this room have radicals representing them, like me. You have to go to the places that don't have radicals or radical representatives, and change Congress from the ground up. Do outreach all over the country. Q: What do you expect will be the breakdown in terms of how much money will be appropriated for the war? Lynn: We don't have a sense, but I think that more people will vote against it, but it will pass. Members are so afraid of being labeled anti-troop and unpatriotic. They forget to hear the people who are saying that it's not unpatriotic to dissent when the government is taking away your civil rights and civil liberties. There's so much fear of losing the job that they don't do what is in my opinion the right thing. With the media as it is, you can get labeled so quickly - and once the label is there, it's very hard to rip off. Q: What's happening on the ground amongst women to overcome the sectarian divisions? Have the troops been oppressive in your actions to overcoming these divisions? Nadje: It's not just women who are working to overcome these divisions. Many Iraqi religious men get on TV and call on people to be wise and not be driven by anger. They say that we are collectively Iraqis and that these divisions are a conspiracy against the Iraqi people. The situation in Iraq is extremely difficult, but still women are working, like my group Women's World, who are trying to help the people. Eman and Entisar go to the refugee camps to help with whatever they have. There are basically too many Iraqi women's organizations. The only thing they have in common are the word "democracy'. These women's organizations were created here in the US 6 months before the invasion-these women by the 2nd day of the invasion they were in the palace talking about women's liberation. I was naïve and went to talk with them but they never contacted me again. I then realized that they are a part of the political agenda of the occupation, working on the constitution as well. For example, last year there was a very big conference in Jordan where 100 women were invited and 500k was spent, airplanes, hotel, etc. I asked one of the woman who was part of this conference what they discussed and she said that we did not say anything and were instead given lectures and workshops on federalism and the new constitution. These women are being brainwashed. Lynn: One of the things we're going to have is another Out of Iraq hearing, and we will definitely ask one of you [the Iraqi women] to be on the panels. Your voices and faces mean everything, and the panel will have press.

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator
	Sunrise over Tampa, from the car’s windshield.
	Dr. Ariabi speaks at Nova University.
	With Nova University Staff.
	“Harvey” the mock human whose chest simulates different heart palpitations for cardiology students.
	Dr. Ariabi listens to Harvey’s heartbeat.
	Discovering a Sumerian prescription tablet.
Today we left Tampa at sunrise and drove south through pine trees, the Everglades, and emerging into palm trees and a city of highways. At midday, Entisar spoke at Nova University to a class of over 120 medical students. The class is also broadcast by satellite, and students in neighboring counties and also in Ponce, Puerto Rico, took part in the presentation. Please check back here soon for the transcribed talk. After the talk Entisar received a tour of the university, including the pharmacy classes, the physical therapy practice room, and “Harvey” the mock human whose chest simulates different heart palpitations for cardiology students. Harvey is a pricey guy, but he does have an on and off button! Entisar also got to see the labs and the University’s museum of medical artifacts, where she and Aseel discovered a prescription tablet written in Sumeria. This was an absolutely wonderful afternoon.

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator
	Press conference at the Federal Building.
	Press conference with Entisar and Ahmed Bedier, director of C.A.I.R. (Center for Arab Islamic Relations) in Tampa.
	Q and A session.
	Entisar speaking at the College of Public Health.
	The audience at the College of Public Health.
	Entisar and Ahmed Bedier, director of C.A.I.R. (Center for Arab Islamic Relations) in Tampa.
	John Arnaldi and his wife
	Exchanging notes.
Entisar's Trip to Tampa Wednesday was a very full day, starting with a press conference at the Federal Building in the morning. Aseel, an Iraqi-American, interpreter, architect, activist extraordinaire, joined us from DC and will be traveling with us through the rest of the Florida tour. The press conference was well-attended, including CBS and Fox news. The press had the burning questions—will there be a civil war and was life better under Saddam. John Arnaldi did an excellent job organizing the day, from the press conference, to two separate meetings with aides from the offices of Senator Martinez (R) and Senator Nelson (D). Both offices spent a lot of time listening to Entisar. An interesting side note is that the rep from Martinez’s office closed by saying that she knows that Martinez understands the suffering the Iraqi people underwent under Saddam because Martinez grew up in Cuba under Fidel Castro. Conversely, the representative for Nelson’s office said at the end of the meeting that she understands what the Iraqi people went through under sanctions because her family is Cuban and she grew up there. In the afternoon Entisar was interviewed by the Sun Sentinel newspaper for a story that will be printed on Sunday. We ate lunch at a Middle Eastern restaurant and dinner at an Indian restaurant and we felt very well fed by the end of the day. In the evening, Entisar spoke at the College of Public Health to a packed audience eager to hear about her experiences. More about the questions that were asked during these events and other substantive details coming soon.   Letter from John Arnaldi: Dear friends: Rae and Entisar and Aseel: Great thanks to each of you for your courageous journeys! You inspire us and touch our hearts. Yesterday's CODEPINK events in Tampa were a great success. I have received thanks from many people on behalf of each of you and the work you are doing. MJ and I agree that spending yesterday with all of you was a precious gift to us that we will treasure through the remaining years of our lives. May God bless each of you and bring peace to us all, --John

