Iraq & Iraqi`s

From Dubai

2005-03-03T11:10:00.000Z

More than a month passed and we didn’t have our elected government yet, but guess what, we don’t care, actually…..we are waiting for the announcement of the new Prime Minister name very anxiously, but between Mr. Alawy or Mr. Jaffary we are happy for any one of them to be the next P M, both of them are more than excellent choice for the position. And its not me only saying that, all the Iraqis who are taking a role in rebuilding the country had started reactivating their business for the coming period and I am posting this article from Dubai doing some business for the company I work to preparing ourselves for the coming opportunities and by coincidence I met other Iraqi friends from other companies here doing the same.
Seeing Dubai for the first time was very important for me and maybe for all Iraqis, just to put it as an example, or a goal to reach and do the same or maybe more in our country.
It’s my first vacation outside Iraq and I am enjoying it very much. Here I felt what is really globalization means, that ward which get criticism from many people and whole countries protest against it, well its not that bad actually it’s real good and you can feel that in Dubai, because it’s a city with no natural resources but the good planning, good administration and real open for globalization policy, that’s only a personal point of view and a thought I had.

We did It

2005-02-01T10:49:00.000Z

Friday the 28th Jan 2005
I woke up on the sounds of the explosion targeting the Dora electric power station and later the sound of the trapped car in Dora too and many other uncomfortable sounds, but I knew it was my last day to get out of the neighborhood, so I went to get fuel for my car and my generator and for the kerosene heaters we have home. And the streets were not bad but not crowded. My wife asked me not to attend the work tomorrow, but I told her I have to be there and it’s not that far from home and I asked those employees who live far from the company not to come to work.

Saturday the 29th Jan 2005
We woke up on the sounds of machine gun shots, very close to our house and we didn’t hear the usual car sounds on the close main street. So I woke up late and went to our house roof to find the streets are closed by the police and the Iraqi army forces, and the shots were in the air to worn the cars to go back home or to its neighborhoods, all Baghdad areas were closed and no one allowed to move outside his district, and when I used the car to do some inside district shopping, I was followed by a police car to be sure where am I going but it was a very calm day except the warning shots. At night we were very sure it will be very calm Election Day tomorrow. At that exact night and when we were watching the election propaganda on TV my 5 year old daughter turned to me and said “Daddy we must vote”.

Sunday the 30th Jan 2005
Finally the day………I woke up on the sounds of far away mortars, but I put my clothes on, and took my morning tea and went to the expected voting center alone to vote, I thought it will not be safe to take my wife with me, at least in the morning. It was 9.30 AM and it was closed, I didn’t understand why, when I asked the gathered people there I was told it was moved to another school (which was even closer to my house) I went to my parent in law house and we took our morning coffee and later I went to the voting center which was very very crowded with people, old, young, high educated, low educated, men, women and there I saw the very old lady who came with her family, two of them helping her to walk and a third with a chare to let her sit down when she’s tired, and for the first time I saw the Iraqis stand in a very ordered line waiting for the center employees to complete moving in. at about 10.30 AM, voting started and we went in, to face the biggest problem which was many of us had no names registered, at then we told the center head employee to do something, we are Iraqis with documentation and we expected to go where we registered but the streets are closed and according to the procedure of painting the right pointer finger we want to vote, otherwise we are going to press charges against him, and for me if they were not going to let me vote I was to write the number of candidate list I am intending to vote to on a piece of paper and put it in the box and press charges against him, That’s what I told the man exactly and many people agreed on what I said. So the man went to phone his superiors and came back after few minutes to tell us we have to show any Iraqi documentation and vote after painting our pointer finger with ink, and we all did with pride, it was a celebrating day that many of us will remember for years to come.

Later about 1.30 PM I took my wife and daughter to let my wife vote too and the center was less crowded and things went easy and nice. Cars were not allowed, so and because it was our first time to take a walk after five years since my wife was pregnant, we continued walking to the close shop and it took us 45 minutes. After we came back to pass the voting center to our house we were shocked to see hundreds and hundreds of people walking miles to come to that same center to vote, sure it was unexpected number of people, and we could feel easily that they were happy to do so.

Many people died today while voting, its 7.00 PM now and the media is saying about 36 persons died by terrorist actions, may be more. On one time in Baghdad today terrorists used a Mongoloid boy (a boy with a mental illness) to trap him and send him to a voting center and it worked he died and killed few people, which confirms one thing, that we have a terrorist gang no more in Baghdad must be caught and punished. Things went alright in many parts and people went to vote in huge numbers even in Falluja. No body expected that number of voters, I felt afraid in the morning when I went to vote, now things are changed and I feel strong and ready to fight terrorists because I know for sure that the number of Iraqis who will stand behind me will terrify the terrorists and lead this country to prosperity.

Many things happened today for, example:
A suicidal terrorist exploded himself while a policeman was searching him before letting him in a voting center.
An old exited man died by a heart attack after voting.
Many terrorists were caught from many countries a Syrian, Sudani, and even a Chechanyan.
For the first time after April 2003 we could see Iraqi army tanks and armored division in the streets.
An Iraqi solder died alone holding a trapped terrorist who was trying to explode a voting center.

Monday 31st Jan 2005
We spent this day home too, no body allowed to leave his district till 12.00 PM, even after that we spent the rest of the day home, it was boring but it was an opportunity for me to finish this article and watch the news on TV. All the world happy for us, and its obvious now that those who didn’t vote for any reason not only to record their protest against the elections, maybe some were not capable to reach the centers, others didn’t have centers and election boxes, others were afraid, and maybe some had no enough time to vote, because I saw with my own eyes people who came to the center after five o’clock and found it closed. But at the end they were all minority and no body should believe that Iraqis….all Iraqis don’t have a fair chance in new Iraq and those who didn’t take that chance till now they are not late they can tack their chance now or keep silent for ever.

About those who are going to keep protesting, holding and delaying our march to the bright future, I would like to bring to their mind one small thing, the new government will be formed in few days and they will have a long year before the next elections and as an Iraqi I know that the new government will use all the strength they will have or reach (the Iraqi way) to finish the terrorists and any political party who may count on terrorism to apply their agenda.

No harm with democracy and we proved that we can live the democratic way and will spend the few coming years to learn more about democracy, But………..violence can only be stopped by violence. And a walking bomb can only be stopped before it becomes a bomb.

At last I can only say thank you all, for supporting us, we cant forget about the help we had, I hope we showed that we deserve that help. GOD BLESS YOU.

Order

2005-01-23T11:15:00.000Z

Order is needed in every system, and law would assure the order in any society. Law either respected or enforced, so if the society would not respect the law then it must fear it.

After spending five day in a business trip to Basra again, I have came home three days ago filled with admire ness and respect to the Iraqi southern society which I found very cooperative and marching towards prosperity with steady steps.

I don’t want to exaggerate but on a scale of 10, if problems in Baghdad evaluated with 9 then it’s only 2 in Basra, and I was in Basra a little more than a month ago and I felt difference there this week for better. What really made me happy is the respect IPs are getting there which means respect for the law. And the same is happening in Samawa, Omara, Nasiriya, and Koot, (all are southern cities). On my way to Basra and my way back I didn’t see any multinational forces or any INGs, all were policemen on all check points (about 11 of checkpoints), all asking for IDs and our heading and searching the car. As usual looking at the bright side of our situation in Baghdad I felt it’s a matter of time to be just like the Iraqi southern or northern societies, we do have problems in Baghdad, the most important one of them is the people here are not respecting the law, so simply they must fear it and to enforce law you must have an elected government not a provisional one, and that’s what we are going to have in few days from now.

Election is a fact and is going to take place on the 30th of January no matter what, and may be some of us are not going to see the day after that day and loose their lives electing the right people or at least who we think right people, but it will be the price for our freedom, may be we didn’t pay enough to remove Saddam, so it is the price we are going to pay that day, the 30th of January 2005 to overcome our fears and be free people who did pay for their freedom.

Its not a dreamy words and not banner words for election campaign, I am not a candidate and I am not going to be one but after few years from now inside Iraq or any where else in the world it will be very prodding to sit beside a chimney fire and tell the story of that day to a grand sun or two, or at least to remember that day a lone and remember that we weren’t afraid of a bunch of masked head choppers who wanted to take us to dark ages where we would be slaves of evil.

The same day of my return to Baghdad I felt sleepy at evening when my wife came to me running awaking me saying “someone on the door”, I opened my eyes and went to open the door and saw a multinational solders with INGs urging me to open and I opened and they went in to search the house….my house, and started to ask questions fast “ any AKs?, do you have a pistol?, what do you do for living? And more “, I took the matter easy and answered the questions and showed them the place for the rifle and the pistol and gave them the permits for those. After checking my permits they cleared to me that it was a precaution check for the neighborhood to protect the election center which is going to be in it, and I cant carry any weapon that day and if I have any information about terrorism I may tell about and urged me to go to the election and assured to me that they will be there to protect the people. After thanking us they went to the other houses for the same. It was a new experience for our family, we have never had a house search before even before April 2003, but law is law and we must respect it and let it assure our life’s order otherwise we are going to fear it as we did all our life before April 2003.

"God……. give us the wisdom to see the truth, the will to choose it and the strength to make it endure"

2005-01-09T14:10:00.000Z

I have never been so late to post the next article before, and as usual I am busy with my daily work, but this time it’s different. This time I’m busy doing somebody else’s work somebody who left the work. Actually more than somebody; many of my colleague at work had left for different reasons, someone because he found another job with safer terms, someone because he’s afraid to continue attending his daily job even if it was very usual one, and there are others who left the country to find their opportunity elsewhere, and of course there is someone left for a long marriage vacation. As you can see we live in Iraq very strange circumstances, some are extremely happy and some are extremely tragic.

We still facing a bad fuel problem and I need to fill my car daily with 20 litters of fuel from any street side with $3.50 and sometimes $15.00 for the 20 liters, you may find it cheep or same price you buy it with, but if I stood in car line waiting my turn in a fuel station I may wait for 15 hours not to mention the fights and intruders. I don’t mind buying the fuel with high price but I would like to get it decent and safe and of course when I need it.

And we still face electric power problem, as a matter of fact we spent eight continues days with no power, and I had to get a 2KVA generator to overcome the situation, looking at the bright side, we didn’t have to turn off the lights at 12.00 midnight at the 31st Dec, the power was off at then.

We decided not to attend the service in church on Christmas eve, If I was there I wouldn’t stand any threat without doing any thing and I still not sure I would get backup from the people with me to fight that threat.

Our streets is a real war zone these days and bombing and terror actions every where and I am talking about Baghdad. My resource in south and north telling me it’s much, much better there. But I can assure you and by an expert eye (an eye of someone who spent many years in middle of fighting, victories and defeats) that the Iraqi army, police and other security organizations here; are getting better every day and they are heading to victory, I even suspect that Zarqawi has been caught.

Our ministries are doing a very poor job, may be they think its their last month, that’s why we can find many things are suspended, even what’s left of a car bomb, nobody takes it off the streets ( you can see burned cars, plates, concrete stones in the middle of the streets left from two weeks ago explosion). May be that’s enough reason to get done with the election at the end of January without any delay.

Many of business men had left to Dubai, Jordan, Syria and even Beirut to settle there or at least to spent the time till the election date, they are not sure it will be safe here, many families had left to Jordan or Syria for the same reason, but at the end all of them are doing it for temporary time; which means they are sure it will be better soon this year (after its getting worse of course).

Now with all these facts that I have, what am I going to do?.........I’m not sure yet; but I’m intending to do all I can to make things better here for me, my family; for Iraq and Iraqis, I still got the energy to do so and I’m going to use it for better life.

Bad Moments

2004-12-20T14:36:00.000Z

I was trying to write an article about attacking the police station in Salam residential compound south Baghdad on Friday the 3rd of Dec 2004 for about two weeks now, and holding my self not to talk negatively about things here, but what really happened and the story here from eye witnesses is “about twenty armed men came to the area on the hour of dawn praying and started to through the men out of the mosque who were there for the pray, and after that started to attack the police station by AKs and RPGs and the policemen did all what they could do to defend their place until they were all killed and the prisoners were set free”, here is some none answered questions for you:
1- Why didn’t any one help the policemen?
2- Why didn’t the policemen get any backup?
3- Why didn’t any neighbor call for help on the phone numbers written on the signs all over the streets?
4- Why didn’t the mosque keeper call for help by the loud speakers as he calls for the pray time?
5- Why couldn’t the policemen win the battle?
6- Why didn’t we get any answers for these questions?
7- Will it happen again?

All I can tell you that if I was in responsibility, then I will take all those who didn’t help or try to help or didn’t take the mater as their responsibility as guilty and at least will press charges against them even if I know they will not be convicted, but at least they will start to think. We had thirty five years of being told what to do, how to do it, when to do it and how often to do it. But enough, we need to make people start to think.

Do you think that’s impossible or difficult………..Well……of course not if we will all help to make that difference, all it will take is time, actually a very precious time out of our life time, and here is another question, but this time its for me “do I have that time to spend waiting for things to be better?”, let me see…..I was fourteen when the Iran-Iraq war started, and finished on 1988 to start the war again on the 1990 because of invading Kuwait, that’s about two other years of peace in between; I spent some of it in the army for the compulsory military service. Starting 1990 till this moment we are still in a none stop threat for our lives and having a none secured or clear future,….now… that’s totally sixteen years of peace out of my 37 years of age which means 16 years of peace against 21 years of war and threat. If I am going to die on the age of 65 or about (the life time expected for an Iraqi person) then I have another 28 years to live, and that means I can not afford to spend another ten years of a none steady unhappy years otherwise it will make my life be divided between 34 years of peace against 31 years of wars, threat and none clear future, if we will take out the first three years for having no memories for them, then its exactly the half of my life lived in bad situations.

My friends…… I am not intending to live that way, actually I can’t let this happen again for me and my family as my father did so for his family including me, what am I going to do?, that’s what I am thinking of for long hours of my day, and all I am coming to is to start again a new life somewhere else, somewhere peaceful, but at that time if all Iraqis thought that way what’s going to happen to Iraq?.

Few days a go I returned home to find my little daughter is hot and got cold because of a none heated house of ours, and that was because we had two hours of electricity after ten hours of no electricity for a month now, and so we couldn’t use electric heaters, but we couldn’t use kerosene heaters as well, because of the fuel problems we are having, so I went out that evening to buy a kerosene heater, a kerosene lamp, and some kerosene beside the medicine to be prepared for emergencies at night. It was easy for me to do so and I had no problem financially, but do all problems may be solved by money?. Till when we are going to solve these problems individually?.

It is a struggling thought I am sure many of Iraqis are having just like me at this time; I hope God will give us enough patience and wisdom to find and choose the right decision.

I know it’s not the usual me but I needed to share these thoughts, thank you to reach this far of reading.

One Year Long

2004-12-03T11:46:00.000Z

It is a year long bloging for me now and I am really happy about it, because when you realize that you have posted more than 100 articles and got good positive comments for them and sometimes it’s a real debate between comments posters, you can say that you did something to be proud with, and I am proud with Iraq and Iraqis. I am trying to post steady, weekly articles but I am not getting luck yet.

For such a day I would like to remember an article that made some site visitors real angry and posted many criticizing comments on it which was:

Tuesday, December 09, 2003
Bedu

Bedu are the people who lives in the desert in tents .One of our most important problems is the struggle between those who wants to be civilized and the Bedu who does not know to live other way than there life stile, and if we search a little we certainly would find that there life stile depending on killing and steeling basically from each other or from any one near them. Those were the most important helpers for the ext regime. No mater if they lived in cities, used cars, phones they still Bedu . To solve such a problem we need to reduce their influence and effect on other people. Their influence is depending on the strong financial situation they have, and that’s because they were extremely befitting from the ext regime. Now that should be stopped and thing should go back to the right way.

I have lost the comments I got at that time because of switching to another comment software, but the visitors criticized my point of view of BEDU and took it as a racial opinion against other follow Iraqis, and I had to think twice before writing such thoughts since that article.

Last Saturday and Sunday the 27th and 28th of November 2004 the Life BroadCast TV (LBC) which is a Lebanese TV station showed a documentary movie about Abo Musab Al Zarqawi made by his follow reporter who is a Palestinian Jordanian who spent some time in a prison in Jordan with him, and the movie took about three hours and gave me very important information and conclusions about him, first of all he is BEDU and depending on BEDU as his close men and army and that made me right about all the wards I said about them, ignorance naïve aggressive people who think the man earns his manhood by steeling and killing, if we put on all that religious fanatic minds and thoughts then we get what we saw in the movie which were young boys who laugh and happy and celebrating just few hours before their suicide operations against solders and police and even the innocent people in the streets.

And that’s the real strength of that man, his capability of brain wash and convincing young men and even women to die killing people they don’t know just because he told them to do so. Nobody can stop a moving bomb with a brain, that’s the problem and the difficulty. I cant hide that I was astonished watching the movie for two days and wished for every one to watch it to know how dangerous this man is I even came to believe that he is more dangerous than Bin Ladin, at least Bin Ladin don’t chop heads on TV as this man do, and it was funny to know that Jordan released this man from prison early nineties with the condition that he leaves Jordan, and he did left to Afghanistan and met with Bin Ladin but their opinions and thoughts didn’t, so he established his own training camp for Mugahideen, which leads us to the most important question: Where does this man get the money to do all that?, may be his men are not so expensive but they do eat, they do need clothes weapons, TNT, lessons, tools, machines, traveling, faked passports, and even some money for their families, where do that money come from. And if someone is willing to stop this man without the capability of arresting him, then his resource must be dried, and money must not reach him, that’s the only way to deactivate this type of criminals and terrorists.

RECALL

2004-11-20T14:22:00.000Z

Before March 2003 I was a believer with conspiracy theory, I used to find an explanation for every act for Saddam Husain or for every problem we faced depending on that theory. I couldn’t help it; we were so helpless under the dictator, and we needed something to relief our minds. But step by step I found my self since April 2003 trying to adapt the reasonable kind of thinking and ideas which consider conspiracy theory and its believers as a naïve thought and naïve people and started to take the facts on ground for granted and work my live according to them.
Today I am not sure what I am going to put in this article, is it another scenario of a conspiracy theory or not, but I would like to think that its only gathered facts I would like to put together for you, which really filled me back with hope that our government and prime minister Alawy are up to the problems we are facing these days and they are capable to reclaim peace for the Iraqis again, after I was started to loose my faith that they can do so when the explosions, car bombs, kidnappings and street fights were a daily actions and part of our daily life on the last two months.
Last April when the first Falluja battle started and ended, I didn’t understand why the people of Falluja were so happy shouting and shooting in Falluja streets that they won the battle against the government. And why the leader of Falluja Al Janaby was wearing old Iraqi Army uniform and not the usual INGs uniform, and why the IPs in Falluja were standing side by side with the masked armed terrorists in check points outside Falluja.
Also I couldn’t understand why the government took long time and gave chances and stood without reactions for all the terrorism actions in Baghdad and other middle Iraq cities. And why the borders were not strongly closed against Arab and foreign terrorists.
Depending on the fact that Jazeera and Arabiya TVs are pro terrorism and anti Americans, why the Arabiya office in Baghdad which includes also the MBC TV and Saudi TV being blown out? That’s another thing I couldn’t understand.
When the battle in Falluja started few days ago and the Iraqi and American forces started to finish their duties there we faced two heavy problems in Baghdad, electricity power and car fuel problems at then I told my wife “pleas remember this, just with the ending of the Falluja battle the both problems, fuel and power will be solved”, I don’t know why I said this and I wasn’t thinking at then, but I think my old intuition and conspiracy theory faith was acting at then. Any way it happened exactly as I said and the both problems are solved or about and the battle is ended or about to end with a great victory for the Iraqi government against terrorism.
With all those gathered facts above I can recall my hope and faith with the capability of the Iraqi government for enforcing law and order all over Iraq and it’s a matter of time, cooperation and being responsible towards Iraq.
I can’t give any facts about what is happening in Falluja whether there were any innocent people who are suffering or not, I haven’t been there, and I am sorry for the suffer of any human any where, but I do know about the suffer of the people in Baghdad and the other middle Iraq cities for the last few months and how we were facing death at every second, people were being killed in streets, offices, schools, houses and any were for nothing but to be in the wrong place at the wrong moment and because of a freak terrorist is trying to reach heaven fast and before every body else.
I hope the people of Falluja would understand that the battle in their city is not against them; actually it’s for them and on behalf of them against those who took them as hostages and used them as shields. But to be honest I don’t think the people of Falluja would understand that or believe it for a long time from now……….why?......... They still believe the conspiracy theory and don’t take facts for granted.

Trip to Basra

2004-11-10T16:15:00.000Z

Few days passed after the results of the American elections. Many conclusions can be put now; the most important one is “the empty barrel gives higher sounds than a filled one”, its clear to say that when president Bush wins public votes more than any other president in American history, that’s an important fact no one can ignore, and it tells all Americans that it was the right thing to do and accept.
For me as an Iraqi I am happy and thankful for the results because I couldn’t afford to face new policy from another party who think that things in Iraq should be turned to UN, which we know very well in Iraq, how corrupt it is. What proves my wards the letter of UN secretary general to Prime Minister Alawy on the 6th of Nov 2004 about warning the Iraqi government not to attack Faluja…..OK, not to attack; what’s the plan then?. Answer…none in the letter.
Any way I have spend the 1st to 3rd of November in a business trip to Basra and it was a good and successful trip, we used a rented car to reach Basra and needed about six hours to be there. The way was comfortable safe and filled with cars of passengers from Baghdad and the other southern cities, IP check points is at all cities gates and entrances besides car patrols between them. We passed major cities like Koot, and Emara and they seemed safe and normal. Basra people seemed very comfortable and cheerful and I didn’t find any one driving his car through a traffic jam fights with other drivers or blow a horn like I see them do in Baghdad which means they don’t feel panic. I didn’t hear any one complains about unemployment, or about not enough monthly income. During the three days I spent there, I heard people talk about six bomb trapped cars entered Basra to terrorize the city and all IPs, INGs and all people there were looking for the cars and trying to stop such actions and I didn’t hear any thing about a trapped car explosion in there till now, which means they were caught.
Beside all the good things I found there I saw bad things which were for example several kidnapping activities for Iraqis who are capable of paying ransom, someone told me that he saw an action personally and the kidnapers were strangers, he meant not from Basra city. Also the city still needs more rebuilding and construction, it was obvious that the major projects were stopped and the budget went to security. All that means more time needed to reach our dreams. Just like the delay in rebuilding activities we are facing because of what’s happening in Falluja and other likewise cities. I can feel difference between Basra and Baghdad and that difference will increase and southern cities may go for much more advanced standards in few months, especially when you see the walls in Basra cities covered with printed mottos about federalism in the south which is a claim now.
I don’t feel free or comfortable to talk about the situation in Falluja and I feel maybe there are some innocent people who are suffering there, as we all suffered on the early days of the war and later we are winning our freedom and democracy step by step. I cant put any facts on the situation there but facts related to that situation could be put such as the terrorism activities was decreased when the surrounding of Falluja started, and when the military actions started there, many terrorism activities started in other parts of the Iraqi middle part and very similar to those activities which caused the military actions in the first place just to ease the situation there.
In Baghdad people are trying act normal, they are going to their work daily and sending children to schools if it was very close to their houses and keep shopping for the RAMADHAN EED, and chat a lot about the TV station and the many Arabic series running in it. It’s much better than Baghdad situation on the Najaf actions days.
I hope the Iraqi people all over Iraq would have the reason and open mind to accept our government and wait till the elections to evaluate the situation and the results at then, and I am sure they will find it was worth it and maybe we had a chance many people in Middle East dreaming of. I believe that any problem in the world between people or two groups of people is no more than a difference in point of views and salutation are no more than compromising and closing in point of views. It’s that simple.

