Broken Promises for Broken Hospitals

BAGHDAD - Despite promises of over $1 billion in U.S. funding, hospital patients in Iraq continue to suffer ongoing hardship. Problems plaguing Iraqi hospitals fifteen months into what has been a brutal, bloody occupation range from ongoing medicine and equipment...

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Leaving Iraq

From Dahr's weblogAbu Talat picks me up at my hotel and we're off through the uncharacteristically empty streets of central Baghdad en route to the airport. It's early enough that we drive with the windows down rather than running the air conditioner, and the warm...

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Where Children Laugh at Bombs

From Dahr's weblog How much worse does it need to get here before the occupiers consider changing their policy? 100 dead every day? In light of what happened here yesterday, it appears as though we're heading in that direction. For those of you who think June 30 will...

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‘This Is the Freedom’

From Dahr's blog Mohammed works at our hotel. He just came up to deliver our laundry. When we asked how he was doing, he took off his sunglasses to show us a black eye. "Not so good," he said. Someone was drinking beer outside the hotel last night, and when Mohammed...

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Baquba Sealed off as US Loses Control

BAQUBA – Just six days before Iraq's interim government is to gain partial sovereignty from the U.S., resistance fighters launched a series of coordinated attacks against U.S. forces and Iraqi government targets in Baghdad, Mosul, Ramadi and Baquba today. Fierce...

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‘Our Duty Is to Export Violence’

From Dahr's weblog The evening of the 21st found me at a CPA-approved demonstration of Shia men in support of the recent U.S airstrike of Fallujah. Remember, demonstrations in Iraq now must obtain permission from the CPA, otherwise risk being broken up by the...

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Struggling to Survive

From Dahr's weblog I revisited Chuwader General Hospital in Sadr City yesterday. Unlike at Yarmouk Hospital, the manager at Chuwader was very open about the desperate plight facing his hospital, where 78 doctors work with desperate medicine and equipment shortages to...

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A Wreck Will Be Hard to Drive

BAGHDAD – The authorization was in writing. Brigadier-General Amer Ali, the second most senior officer of the Iraqi Police had given IPS permission to interview officers inside the Asha'ab police station in Baghdad. When I showed up at the police station, U.S....

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‘Bush Is a Great Actor’

From Dahr's weblog The floor of my hotel rumbled as yet another bomb detonated in central Baghdad at 8:55 a.m. today. My colleague down the hall showed up and asked, "Did you feel that?" I responded, "Yeah, Abu Talat is scheduled to show at nine so we can go to work...

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Beirut Redux

From Dahr's weblog BAGHDAD – Dr. Faiq Amin, the manager of the Medico Legal Institute (i.e., the Baghdad morgue), told me a couple of days ago that their maximum holding capacity is 90 bodies. Since Janurary an average of over 600 bodies each month have been...

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