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator
	Entisar conversing with supporters.
	Entisar's talk, organized by the Quaker community and local peace and justice groups.
	Conversation at a cafe.
	Homecooked meal of couscoous and homegrown vegetables with supporters.
	Florida speaks out!
Event in St. Petersburg We arrived in St. Petersburg--after crossing a very long bridge over the bay and sitting in a lot of traffic—just in time for a homecooked meal of couscoous and homegrown vegetables at a lovely home. Then we were off to the community center where this evening’s event was held. Activists from the Quaker community and local peace and justice groups organized an excellent event tonight. The room was filled with easily over 80 people. Entisar showed photos with a projector depicting the situation in Baghdad and she was assisted in her talk by a wonderful translator named Husan. Husan is originally from Palestine and has traveled in Iraq, so he filled in some useful information about the geography of the area and really emphasized certain points about Entisar’s lecture that he knew would need to sink in for Americans. For example, when asked during the Q and A session about the issue of rape during war, Entisar told the story of a female detainee who was raped in jail. After she was released, she felt that everywhere she went she was violated, and she wished to die. She asked religious advisors about getting permission to kill herself, since this is strictly forbidden by Muslim ethics. Husan emphasized this point about suicide and addressed the too-common American misconception that Muslims condone, even wish for, suicide as a viable tactic for power, terrorism, etc. After the talk there were so many questions that the group decided to move to a café nearby to continue the conversation. On the way, the caravan of cars stopped at the pier to see the Gulf of Mexico. Entisar said that the hot, humid air and the palm trees reminded her of Iraq in the summertime. I cannot imagine how hard it would be to be so far away from family and a country that is constantly in a state of unrest. At the café the conversation and the espressos continued for quite a while. There was a man there who has made clear address label stickers with the number of dead soldiers. There was a woman, Samm, who is running for Congress against the local Republican warmonger, and she filmed everything. After the event, she gave me the most amazing pink motorcycle helmet. Now I just need a pink Vespa! Everyone wanted to talk late into the night, wanted to offer us a meal or a place to stay, wanted to apologize for the wrongdoings of the American government and military, wanted to buy us a piece of banana bread or a slice of cake, wanted to ask us to attend another event.... Finally we were on the road to the place where we would stay the night. What can we do to help? In the car I asked Entisar what she felt about being asked over and over again what the American people should/can do to help. She told me she felt two things: one, the American people should raise their voices to be heard by Congress and the people making the decisions so that the occupation can end, and two, that she sees now that the American people are very sympathetic to her and to the Iraqi people and want to help. I told her that to me it is very frustrating that people ask this question. Entisar is saying repeatedly in response to the question about what will happen with the troops leave that the Iraqi people can best govern themselves, rebuild their society, and decide what they need. And then people ask this question about how to help. Well, I think it is our responsibility as Americans to know best how to change our own country’s behavior. I think this is a question that comes with a feeling of powerlessness. But we are not powerless and we must make our voices heard and demand an end to the occupation of Iraq as the majority of the citizens. When people ask about how they can help, I think about a big strong man strangling a helpless man and asking him at the same time how he can help him. Until we stop being part of the problem (occupying Iraq, continuing our lives status quo, using oil and other resources at unreasonable rates, etc.), we cannot begin to be a part of the solution. We continue to slice wounds and then when we see the blood, we rush to find enough bandages... I also see how this question is important because it implies a certain humility and honesty—rather than deciding what’s best to do, people are reaching out to Entisar, an Iraqi woman, and asking her what she wants us to do to be in solidarity with her and assist her work and vision of peace When I asked Entisar more about this question, she told me this story: There was a hospital where there were many sick children, some with cancer and other severe ailments. The hospital had no adequate medicines or provisions, especially because it was not guarded by anyone, and so because Iraq’s borders are open and there is no real police or army force protecting the people, there are thieves that steal all the time. Looters had come into this hospital and taken most of the provisions for healthcare. The US soldiers came to this hospital and said to the doctors that they should take the patients out of the hospital because it was not safe and there were no supplies. But then where would the patients go? The doctor turned to the wall and started banging his head against the wall. Entisar said that she sees that some Americans feel like this doctor: entirely helpless, hopeless. Entisar said that life needs hope; without hope, there is no life.

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator
	Dr. Entisar met with the doctors and staff of the Tallahassee medical clinic.
	Touring the pharmacy.
	Outside the medical clinic.
Dr. Entisar met with the doctors and staff of the Tallahassee medical clinic this morning. She shared with them the devastating stories of the deteriorating healthcare system in Iraq. Pharmacist Susan McLeod, who worked at the clinic for many years, gave Entisar a tour of the clinic's prescription filling area. Entisar asked whether staff of the clinic were able to give medicines to their friends, and Susan replied that no, there is a strict process for getting medicine, requiring a prescription from a doctor and medical records. Then Entisar talked about how sometimes the men guarding the hospitals come to the doctors and demand prescriptions for ointments and medications. Because these men are like the police, the doctors feel obliged to write the prescriptions. Then the pharmacists must fill them. Entisar said that this a big problem because then the medicines are given away to people who do not need them and may be selling them outside the hospital. Lydia and Susan explained how this medical clinic is for people who don’t have insurance and would otherwise have no where to go. Susan talked about how over 30% of the people in the area have no health insurance, and how thousands of people come to this small facility that used to be a school to get treatments. Entisar asked about whether there were x-rays and other specialized testing on site, and Susan said that people have to go elsewhere for those services, but that there is a network of doctors who volunteer their time to help with such services. After the visit to the clinic, we said our goodbyes and began our journey south to the Tampa area. The drive was mostly along a highway lined with tall pines and greenery. The sky changed from pouring rain to sunshine and puffy clouds, and it felt as if we came out of a long tunnel and emerged somewhere brighter.