Fast Post

2004-11-04T16:10:00.000Z

I have come back from Basra yesterday, filled with happiness about the American election result which I stayed awake all night to follow for the first time of my life. I am still busy to finish my accumulated work here in Baghdad and wanted to congratulate the Americans with the re-election of President George W. Bush for another four years. Thank you and back to you soon.

Om Abas

2004-10-26T13:38:00.000Z

In Iraq and other Arab countries you may call an older person or any person for more respect by Abo “……”, and follow the Abo by his son’s name, so if his son is Ahmad or Muhammed then he is Abo Ahmab or Abo Muhamed which means father of Ahmad or father of Muhamed . Same goes for the women she’s Om Ahmad or Om Muhamed which is mother of Ahmad or mother of Muhamed.

Here we will talk about Om Abas who is an old Iraqi non educated widow who is feeding her children by working as a cleaning worker in Rashid Bank inside BIAP and she use the Civil Aviation Employees Bus daily to go to her work. On the 21st of October 2004 the terrorists attacked the bus on its way to BIAP in a civil area and opened fire on the employees and four of them were killed, one of the dead people was Om Abas. So from the terrorists point of view life now much better because Om Abas (God bless her soul) is gone.

Weaker rings in the chain are the target now, employees, students, and maybe one day mothers and children in markets and shops.

But life goes on as we know, the employees are still on their jobs and students are in their schools and workers are on their work sites as the worker in the photos I posted on the 23rd of October 2004 (about attacking an army tank) which doesn’t need much to say about it. What really needs to stop by it to analyze and get answers for is what happened on the 24th of Oct 2004, about fifty unarmed training INGs being killed with cold blood on their way back home from training camp. I don’t want to talk about how far the terrorists have gone in their cruelty and crime, but I really want to talk about how irresponsible steps being taking towards someone who is volunteering to be part of the right side, if our ministry of defense and ministry of internal affairs will continue their weak plans and reactions to deal with:

*Crime.
*Terrorists.
*Securing and defending their employees and followers.
*Any fault and wrong doing by their followers and employees.
*Any supporters for the terrorism and crime no matter whose party or group they represent.

Then we will find ourselves loosing the war against terrorism day after another, and at then our lives for the coming months won’t be easy.
I sure know this should be written in Arabic and posted to an Iraqi high rank government member, or at least to Iraqi media, and I will try my best to do so. But also we (the Iraqi peace loving people) need to rise and take responsible steps towards stopping and helping to stop such criminal actions, which are being done to stop our march to full freedom.

My daughters teacher who is escorting the school bus daily, phoned us last night and said that she feels responsible to tell us that during their drive to school yesterday the 25th of Oct 2004 they were very close to the car bomb explosion which was targeting the Australian ambassador convoy, and we thanked GOD for their safety. But at the same time we decided not to send her to school today, because she would be helpless when any explosion would happen near her, and when my wife told me this morning that she is going to stop paying the school monthly fees I told her “no we must keep paying the school so they can keep doing their job and keep open”, we don’t know when we will send her back again, maybe tomorrow, maybe next month, maybe next spring, but we are going to send her to school as soon as we think its safe and we must work to make it safe, all of us by all means.

For.........Only

2004-10-20T09:31:00.000Z

I have been trying to post something for days, I even wrote two articles and was about to post them, then stopped because of new incident happened made what I wrote doesn’t fit daily happenings . Last time I was writing about how things are getting steadier and the terrorism actions are targeting the weaker rings in the chain, now churches and cafes and less actions against INGs volunteers centers and police stations and electric power stations and oil pipe lines, those things can be felt by someone who is really living our daily nightmare, but cant be said on TV station or written reports.

We do live a nightmare here because when you wake up every morning prepared to go to your work and you take the chance to be an easy target for a freak woman who wears a TNT bomb and drives her car toward a police station, like what happened last time in Dora police station and kill all innocent people who are there by a coincidence, then you do live inside a nightmare.

This morning my wife told me that she suspects that our daughter who is only five years old is sick and she’s not sending her to school today, I felt happy and relief because I wont feel worry about her till she comes back home safe. But when a month ago my wife asked me “are we sending our daughter to school this year ?” , I answered directly, “yes”, I couldn’t stand that I will do what terrorism want us to do and be, and keep her home without education, but I still worried all my day long. This point of view is spreading widely among the Iraqi people they are really feeling that they should do something to stop those who are willing to paint our future with black color, and they are doing their best to stop terrorism and Arab fighters and old regime supporters and any other fanatics religious groups who want to live inside a wide kayos to benefit from and fill their sick hearts and minds with their desires and demands to rule by dark ages mentality. And the best they may ask for is a UN forces instead of the occupation.

Replacing the multi national forces by UN forces! What for?, well……. an answer to a single question will clear the matter “where in the world through all UN history a UN forces made a difference on land? “, answer “none”. We do need someone to support our government and not to rush things to go home fast; democracy will come, but step by step. And let me be honest and talk about something I have been avoiding to talk about for months, because I kept thinking that it’s not my business. Well it’s a free country now and I can say what ever I want to say and its FOR AMERICANS ONLY.

Americans……….what’s the matter with you, why are you talking a lot about dumping us to UN? Why are you thinking that you made a wrong act by removing Saddam?, Have any one thought for a moment about living under Saddams nightmare?. Was his dictatorship a right thing?, what about the mass graves?, he supported many terrorists in the world, and if you ask me, yes he would be happy to help Bin Ladin if Bin Ladin asked him for, and he would do whatever it would take to have WMD to use it not, if not now then later, and he would live all his live trying to kill more and more of all those who don’t carry on his ideas, Iraqis, Americans, or even Jordanians.

And with the entire bad nightmare we live in today, which we are cretin it will end soon, we are happy that we are a part of the rest of the world again and acting positively to continue being an active peaceful part.

After all that, don’t you ever think that removing Saddam was wrong, not only for Iraqis, but be sure that when many enough dictators will rule in the world even those who live under democracies will not be safe anymore.

And if and only if we will assume that you did something wrong towards Iraqis and made our lives more difficult by removing Saddam, then is it the right thing to leave us half way with all our problems and dump us to an irresponsible corrupt universal organization like UN who took long years working in Iraq before March 2003 hiring and employing only Saddams intelligence and Bathiyests ?, ..........of course not.

For all that, either you thought this or that, you should think you are obligated to continue helping us. I say that to those American who are willing to vote for the person who are planning to give up the war against terrorism and stay home waiting for them to come after him and act at then.

But for the man who took the right decision at the right moment and decided to fight terrorism and remove all its supporters all over the world and at the same moment he knew he would face many problems and criticism from that by his competitors, at his next presidency campaign I say Thank you President Bush you made the right decision from my point of view.

I know I can’t vote or make any difference but truth will make that difference, so it must be said, and telling facts will help showing the truth.

From a free country I want to say by the name of all those who share my opinions, and I don’t think we are a minority, that we do feel our freedom and we intended to keep it whatever it cost and we do feel that the future will be better and the light of the sunrise which begun on the 9th of April 2003 will continue to shine all over Iraq and Iraqis and January is not far to prove what I am saying.

Our Prime Minister

2004-09-29T20:13:00.000Z

Till last Wednesday 22nd of Sep 2004 I was unsure whom I would choose or elect as our next elected prime minister in Iraq, but when I heard the speech of Dr. Eyad Allawy our prime minister in the congress on last Thursday, I am sure I will elect him or who ever he would support on the elections to come on next January. I saw in him a determined man with ideals and a clear plan to push Iraq & Iraqis towards prosperity, and he was not afraid to hide his gratitude to the coalition countries. For me that’s a very important to know that we have honest prime minister.
I was not the only Iraqi who was happy with the speech, I was surprised with many many Iraqis positive reaction towards it, and I am sure this speech will have its great influence on the next Iraqi elections and the next American presidency elections too, as a great credit for president Bush and his administration, because many Americans now understands that many Iraqis who stands behind Prime Minister Allawy and support him are having the same Ideals and gratitude feelings and that makes the war in Iraq worth the loses the coalition had.
I am writing the article and hearing the radio saying the president Bush ordered for removing Iraq name from terrorism supporting countries list. That would not happen if he can’t see the future of Iraq will be in the right hands which will keep the Iraqi plan towards prosperity.
I find it very important to bring for you a very speechfull picture of the pride we felt out of having our prime minister speaking to congressmen and senators and here I found nothing to say better than thank God, thank you and God bless you and guide Iraq to peace.

The Secrete War

2004-09-22T09:10:00.000Z

I was working on another article about a personal experience when I found it won’t fit the situation in Iraq these days after the third car bomb against the ING volunteers center and after I was trapped inside Baghdad International AirPort on last Saturday till 8.00 PM because of the car bomb on the high way leading to BIAP, which made a car size hole in one of the crossing high way bridges and its useless now and while writing this article I heard that there were another car bomb on the way to BIAP. If we add to that all terrorism activities in Russia, Spain, Greece, America and many other places and countries, we come to a very important question DO WE HAVE A CHANCE WITH THE WORLD WAR AGAINST TERRORISM?. The world war, not the Iraqi war, that’s another important fact we should keep in mind, because terrorism is targeting all humanity by randomly gathered brain washed people or mercenaries for the benefit of few masterminds financing these activities, and we must include with those masterminds drug dealers, weapons traders, ext corrupt intelligence agents, dictators afraid to be removed, religiously fanatics, and maybe some whom we don’t know about or know very few about their cause or ideas. The biggest problem is that they are targeting anyone anywhere no plan no pattern no alert. So…….. can we fight someone we don’t know and we don’t know where he is. The mistake Bin Ladin did was to establish a government and to find him self a country to settle in, but when he lost those, he is free now, wanted.. but free.

It is very important to put as a fact that there are many people who are donating those terrorists and financing them secretly; thinking that they are fighting a fair war against unbelievers or Zionism or a real threat to their ideas and believes and even a threat to their national heritage. But what are the good guys doing, honestly nothing, we are depending on the governments to fight the war for us, and when they fail or lose a battle out of the whole war, we criticize them and protest against those governments.

In fact war against terrorism is very hard and difficult and needs more than what is really been done, ACTUALY IT NEEDS A SECRET WAR AGAINST TERRORISIM AND TERRORISTS.

Its very obvious here in Iraq because we still see INGs on duty with masks on their faces also the IPs and even those who works for the private security companies, just because they wear a uniform, that leads the terrorists to held them as occupation lovers and accused with treason and must be killed or head chopped, by someone they didn’t meet all their life, so how can they be careful not to get harmed or their families, why do they have to live that nightmare, so they hide their faces or being negative.

In our war against terrorism we do need to open the world eyes to see the truth about how terrorism being financed and to establish an antiterrorism fund to finance the secret war against it and to let it accept donation from all over the world, by that we can give a chance to anyone who don’t have a role in war against terrorism to have one. Also we need a secrete army to fight that war and all its leads and any expected leads, that means we must even fight those who are openly supporting terrorism and don’t hide it, actually they are declaring it on the media and starting their own media and TV stations, because there is no enough reasons for such station to be the sound of those killers but to be financed by them or by their supporters, and why a secrete army? So it will act positively without any fears of being known and harme them or their families by those blind brain washed killers.

It may be a very big project and needs long time to be established, but we have a good chance to test this in Iraq, we are on the first steps to rebuild our government and its foundations and establishments, such a project needs a fresh start.

I remember a revolutionist called Jose Delorece in an American movie talking about the revolution in a Caribbean island against Spanish control in the 18th century,he said “To know how to start the journey to the nowhere is better than not to know how to go to a known place”

In Iraq these days we are facing car bombs, kidnapers, suicidal people, looters, and many more dangerous situations daily, even new business begun, hostages are being sold from gang to gang (the start of specialty), but we have noticed for two weeks now that the electric power is much better and I have just passed another INGs volunteers centers and its so crowed out side it, nobody is afraid to stand there to list his name, and we have send our daughter to school today, which means there are many of us who are working for the better Iraq and Iraqis, those would be the rich soil where we must start planting our project against terrorism for the better future for all of us.

What do we Need

2004-08-30T22:00:00.000Z

When Faluja problems started I used to post daily, but now with the problems in Najaf I didn’t have the enough time to do so, beside this time the media was not so bad in reporting and putting the matter on TV stations as it was in Faluja. Even if they tried to make the rebels in Najaf look like resistance to the occupation, they always faced unreasonable acts from the armed men there and their leaders and a very bad example for an Iraqi mentality. So I was not so worry that Najaf problems would be misunderstood world wide, especially with an Iraqi government taking over from the coalition forces and a professional Iraqi media tried their best to give the facts and react against the opposite media.

The Iraqi government dealt with Najaf problem with wisdom. Some kind of wisdom we never been used to. We new from day one that the IPs and INGs backed up with the multi national forces could crush the rebellions any time they want but they gave the matter time to be solved peacefully, more time than expected, more than the rebellions expected and that’s what we don’t understand or in right words we are not used to……I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do or not, but in few years from now we will now. Actually there are many things we don’t understand our government way of acting and dealing with them. And today I would like to put some of these things and situation from our daily life to you, maybe for nothing but loud thinking.

We all hear about sabotaging the oil pipe line to Basra and we expect its being blown off……….. Well not always because in the few weeks ago there were a 43 cases of “digging a hole in ground near the pipe line and another hole in the pipe above it and letting the oil flow in the hole to be a small lake then pumping the gathered oil into a tanker truck to be smuggled to the near by countries and sold there. When the oil ministry found about that, they made an agreement with the tribes living near these places to protect the pipe for money to be paid to them, but in one case for example when a patrol of tribal men protecting the pipe passed someone trying to sabotage it –actually to steel fuel- they started to shoot at him and he run away but in the morning the family and tribe of the sabotage man came for the tribe of the patrol men for their tribal right of being shot at, can you imagine……just imagine the situation.

I still have some building workers in my house to finish some work, and they are usually from SADIR city in Baghdad which backs up the Mahdy militia in Najaf as the media says, in fact they are simple poor people who don’t want to be a part of any thing and they told me that they faced death several times to come to work in my house when they passed inside SADIR city several ground holes with explosives in it and wires from the hole to a near houses where someone with a mask is sitting and wait for an IP or ING or American patrol to come to blow it off and wont hesitate to blow some innocent Iraqis civilians with them and any one from the people there would refuse what the mask man doing may get killed.

Also in Palestine Street in Baghdad some militia man plant a bomb in street and when he was discovered he ran away followed by IPs and when he passed some Facility Protection Services men (FPS) they started to shoot near him not at him and he shot back at their place not at them. That’s because no body want to kill the other so he wont be followed by the others family. But the bomb was blown and killed innocent family who were in their car passing by. It’s so complicated when we deal with twisted minds people.

And I still see some INGs with all their courage acts in streets but with masks so they can’t be recognized by their relatives or neighbors or by the bad guys.

Today a girl works with us in office as a cleaning worker and she is also from SADIR city too told us the story of her neighbor women who was arrested while she was transferring many weapons and ammunition and grenades from her house to our worker house through the roofs (which is very easy in a neighborhood of small attached houses) before the IPs go into the houses searching for weapons. Our worker said “I never expected her to be a SPY”.

It has been said before and it needs to be said here too. Never criticize any thing with out putting the solution for it first. And its very bad when things go wrong and take so long time to get solved till we hear some old man said after watching a report in TV about what’s going on in Najaf …..”Now the lawyers of Saddam would have the chance to prove he is not guilty and set him free because he had all the right to do what he did and it was suitable for the majority of our people”, I was very angry when I heard those wards and told the old man “I hope with all my heart, we will never get to that point, it would be a disaster”.

But what is the right thing to do in such situation, when people would not cooperate with the government because they don’t understand that cooperation is the right thing to do and it’s for the peoples sake…………………But I can put as a fact that many problems we are facing are being solved in the private sector. In private sector nobody left his job to join Mahdy militia, but many of the government employees did. Nobody is sabotaging private sector facilities and when they try to its more difficult, but in government facilities its happening. Let me go further and say if gas stations were run by private sector, we would never had a fuel problems, it would be solved as it is now in Sulymaniya city in the north for example. And further more if electricity were generated by private sector we would have more power than we need and may be we would supply Syria with some. All that would lead to a major solution to 90% of our problems PRIVETIZATION.

Many may say that I am a capitalist and that’s a real crime in many Middle East countries and some of what was left in the mined of Iraqi people from the old days of our old regime. BUT WE REALY DO NEED A GOVERNMENT WHICH RECEIVES TAXIS AND HOLD THE SECURITY SITUATION INSIDE AND ON BORDERS AND MAINTAIN ORDER, AND LET THE ECONOMY FLOW CONTROLED BY PRIVATE COMPANIES DOING BUSINESS UNDER IRAQI LAWS PUT BY THE ELECTED GOVERNMENT. Just an idea very applicable and when it is reality we will find some looser who would blame the government for being homeless, jobless …etc. We can find those all over the world even in Sweden, Denmark, Canada, and Saudi Arabia.

On My Way to Work

2004-08-10T11:39:00.000Z

When I was in primary school on the age of 10 we always had to write an article in literature lesson called “on my way to school” to tell about what we see in the morning when we head to school, today I had the same idea to tell you about what I see on my way to work in the early morning these days.

My house is not to far from city center, but my office is not close, I need about half an hour to get there. I spend theses thirty minutes listening to “Iraq radio from Baghdad” because I stopped listening to SAWA radio or the BBC or Monte Carlo which we used to listen to till few weeks ago, even if the broadcast wasn’t clear before March 2003, but we needed facts we couldn’t find in local radios and we needed to runaway from programs all about Saddam, keep telling about his false heroism and his philosophy and ideology which we never understood, even songs, thousands of them about him. Nowadays I can find the true news in local radio and local news and instruction which I need to follow and old Iraqi songs from our folklore which we start to forget about, now I started to remember the wards and the tunes. Even the folklore had to die by order from our old regime.

I have to turn down the volume of my radio when I approach a check point, an “Iraqi National Guards” check point, and there is many of them these days, strong young in well dressed uniform boys, stands in glory and pride to check IDs and search cars looking for any thing may disturbs an ordinary safe Iraqi day. They even gave each car a little Iraqi flag one day and I received one to give to my little daughter who was very happy with it and started to wave for them each time we see them in the streets of Baghdad……But when I leave the check point and come into an intersection jammed with cars because there is no traffic police due to shortage in manpower and the traffic lights is off because there is no electricity and the drivers are not cooperating just trying to get through before any other driver, and it takes me another thirty minutes just for that intersection, at then I feel frustrated and loose all the pride I got when I passed the check point…..few minutes in traffic jam till a bunch of ordinary boys come to help the poor drivers and to solve the problem, ordinary boys who will not get from what they did but the wards of thanks and gratitude……with all the anger in the world I ask my self what I am doing here I should take my family and run away from such people……..but before I finish my wards I find another bunch of boys who works for the city services, cleaning streets and parks for few Dollars a day and not joining the Mahdy militia to fight IPs and INGs. At then I feel hope again and remember that people behavior problems is not a pure Iraqi problem it’s the problem of mankind all over the world, but because it found the suitable soil for it all forty years ago its very obvious here. And the suitable soil is ignorance which was planted and watered all these years.

Before my half an hour is finished I hear on the radio news about a few Iraqis killed and injured, some of them women and children and ordinary people or even IPs or INGs in the line of duty by a mortar shell or a trapped car explosion or by some crazy brainwashed suicidal man chaining himself to the car to destroy a musk or a church or a school or to explode himself in some crowded area to kill as many people as he can, thinking that he is going to paradise by killing people, and start to wary about my little daughter who just went to kindergarten or about my wife who is shopping and trying to complete furnishing our new house or about my mother whose not responding to me to stay home safe and let me do her house need. But in the middle of all that wariness I continue to hear the news and hear about IPs arresting hundreds of terrorists who entered the country through Iran and Syria and re arresting thousands of criminals who were set free by Saddam before March 2003 to disturb our peaceful days to come. And also I hear the news of many other countries helping with what ever they can with rebuilding Iraq and that’s not a jock or a lie, because I saw with my own eyes the warehouse where the equipments and tools and materials sent to Iraq for rebuilding it by those countries, an unbelievable stock of every thing, thousands of police cars, hundreds of army vehicles thousands of sealed containers, electricity transformers and many thing I don’t know what is it and it was by a coincidence when I had to visit the warehouse for some business actually to supply them with employees with different qualifications hundreds of them with the condition that they should be Iraqis, because these countries are trying to solve unemployment problem as well. I even told my friend who was with me in that visit “if all Iraqis knew about the things stocked and happening here they will stop complaining and they will have enough patience to wait for the better days to come.

“Yes it’s a matter of patience and hard working no more” that’s what I told my self after all, and before I finish my wards to my self, I found my car in front of my office and look to my watch to find it was a thirty minutes and pull my brief case heading to work charged up to continue building Iraq & Iraqis.

Back Posting

2004-07-25T17:08:00.000Z

Since I have started bloging, and its nine months now I have never stopped for this long period . Three or four site visitors e-mailed me asking if there is any thing wrong. Well there is nothing wrong, actually every thing is fine here, except I have lost two assistants at the same day (one of them got married and her husband is taking her out of Iraq the other one found her self another job with triple of what she used to get with us), happy things as you can see. I had to take over of what they used to do and find my self another assistant to train and teach, and that’s not easy in a country where anybody with a little determination can find a job with a good salary. I even got the idea that I can do good business and make good money if I opened a school with three months course of English language, Accounting and Computer. These are whats most needed these days here.
Doing alone what three people used to do is what took from me most of my time and kept me away from writing something to post. But I was dieing to post something from time to time and when I start to write I hear my boss calling or my phone ringing or my alarm timer buzzing for a meeting or some problem needs to be solved. But when you love your work and the pay is good you can never stop, especially when you know there are thousands of people are doing the same to build the country by building a small part of it ............Themselves.
With all that I had to finish building my own house, and …………its finished and I moved in and writing my first article in it using my laptop without electric power, its still bad and now I can understand part of the problem of the electric power, because when we moved into the new house we left the old one for my mother full furnished (especially electrically) and we bought all the electric stuff new (refrigerator, second TV, water cooler, four air conditioners, washing machine, second receiver), with all that how could any one blame the electricity ministry for not fixing the electricity problem, every time they add another watt for the electric pool another guy like myself moves into a new house and drag the extra watts for himself, and so................ Knowing that we can see how Iraqi family monthly income is expanding and they are using it to make life easier and full of prosperity.
What may back up my criteria is what is going on in the ISX (Iraq Stock eXchange). Things there are more than good, its terrifying good. Nobody expected to close deals in one day with the same value of what he used to close in three months work, and investors are trying to find themselves a broker who isn’t so occupied with deals.
Among all that good things we have problems like electricity shortage because of what we became capable to buy, traffic jam because of hundred thousands cars entered the market with low prices, and also because of the many check points made by the new Iraqi National Guards who made a great difference in the security situation and many more problems like those which we should be happy with and thankful for whoever are trying to build a good future for Iraq & Iraqis.

