Iraq: The Love Stories Are Gone

As statistics go, at least 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the occupation, now in its fifth year. Every one of them has left behind once loved ones to mourn the loss and to think of what might have been. This is the land of the Arabian Nights, and of love...

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Winter Soldiers Hit the Streets

SEATTLE - In a clear change of strategy to energize public antiwar sentiment, Iraq veterans led a determined demonstration of hundreds through the streets of downtown Seattle last Saturday, following regional Winter Soldier hearings at the Seattle Town Hall. A larger...

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Iraqi Athletes Praying, Not Playing

DAMASCUS - In the struggle now just to stay alive, everyone has forgotten that Iraq has lost, among other things, its tradition in sports. Some of its best sportsmen are now refugees. "No one seems to care about us," 20-year-old footballer Ali Rubai'i told...

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Iraqi Refugees Flee Danger for Poverty

DAMASCUS - More than a million Iraqis were lucky enough to flee into Syria. But in this relatively safe haven, there is no getting away from poverty. Mohammad Saleem ran a successful supermarket in Baghdad. "I was leading a comfortable life with my family, despite the...

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Five Years On, Fallujah in Tatters

FALLUJAH - Fallujah remains a crippled city more than three years after the November 2004 U.S.-led assault. Unemployment and lack of medical care and safe drinking water in the city 35 mi. west of Baghdad remain a continuous problem. Freedom of movement is still...

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Iraq: From One Dictator to Another?

BAGHDAD - Many Iraqis have come to believe that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is just as much a dictator as Saddam Hussein was. "Al-Maliki is a dictator who must be removed by all means," 35-year-old Abdul-Riza Hussein, a Mahdi Army member from Sadr...

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