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator
	Entisar tells Anwar's story to the audience.
	Entisar reads a statement at the Equal Rights Ammendment Press Conference at the Capitol.
	Entisar tells Congressman Curtis Richardson what's really going on in Baghdad.
	Entisar with Florida's Congressman Curtis Richardson.
	Entisar speaking with Dr. Schlenoff, Director of Muslim Studies at Florida State University.
	CODEPINKers and other supporters join us for a meal.
	Lydia, Entisar and Rae outside the Florida State University.
	Lydia being interviewd by the local newspaper.
	Rae, Entisar and Lydia in front of the old Capitol.
	Entisar, Rae and Lydia outside the College of Pharmacy, FL.
	Lydia created a peace ribbon made of cloth streamers tied to rope. Each streamer has the name of a US soldier or an Iraqi civilian who has died in the war.
	Lydia, David, and Entisar outside Lydia's home with their two dogs, Charlie and Chuck, and the pink peace sign Lydia made out of x-mas lights.
SUNDAY, March 12 On Sunday we went to Panama City where Entisar spoke at the Capstone House to a mixed crowd of people, some of whom were eager to hear what she had to say, and some of whom were solely interested in their own opinions. This event was a risk—Entisar spoke in an area where many people are very supportive of the US government’s occupation of Iraq. She spoke fearlessly, with great patience and dignity, and with brilliant eloquence, even through the lens of a young translator who had never met her before the talk began. Brenda, the event coordinator, did an excellent job reaching out to the city and pulling together an event in less than a week. She had an Indian lunch and after lunch the event began in the packed meeting hall. Two news stations filmed the talk. Though at first the environment was very tense, and the organization hosting the event was very concerned that the talk might be “political,” by the end of the afternoon they were inviting CODEPINK back for future events. Without a moment to spare in Panama City, spring breaker destination and land of beautiful white sand beaches, we zoomed off to Tallahassee with Lydia and David. Lydia coordinates the Tallahassee CODEPINK group and her enthusiasm, experience, innovation, and sincerity never fail to astound me. She and her partner David drove all the way from Tallahassee to meet us in Panama City, and then all the way back to the city just in time for dinner and a speaking event at the Tallahassee Progressive Center. The dinner was primarily for the major donors who so generously supported Entisar’s tour through the South. After dinner, Entisar spoke at the Florida NOW meeting. For this meeting, Lydia had made pink name tags and a big pink donation box. Indeed, all of the events that Lydia organized over these two days in Tallahassee had so much thoughtfulness and hard work. These little details (and the big ones) made everyone feel good and grateful to be a part of the events. MONDAY, March 13 At 10:00 am Entisar spoke in Dr. Schlenoff’s Arabic class at Florida State University. Dr. Schlenoff is the Director of Muslim studies at the University. At 12:30 we attended a press conference for the Equal Rights Amendment at the Capitol. Lydia made the connection between the promise of women’s rights in the new Iraqi constitution and the apparent disregard for women at home, as evident by the exclusion of the ERA thusfar. Entisar spoke about how this promise of women’s rights has been false. We met with Florida's Congressman Curtis Richardson and Entisar spoke about the situation in Baghdad. We asked what he could do to help. He said he felt rather powerless as a minority Democrat. We went to a Middle Eastern restaurant for lunch and we all shared Turkish coffee. In the afternoon Entisar spoke at Florida A&M Univeristy to a very intergenerational crowd that had great questions about the status of women’s rights, the availability of medical supplies, and of course what will happen in Iraq if the troops leave. Entisar showed her slideshow with graphic images of what war really looks like. Students stayed afterwards to talk about military recruitment on campus and what they could do to get more involved in the peace movement. In the evening, Entisar did a one hour interview with the St. Petersburg Times over the phone with an interpreter. She said that the journalist was very attentive to her narrative, wanting to know all the details of her daily life in Baghdad. We look forward to seeing the story in St. Pete on Wednesday. We spent some time at Lydia’s house, where Lydia showed us her peace ribbon. At night, we returned to Florida State University to speak to the Amnesty International group. The students had excellent questions and the lively discussion didn’t end until almost 9 pm. We returned home to see ourselves on two news stations, footage from FAMU and the ERA press conference. Then we heard about the news of the street violence in Sadr City. It is impossible to describe this feeling of desperation and sadness that Entisar tries to explain. At every event we go to, someone always stands up and tearfully apologizes to Entisar for the US occupation. While it will take a lot more than an apology to make things right again, this important first step is very untraditional for America—The US did not apologize for the brutal murder of Native Americans, for the enslavement of Africans, for racism and discrimination, for building a colonial empire, for creating treaties that leave countries in grave poverty, for dropping bombs.... So there is something very moving to see these apologies happen. Always Entisar replies that she knows that there is a difference between the American people and our government, and that she has experienced so much kindness here during her travels. But, she says, while the Iraqi people used to revere America, desiring to travel and study here, since the occupation there is a growing hatred of Americans. She promises always to return to Iraq and share her stories of the people she has met here.