At Last

2004-07-01T11:54:00.000Z

This article is posted from a real free Iraq. I have waited till the 1st of July to post this just to have something to say about the Iraqis and what they think about what happened since 28th of June 2004 till now……… Iraqis are really happy with their independence day, because they didn’t believe they would have their freedom back……….Iraqis have been feeling their freedom gone since the early eighties, Actually they lost freedom way before that but they didn’t feel it.

While the local radio stations where saying that the sovereignty were transferred to Iraqi government two days before the appointed day, I was on my way to Abo Ghraib town to pay the salaries to our company’s employees in one of the sites there, and believe me since that moment till now I can feel happiness on the faces of Iraqis,…… for me I wasn’t the most happy person and that’s because I was sure it will happen sooner or later and I was feeling free since the 9th of April 2003, and I really enjoyed my freedom since then and still enjoying it. So it wasn’t a big surprise for me but I am happy for the people.

Its only three days now and the Iraqi TV stations are reporting about the heroic activities of the IPs and how they arrested hundreds of criminals in many places of Baghdad and they are sending them to Abo Ghraib jail where nobody would set them free any more because there are Arab reporters would say that Americans are arresting the Iraqi occupation resistance. These are IPs arresting Iraqi criminals whom we (Iraqis) know just when we look at them. That’s what would make the difference from now on.

A neighbor asked me yesterday

“What do you think its going to happen for our future?”, the man was worried and asking.

So I said “Let me ask you this, What’s our main problems?”,

He said “security…..we want our children to be safe”,

I said “it took the terrorists about a year to be stronger and started their terrorism …….how long do you think it would take the government to build a strong IPs and security forces with all the help we are getting from all the world and working day light not in the dark only”,

He said “should be less than a year”

“Then all we need is that year time plus our cooperation with the government” I said.

You cant imagine how the man burst with happiness all he needed is to know facts, Iraqis now know that the Arab media are the enemy and we don’t believe what they say, but knowing the bright side of the story is another important matter which is the duty of all Iraqis who know it, starting with the government ending with all educated wise people who can take role in rebuilding the mentality of the Iraqi people to start rebuilding Iraq.

We will need help from all our friends and allies to overtake the critical time we are living, and we can’t forget the help and support we obtained from them till now.

But as I knew that we would be free about a year ago I know at this moment that we would be a safe advanced peaceful democratic country heading to prosperity, and model for all countries in the ME region……………..God Bless Iraq.

My House

2004-06-23T15:15:00.000Z

Late again to post an article?,…… sorry……there is nothing wrong, but me being so busy with the house building site of mine and visiting it daily because its in the final stages of finishing’s………the painters are about to finish painting the walls (multi colored of course as my wife ordered). The glass workers are assembling the widow glass. The electrician is wiring the electrical devices; the plumber is about to fit the bathrooms sets. And because we are facing many thieves and looters these days in Baghdad who may consider the materials I am using as voluble and worth to be stolen, no matter how low prices I tried to get them, but they are new, and its easy to break in while the house is empty…….So it is critical period for my family and me to overtake this problem till we finish and move in the house, at that time its easier to protect it and easier to make it secure and its less headache and more time to post articles about the developing security situation in Baghdad and the accelerating Iraqi economy towards prosperity.

By the way, we were informed formally that the ISX is starting tomorrow and it’s no more the decision of the coalition advisors, they have passed this responsibility to the general manager of the ISX to decide when to open after he can secure the building and have ready staff to start.

I was thinking of all that while I was driving my car as usual and suddenly I thought how similar my problem is with our problems as Iraqis in Iraq and how it’s a critical time to secure our homeland Iraq against terrorism and criminals and how its going to be in the near future for Iraqis to live in their own home safely, and how its important to secure that home ourselves.

Evil is every where, it’s not only in Iraq but the problem is to pass the critical days towards the new age of strong and peaceful Iraq and Iraqis. At that time terrorists and criminals would think hundred times before they kidnap a foreigner citizen or a child or to ask for ransom or before they rob a peaceful person for his savings.

It’s only a matter of time, patience and being active building this home at least that’s what I think about my house and if we all thought the same way about our houses then we will very soon actively build our big house IRAQ.

ISX

2004-06-14T14:23:00.000Z

I was a little boy in school when I learned that some vaccines are made of the same germs of illness, but in small or light dosage. So today I was taking our lawyer to do some business in companies registry office when he told me that nobody can imagine the number of private companies being established and registered these days, they are more than lawyers can register and more than private chartered accountants can do accounting. So I told the man about the idea that as well as the car bombs and random assassinations negatively can affect our lives, it’s got a positive affect too. Because we are being immune against such disease (terrorism) . At the same time we were passing the crowded area of “Tahreer Sq.” where a bomb car were just exploded and it was still crowded just like nothing happened.
I don’t know if that’s good or bad, are we turning to insensitive people? Is it going to affect our health in future……….When I answered my mobile while I was there, and it was my wife asking how would I want the painter to paint our house (I am building a house and its in finishing stage) by a brush or by the roller, and I told her “as you like its crowded and I don’t want to make an accident”, so she asked “where are you?”, I said “Tahreer Sq.”, at then she said “near the bomb……be careful”………….See just “be careful”…….we are immune,………….. or insensitive.
But it’s helping us to carry on our lives normally during the dangerous situations we live through.
After I got out of Tahreer Sq. and avoided traffic jam I passed the building of Baghdad Stock Exchange which we (my partners and I) spent a long time in as stock brokers (my basic profession) and I remembered what my partner said last Friday about it “its going to be opened this month and they practiced a test exchange last Saturday, and there was a great job done by the coalition helping the Iraqis old team to reopen as soon as possible”. Laws was changed, a new board of directors without government representatives, a new place, a new techniques of exchange, and of course many more job opportunities for the market staff and for brokers companies and for the investors.
For us as a stock brokers firm, it’s a dream to reopen and establish stock exchange, especially when the American experts who helped to reopen the market are saying “we are trying to develop new, modern exchange facilities”.
Any way I will keep the site visitors informed about what’s new in ISX (and thats Iraq Stock eXchange)reopening and its all on http://www.isx-iq.net/

1546

2004-06-09T08:16:00.000Z

I was listening to the radio this morning while I was driving my car to work and I knew about the new UN resolution 1542, which I think it means a lot to Iraqis because it gave them more guarantees for their prosperity and freedom. But to be honest it didn’t mean for me any thing new because I was really sure that the coalition and exactly Americans were determined to do so starting day one and all their steps were towards that. Actually that’s what happened in Afghanistan but its happening faster here in Iraq. That’s what I was telling many of my friends and relatives all the time but it seems that conspiracy theory is rooting deep in our societies in the Middle East. But finally we are all happy about it Americans, British, coalition countries, French, Germans, and of course Iraqis who are most important people to be happy after all.

Also I noticed something very important depending on the last article (My Assistant) and the comments posted about it. Which is “we are falling in a big misunderstood between westerners and Iraqis based on different mentalities, different languages and different speech style if there is such a term. So many didn’t understand what I meant clearly, What I meant in that article is to tell that an accident happened here in Baghdad (which every body is asking me to do every day) and tell about my assistant who put his hand on wound (as we say in Iraq) and said that “Iraqis think that Americans work for them (as employees)” and the fact they don’t and we should take that matter in consideration.

Some of us who are well knowing this fact appreciate what was done till now and we know more will be done. But we must be courage enough to make other Iraqis understand that fact and start to work depending on it and stop listening to Jazirah and Arabiya TVs who are realy taking bad role in planting hate against westerners in Iraqi society.

After all conspiracy theory will vanish step by step when we find important good things happen to us such as Iraqi government elected, Iraqi army born, international debts to be wiped, housing problems to be solved and electricity to be better which are matters I can see is about to be accomplished starting right now. And I don’t mean that the coalition will do all that for us of course, but I am sure the coalition will help a lot accomplishing these matters and more for Iraq and Iraqis.

My Assistant

2004-06-08T10:08:00.000Z

I have a friend who woks inside Baghdad International AirPort, and was about to be arrested yesterday by Americans. The story is, he was driving his own car towards the airport following a military convoy, and without his notice maybe he did something drew the attention of the solders and made them wait till they came near the airport check point and they made him try to overtake them and they trapped him in the middle and started to shoot very close to him, which made him jump out of the car leaving it moving which made them sure that he is a terrorist and started shooting at the car to stop and it stopped damaged of course.

Any way…..they came to him and laid him on the ground facing it, and started searching and investigating him ……Finally they left him after they knew he had nothing to do with terrorism and he works inside BIAP, all his fault was “he wasn’t very careful dealing with American army street and driving rules”.

Any way it was still morning and he went to his job and after fixing the damage of the car he went back home safe but dusty.

Same day I was talking about the matter with my assistant in work and was telling him that I saw IPs today forcing people and cars in Baghdad to respect the rules and they took off the license plate of the cars driven by drivers who doesn’t respect the street rules, and after I told my assistant about the American convoy who was trapped in Traffic jam caused by missing street order and the convoy had to shoot some bullets in the air to convince the drivers to stand aside and give enough space for the military convoy, at then my assistant said something made me promise him that I will write an article about it and its very true, may be it’s the only fact on the Iraqi ground, and let me describe it carefully.

My assistant said “you know what’s our problem?; we are considering the Americans as some people who came to work for us, actually they are an occupation force” . From my point of view, I know depending on all facts and UN resolutions that America is an occupation force in Iraq, but I don’t feel that way, I feel that they have a mission to accomplish and leave when they finish, but I should deal with them according to their rules, so I can be safe, what’s more important that we are benefiting from the Americans. And many people feels the same as I feel but because of those who feels as my assistant said, we have the daily problems that the media takes as the only problems on the ground.

Iraqis lived all their life as the masters even with the British occupation, and the Americans policy dealing with Iraqis as people who needed liberation is backing up the idea of (Americans works for us), so some of us started to ask what have they did?, where is the electricity?, where is security?, etc.
Actually those problems need to be solved by Iraqis not by Americans and the new Iraqi government is the best to solve such problems, because they know how to deal with Iraqis. If Americans dealt with Iraq problems softly they may not get good results and if they dealt with it by strength then the media won’t stop calling them occupation. So the equation was really difficult for the Americans. But for Iraqis, it started by calling back the execution penalty to Iraqi courts of justice after it was stopped by Americans, and nobody is criticizing.

BURTH

2004-06-02T12:54:00.000Z

Last Friday I have sold my old car to a friend who is willing to use it as a taxi beside his own two taxis, which is a good business these days. When we were trying the car nearby, we so some men with badges and guns trying to close the road and some people running, so we stopped and wanted to ask some body “what’s going on”, till we knew that a mine was planted on the road side and the local area guards are closing the road for the people safety……..directly I pulled my mobile and called my mother at home and told her to open some windows so we wont lose the glass by the explosion……..when I finished the call my friend said laughing “see how normal thing are, a mine in the road all we do: you call your mother and I change the road”, at that time I said yes and may be there is a mother calling her little son (Hammody) to play away from the mine and a father calling the school bus driver of his children to take another way home, and we kept laughing at the matter for a few minutes. But the best thing was that the mine didn’t explode and was removed safely.

Many bombs are being deactivated and removed and some are causing losses in lives and properties just like the one which exploded yesterday near the foreign affairs ministry and the Iraqi Airways company where I hade business meeting , but all that didn’t stop Iraqis to have their own government born. I feel so happy today because my trust in our men and women in the GC was real and they were up to it and finally they managed to come to one and only one decision by naming Mr. Ghazy Al-Yawir president and naming Dr. Ayad Allawy prim minister.

For me that proves what all I expected for Iraq and Iraqis, (Unity and Prosperity). I personally know at least three of the new ministers and many of my friends know some of the ministers, which means that those ministers are close to the people and chosen because of their qualifications not because they are close or relatives of the president or the head of the state.
I don’t know about the background of the two men (the president and the prime minister), but for me, its enough that one of them is a doctor and the other is an engineer, and what is most important that they are both had the courage to be members of the GC, and that was very important because they had the courage to stand against the old regime very early and they put their life in danger (as you remember some GC members were killed), and all that for the idea of free democratic united Iraq. And I have the faith that they will work with the rest of the ministers and the parties’ leaders for the prosperity of Iraqis.

It is important to remember here that we were lucky to have the help of Americans and the rest of coalition countries because what we achieved till now could take years to be achieved alone. And I always said to my self if the coalition finished his job at the year 1991 and removed SH at that time when the entire world stood with the coalition against SH, we wouldn’t suffer so much because so many countries stood against the Americans at the year 2003 for their own benefit and just because they are not getting enough rebuilding contracts or they are not happy with the expected region changes.

Maybe at this article I am not telling news of Baghdad these days but that’s only because thing are normal and we are having great time working learning and building our future. And let me tell you another thing I am sure of, “thing in Iraq are heading for better rapidly after July 1st”.

A Simple Plan

2004-05-24T12:27:00.000Z

For a Monday it shouldn’t be so traffic jam in Baghdad, but it is today, with a very hot weather and imagine how it is to drive long distances…….. Any way what I noticed for the few passed days that we have many many check points by IPs in all over Baghdad and they are started new procedures that we even forgot about for about a year now. They are stopping cars without license plates and stopping imported cars with license plates from UAE or Jordan if its being drove not during ministries working hours. I even saw an IP car modified for arresting criminals or any street disturbance which wasn’t seen before because what was left of the IPs and what we started with after April 2003 wasn’t ready to arrest anyone actually they were ready to be killed or beaten by the armed gangs in all over Baghdad who are starting to disappear or being arrested and send to Abo Ghraib jail……….I even was invited to a friend wedding last Friday with my family and we went out the party at 10.00 PM and they weren’t finished yet and the streets were secured all our way home………And there is a very important thing to tell here, all that is with out the coalition forces help anymore, I mean the IPs started to depend on their own resources and doing there job by them selves.

Few weeks ago I was thinking about a very important matter which is, are we going to be OK if the coalition forces left the country or we will face the kayos again……..Until a month ago I used to feel that we need the coalition forces to stay in streets, but now I can say and for sure that if the coalition forces left or stayed inside bases then we can depend on the IPs and the ICDCs and later on the Iraqi army to secure those who are working hard to rebuild the country. But we will need the coalition forces or what ever it’s turning to after the beginning of next July to help rebuilding new methods of working and procedures for our new establishments and ministries. That’s something is really needed after the corruption we had before April 2003 when the ext regime used to pay its employees less than two US Dollars a month and expect them to keep going to work spending about five US Dollars a month for transportation only. You can imagine how was it difficult to live those days.

Iraqi establishments and administration need a very long time of training and rehabilitation to work with the new world technologies and know-how and to create a new generation of Iraqis who doesn’t waste time in universities and colleges to learn about socialism and national education (lessons about Bath party and Arabic struggle against imperialism and Zionism) which was a compulsory lectures for all Iraqis universities before April 2003, and I still remember that my sister had to study the first year of medicine twice because she failed in national education lectures.

We do need to show our universities students all about the advanced nations and how can we be like them and put behind us our problems and head towards shortening time towards prosperity. That’s not an impossible dream I am dreaming, it’s a simple plan which may takes us to a new age where we may consider our selves as an advanced nation.

CHANCES

2004-05-17T19:00:00.000Z

I don’t know what to do to keep posting articles at the same time weekly. But I do know I would like to keep posting, so pleas forgive me if I was late to you and be sure I will come back always to post a new article.

Actually I was late this time because I had to find employees for the company I work for and these days that’s not a simple mater to do. I was looking for people with a little English language knowledge and a simple book keeping. I know that’s not much qualifications to look for but it was hard to find the suitable people………I went to my friends and the people I know first, and they didn’t take it for many reasons some of them
• ”Its too far place from my house”
• “It’s a long morning line to enter the place”
• “Its not what I am looking for”
Believe me none of them said its low salary. I even had to put adds. In papers to find what I need. I am not saying here that we don’t have in Iraq enough qualified people, no, I am saying that what I need is what’s minimum needed these days and if I needed higher qualifications it would be bigger problem. And the job opportunities are so many that people started to choose the suitable jobs for them.

It was a tiring matter to do but to be honest I was happy to see Iraqi people have more than chance to get a job, and any one would complaint about unemployment then he is not telling the truth. It is the right time to establish future for any Iraqi and to build a good one too and by doing so he is building a bright future to Iraq and all Iraqis even for those who are not taking their part of the operation after all we are all in the same boat……..I am sorry that there still people who don’t see thing right and are waiting for things that wont happen and go more despaired so they may murder other Iraqis. It is happening and we must admit it, actually it happened today when some one assassinated Mr. IsEldin Saleem the head of the Iraqi Governing Council (God bless his soul). Thinking this may keep the rest of Iraqis home and leaving the terrorists to do what they want……..Well…..Its not going to be that way……..its three weeks now, and any one here in Baghdad can feel that the situation of the IPs and the ICDCs is more stronger. We can see IPs trying to enforce order in streets, we hear about many bombs being deactivated and many check points day and night. We can see pride in the eyes of the IPs and the ICDSs and we can see respect for them in the eyes of the Iraqi people…………But it’s not easy to fight terrorism, which doesn’t use any patterns or rules but fanaticism against all other people but its followers.

It’s important that we keep in mind that a strong high mountain made of small stones bonded together. And a calm see doesn’t make good sailors. And thing can be seen from now that who still want to explode him self in a car to kill others is nothing but a washed brain person who needs to be treated psychologically to be got back to the rest of human society. Or at least we must keep the people away from being brain washed to be terrorists by offering them enough by salaries and jobs.

Blogger

2004-05-11T15:15:00.000Z

When I heard about the first Iraqi blogers I had my own website already, and it was about marketing and I knew at that time I might not get any luck with marketing, but it was something we Iraqis not aloud to do before April 2003 so I was very happy to had my own website.

When I started this Blog by using www.blogger.com it pulled me away from my old one and I hade to put much effort in it and I am enjoying it a lot. I even had to get my tools from another websites, as you can see I hade to use the comments power by Haloscan and I had to track the visitors by Gostats because Blogger wasn’t supporting those services at that time. But few days ago Blogger put for us a new dashboard with new tools and much more supports to integrate its services.

So if you see any thing new about my page, then that’s because of Blogger and if any thing doesn’t work properly yet then its because its new for us and we are doing our best to use the service the optimum use.

For all that I had to say that I am grateful to Haloscan for supporting me with the comments service for all that time since I had started bloging, and I am grateful for Gostats for supporting me with the tracking service till now, and of course I am grateful for Blogger for supporting me with its service through which I am reaching each and every one who may visit this website. Of course I should mention here that all these services are free and I am not paying any thing for it.

After all the comments and e-mails I received I am very satisfied with what was achieved here and I find many people from all over the world are sympathies with Iraqi people and more understanding for us.

I hope that through this blog I may help rebuilding my country and pay back a small part of what I owe Iraq and Iraqis.

2004-05-10T08:08:00.000Z

Settlements

When I didn’t find the time yesterday to post an article I realized that we are in some kind of peak point in business and work here in Baghdad, I didn’t even find enough time to open my personal mail, and when a friend of mine from Basra said that he would e-mail me about something important three days ago and I didn’t receive any thing yet because he is busy with a contract about rehabilitation of 100 schools there, and when I received information about two Iraqi companies and another group of companies wins the bid to clean the mess and rebuild Faluja , and when I receive information about an Iraqi company joining with Ukrainian company to invest more than hundred millions dollars in one of the most important steel factories compound in Iraq and supplying job opportunities for more than 4000 Iraqi’s besides training ………..Then I would be sure that the peak is not only here in Baghdad its every where in Iraq. What’s more important that I am not the only one to see this and for sure that’s not every thing. Much more is being done.

Last Friday I took my family for lunch in one of the social clubs here in Baghdad, Where usually families gather for lunch and children play, men may discuss business, some may use the internet café, and people stays for the day. And there were hundreds of them. Nobody was talking about Mahdy militia or Abo Ghraib.

Not because we don’t care, actually we care too much but its very obvious that thing are heading to be solved and those who are wise enough are concentrating on how to achieve their goal in life.

Here in Baghdad any one can see that the media is talking about Abo Ghraib more than the Iraqis themselves. Its not Iraqis they are crying on they are using this case against the Americans. Please try to answer these questions:

Is there any prison in the world with out humiliation?
Did any one talk about Iraqi human rights before April 2003?
Did any one ask what those people in Abo Ghraib did to be treated like that?
Can any Arab country open its prisons for any committee?
Would any one dare to criticize prisons system in any other Arab country?

Well……Tank you Arabs, we don’t need your voices now, we know how to solve our problems very well, and it’s being solved. We have our own government and its going to be more legitimate in next July and elected in 2005.

All I can think of now if I had the power is to start a huge campaign against those governments who tries to use us for there own settlements with others. At that time the world would see enough scandals that may forget about us and we would go ahead for prosperity more easily.

2004-05-05T12:11:00.000Z

Children

I can’t keep saying that we are living a normal life in every article I write, I guess that’s the problem of the media; I mean they need something bad to talk about. But for me I will keep to inform you about the rebuilding of Iraq through what information I can get from the contracts that I know about. And today I know that many rebuilding tenders were issued in the fields of sewerage systems, housing, and general services, and guess where? ……….in Faluja , with the conditions that the people of Faluja should be the main labor for these contracts. When I told some of my friends about this matter they said “now we are talking”, as usual, business and work opportunities is the best to solve terrorism and violence problems every where.

It’s important to continue rebuilding Iraqi infrastructure AND it’s more important to rebuild the Iraqi society and mentality (the Iraqi people). I am saying this because I had the problem myself. You see my daughter is 5 years old now and was less than 4 years when she started kindergarten before April 2003, we had to accept that she would call Saddam (BABA SADDAM) at that time, and we should keep our mouths shut about any political criticisms in her presence, because if she would by any chance say any thing of that in school or any where else it would be a huge problem for her, us, and all our Family.

We had to keep telling her after April 2003 that SADDAM appears to be a bad person and we are going to get another and better (BABA)……We had a real problem to convince her with that, she kept telling us that Miss……(whoever) and that’s her teacher “told us BABA SADDAM is a hero”.

