Dahr Jamail: the situation in Iraq

On September 28, 2006, independent journalist Dahr Jamail spoke at the University of Maine in Orono, Maine on the SITUATION IN IRAQ. This program is the one given at 12:30 pm in the Memorial Union (not the 7:30 pm program).

Dahr Jamail is a rare human being. When he saw that there was a colossal tradgedy unfolding in Iraq, the extent of which barely being reported, he decided to go to work and take on the job of reporting from Iraq himself. Local artist Robert Shetterly has included Dahr Jamail in his stunning exhibit on Americans Who Tell the Truth.

It was a pleasure to meet Dahr Jamail. Please keep his website, http://dahrjamailiraq.com/, on your list of regular reads. It has essential information you will be hard-pressed to find anywhere else. Please download and listen to this extraordinary podcast.

74 min; 28 MB; 48kbps mp3; download link here ->

Here is how Shetterly describes Dahr’s efforts to tell the truth:

In Iraq for eight months between November 2003 and February 2005, Jamail reported “collateral damage” far beyond what the military or embedded journalists acknowledged. He wrote of soldiers shooting people in prayer at a Baghdad mosque. He relayed accounts of civilians in Fallujah with extraordinary burns (later revealed to be caused by white phosphorus) and of men and women who bore white flags being shot in the Euphrates River as they tried to swim to safety. Jamail also watched those profiting from the war, reporting examples of blurred lines between the military and corporations operating in Iraq, as well as Bechtel’s failure to restore potable water after being paid hundreds of millions to do so.

In his talk, Dahr reveals and explains the whos and hows of the United States policy of fomenting death squads, militias, and civil war in Iraq. If the intent was to pacify an insurgency, the US has missed the mark by about 180 degrees.

DAHR JAMAIL: They are coming out of the Interior Ministry forces. The Interior Ministry, which also has a US adviser–all of the ministries in Iraq have US advisers serving five-year terms–and they’re all funded by the United States. These death squads…were basically brought into existence because the military admitted that there is [Sunni resistance] that is way out of our control, we have to do something to stop it…. [they] went around knocking off leaders of the Sunni resistance…. Then reprisal attacks began. Hence began the civil war in Iraq.

Looking back over the last couple of years, we find example after example of the honest coverage Dahr has given to events in Iraq. He peels away the facade and reveals the truth about how actual US actions on the ground vary considerably with the way they are reported in corporate media. For many weeks in 2004, for example, Dahr issued regular reports from Iraq on the KPFA Flashpoints program. Download this one:

Bush’s crusaders storm the eminent Abu Hanifa Mosque in Baghdad as Friday worshippers attend prayer services, our special correspondent Dahr Jamail shares his exclusive audio from inside the mosque during the raid…

and many others from that period in November 2004 when the US pulverized the city and population of Fallujah. Dahr then issued reports that are the honest history of Iraq. It’s just going to be some years before any writers of history sort through the propaganda and lies enough finally to say what Dahr already has told us.