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator Straight Talk from Iraq
	The Capstone House announced the event in traditional Southern style on their marquee board.
	Entisar speaks with a retired Air Force vet and others at the Capstone House in Panama City.
	Entisar is interviewed by the regional news station.
	Rae Abileah, Entisar Ariabi, and Cheryl Sabel.

By Jodie Evans, CODEPINK Coofounder Thousands of us stood together at the Santa Monica Beach, north of the pier next to the Arlington West Memorial to represent the world uniting to say NO to war. Artist John Quigley created this powerful aerial image for us on a canvas so big it took a helicopter to capture it all; each time we have done this it has made the front page of the paper! Please circulate this beautiful image around the world, something to touch hearts, and an experience full of magic and community. (Click on images for enlarged view).

(Click on images for enlarged view)

Excerpt from Trish O'Kane's Speech in Montgomery, Alabama Today is a great day for women of the world and for all who believe in justice. Today, in Chile, Michelle Bachelet, a socialist, will become that country's first female president. This is a victory for all who love justice because on September 11, 1973, we installed the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, and that dictatorship tortured Michelle Bachelet's father to death. Thirty-three years later, the dictator is under house arrest, and the daughter of the victim is the democratically-elected leader of that nation. Bachelet has already named her cabinet--half her ministers are women and half are men. She is pushing legislation that will give all working women free childcare and set a quota of 40% for all political candidates--this means that 40% of all politicians in Chile will be women. I teach journalism at Loyola University in New Orleans and I speak of Chile today, because it is a story of hope. I heard this story yesterday on the radio as I drove out of New Orleans. It is a drive that I've made many weekends since I returned in January, and yet it is a drive that still makes me feel sick. The mile upon mile of empty rotting homes and communities that line the I-10 is not something one can, or should, get used to. And so I was filled with joy as I heard this news, and if you live in New Orleans today, you need a little hope and joy. In the midst of the muck, people are rebuilding. Some destroyed neighborhoods are now dotted with white trailers. Those who have the resources to rebuild are working very hard. Many do not have the resources, and are scattered across the nation, exiles in their own country. Some of my colleagues at work live in trailers now. Six months after the storm, in the richest nation on earth, some still do not have electricity. But they are at Loyola every day, doing the best they can. I am surrounded by fiercely proud and resilient people. But this stoic, muscular, roll-up--your--sleeves spirit cannot change one terrible truth: hurricane season begins in 82 days. The army corps says the levees will be ready. The independent commission of scientists and civil engineers says that they probably will not be, and that, in fact, in its haste, the army corps is making the same mistakes that led to the levee failures during Katrina. What we are living in New Orleans today is the result of our choices as a nation. We have chosen to destroy the infrastructure of other countries rather than to maintain and rebuild our own. We have allowed torture to become our official foreign policy. We have abdicated our responsibility to take care of our land and natural resources, and handed it over to oil companies and their cronies in power. We have put the wolves in charge of the henhouse. So I look South towards Chile today because I see that there are other choices. If Chileans can kick the war criminals out of their White House and put them under house arrest--so can we. If Chileans can elect a leader with vision who puts her people and the children first--so can we. We can, and we must. We must because Monday morning I once again will stand in front of 50 young faces, the faces of my 18, 19 and 20-year-old students, and in their eyes I see one question: --Do we have a future? Over 25,000 college students returned to New Orleans in January. Many were born and raised on the Gulf Coast. I'd like to end with their words. This was an assignment called "163 Words for President Bush." When Bush gave his State of the Union address, he dedicated exactly 163 words of a 6,000 word speech to the Gulf Coast, and many students were very angry about this. So Loyola gave this assignment: write to the President. Tell him in exactly 163 words how you feel. These letters are from freshman, or should I say freshwomen.