That and What Nahrain website is saying today about the new Iraqi ministry of education is allowing private and foreign schools in Iraq which was prevented before… made me think about our need to put serious programs for education in Iraq including schools, education staff and strategy of building a pure society with out terrorism, racial, fanatic problems, an open mind society that we need……….We must admit with that such problems are available deep in our society and many of our educational staff are involved in such problems and a real fast solutions are needed.

The decision of the ministry of education is right but such schools must not be opened for money only. At least some must be opened for all the people financially capable or not, to insure planting the seeds of reason, logic and open mind mentality in all society levels.

I remember that I was in private school in Basra run by nuns till 1972, after that all private schools were nationalized just like the oil, and now I am sure it was to close our society against what the Bath government used to call “foreign invasion”.

That gave me an answer for a question that I kept ask my self “If I had the money, time and capability to help Iraqi people. What would I do?”. To answer my self or any other person asking, I would say “open a school with modern programs for Iraqi children”.

2004-05-02T08:00:00.000Z

More Opportunities

I had two business meetings inside the CPA (the green zone) in Baghdad yesterday, And because it was the first of May (the labor day) the streets were not crowded and we went in about 9 AM and we didn’t finish before 3 PM. Our meetings were with Bechtel Co. and KBR. Every thing went very good, and because it was with two parties we had to move inside the whole green zone and visit many places and compounds. What was important for me and I think its important to be told here that we fount many Iraqis working there, I know that’s not new but this time there were hundreds of them, many more than the last time I visited the place. There were contractors, engineers, clerks, accountants, ordinary workers, guards; all of them of Iraqi people I didn’t even had to speak English only during our meetings because there were foreigners attending them. I even asked my partners, is it me only who can see that?. That’s when they told me “ no. its obvious this time”. I even said that I can’t let anyone say there is no (job opportunities available) again, because I’m sure that who cant find a job today in Baghdad, he’s not going to find one any time anywhere in the world.

I was very happy and glad to see that and I am not talking about opportunities inside the CPA only, no there is more opportunities outside too, a friend of mine called from Basra to ask about a cretin people or cretin qualifications he needs in there and if they are available in Baghdad or not. We even started to face salaries problems because we have to pay more to keep our staff now.

All that would make my day, but the photos of the Iraqis being tortured in Abo Ghraib prison was a let down. I know there is no prison in the world with no such activities, and I know it was horrible in Abo Ghraib before April 2003, and I know there are bad sadists’ people in all nations, and I know there is justice and there are people who wouldn’t let such activities continue. Otherwise how could these pictures come to the media? Now we are waiting for the reaction of the coalition against those activities and I wish it will be right reaction, so it will prove to the simple people that the coalition did the right thing when they liberated Iraqis and didn’t come to keep humiliating them. And we all need to say to the next Iraqi government, elected or not that those activities are not accepted against people any more.

We don’t know what those Iraqis in the photos did to be in prison, but we need to know that we have justice and human rights in our new Iraq. The country which can find good men to take initiative to solve the problems we face in Falija and Najaf . Iraqis who step forward to take act in new Iraq, in the GC or in the force which is taking care of the security in Faluja these days, even if they were from the ext army men, so what? They can deal with the rebels and terrorists there better, and that’s what important now they are joining the good guys against terrorism.

And here I would like to mention two new websites telling many local stories, news and opinions about what’s going in here, unfortunately they are only in Arabic, otherwise every one could read them they are NAHRAIN and PUK. I am visiting those websites daily for more information and news and I recommend any one who can read Arabic to visit those websites. For example a list of names of ext Bathiests fighting in Faluja beside Afghani Arabs and some of them were killed there is published today.

2004-04-28T11:07:00.000Z

Right Path

I didn’t imagine that when I am going to take time before writing the next article it would be so useful for me, because now I can use many subjects to analyze and many things to say and more news to tell.

Many people in the world including some Americans think that there are many mistakes are taking place here in Iraq by the CPA…. Well….. we cant say that’s not true there is mistakes, there is people who being killed, Iraqis and Americans, but after all any one with a simple mind and some reason and live here can see and touch much difference between Iraq before March 2003 and now. And for the better of course.

Any one who doesn’t see and feel that difference, then its because he doesn’t want to, or he was so comfortable and satisfied with the ext regime…….May be many Iraqis are not satisfied with the security situation here in Baghdad, and when I am saying Baghdad, that’s because there is much difference between security situation in Baghdad and the other cities of Iraq. And it’s much better in the rest of Iraq. That’s what our friends and relatives in those cities are telling us.

And I am sure that the security situation in Iraq in general is better that many European and American cities,…… its just the people in Iraq are not familiar with such situation, and with time many arrangements would be taken by government and the people so they can be more safe and secured.

When I read the speech of Mr. Bremer on the 23rd of April 2004, I can’t find in it but true intentions to make thing better for us and with logical methods, easy to be substituted in Iraqi society. And I think that’s the main reason that the governing council members are accepting the American policy in Iraq, I mean they are close to decision making authority and know more about the bright future of the country than the rest of Iraqis……….But when I hear about the new contracts, some of them about rebuilding Faluja and when I see every day in my way to work many Iraqis on their way to work, schools, and many construction sites, and markets full of imported goods with many ordinary people doing shopping, and imported cars in car markets more than the customers who are trying to buy cars, and when I feel the people of Faluja happy to get red of the terrorists in their city and many others are forgetting about the rebels in Najaf and thinking of them just a bunch of twisted minds, then I know that we are on the right path.

I am sure that these days many Iraqis know that the coalition is in war situation, but not with Iraqis but with terrorism on the land of Iraq. So all we have to do is to help the good guys to win this war fast, at least by staying safe and away of the hot areas. May be many of us are trying to say it’s not our war why should we bear so much….. Well the war against the terrorism is responsibility of the entire world, and now we are playing our part in it.

2004-04-24T11:19:00.000Z

Basra

Last Wednesday 21st of April 2004 about five bombs were exploded in Basra, more than seventy innocent people were killed and about 100 more were injured, many of those were children……. For me as someone who was born, raised and studied in Basra, and know about the people there and I still go there from time to time even after April 2003, and I saw how the people there are managing to live very peaceful, very easy going. So I can’t find any reason for what happened but the same term we all know about TERRORISM.

You see…. in Basra if you were a stranger passing by and asked anyone there about a place or an address, he would answer you if he knows about it, or he would help you to find it if he doesn’t know it, and if you both didn’t find the place he would invite you home to stay the night and start looking for it tomorrow. You may think that I am exaggerating. Well……..I’m not. We used to go for a picnic, all the neighborhood about 50 families. My father used to say “I can’t find anything good about this city, not the weather, not the services, only the people”, so I lived there till 1987 when the Iranians was about to enter Basra by force after occupying Fao city.

Few days ago I was thinking about a definition for terrorism. Now I now terrorism is “targeting innocent people for a reason they don’t have any connection with”. And that’s what we have here.

That’s one problem. But the other problem was that the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan who said:

“We have all been anxious to see the attempts to reduce violence succeed, [and] not for it to spread,” Mr. Annan said. “And of course the security situation on the ground has a very important impact on our decisions and our activities.”

I don’t have an idea why would anyone doesn’t know about details would give such a comment. We usually say “If words were made of silver, then silence was made of gold”. May be you would say that I am going too far with what I am thinking of the man. Actually no, because the same day some terrorist exploded himself in Saudi Arabia and killed many people but our man didn’t talk about it. We have pure terrorism act in Riyadh which needs to be cleared he didn’t talk about, but we have activities which may be carried out by terrorists (and some of us are sure of that) he describes them as violence.

The last thing we need here in Iraq is to name terrorism as violence, or terrorists as resistance, or some twisted mind man as popular leader………or ……..to put UN instead of the Coalition. We need to stop at this incident and clear it in detail……..because once… a visitor to this website told me that “you don’t need the UN in Iraq with all its bureaucracy….see what they did in Kosovo”. I didn’t understand what that visitor meant till know. And I think we the Iraqis should fight against putting new coordinator in Iraq (the UN) with new period to learn and to have know how all from the beginning and what ever…..What really we need is the coalition to stay till July and after that we must accept our new government and keep enhancing this government by elections after that. We must take this chance and responsibility because it’s ours to take, and many of our new friends and allies (Americans, British, and the rest of the coalition countries) will help us to do so.

2004-04-21T05:27:00.000Z

I Needed that Time

When I started university study, my life was really changed because of a new friend. He was a year older than me but he was 100 years older than me with his mind and attitude, we are still friends and I really enjoy being with him from time to time, talking and exchanging thoughts. Simply he was my inspiration. Now he works for Save the Children organization in Basra city……..Since that time I started to think: I am a good book reader actually I am a professional one, I even know how to read not how much I read, and I like having the books for my own not only reading it and I come to read it again or a part of it from time to time. So one time I thought “When am I going to start writing?, am I going to keep only reading? “. And here I am started to write and I am enjoying it more than any one can imagine, and I am thinking for the second time that my life is changing (for the better of course), and I am enjoying writing the articles, analyzing situations, reading the comments and e-mails and even uploading the files.

But few of the comment and discussions through comments on the last few articles were very annoying …….So I thought to calm down for a while and not to answer or to write by reaction, especially when the clashes were about to end ……….. Because the main goal of this website is to let the world not the Iraqis to know about the Iraqis other wise I would be writing it in Arabic, and I can assure you that I can do that better than English….You see I believe that any problem or disagreement or misunderstanding between any two wise people in the world always based upon difference in point of views or opinions, so all we have to do is to come to a midpoint to close our point of views,…… there is no need to kill each other to convince each other. But there is always the black ugly duck which doesn’t go by reason, and those shouldn’t affect others and followed by others, because the result would be very….....bad.

I am sorry to stop posting for a while but I can tell you I really was very uncomfortable not to write these few days, but I needed that time to find how things here is going to come to. And as I expected it wasn’t that bad, and all the Iraqis came to the same conclusion which is the coalition is going to give the authority to an Iraqi government by the end of June and there was no need for the losses people had either in Faluja or in any other place, and now we have more Iraqi convinced that terrorists from outside Iraq are playing a very bade role to delay democracy and prosperity to be our life fact.

Iraqis these days are more concerned with their jobs and business than with politics and what the enemy TV station may say or by the falls leaders who may depend on what those TV station may pump them with…….I even noticed that the IPs are more dedicate to there jobs, and there is more building or reconstruction sites in Baghdad than before, and we have better electricity power although the only smoking stack in Dora electric power plant has stopped smoking.

All problems we have these days are the heavy armed gangs who tries to terrorize people for political reasons or just for money, and the good thing that the majority of Iraqis knows that fact and trying to reduce it by all means. And the speeches of our new internal affairs minister are very encouraging.

I do like Iraq of these days and I am sure that we are going to be a peaceful advanced civilized nation again. And that wouldn’t be true without the help of the coalition and all the patriotic Iraqis who are cooperating to make our wishes and hopes to come true. I hope the prosperity we are going to gain is enough to make us and the coalition to forget about all the dark days we have been through and make us all remember those who gave their lives for that with pride and make us feel that their souls wasn’t for nothing. Being ungrateful is not a habit in Iraqi personality and time will prove that.

2004-04-13T14:09:00.000Z

Thank you Iraqis

I didn’t think that I will need to publish any thing today after the normal day we had in Baghdad yesterday. But when I took a drive in Baghdad today I had to tell you what I saw, and I think it’s important to tell you that Baghdad today was more normal, more crowded, more traffic jammed than ever……. Just like the people were imprisoned home for few days ago and they were trying to make it up for them selves. Schools were opened also universities and ministries offices, proud IPs every where to secure people. And if I have to tell you about the electricity devices market in Karada, then we won’t finish till tomorrow. I haven’t seen it so crowded all my life.

I am really proud with Iraqi people, because they can’t hate each other for the few days passed then they go to work as usual, it was a real harmony, it really proves they didn’t accept the actions of the terrorists took place in Iraq all the passed week. And it proves that we won’t need much time to rebuild the beloved country of ours. We are ready to start again and again till we find a real prosperity to live in.

I am sorry for our losses and casualties all over the country, and really hope it will be the last to happen and our people to live in peace from now on. And I really give many thanks to the Governing Council members and the parties and tribes they represents and to all other Iraqi parties and people who courageously took the initiative to calm down the fight between the coalition forces and the other involved fighting groups. I hope at last they all came to reason.

We can still hear and see some blown ups as the one I saw in Jadiriyah targeting Saeed Abdulazeez Alhakeem ( GC member) and another in Ameriyah targeting an American convoy. But I assure you those are only the tail of trouble makers and they will stop soon.

I can’t even find the right words to explain my hope to see Iraq calm and Iraqis safe. But I know what to do to see that and I am doing it as many Iraqis I saw and met today, WE MUST LIVE OUR LIFE, AND KEEP WORKING, BECAUSE EVEN IF I WAS SWEEPING THE STREETS THEN ITS BETTER THAN STANDING STILL. And Iraqis are not standing still, not those whom I saw today. We are proving our selves every day as an active nation, and that’s why we can find hate, covetousness and fear in the eyes and minds of many people and governments outside Iraq. Maybe that’s why they put more oil on the fire using their bad reputation TV stations to do so daily.

2004-04-12T10:21:00.000Z

Back to Normal

Today I can say that Baghdad is back to its normal situation, and to usual crowded streets. I was sure of what will happen and I thank God for that.

I just met with one of our employees in a site in Abo Ghreeb, which is a small town in between Baghdad and Faluja and he told me that the situation there is calm too and told me many stories about the terrorists and thieves there, straightly reminded me with the stories that our fathers and grandfathers used to tell us about the 1920 revolution happened in Iraq against the British occupation and how the revolution men fought British at that time for nothing but to steal and rob the British camps. It certainly didn’t fit with what was told to us by school history books and I remember that I used to say to my father “you’re either wrong or exaggerating “and he used to answer “you will know the truth by time”. What happened and what we saw fits exactly what we used to hear from that generation. Because many coalition equipments and vehicles and many civil vehicles and tankers and trucks which may not belong to the coalition forces and where hit or blown by the people who call themselves resistance, does not exist any more and they were not removed by there legal owners. Actually they were stolen by the same people who blown them (after dancing around the burning equipments a little).

I hope we all learned our lesson and the fighting for the few days passed delayed rebuilding the country, and made it suitable to be the battle field for the battle against terrorism, and that’s something no one with a mind should accept. Terrorists from all over the world are coming to Iraq to fight Americans, and they are using the simple Iraqi people as battle fuel.

We are sure that with the end of June an Iraqi government will take over, with the Governing Council members or with out them…… Now if something similar to what happened in Faluja and Najaf happened after June, how is it going to be solved, with problems like :

IPs doesn’t stand against rebels.
ICDCs refuse to carry on orders.
Police cars in Baghdad with Sadir pictures on there glass.
Police stations with green and red flags, not Iraq flag on top.

All that and more are facts any one can see in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. So what are we going to do? Are we going to ask coalition forces to leave? Are we ready to face consequences? Are we going to lie to ourselves and say we are ready?.....It will really needs a lot of courage to step the right step and bond ourselves with the coalition countries with the right bonds and treaties, because after that many people will call whoever will sign such treaties as unfaithful. But as my father used to say “time will prove how faithful and patriot such a man is”.

2004-04-11T12:07:00.000Z

Very Calm Day

All the reports on TV stations yesterday prove what General Kimmit said on his daily press conference, that what we are all fighting here in Iraq is terrorism and terrorists. Taking hostages, threatening to kill foreigner civilians and now threatening to kill and kidnap Iraqi Christians and destroying churches, may be later to blow any Iraqi civilian buildings or schools or killing children as a threat to get out of the problem they put them selves in in the first place.

I still see Iraqis are trying to live their normal life and to avoid getting hurt for nothing so the city today is very calm and with empty streets especially it is a holyday and the memory of Imam Husain is being held in Karbala. I hope no harm will happen there as it happened the last time.

We didn’t hear any thing about clashes in Baghdad today but there were many attacks on vehicles on the way to Baghdad AirPort no matter Iraqi or an American. But it always fails to accomplish anything.

It was a calm day I hope it will continue to calm down and all the hostages to be released. God bless this country and all the people who try to help us.

2004-04-10T11:20:00.000Z

Before Easter

Sorry for not bloging yesterday it was Friday (my week end), and I didn’t come to office where I usually publish my articles.

But it was a good day yesterday I managed to accomplish many matters. I took my family for shopping before Easter and took my wife to the hair dresser, and took my mother to church for the service of the Great Friday and spent some time with a friend who works for a Korean NGO. And for sure I wasn’t the only Iraqi who did so, because I so streets full of cars and people, I cant say it was as normal as it was ten days ago, but people are trying to act normal.

Today I attended my building site and met with my Sadir city workers who still come to work and they are being more convinced every day that the coalition is trying to eliminate only trouble makers.

From my meetings with Iraqi people I can feel more people are convinced to stay away from clashes and troubles by staying home and not to get out only for urgent matters and leave the coalition and IPs to do their job.

I came to office today after a car drive in Baghdad (Karada, Dora, Jadriya, Mansor, Bayaa) and all those places were normal but not crowded as they were. But I heard about clashes in Adhamiya.

I don’t like being only a reporter, but it’s important to give a true picture about the situation just to equalize the bad reports on TV stations. I saw some yesterday (and guess what TV station) as usual Arabiya, Who were putting a report about Faluja with pictures full of armed men with black clothes and Mullahs and Sadir pictures, Which means the pictures were from Sadir city not from Faluja, besides more unfinished speeches form Iraqi people. Changing facts is an art for them. I know some would say why you watch these stations?, actually I don’t, I watch Hurra TV, but we must know about the enemy too.

I will try to keep you informed with details and true news. Happy Easter every one. Pry with me for the good people of Iraq. In such situation I always remember the movie “First Knight” which was about King Arthur and his round table Knights, when he says “May God give us the wisdom to see the truth, the will to choose it and the strength to make it endure”.

2004-04-08T14:38:00.000Z

Attention……. GC and Iraqi Parties

I can’t say it’s more normal than yesterday and it’s not worse too, but are we staying home? No……Are we seeing any fights in streets? No……... Also we meet people from Sadir city and Adhamiya city every day and they are attending their jobs, and not standing against coalition forces……. Also I hade a phone call from a relative in Basrah and he said its calm and the damn media is lying as usual. We even sent an employee to Basrah to take care of a container coming to Om Qasir by sea………….And I would like to tell you about the maid we have in office and she is from Sadir city. Her brother was arrested the day before yesterday morning for wearing a black shirt and was suspected to be Mahdy army member. He was released yesterday and said that the coalition forces treated them well and been told to stay home and not to resist the coalition and to tell their neighbors and relatives to do so. So it was kind of an announcement for the people how to act. And she still comes to work every day.

I can feel the people of Sadir city uncomfortable with what Muqtada saying or doing, but they cant announce it for religion matters, (he is SAEED you know, and that’s mean he is a grand sun of prophet Mohamed so any one talk bad on him get cursed).

Any way what’s bothering me that the Governing Council members are taking a negative position of what’s going on. They all have their own armed militia and guards and those militias should be used to enforce order in streets not to guard the GC members only. Are we going to leave every thing for the coalition forces? And then start to criticize. What would happen if that trouble and rebel happened after June?. Then we would call for American army from its bases to help. Why turning authority to an Iraqi government then?.

I am not criticizing here and it’s not late to take real action against what’s going on and I still trust each and every man and woman in our GC and I will elect them all for a national assembly later. But a united militia with the same uniform should be created grouping all the guards and armed people from the parties’ members and the followers of the GC members to enforce order in streets. It’s their duty and our duty would be to defend our democracy and freedom against terrorists and trouble makers and kayos lovers.

The time of negativity is gone, and no more place for one man to tell all Iraqis what to do, we should deserve our freedom by acting as civilized people or the world will let us kill each other, as it happened in Rwanda, Lebanon, Somalia, and many other countries.

We don’t want to be the land of clearing debts between any two forces in the world, and that’s also the duty of the real patriotic parties of Iraq to educate the people how to behave. It happened before in Kurdistan, and the Kurdish people deserved the prosperity they live in today, because their leaders and parties educated the people how to behave to deserve to be a state.

I beg each and every man and woman in our GC and Iraqi parties to gather as many people as they can to be members of those parties and educate them against any destructive thoughts may be spread from all those who want to delay prosperity for Iraq and Iraqis for reasons any one with a clear mind can see.

2004-04-07T13:59:00.000Z

Lunch Invitation

Living the same natural life in Baghdad today, all I could find different is its less crowded and less traffic jam. Maybe because it’s about the end of the week or because the people of the Sadir city are staying home because of the coalition and IPs groups are inspecting and searching for weapons house by house there and in Adhamiya city.

But in the rest of Baghdad we didn’t hear any fighting noise, and the tiles worker who works in my house and lives in Sadir city and was absent for two days showed today and he said that he stayed home for two days to avoid being suspected as Sadir follower and being arrested for that, and when it was more normal he came to work.

For me I was invited today for lunch by an American unit (FOB Thunder) who is about to leave Iraq bake to its base and transferring authority to another unit (1st cavilary)….. I wish that the media was there to cover the event and I am sure they all (the media I mean) were busy covering some exaggerated bad news in another place in Iraq. Any way I can tell you some details about it:

The invitation included the staff and solders of the two units, some contractors who are involved in rebuilding the area under the authority of that unit, the local council members of the area, and many ICDC officers, IP officers and many other Iraqi people. The leaders of the old and new units gave speeches and they were very intimate, also speeches were given by the local council members. One of them was the head of the Iraqi tribes association and the other was the mosque Imam of the area, and they talked about the solid friendship between them and the staff and solders of the old unit and wished it will be the same with the new one, and appreciated the help given to the area people and by the coalition forces. It was a very important event to be put on TV to the entire world to let know that good relationship is really established between Iraqis and coalition forces and the bright side of the situation in Iraq is not covered by the media for reasons of their on.

I am really sorry I cant put real names and places its to early for that but I am telling what I saw with my own eyes and part of what I saw today was tears of many people who made friends and were afraid they may not see each other again.

God bless all people who are doing their job and duties to rebuild Iraq and helping Iraqis.

2004-04-06T15:06:00.000Z

Still Normal
It is seven o’clock Baghdad time now and its more normal than yesterday, I didn’t see any clashes, but many of my friends heard shooting and helicopters yesterday night near Sadir city and Adhamiya city….. The Sadir city people says it was calm and the coalition forces started to search the houses for weapons and arresting those who are stocking some at home.
Many Iraqi people started criticizing Muqtada today for the nonsense actions he’s taking…….I still think that the main problem was in Faloja and its being taking care of……..Back to you tomorrow.

2004-04-05T15:13:00.000Z

Here is What I saw

As an Iraqi in Baghdad in such day I should say something about what’s going on. But I’m not going to analyze anything…..I’m going to give facts I saw and heard today and things I know about.

