FROM the moment this office opened for business last December, I felt I could not write about  what had been published in the paper before my arrival. Once I stepped into the past, I  reasoned, I might never find my way back to the present.  

Early this month, though, convinced that my territory includes what doesn't appear in the paper as well as what does, I began to look into  a question arising from the past that weighs heavily on the present:

Why had The Times  failed to revisit its own coverage of Iraqi weapons of mass   destruction? 

In the recent speech from the President: "A new Iraq will also need a humane, well-supervised prison system. Under the dictator, prisons like Abu Ghraib were symbols of death and torture...America will fund the construction of a modern maximum security prison. 
Now, we're going to tear it down -- in just a few years, if all goes well, sorta. (Don Rumsfeld evidently has a cheaper, more practical way to solve our Abu Ghraib problem; he has reportedly prohibited all "digital cameras, camcorders and cellphones with cameras... in military compounds in Iraq" 

I'm curious to know how a new modern, maximum-security prison with the same prisoners and the same guards, the same interrogators and the same atmosphere, the same regime in Washington and the same high-level desires re: the war against terrorism would change a thing.  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Sham Plan for Iraq 

The "new" Bush plan to "help Iraq achieve democracy and freedom," far from laying out the definite steps needed to resolve the Iraq crisis, instead sets the stage for continuing US occupation and for continuing instability and violence.  

Impelled by his falling approval ratings and the images of US torture of Iraqi prisoners,
Bush attempted in his May 24 speech to sell the Iraq war using one of the false arguments he has used from the start: that "Iraq is now the central front in the war on terror." (The other argument, the presence of WMD, is no longer available.)... Bush went on to outline how the United States is fighting terrorism while building democracy in Iraq, a plan that includes providing Iraqis with a sham version of sovereignty on June 30. """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

The Times and Iraq 
                
Over the last year this newspaper has shone the bright light of hindsight on decisions that led the United States into Iraq. We have examined   the failings of American and allied intelligence, especially on the issue of Iraq's weapons and possible Iraqi connections to international terrorists. We have studied the allegations of official gullibility and hype. 

It is past time we turned the same light on ourselves.

Reading the mea culpas on Iraq from previously pro-invasion pundits and "experts" across the media spectrum these past few bloody months, I've found myself wanting to shout out loud, "We told you so!"
and "You can't have it both ways!"

Dreamers...  

Baghdad, May 23 -- Decades of smiles have left crinkles on his face that belie the sadness deep within his eyes. His hope and love for America has turned to a despair he is unable to express.  "I want to talk to an American general or judge," says Nihad Munir. "I will give them my guarantee that my son is innocent. I will tell them that if he is not, then they can take me."  

His son was detained from their home during another of the middle of the night home raids the U.S. military is so fond of conducting in occupied Iraq. That was on September 28, 2003. Ayad remains in Abu Ghraib today, and his father has not been allowed to visit him, despite trying everything he can think of to do so.  Of course, as usual, Ayad, married with three children, wasn't charged with anything.  
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Iraqis aren't the only ones who are powerless in their country today. I hate this feeling ... having someone hold hope in my writing ... that it might actually change something for them. I never know what to do with this feeling.  The talk with Mr. Munir softens the anger I've felt so often towards the injustice which is slammed in my face every day here. The gentleness of his soul, despite his "critical time," as he calls it, touches the deep sadness that lies beneath the false exterior of anger that usually covers it.  

The rest of the evening I am sad. I think of how beneath the fury of the fighting of Fallujah in April, lies a bottomless ocean of sadness here. Under the bloodshed and fighting that rages in the South even now, there is unfathomable grief.  

Driving back home I phone my parents and tell them I love them. We laugh some, they speak in parental solidarity, and we laugh a little more.  I hang up the phone and stare at the silhouettes of palm trees, the stars, the sliver of moon, and breathe deep so as not to cry ... because of Mr. Munir.  

The More Things Change 
            Blog Entries from Iraq - by Dahr Jamail