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator Montgomery, ALABAMA Departing Today Entisar and I begin our travels to the South. When we go through the security checkpoint at the airport, the woman checking ID takes one look at Entisar’s Iraqi passport and puts a big neon X on her ticket, singling her out for a special search. I calmly asked why Entisar is being asked to do this. The woman looks up with a blank face and says that this is just a routine, “random” search. Random? I want to shake this woman, to mouth off to her about the absurdity of homeland security which doesn’t protect us from terrorist attacks that we knew were coming or hurricanes that we knew would break the levies. Instead I walk through the x-ray machine area; I firmly tell the guard to get a female assist, and I wait on the other side of the glass as Entisar is patted down and her bags are searched. Usually I am overtly loud about my disagreement with the Bush administration when I am in the process of getting to the boarding gate at the airport. Now, I am silent, wanting only to feel the comfort of being safely on the plane, knowing that to miss this flight would make our visit to Alabama meaningless. Entisar is through the checkpoint and we are once again walking arm in arm to the terminal. I tell Entisar that I am frustrated by this security process, that it is ineffective, and that I am ashamed that she was singled out. She says that security is not such a bad idea, that it may be necessary, but that it doesn’t make sense that security should be so strict here, while the US soldiers can come into her country without a passport or a visa or an x-ray, can bring all their tanks and weapons in without asking anyone. Entisar has a way of cutting through everything peripheral and getting to the point. She takes the frustration and the challenges and makes them at once so painfully real with such frank honesty that everything around us here in America becomes an illusion. In Flight On the airplane we discuss women’s reproductive rights since Entisar will be speaking at a National Organization for Women (NOW) rally and because my ears are popped in I talk loud so that when I get up the retired couple sitting behind us ask me what the NOW position is on “partial birth” abortion. I explain the misnomer in the terminology and talk about the circumstances in which second trimester abortion would occur, and I think that these people must be very conservative. But a little more conversation reveals that they are ardently anti-war, but afraid of an immediate exit strategy. By the end of the conversation, the woman, who tells us that she is a nurse and a healthcare instructor, is eager to hear more of Entisar’s story and takes numerous flyers so that she can tell her family in other parts of the country about the women’s tour. Montgomery, Alabama We land in Birmingham, AL where we are met by Reverend Jack Zylman and Alabama NOW president Kim Adams. We load our cumbersome luggage into one car and ourselves into another. We go to the Montgomery NOW meeting at the Montgomery library. This is only the second meeting of the new Montgomery NOW chapter, and yet it draws about 50 people! There are door prizes, spoken word about sexual assault, an African cane dance, a full lunch catered with food donated by local businesses, and compelling speeches. Entisar is the key speaker and her words are translated by Dr. Hussein Latif. Here are some highlights of what Entisar talked about: The situation for women in Iraq has severely worsened since the occupation. The abuse of women occurs in three areas: sexual abuse (example: female detainees are violated. One former detainee told Entisar that all she wants is to die by suicide, even though she knows that this is forbidden by Muslim law. When she walks in the streets, she feels as if everyone has violated her.); physical abuse (example: soldiers searching for men in private houses take women and taunt/torture them with violent dogs); psychological abuse (example: shooting children in front of their mothers). This is the situation of Iraqi women under the occupation of the US military. Here are some words from the question and answer time: Q: Was there anything the US soldiers did that was good? A: Yes, they brought a new refrigerator to keep dead bodies in the hospital Q: Has the US killed more people than Saddam? A: Saddam was a dictator who practiced his own atrocities like other dictators in the region. Now there is no government, no safety, no army, and so there are more random deaths. Saddam targeted those who were against him; now everyone is being killed. Q: Why would American soldiers shoot children? A: I don’t know. Ask the soldiers. Q: How should the US leave Iraq? A: The US should announce their intent to leave and then leave gradually, over several months (not years). There should be an international peacekeeping group not composed of American or coalition troops. Q: How have women’s rights changed? A: Now there are rules that women cannot go certain places, such as colleges, without being covered. The old law under Saddam around polygamy stated that a man must have his wife’s permission before marrying a second wife The new law states that a man does not need his wife’s permission. After the meeting we drive to the Alabama state capitol, a tall Southern white building with long columns and an even longer staircase leading up to the entrance. About 75-80 people gather on the capitol steps, a commendable showing for Montgomery NOW’s first major event and for Alabama in general. Sam Joi, Berkeley CODEPINK coordinator, joins us at the rally with her big CODEPINK truck! Women at the International Women’s Day Speak Out talked about harassment, immigration, women prisoners, fetal homicide legislation, hurricane Katrina, racism, sexual assault, domestic violence, mother’s and children’s rights, equal marriage, and more Entisar is the first speaker. Entisar looks out over the people and tall stone staircase and the wide avenue, the trees lining the streets, the modern government offices, the shiny cars, the blue sky and puffy white clouds, and her voice cracks and she asks why it is that we have all that we could want and are free to dream and live in this beautiful city, while her beautiful city, Baghdad, has been destroyed, totally crushed, the rivers polluted, the buildings bombed. The word that comes to mind for me is superimposition. In my mind the white capitol building become a canvas on which to project the images of hospitals turned into rubble, roofs caved in on bedrooms, shattered glass and mangled metal, putting these photos of destruction I have seen over and over during this past week on top of this clean and perfect place. Superimposing occupation on the occupier. America is a super imposition in Iraq. It is time for the reality of Iraq to be imposed on us.

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator Here are photos of our first day of actions in Montgomery, Alabama!
	Dr. Entesar Mohammad Ariabi speaks at the Alabama NOW rally on the capitol steps of Montgomery, Alabama. Dr. Hussein Latif translated for Dr. Ariabi.
	Entesar in front of the civil rights center.
	Cheryl Sabel, president of the Montgomery NOW chapter and event coordinator, speaks out about reproductive rights.
	The capitol of Alabama and the moon.
NOW: Get out of Iraq By Crystal Bonvillian, Montgomery Advertiser Entisar Mohammad Ariabi spoke tearfully in her native tongue to a crowd of about 50 people gathered on the steps of the Alabama Capitol on Saturday. A moment later, the physician's words were translated into English. "Thank you, Mr. Bush. You have done a lot to the Iraqi people," Hussein Latif of Birmingham said. "Why don't you leave now, so we can live in peace?" Ariabi's visit to Montgomery was the highlight of a rally the Montgomery chapter of the National Organization for Women sponsored to celebrate International Women's Day. Brought to the United States by Code Pink, a national women's anti-war organization, Ariabi is one of several Iraqi women who travel and speak about life in her war-torn country. She spoke of bombings in her home city that destroyed hospitals, pregnant women with no medical care and children born with congenital defects. Latif translated to a hushed crowd that each time Ariabi tells her five children goodbye, the family prays it is not for the last time. Then they pray that if they do die, they do so before they are taken hostage and tortured, he said. "This is part of what it is like in my country, and this is a gift from your Mr. Bush," Ariabi said through Latif. The topic of the Iraq war was just one of many at the two-hour long rally that also touched on women's issues such as harassment of immigrant women, racism, domestic violence, sexual assault and equal marriage rights. Cheryl Sabel, acting president of Montgomery NOW, discussed a proposed bill by Sen. Hank Erwin, R-Montevallo, that would make abortion illegal except when the mother's life is in jeopardy. Sabel called the bill an "open attack" on women and said legalized abortion is a right that should not be taken away. "Anti-choice forces are not 'pro-life,'" Sabel said. "Without access to safe and legal abortion, women die." Sabel also condemned a House bill that would include a fetus as a person when it comes to criminal homicide and assault. She argued that it would give rights to a potential life while taking rights away from an existing one. She also said the law would be a backdoor way for lawmakers to get abortion banned. "Do not be fooled," Sabel told the crowd. "To have a law that defines a fetus as a person in one case and not in another is patently absurd." Attendees of the rally praised all of the women who spoke. "It was very informative," said Katherine Story of Birmingham. "I learned a lot." Tripp Holman, also of Birmingham, agreed. "I thought it was great," Holman said. "It was good to hear their stories, but sad that they had them to tell."