I started my day by attending my house building site and I talked to the ceramic worker who lives in Sader city, asked him about his friend the tiles worker who couldn’t come to work today because he lives in the same place, may be because the streets were closed.

And when I asked the man about what happened yesterday he said:

“It was bad yesterday, The Sader city people occupied all the police stations and burned one or two hummers, and they are all armed and on the houses roofs waiting to fight. But this morning the Americans entered the city without any fight with tanks as big as my house. They are ignorant people want to fight America. Master our problem is ignorance”

That was the words of a simple man from Sader city, after that we shouldn’t say they are all bad. Because if they were at work yesterday they wouldn’t be in the protest and clashes happened and this man and his friend is my evidence for that. That’s a fact we should admit, if they got a job and paid to be in it they will forget all about…….………whatever you want them to forget about, and I Am saying this because I’m familiar with it.

I left the man working to attend the bank for some business and in my way I saw:

Communication workers trying to fix phone cable….Two buses full of university students about to go to a picnic…..Traffic Police trying to enforce more order in the streets…….Teen girls walking to school……….Gardeners taking care of public squares……….Many building workers working in Mamon communication tower….People shopping.

And many other normal people and normal daily life actions. And it wasn’t in one place; it was in Bayaa area, Mansor area, Dora area, Karada area, and these about 25 % of Baghdad….. And in office there were nobody is absent they all came to work and they are from all over Baghdad. And we made many joke about what happened and we were sorry it happened.

All what we heard about the clashes was from TV (Arabiya & Jazira). I am not saying it didn’t happen, but it was exaggerated. As I said I don’t want to analyze anything yet but I wanted to tell you about what I saw.

2004-04-04T10:23:00.000Z

Jessica

The article I was about to publish before I knew about Faluja.

A while ago I received an e-mail from Mr. Paul Edwards which was very inspiring for me to find many things to talk about, and I still have that e-mail printed with me to see if I am covering all the matters mentioned in it or not…….One of the most important things in it was

“Maybe you could explain the lies that Saddam used to tell
Iraqis about America, and how many people believed them,
and what the truth is? Maybe we can go through one lie at
a time, one lie per day?”

Simply I can say that the policy of hating America started 1968 when the Baath Party was in power in Iraq. Of course there were long periods of good relations between USA and Baath government, but America hating policy is in all our news papers, radio, TV, school books, stories, every where, America the leader of Capitalism, the imperialism, the drug dealers country, the Zionism supporting, the development countries blood sucker, the oil greedy,……………etc. That’s mean any guy like me who was born 1967 should hate America.

So at 1991 when I was serving my compulsory military period in Koot city south of Baghdad with thousands of boys like me, I was a part of a story I really like to tell you about.

It was night and about fifty of us came back from training center to get a night sleep in a hotel in the city center which was something any one financially capable can do to avoid sleeping in bad conditions with out lights, food, beds, water, bathrooms, and many other thing I can see any American solder have and available to him in his base in Baghdad. Any way when we gather and all of us are boys who had just finished their college study and should be filled with hating Americans of course ( and believe me we where all hoping to be born there), and we were just out of Kuwait liberation war, then we don’t have any thing to do but to watch TV, and exactly an American movie which was played every night on the only TV station we had in Iraq, and at that night it was “Saving Jessica” or “Where is Jessica”, I cant really remember the title but it was based on a real story of a couple of young parents who had their live daughter fall in an old well in their garden and slides down few meters and stops down there. So emergency, fire department, medical unit, police dep. And many voluntaries came to the place to save little Jessica and she was finally saved after more than 48 hours by digging another well besides the old one and sending a man down to dig a horizontal hole between the two wells to pull her out, and they succeed saving her out. At the end of the movie the fire dep. Chief told the police dep. Chief while pointing to some water on the street “I bet you I can walk on that water”.

That was the movie which we watched with out any blink, holding our breath for an hour, after a while of silence after the movie end, one of the boys said loudly “they really deserve to live”, and he meant Americans, so every one else said with one voice “eeei wallah”, which means (that’s right with using God name as confirmation).

What I mean of this story is, with all the brain wash Baath used against the Americans, the Iraqis was so close to American life, if not by watching the movies on TV, cinemas, videos, CDs, then by having a relative or a friend lives there telling them all about it…………. After all……………… American behavior stile is so similar to the Iraqis; at least that’s my opinion.

2004-04-01T10:56:00.000Z

……………
I was about to publish a new article to the website when I noticed about the attack in Faloja. So I stopped and couldn’t do any thing till this morning, honestly because I was so shamed and didn’t know what to say, I even didn’t want to open my website today so I wont read any comments about it, I was afraid that people would think that all Iraqis are savages. But let me tell you this, the people who stood there even to watch what’s going on are not human. It’s really difficult to describe what I felt, but I will try. I felt anger, disgust, terror, depressed, pain in stomach, and even guilt, I am sure I wasn’t thinking clear so I waited a while before I left back home.

But Now I know that I want to tell the world that me and the Iraqi people I know and those whom I saw since yesterday all shamed of what happened and refuse it and want to do something to stop things like that. Of course we need the help of the coalition to do so but we will do our best.

I used to think that when the coalition forces ends their duties in Iraq, then the Iraqis are ready to take over, but now I am sure that we will need the coalition forces with us for a long time, because I am sure if I or any other Iraqi was in that car, then we would face the same ……..end……. Those who did what happened in Faloja yesterday will not spare any life Iraqi or American, man or woman, a grownup or a child. I wish the IPs with help of coalition forces and the photos of what happened which shows the faces of many people involved would take fast steps to arrest all the people involved to face justice.

At the end, I would like to ask God to bless the souls of the victims, and to say that this accident makes us believe that good and evil is every where and we cant blame any person for being a Christian or Muslim, Suni or Sheeaa, Arabic or Kurdish, Catholic or Anglican because in each and every party of those we can find someone like Ghandi and someone like Bin Ladin.

2004-03-31T07:10:00.000Z

Gloomy
A journalist called Nir Rosen has wrote a long story about the situation in Iraq at, and he says he is living in Iraq since April 2003 , the story is so gloomy that any one would ask “why he is still there?”……For me as an Iraqi person who is living in Iraq since 1967 which is the birth year of mine, I would say that he is exaggerating and telling one side of the truth and ignoring all similar situations in many other countries nowadays including countries like Egypt, England, Spain, USA, ………etc.

What I want to say to give both side of the truth is to put some questions….. if the picture is so gloomy? then:

1-Why there still many foreigner reporters in Iraq.
2-Why there are so many foreigner companies and NGOs working in Iraq.
3-Why there is no Iraqis tries to leave Iraq as it was before April 2003.
4-Why there are so many Iraqis are trying to come back and settle in Iraq again.
5-Why is the buildings renting is so high in Iraq.
6-Why the construction business is so expensive in Iraq.
7-Why the real estate is exploding in prices.
8-Why the streets are so crowded even at night.
9-Why there are many Iraqi apply to IP every day.
10-Why I see IPs fighting crime and terrorism daily.
11-Why the international bank is ready to invest in Iraq.
12-Why I can see women and girls alone in streets.
13-Why I can see protests with out any more mass graves.
14-Why I can see Suni and Sheeaa work together every day with out any problems.
15-Why I can see Falooja people works with foreigner companies to rebuild and guard the country.
16-Why I go to Abo Ghreeb twice a week and can’t see any problems.
17-Why I hear stories from my relatives and friends about a good situation in Basrah, Karkuk, Sulaymaniya, Samawa, Arbil, Dehook,………..etc.
18-Why I can see the light that this man can’t see.
19-Why I meet people who can see this light every day.
20-Why there are people who can’t stand to tell the truth.
21-Why there are people who don’t know that by telling the gloomy stories they make the situation gloomier.

I wish I hade the time to put the story of that journalist and insert my comments of what he says in between the lines supported by pictures, at that time we would have a full story and the whole truth…….But I have more important thing to do building Iraq & Iraqis.

2004-03-29T13:04:00.000Z

Difficult
Its getting more difficult for me to write daily because I don’t like saying the same words every time but I am sure I would find always something to share with you because its getting to be a habit, actually a lovely one for me, not only something I should do. Besides….. taking an Iraqi voice to reach the world is just like a mission to me now, and I will try always to clear the picture of Iraq and Iraqis to you.

We always talk about what happened or what’s going on. Today I would like to talk about things are not happening any more or happens much much less than before.

Electric power is not cutting off much these days and we are getting long hours of continuance power, which I hope it will stay this way all the coming burning summer of us.

I don’t hear many people complaining about jobs or unemployment; actually they are trying to look for better opportunities to get higher salaries.

I don’t hear any one complains about the high prices of fruits, vegetables, bread, or transportations which is very expensive but seems the people are capable to purchase it, and I can see more modern cars every day in the streets of Baghdad, even I got one which was bought to me by the company I work to.

No more people stays home because of the safety or security situation of the city, and you can see women who drive modern cars alone in the streets. Actually for the second Friday (which is our week end) we went to “Hunting” social club for lunch and hundreds of Baghdad families were there with kids and young boys and girls playing around.

I don’t think there is someone will not send his children to school this year as it happened last year for some of us because of the security situation. And the schools received good budgets to be rehabilitated for the best of Iraqi students.

For me and the rest of our employees, we can feel normal life and trying to establish good future to our families. But we should all remember that if we need to see prosperity and democracy, then we should start with rebuilding the Iraqi personality according to a well planned plan, and that would be the mission of Iraqi political parties.

2004-03-25T14:34:00.000Z

Green Zone
“You've been in the Green Zone. I wonder what you make of this article. Are you "well-heeled", ie, rich, so that you get in, and not of the "working class". I think you're in the working class. You work. I think I'm in the working class as well, as I work too. Anyways, I think the articles biased as Iraqis are represented as having one point of view. I was curious about your opinion, whatever it may be.”

This was a part of an e-mail I received from one of the best visitors of this website, and I took a look and had read the article mentioned (which I published below and recommend to read). Although I don’t like long articles but I red it twice because most of it described all I saw in my first visit to the Green Zone, and it was a very lovely coincidence when my boss took me with him to the contracting office inside the GZ the same day I red the article.(a Million dollar coincidence).

It’s true you can find another world inside (yes a green one), but this time and for the first in my life I FELT how the people governed this country before April 2003 were FOOOOOOOLS. I saw lakes between a house and another, and when I say a house not a palace I mean the houses of the servants and guards (the special ones). I saw Baghdad from a spot I didn’t stand on before.
I saw magnificent buildings destroyed by the war and being rebuild by Iraqi workers, and they are ordinary people and not heeled and working for the CPA….. A market managed by Iraqis from neighborhood selling goods to the CPA staff….. Young boys with motorcycles playing in the streets and squares inside the GZ…. CPA staff jogging (running with shorts), and when the working day ends, hundreds of Iraqis would leave to be there next day, but I am sure they are qualified people who didn’t west time by talking about un safe streets and should they work for the CPA or not.
There are people who can’t stand to see others in good positions and getting good salaries and can’t get the chance themselves. Happened to me before April 2003, because I submitted my C.V. to all UN organization in Baghdad according to the adds in papers (one of them was fitting me so much that I thought they might forgot to put my name in the add), but I didn’t get any chance, because (and that’s what I think) UN used to employ people who are Iraqi intelligence and others who are not intelligence, may be threatened (by the old Iraqi secrete police) to leave or else. So I waited to get a chance which I am happy with now. All they (the people who are not getting a good chance now) have to do is to keep on looking for the chance and not to blame any one else if they don’t have qualifications and try to be more qualified. For example the UNDP in Baghdad is giving courses in computer and English language for Iraqis nearly free and sometimes free.

I would like to tell you about what happened to me in the CPA BX which is the super market for CPA staff. I entered there with my friends and boss I took some pictures there a while later a woman solder who seemed to be responsible for the place came to me and asked “was it you who took pictures?” . I can’t say I wasn’t terrified, so I handled my digital camera to her and said “its OK if its not allowed, you can delete it”, so she said “ no its all right, but pleas don’t do it again because we hade problem with pictures of Iraqi staff shown to terrorists and the Iraqis was killed or bothered, so pleas don’t take pictures”, so I said “ I understand thank you”.

When we left a friend of mine said “they don’t have the right to prevent any one from taking photos”. That’s when I said “do you know if those pictures were taken before April 2003, what would happened to me now?............I would be vaporized now”

THE ARTICLE

By J. Michael Kennedy Times Staff Writer

Here in the Green Zone, off-duty soldiers laze away their afternoons sunbathing at the luxurious palace swimming pool.
Residents use telephones with an upstate New York area code, even to call someone across the hall.
The parking lot is so clogged with identical new sport utility vehicles that drivers have to punch the alarm buttons on their key chains to draw a bead on where theirs are located. And there's American chow, lots of it, shipped in from the United States. Think chipped beef on toast.
Welcome to the Bubble. Behind the massive concrete blocks, razor wire, sandbags and maze of checkpoints where visitors are searched and searched again is the heart of U.S. military and civilian operations in Iraq).
Save for the routine mortar attacks that have yet to do much damage to this sprawling 4-square-mile zone, there is a surreal sense of calm about the compound, especially when juxtaposed with the snarled, noisy streets of Baghdad — which many people inside the zone seldom, if ever, see.
It is a place where soldiers and civilians work long hours, party hard when they can and look for the little things that make life bearable in this hostile land.
But for Iraqis, the Green Zone represents a foreign power hunkering down for a long stay — in Saddam Hussein's old digs, no less — while shutting itself off from the country it conquered. Rubbing salt in the wound, speculation has it that the zone, which encompasses some of Baghdad's prime real estate, will eventually become the site of the mammoth U.S. Embassy.
"Americans should behave in a normal, civilized way, like they do elsewhere in the world," said Dauvaod Mohammed, owner of the Kitchen Furniture store in Baghdad. "They hide away behind big walls."
On a more mundane note, Iraqis complain bitterly that Baghdad's streets wouldn't be clogged if the Americans pulled up stakes and moved somewhere else. And the restricted access is a source of irritation for Iraqis who will never get in.
Saad Abbas, deputy editor of the politically moderate Az Zamman newspaper, said seeing well-heeled Iraqis and foreigners with their suits and cellphones entering the zone only reminds the working class of opportunities unavailable to them.
"It is natural when a poor person sees someone coming out of the Green Zone with all these things, he will not like that," Abbas said. "He will feel angry at the sight of him."
There are reasons for the compound, of course, security chief among them. The 15-foot blast-resistant concrete walls that surround the compound protect it from attacks such as the car bomb that killed seven people Wednesday at a Baghdad hotel. The military is not about to make the same mistake it did in Beirut in 1983, when a suicide bomber plowed through a lightly reinforced security gate and killed 241 American service members as they slept in their barracks.
At the beginning of the Baghdad occupation, the construction of the Green Zone was a source of friction between the United States and the United Nations, which felt that the foreigners should mingle with the population. But after two devastating attacks on its headquarters, the U.N. has relocated to neighboring countries. Some foreign companies doing contract work, meanwhile, tried to operate in Baghdad neighborhoods only to take refuge in the Green Zone after hearing persistent rumors that they were in imminent danger.
Just getting into the compound is a challenge to one's patience as well as a source of jitters, given that a car bomb detonated at one of its gates in January. At least 20 people were killed and 120 wounded.
On any given day, the lines to enter the Green Zone can stretch so long that soldiers spend much of their time trying to stop impatient visitors from jumping the queue. Of these, hundreds are men who hope to become police trainees and receive the $120-a-month salary that goes with it. Even when the line is short, getting in involves two full-body searches and two identity checks.
Inside, the scene changes dramatically. The Green Zone includes the cavernous convention center, Hussein's ornate Republican Palace and the Rashid Hotel, once the city's premier hostelry. It was once wired by Hussein's minions for eavesdropping on visiting VIPs, but under coalition control, it has been abandoned as living quarters because of rocket attacks. Still, it remains the mess hall of choice for 5,000 Americans living inside the zone plus a prime source of pirated DVDs and tacky paintings in the first-floor gift shops.
The palace is the nerve center of the zone, where soldiers and civilians work around the clock. Eighteen-hour days are common and 12-hour shifts are routine.
"I'm finding that sometimes I forget what day it is," said Pepper Bryars, a civilian communications specialist from Alabama.
Four huge, helmeted busts of Hussein have been removed from atop the palace, and his throne has been put in storage. The foyer of the palace's main entrance has been turned into a dining room, where food is dished out cafeteria-style. Rooms inside the palace have been chopped up by dividers, and offices are identified by paper taped to doors. On the walls are Valentine's Day cards from grade-school children, including one depicting an assault rifle in the middle of a heart.
"Cupid's New Arrow," reads the inscription.
Marble floors are lined with red carpet, and one large ballroom is used as a dormitory. On one wall is a Hussein-era fresco of Scud missiles rocketing skyward, as they did during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when they hit targets in Saudi Arabia and Jerusalem. On the other is a fresco of Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock, one of Islam's holiest sites. In between, the floor is scattered with bunk beds and cots, with gear strewn about.
But mostly, the palace has the look of slightly disheveled office building where workers go about their business.
"The days are long but the weeks are short," said Col. Emmett DuBose of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a Texan who is responsible for restoring Iraq's oilfields. "When you're busy working day in and day out, you don't even realize you're in a bubble."
A souk, or market, has sprung up inside the compound near the palace, where merchants sell souvenirs that include Saddam Hussein wristwatches and other knickknacks.
The Green Zone Cafe, a converted gas station, is a favorite eating spot and welcome diversion from the regular fare. The Iraqi proprietor serves hamburgers and chicken kebabs along with sodas and beer. He's been so successful that construction workers are expanding the eatery, which is particularly busy in the evenings. Among other things, the cafe has a large cache of what the label describes as "The Love of God Wine," widely believed to be of the Communion variety. Two Chinese restaurants vie for the Asian palate, their major difference being that one serves beer and the other doesn't.
Around the compound, trailer park communities have sprung up to accommodate the thousands of American workers who have made the Green Zone their home. The guidelines are two people to a room, two rooms to a trailer.
The neighborhoods have such names as Embassy Estates, Poolside, Riverside and the Palms (not the best place to live when mushy dates are falling from the trees).
There is a laundry and a post exchange roughly the size of a convenience store.
When Bryars arrived in the Green Zone, he was billeted in a large tent with dozens of other people, many of them serious snorers. "I thought I'd never get to sleep," he said.
In another part of the compound is the parade route where Hussein would review his troops as they marched under four massive crossed swords. The hands holding the blades are exact replicas of the ex-dictator's. Along the path are metal bumps — Iranian army helmets, cemented in during the Iran-Iraq war so Hussein's troops could crush the enemy underfoot.
Finally, there is the Baghdad Convention Center, which houses media facilities as well as dozens of civilian operations ranging from Royal Jordanian Airways (flying to Amman only) to the giant Bechtel construction company, whose offices are in the sub-subbasement. The Iraqi National Symphony rehearses in the center; on a recent afternoon, the conductor grew impatient with the horn section, which was having trouble hitting its notes.
And yes, there is green in the Green Zone — grassy, flower-filled areas around the convention center that are tended by Iraqi gardeners.
But the green ends at a guard shack manned by American soldiers, replaced by more sandbags and concertina wire marking the way back to dusty Baghdad.

2004-03-20T16:07:00.000Z

Thank you Paul
Someone asked me by e-mail:
“Can you please explain to me why you don't watch Al Iraqiya
to get Iraqi news, or Al Hurra to get international news.

Is there something wrong with either station? If so, can
you please spell out what is wrong, so that perhaps those
stations can fix their broadcast to be more attractive.”

I really thank Mr. Paul Edwards for that question because I always talk about how Al Arabiya & Jazirah stations are trying to spray fuel on fire, and it’s important to clear things out.

Actually I don’t watch Arabiya station I always watch Al Hurra, LBC, Iraqia and CNBC, and listen to Sawa radio. But every where I go I see people watches Arabiya & Jazirah, and I see them cursing those stations while they are watching and I say to them “why you watch it then?” and I don’t get an answer. Till yesterday I saw my mother in law watching Arabiya reports about the two reporters who were killed in Baghdad (Ali alkhateeb & Ali Abdulazeez, who used to upset me when I listen to them) and I heard her saying “Oh my God, what are we going to do today, all the program will be about the two men who were killed”, so I laughed -and was about to make the cake of my birthday which was yesterday fall from my hand- when I remembered the days when Oday used to put hours of programs about Sadams visits and speeches on Shabab TV and we couldn’t find anything else to watch so we turn off the TV, and said to her “You can just switch the station to another, its not the old days”.

I can’t tell the magic of those stations, but I know a trick. Oday used to put hours of his own speeches just in the middle of the most popular program on Shabab TV, and the most popular programs in Baghdad these days are Mexican serials with Arabic voices (what ever the right term for that) and reality TV programs, so they can put those with some good real news in the middle.

But watching the report about the killing of the two Arabiya reporters notified me about something very important. The names of those two reporters and other Arabiya reporters seemed very common to me till they said it by them selves (i.e. the station host) they all used to work for the old Batheiest media stations owned by the government before April 2003 and administrated by Al Sahaf & Oday, now we are getting somewhere, shouldn’t we?. God bless their souls .

2004-03-18T10:41:00.000Z

Life Lovers
I have just met an American friend who was in the place of the explosion happened last night in “Jabal Lubnan Hotel - Andalus Sq. – Baghdad”, and helped rescuing injured people and showed me some pictures, and he was so furious and said “you know… all what was said in the media about angry Iraqis were pushing Americans aside not to help is bull…..., Americans and Iraqis helped each other and helped injured people together”. And “no way was it a missile”.
For me, I was in south Baghdad (Dora) 8.45 at the evening when I heard the news about the explosion and I was with my wife and her parents at their house, and Al Arabiya TV started their report. What drove me crazy besides seeing innocent people being killed, what the Arabiya host asked their reporter in Baghdad “are the residential area was hit is sunny or sheea?”, so I said to my father in law “they started to put some gas on the fire. We should look for the people standing behind this channel and what they do with their money”.
Any way, few months past when an explosion used to happen in Baghdad my father in law used to blame the Bathiest for it and would say the Americans is loosing control. Well I have heard him yesterday saying that terrorists are still trying to hold the government from rebuilding the country and democracy and what could the Americans do if those murderers are targeting less important and less secured places. Now we can see that the Iraqi point of view is totally changed, and they understand that the future is so bright which create many enemies for us and they are putting all they got to hold us from getting better life. At 9.00 the same night I took my family back home in the streets of Baghdad and it was very normal and full of cars and people.
I know the place targeted yesterday and I have an office less than a mile away from it and the area is full of shops, hospitals, banks and houses. So they are targeting people who try to help Iraqis to rebuild their country. That’s what I told Mr. Gord Westmacott from CBC radio when he phoned me last night home to ask about the matter. I was so furious that I told him “Gord.. We are loosing innocent people here and I wish I was in the GC so I would put all people involved in terrorism in Iraq to execution penalty and show the world what Iraqis do with the bodies at then nobody would do it again. Any way I was so furious when I said so but after I calmed down I feel sorry to say so, but I am sure it was the same feeling for any one in America at 11th of Sep. 2001, so I’m not shame .
This morning I took my family out again and saw others do the same I mean being them selves and lives their life normally, I met my contractor who brought his worker to continue building my house and my wife just phoned to tell me that she bought the ceramics for the bathrooms and my boss just came in from an important meeting in one of the ministries. And we are here and will always be here to fight back terrorism by being always life lovers. GOD BLESS THE SOULS OF THE VIVTIMS.

