Nothing can express the feelings of excitement and trepidation that being in Saddam Hussein's Iraq brings to the heart. Here in the Northern section of the country, what is unofficially, one of the capitals of Kurdistan, one senses how grueling a life this oil-rich country had imposed upon its impoverished people. Just getting here and finding a "safe" way into the country was a challenge all its own. Getting out will be no less stimulating.
I arrived in the Turkish capitol of Ankara not knowing a soul and unaware of the surroundings. The most I knew of Turkey was that it was the former Roman province of Asia Minor, the place where the followers of the way were first called Christians and the home of the seven churches of the book of the Revelation. The other thing I knew was that it is a major center of Islam. In fact, it had been the Caliphate, with the Sultan serving as the Muslim equivalent of the Catholic Pope until Kemal Ataturk led his people into the modern world after WWI.
I was armed with several letters of introduction written by my Kurdish friends in their own tongue. I was told to go to the Besh Yildiz hotel, which meant, Five Star Hotel. The neon sign made up of five flashing stars made me laugh since three of the stars had fizzled out some time at some point in the past and had never been replaced in the Ulus section of the city, a dark, dingy place in the older part of Ankara. In this hotel were several hundred Kurds who had managed to escape Iraq and who had somehow helped the US military in a significant manner during its fight with Saddam. They were awaiting permission to come to the States for a new life as a recompense for their service to the military cause. Nevertheless, in the mean time, their lives were abhorrent. The hotel was infested with roaches, lizards, flies and stunned, frightened people.
There were three families in this hotel that had been in the infamous village of Halabja on Iraq's Eastern border with Iran. These families were three of the few who had been able to shield themselves from the poison gas that Saddam had exploded in their village during the Iraq/Iran war as human guinea pigs to see how effective his new weapon of mass destruction was. One of the three families had been expecting a child when Saddam committed this crime against Humanity. I saw their child. She was beautiful and strong with only one striking result of the chemical attack. She was born without eyes. I was unable to respond in my own language to such a travesty and I was glad to have not known their language, at that moment.
It was an experience to sit on the floor, huddled around a large bowel of rice, stuffed tomatoes, zucchinis, peppers and grape leaves. I found these poor lost families to be amongst the most pleasant people I had ever met. They welcomed me and let me know that they were grateful for what America had done for them. Yet, there was a sadness that we had not gone all the way to Baghdad to rid them of Saddam so those who wished to could return home to their families. There was one young Iraqi who sat quietly directly in front of me. His name was Hassan and he was 21 years old. As I struck up a limited conversation with him I discovered that he was a former member of Saddam's Republican guard. He had been forced to join because of his academic skills and his hearty size. He shared with me how his decision to defect and to help the Americans had so drastically changed his life, both positively and negatively. His choice had separated him from his family. He was fearful that if Iraqi military intelligence learned of his treachery, they would kill his parents and siblings. I immediately felt a friendship develop between the two of us. It was after meeting him and living with all of them for two weeks that I decided that I had to go to Iraq to see the situation and to see how our organization could help in some small way. I made Hassan a promise also. I told him that he needed to write letters and find pictures and whatever else he wished to give his family and that I would make sure they received them. That would become one of the most moving experiences of my life.
Thank God for the Guney Express. The word express truly is a misnomer for this train that I had choosen to board on my way east through Turkey. This slow and cumbersome train took me all the way to the Eastern border of Turkey in a rapid time of four days. It was not that I boarded the wrong train but rather that I choose this train for a journey that gave me a tremendous look at the culture of Turkey from the modern center of the country to the rustic and tough Eastern portion. I felt many eyes on me; the foreigner seldom seen on such archaic forms of travel as the slowest train in the rail system of Turkey clicked and clattered down the long metal highway. By the time I arrived in Dyarbakir, the capitol of the east and the unofficial capitol of Kurdistan, I had seen the fields being prepared for harvest, the towns that were continually rattled by sand storms and a people rough and hardened by a life that is mean and laborious and somehow romantic. Nevertheless, I could not but respect these people for their determination to eek out a life in the sand of a moderate desert lifestyle.
Dyarbakir's appearance was nothing short of a page out of some spaghetti western. It is a rugged city with teeming groups of nomadic tribesmen from the Kurdish population. The train station was more like a stable and as I ventured out to the streets to take a bus to the border with Iraq, I felt like a sore on the end of someone's nose.
It was about 3:15 PM when I boarded a minibus for the boarder town of Harbour. The trip was astounding. The periodic police stops and the road that ran along the Syrian border created a tense situation as outposts were set up from both sides about every 100 yards. It was easy to see guns trained on each side. It was dark when I arrived in the boarder town so I took a taxi all the way to the US military encampment. The officers were not ecstatic about my presence, but they gave me a smoldering place to sleep in the radio room. The next morning would be one to remember.