By Todd Smyth Brief Report on Dr. Entisar's Talk at Adams Mosque in Northern Virginia: We've turned Iraq into a slaughterhouse.Each week they are overwhelmed by hundreds of severely wounded women and children and they have run out of capacity for the many orphans created everyday. Diseases like polio have returned. Birth defects from depleted uranium are widespread. There is little clean water. They are living in a sewer. The divisions between Shiites and Sunnis is exaggerated. The civil war is being manufactured. The reason most of the US soldiers still think there is a link between Iraq and 9/11 is because they were led to believe this, and they were let loose in Iraq to take revenge for 9/11.This has led to the random and abusive treatment of Iraqis, which in turn has led to the overwhelming resistance. The US is completely distrusted and for the most part hated, and are only making the situation worse by also attracting the Jihadists. The Iraqis know Bush has said "we fight them in Iraq so we don't have to fight them in America," and we've turned their country into hell on earth.
	Dr. Entisar Mohammad Ariabi.
	Audience members asking questions.

Dear friends of the Pink Code: Just as we announced some days ago, the Federation of Cuban Women (FCW) summed itself to the Call of women for peace, which you lead. We have also conveyed the call to all the women’s organizations with which we have relations. In Cuba this year, we had a one-week celebration in commemoration of International Women’s Day from the 1st to the 8th of March. Our organization drafted a message which denounces terrorism, and the imperial wars waged in any part of the world; recalls the special sensitivity of our people concerning this issue because it has been victim of aggressions perpetrated by successive governments of the U.S. for more than four decades. It also explicitly mentions our solidarity with the Call of women for peace. This message of the Federation of Cuban Women was read amidst the groups of the organization at the grassroots. We also realized activities at the 169 municipalities of the country and have already gathered more than 300, 000 signatures that adhere to the Call, in representation of the more than 4 million members of the organization. We should have much more signatures because the activities organized in the 14 provinces of Cuba are still today taking place. Then tomorrow, we will make a statement in the national rally which will take place at the Anti-imperialist Tribune “Jose Marti”, located in Havana, facing the US Interest Section of the Government of the United States. Prominent women scientists, artists, parliament members, Olympic and world championship medal winners, farmers, workers, students, housewives and leaders wrote down their names under the slogan “Cuban women against war and terrorism”. We have elaborated an album comprised of pages of signatures collected and a video, which depict some images of those moments that took place in different parts of the country. We will soon send you both documents and the total amount of signatures. They will serve as a testimony of the joint effort in which the woman of Cuba, join hands with the women of the United States and worldwide, to firmly pronounce ourselves against the imperial policy of the Bush Administration, with the cry of NO to war and NO to terrorism. Affectionately, FEDERATION OF CUBAN WOMEN

By Cynthia Boaz, Ph.D. Department of Political Science & International Studies, State University of New York, CODEPINK Coordinator
	We had about 75 people at the March 8 event, including supporters from NOW, the Raging Grannies, Veterans for Peace, the Green Party, and MoveOn.

Photos By Jo Freeman, www.JoFreeman.com Photos from the Women Say No To War Rally at the Iraqi Embassy & March to the White House to deliver the Women’s Call for Peace and more than 100,000 signatures.
	CODEPINK cofounder Medea Benjamin addressing the rally.
	Marching to the White House
	Peace Puppets from Baltimore, Maryland (b. Fort Benning, Georgia, protesting the School of the Americas) Thank you Lynn Robinson, Cindy Scheldorf and all the puppetistas!
	Women Say NO to War banners!
	Iraqi delgates addressing the rally.
	CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin and Gold Star Mother Elaine Johnson delivering the women's Call and more than 100,000 signatures to the White House.
	Iraqi delegates with Elaine Johnson, Iraq Vet Eli Painted Crow and CODEPINK co-founders Gael Murphy, Jodie Evans & Medea Benjamin.
	CODEPINK supporters at the rally.