2004-03-16T16:43:00.000Z

I hope I can say this CLEAR
I have never thought that an article about elections in Spain would get so much attention and so much comments, so I was surprised today before I started to think about it, and got the idea that people in all over the world (if we thought that our website visitors are a sample for that) thinking that they have lost a battle by loosing Spain being with the coalition forces against the terrorism. We can’t say it’s not true, and for me as an Iraqi I have my own fears that a day might come and we would find our selves with the Americans alone fighting terrorism because of the democracy in the coalition countries.
Can anyone imagine that terrorists are using the media and democracy to win the war, we should be aware of that, actually its not easy to correct mistakes, but its easy for any one with reason and logic to learn from mistakes, and here we should have our lesson and when I say we I mean (we the people all over the world). And it’s “not to run from the battle what ever the losses are, when we feel that we are on the right side”.
I have something to say and I am trying to hold my self from saying it, but to hell let me say it and if any one would say to me “it’s not your business” then OK I apologize in advance but it would be said. And its “After what happened in Spain ( in elections I mean) the Americans must have the lesson, actually they are the number one people to have the lesson and they have to hold together against what happened at 11th of Sep and what might happen later”, and don’t try to find someone to blame but terrorists themselves…… And if any one used criticism of the American leadership to fight against terrorism as his winning card for White House……..would be a fool trying to make fool of the people. Maybe I am not an American citizen to talk like this, and maybe Americans feeling that they were bearing so much for other people. But let me bring to your memory the long long list of people from all over the world who tries to get American citizenship or tries to find there way to American land,…..are they all wrong ?.
American people who think they should not be involved in the war against terrorism must reconsider and encourage their patriotic administration (what ever it is from) to continue their fair war against terrorists or they will find them selves one day under sanctions from Afghani government.

2004-03-14T12:24:00.000Z

Whose Next
Its Spain now…………. I would like to talk about the terrorist action took place in Iraq few months ago. At the beginning it was against American basis and important placed such as CPA, UN, ICRC, Rasheed hotel, Palastine hotel, Baghdad hotel and many other places, after that when the coalition forces and the IP started to secure the important places the terrorists started to attack ordinary houses, schools, civilians in Karbala and other civil unexpected points taking the advantage that nobody would think about those places.
The same is happening now, because its getting more difficult to attack American targets or targets in Brittan for example so they looked for places no body will think about to secure and start terrorism there. Maybe next time its Veggie or Nepal because I can see solders of those two countries in Baghdad.
Well we can say nobody is safe from terrorism not even France because they stand against the war in Iraq, the whole world should start the war against terrorism at once, because its getting the same pattern as aids, if you wont fight it your not safe from it. But what should we do……….For me I can’t find but three things to do first we must have the will to fight against terrorism as the new aids spreading, second we must keep our normal life as it is and have faith, third we must all share our information about terrorists, so they cant hide………That’s how I think its going to work, not by waiting for the governments to fight the war for us.
God bless the souls of the people died in Madrid and to give their relatives the patience for missing them. And for the governments in all the world we can say”KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN IT MIGHT BE YOU NEXT”.

2004-03-11T19:58:00.000Z

CBC
My wife just came to me and told me that she just closed the Iraq&Iraqis web site and there is nothing new since the 9th of March, So I said “actually there is nothing new to tell the people” that’s true, thing are calm and the people have more important thing to take care of than to listen to the news of a bomb here or a shooting there. At least for the people I meet every day, we have different problems, problems like (the ……. Co. is paying higher than what we get - the electric power is better but it still goes off - why is the streets is so crowded – there is a new mobile hand sets – with so many car models, how can any one choose - the internet through phone line is not clear……….etc). As you see Iraqis have problems but they are being less…………annoying problems.
But let me tell you something I have been hiding for a while. Gord Westmacott from CBC Radio (that’s Canada’s national public Broadcaster), gave me the chance to be their guest through phone, that’s few days ago, and it happened two hours a go with the host Bill Camron. Few questions about Iraq, the security and the economic situations and the stock market. I really appreciate their efforts and interests in what is really happening in Iraq, and trying to get a true picture from an ordinary citizen.
I don’t now what was the reactions or what was the subject discussed, because we cant reach the casting of CBC, it would be nice to listen to the program, but I hope I was successful to tell the world that the simple Iraqis who had the chance and the effort to have a six thousands years of history are proving that history is not enough its trying to learn from history what’s important. Yes so its not shame to be a six thousands years nation and get help from a 200 years nation.
Any way it was a real happy event for me and my family to have an interview with CBC and I thank them again and wish them all the luck. THANK YOU GORD.

2004-03-09T17:07:00.000Z

Go Iraqis
As we said in the last article, the Iraqi constitution were signed yesterday the 8th of MAR 2004. The media already started to spread doubts about the commitment of Iraqi parties with it or not, after they were spreading doubts about if it would be signed or not. There is an old Arabic say “the camels caravan goes ahead while the dogs barks”, I couldn’t find more suitable thing to say about those people who put them selves as enemies to Iraqis and tries to delay whatever its good for humanity. Well its time to stop that because GAME IS OVER and a new game is just started and nothing is going to stop Iraqis to be the winners of the new game, we had overcome our wounds, and all setups is obvious now and we have many brave patriot men and women who risked their lives to put us all in a safer world, starting with our honorable governing council members, ending with the daily workers trying to clean our streets. And of course we would never forget the help of our friends and allies from now on “the coalition forces” who made things easy for us.
I am sure many people would not accept my words easily but that won’t stop me or other reasonable Iraqis of telling the truth.
A new country has born with a new law which was approved be GC members. I think those brave people would be our next parliament, and if they nominated them selves to the next elections I will elect them all, so any Iraqi would protest or stand against the law “our new constitute” would be held as an outlaw, so its better to use democracy and what ever it supplies us to make our voices reaches the people responsible, to make our lives better, and for those who tries to use democracy as a weapon to destroy Iraq, I say don’t depend on that and leave us, because we will stand against you and protect our efforts to rebuild Iraq & Iraqis what ever it will cost us.

2004-03-06T16:43:00.000Z

ICDC
I am very anxious to talk about what happened with the delay of signing the Iraqi constitutes yesterday. But it wont be clear till Monday so I will hold my breath till then and think “that’s democracy, my opinion your opinion and the others”. After Monday there will be much to talk about.
But let me tell you about what happened to me Thursday night when I was going back home from the office. Inside our residential compound, I was prevented from entering my house street and told by an Iraqi ICDC ( a new Iraqi security force) to drive ahead to be checked with the check point in front of me and come back, so I did and there I found another Iraqi ICDCs stopping a line of cars and checking the IDs and the cars with a very high class behavior and politely asking the people to get out of there cars to be checked. When it was my turn the responsible came to me and told me “would you pleas get out of the car and open all the doors”, after they finished they thanked me and told me “sorry to trouble you sir”, I couldn’t but to thank them and said “its ok that’s your duty don’t hesitate to accomplish it”, …….Back home I told my wife about it and started to try to remember someone Iraqi in uniform to thank me or apologize to me before April 2003, and I couldn’t remember one not even in an Iraqi airways plane. May be you say, “so what! What are you talking about?”, well nobody can understand the difference I felt but an Iraqi who lived in Iraq the last forty yeas. May be for that reason It wasn’t so bad for me that the constitutes hasn’t been signed yesterday because I can feel the difference. And its not long time till Monday to know it. BUT I KNOW….. IT WILL BE SIGNED.

2004-03-04T15:42:00.000Z

We are Here
If none of the terrorism activities happened in Karbala & Baghdad at the 2nd of March 2004, we would be celebrating our Transitional Administration Law now, our first step towards democracy. What happened was the main cause to delay the law, but it couldn’t stop it, that’s where the terrorists are exactly wrong, all they can do is to delay the results, they never had the strategy or mentality to change things (thank God), even at the 11th SEP it came with results that they couldn’t face (thank God again). What can we expect from someone want to die achieving his goals, what’s after that, especially when innocent people die because of what he did.
Any way, we pray to those who lost their lives because of terrorism and to those who lost someone dear to them, we always say in such events “may God give us the patience to stand against such situations”.
The streets of Baghdad is still crowded with people going to their works, nothing is changed, and will not, from what I see….. Iraqis started to feel changes and they are racing them selves to their goals.
I am in my work office and received two investors today one from Turkey and the other from England to start investing in Iraq, and they are very willing to start.
Our stock market is very close to start, and we are preparing ourselves to that.
Another chance to invest Iraqis money is opened these days in one of our best private sector banks, and few more is about to open at the few days coming.
You can see… if people would not feel the changes, they would not heal from their wounds so fast and start looking for chances to increase their wealth, but those are the Iraqis I always new,….. once in Basra during the eighties when I was in the high school, ten of my friends went to swim in Shat El Arab river while Iran was shelling Basra with heavy artillery, nine of them ended in hospital when a shell fall on their boat, thank God nobody died and they all alive now. We can not give up life easily not because of anything, that’s why we are six thousands years old.

2004-03-02T19:56:00.000Z

Karbala
Few weeks after April 2003, we had another memory day for our brothers the sheea and millions of people went to Karbala for the ceremonies, with coalition troops every where to secure the people and nothing went wrong. At that time we heard some people saying that the Iraqis can secure their selves and they don’t need foreigners to help with that, more than that some went so far to create an army to secure Karbala and Najaf and they took the matter so challenging. And as an Iraqi I can tell if the coalition forces did the same this year and tried to secure the ceremonies every one would look at them as invaders and occupation force. But when the coalition tried to leave the matter to Iraqis as the Iraqis wanted, we saw what happened today and the same people who wanted the coalition to leave the matter to Iraqis, taking the coalition responsible for the security of the Iraqi cities. Easily that’s what we can call foolish. I am sorry to be so aggressive and furious, but those were real simple innocent human beings we lost today who were trying to do something they were not allowed to do for decades, people would be sitting in their houses this night instead of ……….. It’s really not the time of taking the matter so naïve, its time of reality and saving lives. Its time for each and every Iraqi with reason to educate others, and for those who can’t see thing right to keep silent and wait.
It was a real coincidence that I found the letter of that terrorist called (Abo Musab ElZurgany) published on the CPA website and I red it yesterday and said to my self “my god he’s doing something tomorrow”. I hope every one could read what that man could say. The words he spoke can’t be but pure poison, for an example he said “let the blood burst so if good people died then we are rushing their end to heaven and if bad people died then we are getting red of them”, can you imagine.
What happened in Karbala and Kadhim today should not happen again, and that’s not impossible, taking the mater with an open mind and cooperation between IPs and coalition forces would be enough to stop it.
But after darkness there is always dawn, and what was comforting today that all Iraqis who spoke to the media today didn’t talk about conspiracy theory but they talked about national unity and an enemy who is trying to start a civil war and that’s what never would happen to Iraq & Iraqis.

2004-03-01T16:21:00.000Z

Future!
I have realized that many of our problems in Baghdad are becoming financial problems. And because I am really not finding something interesting to tell you about today, so I thought I may share with you a little uncomfortable thought, beside it’s the end of February and here in Iraq we get paid monthly. And its my duty to put the pay roll, and I try always to apply it to the company chairman for any changes in a good timing ( i.e. when he is in a good mood). Well this month he didn’t change anything, so I am getting the same salary. I have to be honest to tell you that my salary is enough for any family in Baghdad to stay in a good life style, but I am seeing people with less qualifications now getting plenty more than I get, with less working hours, so as I said its uncomfortable thought, but really I don’t want to leave my employer, because I like him and his ideas very much…………… But as usual let’s look at the filled part of the glass; people are getting more chances to get jobs with good salaries, and I had a promotion with out a raise, but I am sure I am getting one soon, I hade employed four new guys of my friends for this month only, beside our company which is a part of Iraq is getting more contracts and hiring more people (at least fifty this month) and the company expanding rapidly. Put on all that, I am smelling spring after winter with all its colors and fresh morning dew, and I am not worry about the future of my small family, or my big family………. IRAQ.

2004-02-28T09:15:00.000Z

Is Education Enough?
After visiting her brother in Basra My mother came back to Baghdad last Thursday, as usual I started to ask about the situation there and she started to talk about the campaign of black, red and green flags there which is a tradition people there do at the memory of the first 10 days in the Hijry month Muharam, because at those days hundreds years ago the all relatives of the Prophet Muhamed were killed. She said “how is it in Baghdad…its ten times more in Basra”, so I said are they bothering any one, she said no, so I said “then let them do whatever they want if they are not bothering anyone”. We must not forget it’s their first year after 35 years of preventing them to do such activities. They are not criticizing anyone, they are not being aggressive to anyone, and they are not trying to force anyone to do the same. They are just simple people trying to do religious ceremonies which they inherited from their fathers and grandfathers.
But the next day I was invited by my cousin on the honor of a relative of us who is living in England and now visiting Baghdad for business. One of the people who was there, a Doctor Who is about to finish Arabic board in medicine, I think that gives him a PHD degree in medicine. This Doctor started to talk about “the people in our governing council, and how they are very busy to do business instead of improving the situation in the country,….are the Iraqis have to wait another 35 years to see thing improving? What was done? Electricity is the same problems are more complicated”. I tried to prove to this Doctor that thing is better or at least we feel that the government is not standing still they are working something, and I had to put to him many evidence of what I said beside the opinions of all the people who were in the invitation who tried to know why this doctor is talking with such point of view. Actually I was very nerves at him and finally I told him “if we want to know who’s better the situation before April 2003 or now, we should wait for another 35 years and after that we start criticizing, and if thing will be better in 34 years from now then we are in a better situation than the days before April 2003. And I know we would be in better situation in 35 months from now”. Actually we are in a better situation now.
After we left the invitation, I started to ask my self “why a well educated guy can’t see the difference and changes that simple people can feel” and after thinking I can say it’s not an education mater, it’s something to do with conscious. I think this guy afraid of being a looser in the new Iraq, where any dedicated person can be successful, in the past we had to be close to the regime to succeed or maybe get a medical degree as he was planning to do to be one of the corrupt medical staff in public hospitals we had. Maybe his plan is not going well any more, and the competition will be very strong for him and his like. These kind of people will try always to hold the other motivate people, and dangerous as terrorists, not any one else who puts flags on the roof of his house, and we should not let them spread there poison among the Iraqi people without any one to face them back.

2004-02-26T08:42:00.000Z

Qualifications
In the article I wrote at 18th of Feb 2004 I said that I need to have an assistant employee, and I found someone that I can trust and he has good qualifications (English language, computer , Microsoft office experience, accounting knowledge), just what I need . And I told him to start. At his first day he had to use the public transportation from northeast Baghdad where he lives to south of it where our office is, and it was something he used to do because of his university study period. But not with all the traffic jam and crowded streets we have these days, so he had to apologize and couldn’t continue with us. But I had to send him to our branch in another area not far from where he lives, because I didn’t want to loose him, and started to look for someone else, and couldn’t find him or her till now. Now I realize that finding an employee with such qualification is not easy in Baghdad with all the job opportunities available and little number of people who have such qualifications, maybe for that reason so many people are complaining not to find a job, they all want to work manual works and they are with out any qualifications, and I am sure they will find something soon, but that’s something the government should think about, we have to build an Iraqi staff with high qualifications to insure not to get people from outside to fill our job opportunities, as it is in the gulf countries, actually the people should also think about that and try to start building their own qualifications and improve their ability to get better jobs. No harm if the Iraqi media and ministry of high education will start a campaign about that subject, because it’s very important to maintain stability and prosperity to Iraq & Iraqis.

2004-02-24T15:50:00.000Z

In BIAP
In a business mater I visited Baghdad international airport with my boss today, although we didn’t wait in the line but we had to spend about 30 minutes just to go inside because of the huge number of cars waiting outside. I have visited BIAP last September but this time was different, people are waiting to go in for different kind of work, construction workers, suppliers of many things, airport employees, contractors, the place was so crowded that I thought nobody still in Baghdad, our construction group was standing there starting six AM, and now I heard that they couldn’t go in till 11.15 AM. It’s a really huge workshop in there, and my opinion thing are being arranged for the people and companies who are about to start the rebuilding of the country. I have saw that before in Basra, the German company who build Basra airport and part of highway No.1, started with the company village where their employees had to stay before they started with the project.
Inside the airport and the main terminal it was very cheerful and crowded with people from different countries and companies, and the Iraqi administration are being prepared to take over in a few months and they were happy about it and with different mentality than I used to see them with before April 2003. They are open minded and very motive to start working.
When we finished our business and got outside for our car in the park we saw plenty of cars brand new of the same model and expensive too, my boss asked our employee in the airport “do you know who’s going to use these cars?”, our man answered “its for the high and middle rank employees in airport”, my boss answered “then we should get a job with them”.

2004-02-22T11:01:00.000Z

You have to crawl before you can walk
I think it’s the time to talk about the democracy and election in Iraq. Why it’s the time? Because when I drive my car in the streets of Baghdad these days I can feel comfortable and sure that our future would be something we will be proud of, so are the Americans and President J. W. Bush for the brave decision they made together to change the face of the world. I am not exaggerating when I’m saying that and time will prove it. But when things are OK you go to the next step, and we are ready to it…..Democracy.
Democracy can’t be applied without any faults from the first time, but it can be corrected each time we have problems, when we have a high authority to do so, and it should be applied step by step, I am sure that we cant start with general elections, (Saudee Arabia cant do that, not even Egypt if we can call what they have is democracy) but we can start with people conferences and maybe held by the active parties in the political field. All that to have an acceptable parliament, yes we don’t need an acceptable president at this time, nobody will accept anybody in the situation we are having. But when we will put the parliament in a higher stage than presidency, all the parties will accept that and will fight to have a seat in it, but by having a large popularity and good reputation and followers not by guns.
Parliament who can assign a president and can remove him, and few years later we will have a constitute which is written by the members of this parliament or at least approved by them or by the Iraqi citizens. A few years after practicing parliament and president elections we will need to drag people to election centers and put reports and talk shows in TV to make people go to elect their representatives. Isn’t that how it is even in democratic countries?.
What I am sure of that all the protests and political speeches here in Iraq these days are because it’s a new experience to all of us, and people don’t care if things will stay as it is for ages as long as they have a job and enough income, who really cares are the people who are trying to be elected, and those people are not poor or powerless. You see as a financial experienced person I know that all activities in life need financing and those people can finance these activities. Each for a different reason, that’s why we need plenty of them so they can observe each other and correct the faults of each other or at least make these faults clear to the public.
I have put a photos of the 15th of NOV 2003 agreement in the photo page on this site, so anybody can read it and see its well organizing applying democracy to our country and I think any body refuse to accept it either didn’t understand it or he doesn’t want peace to all of us.

2004-02-20T19:42:00.000Z

Thanks
I wanted to talk about the election which is about to start in Iraq, but I preferred to wait till the report of the UN is issued, so we can have a larger picture of the situation. But today I would like to give my thanks and gratitude to all the site visitors especially those who wrote their comments about the last article and made happiness seems too small compared to the feeling entered my heart and mined, I wont be shamed to say that it took me more time than needed to read the comments, because tears made it more difficult for me, and when I completed reading the comments I went back to the article to read it again because I was surprised with the kindness and sweet wards I had, and when I go bake to the moment I started to write that article and remember that I wasn’t sure what to write, I just let it go through the key strokes I made on my key board, I cant see but people who are happy with sharing truth and feel it, all truth and nothing but truth.
I always was a heavy reader, but not the few years past, maybe not enough time or more information facilities are available beside books. But I usually ask my self “am I going to keep reading, or its time to start writing “, seems to be its time to start writing, and in my case, its just to clear things out after I saw that the information about the Iraqi mentality needs to be discussed by Iraqi people and cleared to others.
I am not intending to stop not even if I had only one visitor to my website. I started writing few months ago and I didn’t have any visitors at that time. But it was real good sharing thoughts with the world and people in it especially people who appreciate these thoughts.
Any way, to keep you people informed with the last financial information here in Baghdad, let me tell you that one of the first class hotels in Baghdad (Sadeer Hotel) is increasing its capital these days and the Iraqi people who are interested to get some shares of it gathered today in (Iraqi Commercial Bank) to apply for it, and it was so crowded that you may not find place to park the car. I even had to use a taxi to apply for it, but this time the taxi driver was happy to understand the facts I explained to him, he even didn’t want me to pay. Banks are working people are applying to invest money streets are crowded with people who are heading to work, and its all yours to imagine how normal life is in Baghdad.

2004-02-18T12:18:00.000Z

A Promotion
My boss yesterday informed me by his decision to promote me to be “the company office manager” and I have to find someone to help me with the financial maters and supervise him and train him to substitute my position. I can’t say how proud and happy I was, even I phoned my wife to tell her about it. That’s because I had start my professional life after I finished my study out of university and finishing my compulsory military period at 1992 and till 2003 I had build a very important reputation and experience but I couldn’t built any financial foundation (I mean I couldn’t save any money), it wasn’t only me, it was general for most Iraqis, actually I have been loosing all what I got and what my parents had saved and built all their life and we was about to become broke, till I found this job and started it when the situation changed in Iraq after April 2003, now I feel that I am doing something right and building a very solid foundation to my life and family and that’s only after six months of hard working in the right place and for the right people.
I hope all Iraqis would have the same chance I hade and get the right job or at least a job. I know it won’t be easy because if someone is to get the suitable job it’s not a mater of chance only, but it’s a mater of education and reasonable thoughts. I have just came back to office from outside using a taxi and as usual the driver start talking about how the streets is crowded and how its difficult to find a job and how the people in the governing council are not doing any thing. These kinds of people (who usually Jazirah and Arabiya TV try to find and interview) are one of Iraq problems in a mater of fact they are one of humanity problems, those people are the kind that want the sea floods and come to their boat because they don’t want to carry their boat to the sea. I tried to convince him that there is chances to get jobs and thing are getting better depending on the facts 1…..2…..3……but all he could think of is why they don’t solve the problems (traffic jam, closed streets, electricity, cars fuel……..etc). I repeat he wants some one else to solve the problems, he wants to stand and watch problems being solved.
I don’t know how to say it, but for me most of these problems are solved, (I use a taxi to get to a crowded place, I use many long ways to get to the places I go to just not to use crowded streets, I have a private generator electricity line to use when the electrical power goes off, I don’t spent more then 12 minuets in the gas station) and I am not a millionaire and can not even be called a rich man, and I think its just because I am spending time and putting effort in my work and getting to my goals. Well there is an important thing that I learned through my life its: if you find a problem, don’t criticize it unless you have the solution for it; otherwise keep silent until you find one. That’s how any one can be really effective in his society through the short life we live. And about my self I want to be effective and want to leave a memory after I pass life, not through leaving a boy child or a few sons but by what I did, even if no body or just a few people knew about it, its OK, its how right and reasonable was for me. And because life is “just a moment and memories”, I want to spend the rest of my life when I retired with very beautiful memories that can keep me happy till the END. This is called HAPPINESS.