Early in the morning I met with the director of the UN in the town. He informed me that if I entered the country of Iraq and was captured, I would be responsible for myself. That was not delightful to hear, but I had already known that. The bus dropped me in front of a checkpoint. Out in front of me was a long bridge. The other side of that bridge was the land of Saddam, which had only recently been pummeled to bits by Coalition forces. There were not even any Iraqi government authorities at the checkpoint and everyone was coming and going at will. I walked up to the bridge and began to walk across. When I arrived to the center of the bridge, a sign was posted that indicated that one or two more steps would plant my feet in the country of Iraq. I did pause momentarily, but nothing could stop this event whose time had come for me. I walked on and felt the weight of entering a land like this one. I had previously visited 32 other countries. This one was by far the most intriguing. I had made a promise to Hassan, and I intended to let his family know that he was alive and well.
When I reached the checkpoint on the Iraqi side of the bridge, this time I could see many security officers, but with the appearance of something out of the Arabian Knights. These guards were called the Pesh Merga. They wore large turbans, patchwork gowns and strapped across each shoulder was either an automatic riffle, rocket launcher or bazooka, not to mention knives and swords at their sides and the bullet belts strapped on their chests. I was of the impression that security was to put your mind at ease. To say the least, it did not. I walked up to one of them and handed him a letter that I had received from my Kurdish friends at the Besh Yildiz Hotel in Ankara, Turkey. He read it and then called over two more officers. One of them motioned to me to come over. He took me by the arm and placed me in a taxi. I was on my way; to where, I had no idea.
The trip was definitely not one for the faint of heart. The roads were rough and the trip was one that made me wonder where I was going from under the blanket placed over my body in the back seat of the taxi. At first, I thought that I was being hidden from danger but I quickly understood that I was not to know where I was going which ended up being the headquarters of the Kurdish resistance. I recall feeling the taxi stop and being asked to get out of the car. I looked up and saw the rugged mountains all around me and in the distance and also close up I could see the battered shells of Saddam's military outposts almost every 200 yards. It was easy to see how his brute-force tactics had kept the very independent and rugged Kurds in check. Soon another car came and took me just outside the city of Zeweita.
I was led into a large room where several elderly imam types were seated on the beautiful hand-woven carpets on the floor and reclining against the soiled and drearily painted white-washed walls. I sat down as they were and they all nodded their heads in a welcome gesture. I sat there waiting for something to happen or for someone to arrive. After about 20 minutes of deafening silence, a man came in. He was in a military uniform and looked worn and ready and tough. He walked over to me and I stood to greet him and to hand him the letter I had from my Kurdish friends back in Ankara. He read it and then asked me to sit back down. As I did, he joined me. He pulled out a gun from his left side and one from his right. He laid one next to me and placed the other at his side. I surmised that this was a gesture to symbolize that he trusted me. Then a woman carried in a large round dish and placed it in front of us. It was full of rice, dolma, (various stuffed vegetables) and two spoons.
We ate and as we did the wise soldier, Mr. Yasmadine Yusef told me about the history of Saddam towards his people and how they had been so disappointed that America had not finished the job. He was nevertheless grateful because the Kurds had found a unity that they had never possessed before. He said that the Kurdish people would never let Saddam take them by force again and so he was right. I was very impressed with the people and their commitment of making the Kurdish people's lives much better. Nothing can describe what one feels when you see such an oil-rich land as Iraq is and yet living is such dire poverty because of the greedy, evil and vicious desires of a tyrant such as Saddam. There was no doubt that the intentions of this evil dictator had been to rule the Middle-East. I will never forget the emotions and feelings that were engendered by meeting this fearless man and his troops. I will never feel that such a people should be left to fend for themselves when the civilized world has the power to set them free, and so we should have. That had to be left for another time.
After leaving this place that was so representative to my imagination of what the Wild-Wild West must have been. I knew that I would never again simply take my freedom for granted. I knew that I would never again view the freedom we hold dear as one to be simply coddled, but defended at all cost. I asked the driver to find the address of my friend Hassan's parents.
After we managed to find the house I walked up to the door and banged on the metal and it clanged loudly. A middle-aged man stuck his head out then a woman and then several young faces. I was startled and yet so very excited, for I brought good tidings of great joy for them. I tried to explain though I clearly could not. Then I held up a photo for them and the woman snatched from my hands and exclaimed, "Hassan! Hassan!" The man said in broken English, "You know our Hassan?" I shook my head in the affirmative. I gave them the money and the letters and Hassan's mother grabbed me and began to hug me and kissed my cheeks in great joy and unbelief. Through translation, I was told that they had given up hoping he was yet a live and after two hours and a great meal, I left them with a new reason to live. I will never experience anything as exhilarating and powerful again. The joy of families knowing their kids have a life that is worth living and that there is a future for them better than the life they had experienced is worth helping them to live with out fear, domination and death all around them.
So, America, today as we battle the forces of evil in a land so far away, do not believe the voices of decent who scream loudly in support of killing babies and marrying same-sex couples but decry America's noble causes of ridding America of the threat of a terrorist regime like Saddam's. Remember the Hassans who long to spread their wings and cry out with their voices in the same way we do; with the voice of freedom.