Yesterday my sister Cindy Sheehan was arrested outside of the U.S. mission to the United Nations. A contingent of women which included Cindy, CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin, Missy Beattie a GSFP member whose Nephew Chase Comley was killed in Iraq and eight Iraqi women were attempting to deliver the Women Say no to War petition to the U.S. mission. This visit was pre approved by the mission. As the women arrived one of New York’s finest cited a change of plans from “higher up” and moved in to arrest them. Four of the women, Cindy, Medea, Missy and CODEPINK member Patti Ackerman were handled very roughly during their arrest. The women linked arms when it became apparent they were to be arrested. For this they were physically abused and charged with resisting arrest. What will it take for the majority of you who don’t support the occupation of Iraq or the Bush regime to rise up? Polls tell us that 59% of you believe the occupation is wrong and we are being lied to by Bush. I do not see 160 million of you out in the streets. Again, what will it take? I will tell you what it took to get me off of my ass. It took my sweet beautiful nephew Casey’s blood spilling in Sadr City Baghdad. It took watching my sister and family suffer a pain I don’t think I can ever explain well enough but know it is a pain I would not even wish on the Bush family. I feel an indefensible guilt because of my apathy. I live daily thinking maybe Casey and 2300 other kids would still be alive if I had been in the streets prior to March 19 2003. Our civil rights are slowly being taken from us. The Senate voted 89-10 to renew the Patriot Act. It still must pass the house. After hearing of the Dubai port deal and learning of the illegal wire tapping of Peace activists it is very apparent to me that the Patriot Act is used more to curtail the actions of U.S. citizens than to protect us from Terrorists. Patriot Act II will further increase the powers of the Bush regime and further diminish our rights. So when will you wake up and rise up? Will it be when you are arrested for trying to deliver a petition to a Government entity that your tax dollar pays? Will it be when you are arrested for wearing a shirt a government official finds offensive? Will it be when your e-mails and phone conversations are monitored by the NSA? Will it be when your Childs brains are blown out in a foreign country? Tell me please what it will take? I was having this conversation with a dear friend of mine. Someone on our side. But a person comfortable in life and as yet untouched by the last 5 years. When I asked her to speak out, call her congressman, newspaper, etc. She said to me “who would listen?” my answer to her, no one if you don’t do anything. I can’t stress enough to you. At some point your life is going to be impacted by this administration of evil and greed. I implore you, I beg you, don’t wait until it is too late. The time is now to take our country back. The time is now to make our elected official do our will. Non Violent Civil Disobedience is a time tested and proven tool to effect change. To quote Ghandi: You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul. We must as Rep. Maxine Waters puts it “put street heat” on congress. It is time for us to as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it “ cast our whole vote”. You must now be willing to do as much as you can to reclaim our country. Can you make daily phone calls to your Senators and Congressmen? I think you can. Can you get out one hour a week in front of the homes of your Congressional reps demanding they do our will? I think you can. Will you dig your heals in and stand your ground when they will not listen? I think you should. It is time to go Ghandi on them……will you? In Peace, Dede Miller Proud Auntie of Casey Sheehan KIA Iraq 04/04/04 Gold Star Families for Peace www.gsfp.org Please visit our website for ways to get active

Photos By Jo Freeman, www.JoFreeman.com Photos from the Women Say No To War Public Forum and Music event at Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington D.C. Attended by Gold Star Moms Cindy Sheehan and Elaine Johnson, Anas Shallal, Eman Khamas, Nadje Al-Ali, Faiza Al-Araji, Medea Benjamin, Ann Wright and others… Musical Guests: In Process, Holly Near and Emma’s Revolution.
	Public forum and discussion with Women Say NO to War supporters.
	2,300 Dead, Not One More!
	Holly Near singing.
	Iraqi delegates talking about the devastating impact of the war on Iraq.
	Iraqi delegates participating in the musical event.
	Honoring the memory of US bombing victims in Iraq.
	CODEPINK gear on sale!

I'm Joan Wile, founder/director of Grandmothers Against the War, and one of the Granny Jailbirds 18. I was so moved by the Iraqi women's talk yesterday at the community church that as soon as I got home I wrote the following letter and sent it to a wide list of people. Some have written me back already and indicated they've circulated it much further. You might be interested in reading it. Here it is: I had an incredible experience today, and I wanted to share it with all my friends who I know are concerned about the situation in Iraq. I attended an event sponsored by CODEPINK at which four Iraqi women currently living in Iraq spoke to us about conditions there. Even though so many of us have been trying in various ways to end this awful war -- our vigils, protests, letters, petitions, jailings and so on -- after hearing the women speak one was imbued with a greater determination than ever to try and end this monstrous occupation. One woman, quite beautiful, a pharmacist in the biggest hospital in Iraq, talked about the lack of medicines -- an extreme shortage of anesthesia and other critically needed medications. She spoke of the lack of sterilizing equipment so that when they perform operations many patients die afterwards from infections gotten in the operating rooms. We learned of women going into labor at night who have no means of getting to the hospital because of curfews and banning of ambulances after dark and the fact that so many such women and their unborn and just-born babies die as a result. Another woman spoke in obvious agony of the terrible conditions -- the fact of having electricity only for an hour or two a day, the fact of not being able to send their kids to school for fear they will be shot or bombed, and so many other terrible hardships caused by the American occupation. She said that contrary to what our government and the Iraqi government says, the Americans there are DOING NOTHING to help the people. She said the people overwhelmingly want the Americans to leave. They all ask, "What the hell are they (the Americans) doing here?" They joke about the supposed democracy we are bringing. When another car bomb explodes and kills people, for instance, they say, "Another example of the democracy Bush is bringing us." These women came here at great risk in order to try and get their vital message out to the American people. They will be taken to red states where they hope to make a dent in some of the prevailing misconceptions about the Iraq situation. One woman spoke of the fact they would probably not be able to return to Iraq for fear of being killed by their government. She will stay in Jordan in a camp until the situation hopefully changes in her homeland. I asked her a daring question, but I really wanted her answer, as many others undoubtedly do. I asked if it was better under Hussein than now, and she said, YES. He was bad in some ways, she said, but the situation was much better under his dictatorship than now with the American occupation. These women broke my heart. They begged for our help, for our getting Bush out of office, for our greater efforts at stopping the war. I needed to describe this experience in the hope that we'll all, me certainly included, redouble our efforts to stop the terrible crime we are committing against these wonderful people....so intelligent, so noble, and so committed to helping save their country. And, to our shame by the way, they speak beautiful English. Let's all try do more, if we possibly can. It's literally become a matter, I think, of saving the world from total breakdown. Joan