2004-02-16T08:03:00.000Z

A lesson
I didn’t want to talk about the Gail breakout which happened in Faluja before I can get a master picture of the subject. Actually the raid was so organized that it reminds us of what happened to the Iraqi museum at the beginning of entering Baghdad by the coalition forces. No way could Iraqi people organize such an attack, and I can say that Iraqi intelligence before April 2003 with the entire budget which was available to them could not do such things, and we all know that after all what happen till this moment no body and I do mean nobody could approve Iraqi involvement in international terrorism, and all the world could not see any Iraqi fighting with the Afghani Arabs and Qaeeda, (maybe one or two no more), When I’m saying that and sure of it, I am not depending on nothing, but because I am familiar with the Iraqi mentality, simply Iraqis don’t give their lives that easy they love life and all the happiness in it with all levels and standards of life styles (I mean a poor Iraqi love the life just like a rich Iraqi loves it), beside the people in Faluja and Anbar are so simple people that they aren’t familiar with these kinds of actions, actually they didn’t have a large part in such action during all the Iraqi history, and we are beginning to feel their real need and will to join the rest of Iraqis with their new life in the new Iraq, So what’s happening in Faluja or Arbeel or any where else cant be by Iraqis, Its really from outside and when it happens in Faluja, be sure its coming from Syria or through it.
After all that we saw the Syrian foreign affairs minister in Kuwait these days saying (The responsibility of security inside Iraq is the responsibility of the occupation, and not the responsibility of neighbouring countries), can you believe these people, and how they didn’t have a lesson of what happened…. For that reason there is a joke tell here in Baghdad its….(An American solder in Baghdad lend some money to a Syrian guy who is about to go back to Syria, so the American solder asked the Syrian guy “when are you coming back to Baghdad so you pay me back” but the Syrian guy answered “why…aren’t you guys coming to Syria”).

2004-02-14T14:58:00.000Z

Welcome ALHURRA
This night when I will be home, I am going to do a new search on my Free To Air satellite receiver so I can find and watch the new satellite television network ALHURRA which is started today. Yes now we are talking we should make people watch such television not Jazeera & Arabiya, let us stop boiling when we watch TV news on these channels till we started not to watch any thing. About my self, I even took those two out of my favorite list of channels, and started to watch CNBC or wait to come to office to open BBCARABIC or RADIOSAWA websites.
It should be along time ago to open such a channel so it can give the truth to people as I hope. And the poison spilled by the channels which want to lead us to civil war would be minimized and at the end to stop. Yesterday I even so a sign in the street about distributing a new free weekly paper called IRAQIYA with same logo of the TV IRAQIYA which means it will have the same mentality of telling the people the new activities toward new Iraq.
I always say about my self that “I can smell the ends and how it is before others” and it always worked at least for me, and at this month I can tell you that many thing are changing very fast and people are starting to forget talking about bad situations they used to talk about when they sit together, I can see that very clear and I am not telling them about it but between me and my self I am laughing about it and of course happy too.
I don’t want to forget telling you that electricity is better these days. And I got my mobile phone yesterday and I am so happy about it, just like a child with a Christmas present.

2004-02-13T05:01:00.000Z

A Tender
This Thursday I went to an industrial company in Tajy, about 30 KM outside Baghdad to buy a tender for the company I work to about investing a huge factory. All the way was secured by Iraqi army and check point was put too. As I said in the last article bombs will not make any body stay at home especially Iraqis.
When we arrived to the factory I was surprised that the workers were in a protest against the financial administration in the company, I could not understand the details of what they wanted, but the view made me real happy. We are not familiar with such actions and always the reaction of the government against it before April 2003 was “kill them all” and the lucky one would be in Gail for life.
Any way we don’t need to remember those days and as usual let me tell you about the bright side of the story. It was the day before the last day to buy the tender and there was a protest and it was Thursday and usually its not a full time working day (the day before weekend) so I managed to ask an employee to help me to pay the fee and get the documents needed (the tender), and it was done, that employee did help me actually I couldn’t make it with out him. So when I finished and paid the fee which was 200,000 ID I tried to pay the man 2000 ID for nothing just to know if he is going to accept it or not, and I don’t need to tell you that before April 2003 it was the usual to pay him that if he didn’t ask for it himself. But at this time it was really surprising for me and even embracing. The man refused to accept the money and he even thanked me to try to help him and said it’s his job to help me.
I am writing this and still feeling happiness and pride because that man didn’t accept my money, because it’s not me the problem and he will refuse money from other people too and with that we can really start building new Iraq.
When I came back to office and started putting our application to invest the factory with the help and the join investors from foreign countries, and counted the Billions of Dollars are going to be invested here in Iraq and only in this part I couldn’t help my self to think loud and say it to my boss we should win that offer at least we will be always near the good news, ……….that rights if all Iraqis were close to the good news as we are they wouldn’t think that the good days are gone, actually they will now that the marvellous days are days to come.

2004-02-11T19:44:00.000Z

Stronger we will Be
Terrorists are targeting the Iraqi police and army volunteers now, that’s what they did in Eskandariya and Muthana in Baghdad yesterday and today, simply they are afraid of having more people trying to stop terrorism, and trying to catch them. Well those fools don’t understand that now they will be followed and stopped and maybe killed by each and every father, mother, son, wife, daughter, lover of those victims who were killed by the terrorists. That’s how it’s going to be, nobody will forget someone dear to him lost in such an action and nobody will blame a victim to stand in line to get a job to live decently. We will all seek for revenge of those terrorists and who ever stand behind them.
There is a say that “a blow which can’t break you, makes you stronger “. Well nobody will stay home tomorrow and stop looking for a job with the coalition or not, as a policeman, a solder or any where else, just because a bomb was blown today, that’s something I am sure of. The fool, who thinks Iraqis will stay home tomorrow because of what happened today, should go back to the near history of Iraqi people and there he will see that we are soooooo familiar with all kinds of terror and battles and fought more battles in our lives than any one else in the world. We will not discuss what for we fought, was it right or wrong, I am sure it was wrong and for nothing. But I am sure as well that the ward fear is not in the Iraqis dictionary.
God bless the soles of those innocent men who lost their lives for nothing but to start normal life. But for me I can always see the light through the darkness, and here I can see bonded and united Iraqis against outside danger and evil tries to break them and when the dust will calm down and darkness will end and a new sun rises we will start our new life and we will never forget the countries and governments who helped us overtake our problems and also we will never forget those governments trying to hold and delay our steps towards freedom and democracy only because they cant afford to give it to their people.
And of course we will never ever forget those brave men who risk their lives daily to rebuild new Iraqi foundations in the Iraqi police or the Iraqi army or in any other ministry.
Let’s hope that who ever stand behind what happened today will come to the same result, so we can save time and money, and start building the Iraq & Iraqis faster.

2004-02-10T21:02:00.000Z

A Mobile Phone
I can say today is our first day with the new technology called “mobile phone”. Today I was asked for the first time “what’s your mobile number?”. Unfortunately I didn’t have one yet. Honestly I’m dying to get one but I hate the Idea of being fool because the company managing the net in Baghdad is charging too much, and as every new technology in the world it’s too expensive in its starting days.
Any way I will get one soon and I don’t think I can delay it more. And I think its going to be very useful for me especially while the traffic jam we face in Baghdad these days. I like to describe to you how people are happy using it even people who don’t need it they are carrying it just to remove the idea that they are not allowed to carry it as the situation was before March 2003. I wonder why it was not allowed. I can’t find any reasonable cause. You know what it just was like this not reasonable. The most unreasonable thing was that we made it through those dark days and we still don’t believe it. Iraqis have a say about those days its: “an Iraqi shouldn’t be hold in the judgment day because he already been to hell so he should go directly to heaven”.

2004-02-10T21:01:00.000Z

Clearing
In the last article I wanted to make clear how some people are acting so negative just when they begun to feel their freedom. The broken pipe I spoke about is a private one and belongs to a known flat and they are acting negative about it, other wise I would fix it my self. And about the whole mater I meant that acting so firm with some people is important some times.

2004-02-09T19:14:00.000Z

New Forces
We have just arrived home and its 8 PM, the streets were as crowded as they were in the morning. I just saw two American HUMMER stopping a car to search it and destroying a bunch of cans with car fuel in them belong to a guy who was standing on street side to sell them for someone who don’t want to stay in the line in the gas station. We started to forget about these sights.
Yesterday we were stopped (I mean my boss and me) while we were back to office by an American check point, and the men were so serious when they talked to us, now I can say there are new forces in Baghdad and they are more tough than the forces before them or maybe its because they are new. Well that’s a reason for changing forces from time to time, they get more serious I mean.
I am not saying all that because I am bothered or any thing. No I am saying it because those men managed to catch two trapped cars yesterday and a bunch of terrorists in another sector of Baghdad and they are adding more effective power to the IPs who are
still trying to force order in Baghdad and they are making a difference no doubt.
Let me tell you a little story for example. Few years ago we used to live in a building with an enter and front lays on a main street in Baghdad, and the women in these flats used to use their balconies as a washing room and the rain drains for washing water which discharges the water directly to that main street…..One day the mayor (who should be someone real important in Bath Party) was passing by with his car and saw what was going on so he ordered to cut off the water to punish us for the water. At that time I laughed and was so happy that the man gave our housewives a lesson, and they did learn to stop washing in the balconies.
Now days we have a broken drinking water pipe in our block waits to be repaired for a month now and of course by the people who use that pipe (that’s how it always been), and no one is moving. I think if that mayor was still there and would punish the flats responsible for the problem; we would have a dry block now and less possibility to catch diseases.
Let me be very clear at this point. I’m not saying I prefer what was going before March 2003. But I also don’t like leaving (disorder people) doing whatever they want just to make them feel free. So let me welcome those new tough men.

2004-02-07T16:20:00.000Z

Normal life
As I said in the last article I was invited to an engagement party, actually the engagement of one of my partners who is Assyrian Christian. And it was some party started at two PM and didn’t finish at 8 PM when we left. With dancing of the Assyrian folklore and snacks, drinks and at last the dinner. We where not only Christians there, many people were invited and girls with Hijab were there too. No body carried guns, only a sword was used in dancing and it’s a habit the Assyrians usually use. Nobody seemed unhappy. At home I told my wife “that’s my third marvelous party in Baghdad”, that’s 18 years ago.
This morning while I drove my way to work, I started remembering the party (which is a habit in me to remember things while driving) and how my wife and me were happy and glad to attend it, it’s our first after March 2003. What jumped to my mind suddenly is how normal people were and how normal life is these days especially for someone who got a job. It’s really that easy “life is normal when you have a job”, and thank God I do.
What I think that our problems will end totally if the government took the right steps towards offering jobs to people. I can say from what I saw in Basra that the people there is forgetting about their daily problems and its beginning to be very small compared with ours here in Baghdad because they do not have unemployment as we have.
And you know what……I don’t want to say that I do have the solution but I think its easy to offer jobs with many ways one of them is by accomplishing the works needed manually, and I think they do that in India, and of course in China.
I remember that at the seventies Iraq had to get labors from Egypt and later from Vietnam and Morocco. And we have been told that all Iraqis are not enough to build what was planned to Iraq.
Maybe its financing is the problem………..no I don’t think so. What is it then somebody is conspiring on us again…….back to conspiracy theory!..........any way if I had to do something and I am doing it indeed in a small model that I am trying to give a part of my income to other people by hiring them to build my house and believe me I am pushing my self to do it only for the benefit of the people I hire and they are good skilled men and I hate to loose them too………..maybe just lending people money to build houses and buildings for commercial use is a good solution who knows.
Woops I am at the office thank you for listening to my loud thoughts.

2004-02-05T21:57:00.000Z

Thursdays
Its Thursday today, and because yesterday was the last day of the eed and tomorrow is Friday (our week end), today was announced as a vacation so we didn’t have work to attend but I hade to go to finish repairing my car after the traffic accident I had. And we (my wife, daughter and me) had our lunch in my father in law `s house and after that I had to go to the office, after a call I received and went back home about 8 PM. What I want to say that I spent many hours of my day in the street driving, beside the traffic jam and heavy rain I noticed something very well “I saw about 11 cars of couples who are just married” with the very common habit to drive the car in the streets and the rest of the relatives following them before the party. It’s Thursday the usual day to get married here, plus my two partners are just engaged and one of them is giving an engagement party tomorrow, and a relative of mine who is just arrived from California is going to get married Saturday. We started to forget Thursday as the wedding day since 1991 and the Iraqi girls was starting to lose hope to get married but as I was saying we are getting it bake as a habit (getting married I mean). Why do you think people gets married and when?..............I say they do it to start a family when they think it’s a god time to do that. At least I thought so when I did it. And Iraqis did stop it or did it by the minimum all the 15 years passed.
It’s obvious now that the Iraqis think it’s a good again to start families’ new families for a new life, not to mention that marriage here cost too much and that gives the indication that boys are getting jobs. Let’s hope that we see more cars with flowers and coloured ribbons on them each Thursday to come.

2004-02-03T21:34:00.000Z

BANKS
The first Iraqi bank owned by the private sector after years of banking system totally owned by the government was Baghdad Bank which was founded 1989, now we have more than ten banks with shares owned by the Iraqis beside the government owned banks.
I would like to talk about Baghdad Bank as an example and about the other Iraqi banks maybe later or we can find information about them in the CPA site. Baghdad Bank is very popular bank for the Iraqi share holders and investors because of its high values assets. As a decision taken by the central bank of Iraq, Iraqi banks capital should not be less than 10 billions Iraqi Dinars, so all banks took a step towards that target including Baghdad Bank and that would be a new lot of shares equals the present capital issued to the share holders and the share holders should pay for it as a 1 Iraqi Dinar for each share. Now if any share holder could not pay for these shares for any reason then these shares should be issued to the general public to apply for it. In Baghdad Bank situation about a month ago the unclaimed shares was about 300 millions shares and it was announced that the people have the right to apply for it without any limits. So people applied to these shares with a total amount equal about 17 billions Iraqi Dinars. Can you Imagine how large amount was applied with, so any person applied with 1 million Iraqi Dinars would not get more than 2 % and that’s about 20 thousands shares and get back the rest of his money that’s what we call it in the Iraqi stock market the opponents division which is the total shares issued to the people divided by the total amount applied with.
Now the Baghdad Bank share price as in the last exchange in Baghdad Stock Market before it closed on March 2003 was no more than 4 Iraqi Dinars. Now any one can get no less than 10 Iraqi Dinars for the same share and there is talking about 20 Iraqi Dinars for each share not to mention the new rate of the Iraqi Dinar to the US Dollar.
Also we can hear solid news about join ventures between Iraqi Banks and foreign Banks that could not get the license to work in Iraqi market because of limited license allowed to be issued by the central bank. And those foreign banks offering to take the entire financial load towards the new capital limits. What we are about to clear here is the high predictions expected for the stock market and the shares registered in it specially the Banks shares. Not to mention our need for a new banking system which can meet our new needs for global money transactions so the Iraqi people can pay their bill and shopping’s through internet and I can pay what’s needed to reactivate my photos site which was closed because I couldn’t wire 5$.

2004-02-01T18:10:00.000Z

EED
It’s the first day of the eed (the Muslims pilgrimage fiesta) and it was so beautiful day started with the voices of priors in the musk’s. I had to go to my job today to fill the place of someone and there I heard the news of the two bombs in Arbil and what happened there, it was so sad that people take such an action in such a day, I don’t know if I have to be sad for the people who died by the bombs or for the so naïve people who suicide trying to kill others, can you imagine someone to die trying to kill another, who would be so influent to brain wash anyone to do so?, what for?, Money?, Power?, Both?, nothing worth’s to kill anything for. I kept asking my self what should we do to prevent the killing happens. Till I came with an answer……WE CANT, evil will be there all the time actually it was there since ever. Can we find a nation without evil, if we do can we look for what they did to stop it, help me to find such a nation………………………………I am still waiting…………………………………………..any way, we can do a little bit to stop it by something really easy, its called START BY YOURSELF try to stop evil inside yourself no mater how little it is stop it, by that we may make the bad guys shame doing what they do, I have always said to my self “treat people as you like them to treat you”, but I also always continued “ but if they didn’t don’t have mercy on them”.
When I took my car back home it was heavy raining, Just like Mother Nature wanted to wash every thing clean again so we can start another day with another hope. In Middle East rain always means peace and good sign for lock. Even if it meant catching cold in my case.

2004-01-29T21:35:00.000Z

Clearing
Seems that I have to give more details of what I thought in my last article, I repeat what I thought and it’s my opinion and it could be wrong as much as it could be right.
What I recognised in Basra was a small cooperative community heading to a non fanatic open minded Islamic life style trying to make life easier. And I think with such community infrastructure would be built faster.
The large multi heading community with many greedy groups trying to control Baghdad is a real problem in our way to rebuild the infrastructure. May be if so many people were so sure of what am I saying or came to the same conclusion we would get red of our problems and start cooperation again.
You know what…. After 1986 Baghdad started to grow in number of people lives in it because emigration started to Baghdad due to unavailability of services in the rest of Iraq and more chances to have jobs. That was the policy before April 2003 all the services should be start in Baghdad and stay in it. Now may be if we created chances of a secured life and income in all over Iraq we may have opposite emigration from Baghdad and more problems would be solved. I remembered now that I thought of buying a piece of land in Basra and if things went so good there, I may thing of going to live in it.
On a second thought FEDERALISIM could be an answer to our problems but that need more that what I have left of lines and time to talk about. Good night.

2004-01-28T14:10:00.000Z

I am Back
I am writing this from Baghdad, we came back yesterday and I am still tired, so pleas excuse me for not writing anything yesterday. Actually I found my desk buried with papers and files and CDs. So I had to finish it first.
Our trip to Basra and Um Qassir was so surprising, although my mother visited Basra few weeks ago and said it was normal but I was surprised how normal things were. Let me tell you about it:
Starting with the way to Basra, it was fully secured by IPs and check points who didn’t ask for money (bribe) as they used to do. Beside two traffic jams situations because of a broken bridges being repaired already, we entered Basra after six hours which was so fast. In Basra things are better million times than before because people are feeling free not scared as they used to feel and they all have nearly the same way dealing with the daily life so there were no peace disturbance. We didn’t find any one we know as a relative or a friend as an unemployed, they have jobs and their income is ok for the time being and the cars are modern and maybe few months from now we may not find any 80s manufacturing year car in the streets, by the way the streets was not so jammed as in Baghdad.
When I asked a friend about electricity and how is it in Basra, he answered “its not good, we have cutoffs twice a day for two hours each”, I couldn’t replay that we have electricity three hours on and three off in Baghdad so he wouldn’t laugh at it. Internet cafés are wide spread and I used one of them to send my last article.
In Om Qassir you can fined very crowded port with ships and porters and trucks, sailors from all over the world. Of course this is one of the reasons that you can’t find someone without a job in Basra.
Land are five times more in price there, and contracts being signed to build what you may call new small cities outside Basra. That even made me looks for a land to buy there.
And at last I can say I saw no more than 50 coalition solders out side Baghdad all my way to Basra and Om Qassir and back to Baghdad. It was all the IPs controlling the maters but of course with beards in their faces, which didn’t bother anyone or made us uncomfortable, actually adopting the same manners and the same criteria made the society heads to the same way without any turbulence to delay things. I can’t hide that I am starting to find out the real cause of unsteady society we have in Baghdad these days.

2004-01-25T12:53:00.000Z

Um Qassir
Sorry for being late, it was my job. And I am writing this from BASRA, yes every one I had to come to Basra for a business related with my job. And I just came back to Basra from Um Qassir port.
I will tell you details and put photos about all I saw later but I like to say now that my trip by car from Baghdad to Basra was so nice and easy and safe. The way was so secured and I didn’t see anything disturbing on my way through Koot, Emara or Basra. People are nice and hardly you can see coalition forces in these cities but in Basra you can see them a lot but nobody is bothered to see them or by them.
In Um Qassir it was so crowded with passengers and workers unloading the ships there. It is in the early steps, but every one we saw was ready to cooperate to make things more advanced and better. I will stay tonight in Basra and may be tomorrow too and I will try to write another article from here…….Wish me luck.

2004-01-25T12:37:00.000Z

A Pill
It was very cheering when I came home Friday evening to find no more sewerage lakes in front of the building I live in, and when I asked my mother how was it solved, and she said that people took care of the mater and brought someone and paid him to fix things out. Any way it was fine end for the mater and things need cooperation between the people and the government to be settled.
Another thing my mother told me, which is: a relative of us an old man about seventy years old who lost his car few weeks ago by being stolen by someone who just stopped him in the middle of the side street and made him get out of the car and drove it away. Yesterday when he was watching the Iraqiya TV he just saw the same people who stole his car being shown on TV as a car steeling gang caught by the IPs. I really was happy to hear that even if he will not get his car back a gain, but hearing the good things happening is a daily need for us, just like a headache pill for someone with a terrible headache.

2004-01-22T13:04:00.000Z

A Lake?
For a long week now we have a problem in the area I live in. And before I go on everybody can take a look on the photo I posted this morning showing Salam residential buildings (that’s where I live in Baghdad) which is supposed to be a modern type residential compound with central services. We started loosing these services along the 15 years passed. But now we cant afford to keep loosing them, because as you see in the picture, the water in the middle is not a lake or a fountain its simply sewerage water keeps to flood out of the sewers because of electricity or block ups or what ever.
Before the 9th of April 2003 such a problem used to be solved by temporary solutions we used to know it is temporary but we could not do a thing about it. The problem now that the majority of us think it should be solved at once… I know it will take time, but when the water will still be flooding and my family will be grounded at home because they can’t get out, I will start to think that there is something wrong and I will start to think that the sewerage water may seep into our drinking water pipes, and my daughter may catch diseases. At then I won’t be thinking straight and I will be looking for someone to blame. And as a third world country I will be blaming the government for all that.
I am not giving up being optimistic, but if I will not what about the rest of the Iraqis. Such problems may be solved manually and these days we have many people who are unemployed and ready to do any thing for a job, so what we have here is just some kind of bad administration, and we should be thinking that someone may doing it on purpose, I mean to make people loose their patient and put the blame on the coalition. I am saying this because the company I work to is working on the maintenance of the sewerage station in Baghdad international airport and the American staff there go mad and panic for a few inches of sewerage water flooding inside the main tank, that’s something I am sure of. So it can’t be that they are forgetting about us or don’t know about. Can they?.

2004-01-21T12:38:00.000Z

I Need an Opinion
I am having the feeling that my web site will soon have no meaning, if things will go well and the Iraqis way of thinking and behaving will be familiar to the world which is the main purpose of my web site. So I will try to put more economical news for the visitors about what’s happening with the Iraqi economy and the stock market and banking system and real estate and I would be grateful to any one who would give me an opinion of that. Because I not planning to stop sharing thoughts or news with you.

2004-01-21T12:37:00.000Z

Starting the Right Moment
President Bush invited Rand Rahiem the Iraqi representative in Washington to his speech of the state of union, I am sure it’s the first time for an Iraqi in such a place. Well Miss Rahiem represented Iraq & Iraqi’s of course, so thank you Mr. President for that, we know that the achievement happened here in Iraq would not be true with out the will of the American administration and its allies and the brave Iraqis who stood with them.
Achievements in Iraq will go on and according to Nahdha daily news paper the traffic police officers will start penalties against car drivers who will break the law in the streets since this morning, and as some remembers I hade talked once of the right moment to enforce order, so lets do it.

2004-01-19T20:47:00.000Z

Step One
We had a peaceful day today in Baghdad, may be few more calm days before the next terrorists attack against the civilians. I hope the good guys in the IP (Iraqi Police) try their best to stop them especially this night I saw a few of the IPs without uniform and with ordinary cars for the first time checking IDs in my way back home, which means we have some kind of detectives now not only the ordinary uniform police officers, and that will help no doubt stopping the army of darkness.
It was really uncomfortable to see people without uniform checking IDs before the 9th of April, and of course avoiding them is the best we could do. Today it was comfortable seeing them, and made me feel more secure. And not only the police officers,…. today I had to go with my boss to one of the GC (Governing Council) members for a mater related with our business, and I couldn’t believe how easy and simple it was and how the man was nice and well educated and I heard him speaks three languages while we were sitting in his office. He was not the first one I see but it was my first time sitting with a member of the GC. Let me tell you even this was not the same before the 9th of April.
When we finished and went back to our office I was sure that any Iraqi could be in my place and can contact any man or woman in the GC just like we did.
I have just finished watching an American movie titled “the American president” and I came directly to write this article, just to put to the world my wish “ that some day we would have democracy and freedom just like the Americans have “, a thousands mile journey starts with one step, and we passed step one for sure.

2004-01-18T11:38:00.000Z

Something Wrong
For two days now and for the hundred time my wife is asking me “what’s wrong with you?” till I found that there is something wrong and I am not the same although there is nothing wrong with my work or my family or my life except the bad car accident I had this morning and nobody to be blamed but the traffic jam in the streets due to the exploding number of cars and the more streets blocked to stop stupid terrorists tries to kill more innocents people like what happened this morning in a main gate of the green zone. So what’s wrong with me?.... after thinking I found that I am a little bit frustrated or about to be, just because I know how things are going to be, and how its going to work well and how prosperity we are going to live with, and I have many proves of that I cant show them but really I can feel them and very well, but (oh I hate these buts) but things are not going as fast as we wish. That’s why you can find people who may say “there is nothing done” they are wrong of course much has been done and Iraq today is not the same yesterday, some of us are sure of that. But we don’t want to lose those people who are sure of the changes to the other part who are not sure of anything.
I know it’s a hard job to rebuild a country starting from people behavior, ending with investment in every thing in daily live. But the coalition chose to do it and as I said some of us are ready to help and we are trying, and here we must remember the 25 brave men and women in the governing council who are in the front of those helpers and some of them gave their live helping to accomplish their mission.
To say it in clear way we need to change thing fast. We know fast changes may cause faults and high expenses, so what, in Iraq we have a say “if you want something you have to give something”.

2004-01-16T18:54:00.000Z

Cindy Maiolo
I had no doubt that uncountable number of people in the world is helping the Iraqis, and from Cindy Maiolo (from Florida) I received an e-mail asking me what she could put in a “care package” to be send to an Iraqi widow. After I replied to her that she already put in the package her love and care and she could put what ever may cross her mind because every thing here could be found and cheaper than any where else she replied :-

“Dear Firas,
The address I send packages to is an APO military address. But the recipient is Chaplain (Major) Wilkinson, HHD 168TH MPs stationed in or around Baghdad. I bet if you ask any soldier on the street, they could tell you where they are headquartered. And if you talk to any of the soldiers, give them my love. I pray for them every day.
You put a smile on my face with your comments about everything being cheaper there. Spoken like a true "Money Man" and you remind me of my brother-in-law. Another "Money Man". But we are not allowed to send cash. Legalities and responsibilities of the military I would guess. And this way it seams more personal. A gift from an American, delivered by a Chaplain Soldier. I put a box of lemon flavored tea in with a note of best wishes and prayer. Maybe the women who receive it will share a cup of tea and story with a friend.
I really wish Iraq had the direct mail service set up. It would make sending anything a whole lot easier. And the JOBS created would be in the thousands!! One day, right!!”

How could I not share such an e-mail with you, how could we not share it with everyone we know. I can’t find the suitable ward to say to Cindy but many thanks and God bless you, and I will look for Major Wilkinson

2004-01-15T15:30:00.000Z

Before Week End
Unfortunately I can’t answer all the comments on the articles I write, and I am trying to replay all the e-mails comes, but today I have many things to tell, I hope I can relate one another so we can have an artic.
First of all Iraqi Dinar today hade another rate compared to the USD which is 1USD=1300ID and its Thursday, the day before our week end and on such a day we usually have high prices for the Dollar, what’s important is people have changed all their old Iraqi currency and if they kept some then its just for souvenirs and the new currency is very acceptable by the people. I didn’t keep any because I want a new start with out any bonds with the past and I do want to go on with my life fast and successful so I can get even with my loss of time & opportunities. Some people asked about real estate in Iraq, it jumped high in prices, very high so is the companies shares prices even with a closed stock market and if there were any speculation done with the new Iraqi Dinar its going to happen with the real estate and the shares as well. Another important thing the terrorists will have more problems financing their actions in Iraq with such low price for the USD. And a terrorist was caught by a trained dog trying to drive a bomb trapped car into the green zone, and another bomb was reported inside a dead cat on the road to BIAP. People now are more cooperative with the Iraqi police and the coalition forces, and more comfortable, and you can see less cars standing in the line for fuel. It took me less than 10 minutes to fill my car today and it was my firs line standing after fuel problems, but I was using my car normally by buying fuel from another people in the street.
I hope I have painted a good picture for Baghdad today. And pictures are going to be more beautiful and colorful now on be cause we had a very beautiful weather today and I think its spring knocking on our doors.

2004-01-14T10:54:00.000Z

1000
I have nothing much to say but its 1.45 AM Wednesday Jan. 14th Baghdad time, and US Dollar equals 1000 Iraqi Dinars at this moment.

2004-01-13T21:05:00.000Z

Busy Day
I had a very busy day today, I had to go down town twice, in the morning and again in the evening for a doctor appointment and after that I had to go back to work at 6.00 pm, and things was not going so well because I had to take a look on our companies offices (the brokerage company and the financial investment company) and they are not working because the stock market is still closed. The situation I saw made me very angry because we were very active when the market was open and things was going very well, now instead of being owner I am employed in another company. Something was wrong and after hours of being angry and thinking of what was wrong I had nothing but the headache. So I was just convincing my self and thought it was wrong from the beginning to establish a financial investment company when we had the brokerage company working very well and we didn’t have the time or the staff to run both of them. So the solution should be closing one of them and of course the less succeed one (the financial investment company). But I just had a phone call from one of my partners telling me that we have an offer from an Iraqi bank from the private sector to sell half of our shares for a good price and the new partner is providing financing as well to take the company out of its problems, and I thought to share that with you, because I am very happy for that and the headache is gone and I hope thing will go easy going with that deal. You see with all the bad hours I had today in the streets driving my car with a terrible traffic jam but people was very normal today and there was more order in the streets than few days ago, many building site are established, and many government offices are being rebuild including the national theater, and the Iraqi Dinar is stronger because today you can get a 1US dollar for 1400 Iraqi Dinar when it was 2000 ID two months ago. No question we could get the deal I mentioned.

2004-01-12T12:20:00.000Z

On the IMN
Yesterday I had a chance to see what we may call a talk show on the Iraqi Media Net TV (Iraqiya) and General Ahmad Kadhim (deputy minister of internal affairs) was on it beside the a spokesman of the governing council and a high rank US army officer who speaks Arabic well and they talked together to Iraqi people about the security problems and the steps being taken towards a safe society in Iraq. What was important for me that after the program was ended the opinion of the people in the room was different and they start talking about the achievements happened in the security sector till now when just an hour before the program the same people were talking about the problems we are facing daily. It was really nice to watch that program and how it could change the peoples opinion especially it was facts they were talking about, and because once I was introduced to general Kadhim when he was head of the Iraqi police academy in Baghdad and Mr. Bernard Kerrik who introduced me to him said to me “He is a very fine man”, and I really was sad when I heard that he was shot in the line of duty and I saw him again when he was getting well and saw how the men who were with him was acting to protect him and how dedicated he is towards his job and his country. We need brave men like General Kadhim and I am sure we have many of them. And we need those men on TV to have Iraqi people trust their new government.

2004-01-11T15:33:00.000Z

Iraqi NGOs
I didn’t want to write anything today, because I am really proud with the comment came for the last article beside its weekend and I wanted as many people as possible to read it. But something new came. Once a comment about the foreigner NGOs working in Iraq came telling me that we should be depending on ourselves, and I am with that, so when a new Iraqi organization was founded with the title (Iraqi childhood organization-Fax0031235625719) and they started their activities with a medical conference, I thought its important to mention that.

2004-01-10T08:06:00.000Z

INSIDE A US ARMY HAMMER
Three weeks ago I had to sign a contract on behalf of the company I work to with a US army unit in Baghdad, so I went to the unit office thinking I am going to sign there. That’s where I was completely wrong, because the captain told me that he should take me to the contracting office somewhere inside the green zone, that’s the republican palace which I never been inside it before, and when I pass it with my car try not even to stare at it, of source that’s true for millions of Iraqis. Any way when it was the time the captain came and asked me to join him in a hammers convoy was going to the contracting office and suddenly I was in a US ARMY HAMMER vehicle. WHAT A FEELING I HAD…….it was really scary, because I and the boys with me might be targeted by a bomb or RBG7 shot or a suicidal stupid terrorist. I can’t say I am the coward type because I am familiar with living in dangerous places; I was in Basra during the Iranian shelling to it for six years out of eight years Iraqi Iranian war for nothing. And we (the Iraqi people) have no meaning for being scared any more. But after I completed signing the contract and during my way back I was thinking about the US army men and women and all the American and the coalition people and staff who are trying to help the Iraqi people to be free and glorious again and about the problems and dangerous time they are having trying to do so, and all I said to my self that I should be grateful for those people and I don’t think being grateful is enough.

2004-01-10T05:54:00.000Z

SORRY
I am sorry for not putting an article yet my internet at home was not working and it was week end. Any way I have put few new pictures for Baghdad, And I am coming soon.

2004-01-08T15:25:00.000Z

Homeless Problem
I was asked to talk about Homeless people problems in Iraq. Fortunately as a civil engineer and a stock broker and trying to complete my house building for two years now, I am familiar with such a problem. Actually in Iraq you can’t say there is homeless people problem, because you cant find thousands of people who are sleeping in the streets or under bridges, of course that’s due to the strong social relationships between the people for example if my cousin hade a problem with finding his family a shelter, it’s really a must for me to help him even if I had to give him a room inside my house. And that’s true for a relative a friend even a neighbor. So you can find two families in one house, even three, you can find people who are building a house of dry mud (which is a way for building a countryside house) but very few to sleep in streets. But you see now that we have a social problem of too many people lives in small houses, that’s the real problem we have.
The cause of such a problem is the same caused electricity problems, our ext government didn’t have a plan we didn’t even knew if we should have a ministry of planning or just a committee of planning, so some times you find it a ministry and some times you find it a committee. Now we need a solution, and I believe that any one should not put a problem on the desk with out putting a solution with it, so my solution should be like this:-
In Iraq if you want to own a house you should own 100% of it because there are no mortgages and no banks that may loan you what makes you capable to own a house. Since I started using internet and e-mail I hade received hundreds of adds about mortgages and buying houses, see thats how it works every where. And we have a bank called the real sates bank and it’s owned by the government and I had received a loan from it few months before April 2003. And after nearly killing our selves me and my wife, we received (4,400,000) Iraqi Dinars which means (2.200) US Dollars at that time when it needed (30,000,000) Iraqi Dinars till now and its not finished yet, and I may need more (15,000,000) Iraqi Dinars to finish it. Then what we need is loans and mortgages by any kinds of banks or firms or even investors to solve such a problem. Because we don’t have a land problems or a high population problems and of course not a financing problems.

2004-01-07T08:10:00.000Z

Jan 6th
It’s the memory of founding the Iraqi army 1921 by the king Faisal the first. On the same day yesterday in Basra there was a protest by formal Iraqi army members who demanded for their salaries, its important to demand what I believe is my right. But is it the right way to demand it by protesting. Especially that no Iraqi could do so before April 2003. Any way at the same time yesterday in more than three classy social clubs in Baghdad there were a lunch invitations for the formal Iraqi army members, and cars were sent to their houses to take them to the invitation places and take them back. Many questions were answered in some kind of conference with American army officers one of the questions was about the army member’s salaries, many points were cleared, we can say all of them were pleased by such an activity, it showed that the coalition cares about all maters and trying to solve it. The main thing it showed that to Iraqi people directly and of course to their families and neighbors. So the magic word of mouth is going to do its work among the Iraqis. That’s what we were talking about lately in this blog site.

2004-01-06T21:49:00.000Z

FROM ROB
“FREAKY! Thomas Ely was on FOX news this weekend and he talked about having a rather great conversation with an Iraqi at a gas station. It must have been you. HE said that so far everything you predicted came true.”
Rob | Homepage | 01.05.04 - 9:46 am | #
I received the above comment from Rob yesterday on the article titled “Thomas Eley” which I published on the 4th of Jan 2004 . I can’t hide that I was surprised and happy to receive it, because it proved at least for my self that it was the right thing talking to people and clearing things for everyone I can and trying to spread my point of view. At the end it had its chance to be heard by many people.
Now I have more than one motive to continue my articles. To write a paragraph is something but to know there is someone reading it is a very different thing.

2004-01-05T06:32:00.000Z

The CHANSE we have
I may know a little about economics but I am going to share that with you, so we can use the chance we are about to get.
Any country with economical problems like Iraq, turns to the international society for help, and would be happy and lucky to get that help as international loans. Now these loans usually based on some terms and conditions. The main three conditions usually are (Privatization-firm taxation-stopping support to the public by fix pricing any thing in the local market). If we try to find what is happening now in Iraq we would find that the privatization is delayed and the industrial projects are being leased not sold for 10 to 15 years, and the taxation is not active yet and totally suspended, and people are getting support by the Iraqi government and by the coalition by getting their monthly share of oil for food program beside what is called emergency payments for the government employees and for the retired ones as well, put on all that the effort of the American administration trying to erase the Iraqi loans or reduce it to the minimum. And don’t forget Madrid when everybody talked about helping without mentioning loans. So after all that can we answer the question, do we have a CHANCE?.........YES we do, but we need another kind of help. We need to show the people that chance and help them to use it. Help them to understand the international point of view towards rebuilding Iraq as a model of democracy and freedom. Believe me I have tried to make every one I know to see and understand the points I mentioned above. And it was not difficult to make it understood specially by using simple words like what I used in this article, all we need is more people to talk about this and make sure its going to the right heart and mind.

2004-01-04T11:33:00.000Z

Thomas Eiley
I don’t know if the spell of the name is right or wrong, but Mr. Eiley is a French reporter I met in Baghdad at the early days after April 2003, while I was standing in a long line for a car fuel for about eight hours and didn’t have the chance to get some. Any way Mr. Eiley was getting some picture in the fuel station without his interpreter when the people start asking him about the new government about the order or fuel etc. , and they didn’t even know what was his nationality. I started to have a conversation with him and he was glad to find someone to help him. So he tried to calm the people and give them hope and said something really interested me at that time which is “That he was in Bosnia when the war was on and when the NATO forces came in and the people suffered for three winters to start a new life without problems of water, electricity or what ever. But that doesn’t mean that Iraqis will need three years to get their normal life again, that’s because when the war was over in Bosnia 70% of the world didn’t know where it is on the map, but now the entire world is looking towards the Iraq and Iraqis”.

2004-01-03T14:55:00.000Z

Save the Children
Yesterday I had a visit from a friend who lives in Basra city and he is a civil engineer as well. We haven’t seen each other for a long time before April 2003, and he was on his way back from Sulymaniya city towards Basra. On these days in Iraq when you see someone after a long time you start asking about him and his family then you start asking about what he’s doing for a living. About my friend he is working for a human organization called SAVE the CHILDREN which works in Basra in the field of rebuilding the Iraqi society by helping the Iraqi child and building lines of communication with the Iraqi people, By asking them for their needs and trying to make it come true. At least that what my friend told me with in the short time we sat together. But today I have visited the website of this organization and it was really promising and made me more confidants with the future of our country, people are trying to help Iraqis from all over the world and what we need is to make the Iraqis see and touch what the world is trying to do for us and I think this is a job for some of us to do.

2004-01-02T14:44:00.000Z

Dirty Stone
Another terrorist has thrown a dirty stone in the calm lake, this time it’s a classy restaurant in Baghdad being bombed at New Year evening while the Iraqi people were celebrating. When I say they were celebrating, I mean it because I saw them, and I was one of the celebrating people. Thank God I wasn’t in Arasat area, but I went there next morning and saw the bomb area and took a picture of it, what was obvious is the destruction happened not only to the restaurant but to the hole area, that explains two things, first a large amount of TNT was used, beside a large amount of hate with it, not to the Americans only but to the Iraqi people as well. It’s really wrong that any one thinks or says that these operations are resisting to the coalition, its clear now, TERRORISIM.
The question now what are we going to do about it. Speaking of my self, I am going to live my life normally and don’t let any one to keep me home by threatening the people lives and win this war against peace. Plus I am going to see this idea spread through the minds of the people I know so it would be effective. By the way my wife and I are going to take our daughter to a party for children, no mater if there will be a bomb or not.

2003-12-31T10:13:00.000Z

Dawn
Yesterday night I left work home at 10.00 PM, what was interesting that beside the new Iraqi Police (IP) in the streets I found traffic police also trying to solve traffic problems, and that’s not common lately!. I thought it might be a coincidence. Today at the morning I found IP`s trying to prevent cars not to drive wrong way which is a habit these days, so I remembered the traffic officer last night, and remembered the new Iraqi army men being send to Jordan by airplane from BIAP for training, and remembered transferring the duty free shop in BIAP to another hall because the old one is going to be opened for Iraqi pilgrims who are going to travel by airplanes also, and remembered that the fuel problem is much better starting yesterday. And I thought “the Traffic officer yesterday was not a coincidence, but it’s a new dawn with a new beginning for us just with the beginning of the New Year”. Happy new year every one.

2003-12-30T12:31:00.000Z

START TALKING
I have received many comments for the last two articles, plus e-mails telling me that the people should be patient and stop attacking the coalition and stop sabotaging the infra structure, then they will be having fast services and rebuilding for the country. I agree with that, but shouldn’t we tell the people that. I am writing these articles not for the Iraqis and I am not trying to criticize any body. All I am doing here is telling the world how Iraqis think so it would be easier to put decisions and solutions for the new Iraq. And I would like to talk again here about the need to talk to Iraqis and to open more channels of talking with them and put more reasonable explanation for what’s going on.
More advertising campaigns needed to stop and block what Arabic space channels are putting in each and every Iraqi house every day.
Some of us are trying the best to make Iraqis look at the bright side of the days to come. But with every new morning with out order in the streets, with out enough fuel in fuel station, with mud in streets, no mater if these things were not important, people would be looking for it and asking about it. So let’s give it to them or give them the reason why its not available yet but don’t work it silence. Iraqis love to know and talk.

2003-12-29T12:23:00.000Z

MAGIC STICK
A web visitor e-mailed me blaming me for talking about the need of electricity, and the changing’s happened is more important than to think about electric power. Actually I agree on that. But let me tell you about some thing I did on the early days after the coalition entered Baghdad and each and every Iraqi thought that any tank or soldier in the street is the government. I wrought a letter to Ambassador Barbra Bodin and deliver it to a guard standing outside an American unit in Baghdad, after asking him if it’s the only way to do so or not and he said yes it will be delivered to her. And I wrought in it:
“The Iraqis need three things (1) To be left doing their religious ceremonies as what happened in Karbala on the memory of (Emam Hussein). (2) To live as the rest citizens if the gulf lives. (3) To have quick services because Iraqis expect Americans to have a magic stick to do so. The problem is Saddam had that magic stick”.
See in Iraq if you had a torn money note you put a sticker on it but in America you give it to a bank and get a new one.
I don’t know if the Ambassador did read my letter or not but what I meant is we can’t keep people not to do comparison, that’s why we need the services quickly, so people can move forward. Certainly it needs time but meanwhile, its not wrong to use temporary solutions and call it a magic stick.

2003-12-28T13:14:00.000Z

ELECTRICITY
Biggest problem we are facing now after its being little safer and less terrorism is being without electricity. These days we are getting (if we are lucky) three hours of electricity on and three off, some are with out it for two days now, thank god its winter in summer we would be vaporized.
Electricity went off in south Canada and north of the States few months ago for some time and it was real disaster. Why it should not be a disaster here.
The CPA should know that electricity can be the main solution for changing the mined of people, and being without it may change the opinion of those who are happy now with the changing taking place toward the opposite. Even if the solution was very primitive, like having thousands of generators in all over the cities or encouraging people or supporting them to supply generators for their neighborhoods and benefit of it. But don’t stand still, don’t leave people use their imagination and hope for better and then let them down that’s going to be a big loss for every one. Last thing we need now that people start a comparison.

2003-12-27T12:34:00.000Z

STOCK MARKET
A web visitor asked about closing the stock market, and I really want to talk about it. Baghdad Stock Exchange (BSE) started 1992 and it was growing very fast not technologically but in the amount of money was working in it, in the few months before March 2003 money started to come from outside of Iraq to be invested in stock and in Iraqi companies, specially hotels, (Palestine Meridian & Ishtar Sheraton) hotels which every body know about now recorded the best prices & best selling’s at that time no body knew why. Of course the (BSE) is closed now we are promised that it’s going to be opened on January 2004, after several promises that it will be opened in Nov2003 & Dec2003.
If you ask me as an ext stock broker and I was in the meetings held between the stock market members & specialists in the CPA. I can tell that when the privatization project stopped in the new Iraq a fast (BSE) reopen was not important any more when it was a priority when there was a privatization project to be substituted.
Actually reopen the (BSE) is important because it may supply jobs to no less than 20000 Iraqis plus no less than a million investor who will have something to do instead of talking about electricity or watching Arabia & Jazirah or standing in fuel lines in fuel stations.