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator Photos from the reception for the Iraqi & US women’s delegation hosted by CODEPINK and Andy Shallal at Busboys & Poets in Washington D.C. This event was attended by Gold Star Moms Cindy Sheehan and Elaine Johnson, Whistleblower Ann Wright, and CODEPINK co-founders Medea Benjamin, Jodie Evans and Gael Murphy. Invited guests included Ralph Nader and Congress members, John Conyers, Dennis Kucinich, Barbabra Lee, Cynthia McKinney, Hilda Solis, Maxine Waters and Lynn Woolsey among other special guests from the peace and justice community.
	CODEPINK co-founder Jodie Evans addressing the participants. This event was incredibly moving as each of the Iraqi women gave a short, heartfelt introduction, demanding that every person in Iraq should be given the same opportunity to security, happiness, opportunity, that the women see everywhere here in America (Stay tuned for more on their talk).
	Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey with the Iraqi women delegates.
	CODEPINK co-founder Gael Murphy speaking.
	Elaine Johnson, who lost her son in the Iraq.

March 6, 2006: Photos from the Iraqi - US Delegation to the UN, New York City. See related news articles: [ 1 ]  [ 2 ]  [ 3 ]
	Cindy Sheehan with Iraqi Delegates at the Women Say NO to War press conference outside the U.S. mission to the United Nations. Dr. Entisar Mohammad Ariabi, a pharmacist at the Yarmook Teaching Hospital in Baghdad, has documented the deteriorating health system. She became tearful when recalling the deaths and injuries she said she has witnessed daily. She estimated that 1,600 Iraqis are killed in Baghdad every month, with a greater number injured. "Thanks for the liberation from Saddam" Hussein, Dr. Entisar Mohammad Ariabi said, addressing the Bush administration, "now please go out."
	Eman Ahmad Khamas dons a pink tunic for the march. She is a human rights advocate who has documented abuses by the occupation forces. Iraqi women described daily killings and ambulance bombings as part of the escalating violence that keeps women in their homes.
	Dr. Entisar Mohammad Ariabi is interviewed by Al-Jazeera news.
	Cindy Sheehan with Iraqi Delegates at the Women Say NO to War press conference.
	Cindy Sheehan and Medea Benjamin hold up the Women Say NO to War Call, signed by more than 100,000 people worldwide, calling for the immediate end of the war in Iraq.
	Women Say NO to War press conference outside the United Nations.
	Women Say NO to War press conference outside the U.S. mission to the United Nations.
	Cofounder Medea Benjamin with Iraqi women delegates. CODEPINKers marched from the UN to the US Mission to the UN.
	Women Say NO to War demanding an immediate withdrawl of US troops from Iraq.
	Ann Wright, a former U.S. Army colonel and U.S. diplomat, told the press that the U.S. Mission to the UN refused to send someone to meet with the women "whose lives and families have been shattered by this destructive and immoral war." The protesters refused to leave without delivering the petition. Pictured here are: Medea Benjamin, Cindy Sheehan, Rev. Patty Ackerman, and Missy Beattie.
	As a result, both CODEPINK Cofounder Medea Benjamin and Cindy Sheehan were arrested, cuffed and dragged away.
	Cindy Sheehan being dragged away by the police.

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator Sunday afternoon CODEPINK held a reception/ event at the Community Church, New York with the Iraqi delegation, Cindy Sheehan of Goldstar Families for Peace, Holly Near, Medea Benjamin and other special guests.
	Sarah, event co-organizer, speaks about CODEPINK New York.
	Holly Near sang and spoke at the reception and event.
	Dr. Ariabi speaks about the devastating impact of the war on the health care system in Bagdad.
	CODEPINK cofounder Medea Benjamin speaking.
	Iraqi women delegates.
	CODEPINK sign!
	CODEPINK gear on sale!

By Rae Abileah, CODEPINK Local Group Coordinator Photos from the first full day of this historic week of action with the Iraqi women delegates, starting in New York City.
	Pictured here are the Iraqi women delegates with the crew from Deep Dish productions, who spent the afternoon interviewing the women individually and as a group dialogue.
	Iraqi women delegates: Faiza, Entisar, and Eman. Meeting with the Entisar, Eman, and Faiza is something I cannot yet put into words. Their stories and discussions are raw and heart opening and full of a pain that is beyond pain and a hope that is beyond hope.
	When CODEPINK Cofounder Medea Benjamin arrived in New York from San Francisco, we all went out for a late afternoon walk through Central Park to see the snow. We spent the evening talking, working and eating.
	The delegates with Rae Abileah in Central Park.