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IRAQ: Unsanctioned Voices
Thursday, October 31, 2002
By Cameron W. Barr
CSM Staff Writer

"... violence and the seductions of privilege have been used to drive home to all Iraqis the rewards of conformity and the price of dissent."
-- Charles Tripp / Historian
Image Credit: Suhaib Salem -- Reuters.

"We want change, but we want it a different way ... They always say, let the Iraqi people decide. That's like telling a man in jail to free himself. He can't ... We are like cockroaches feeding on sewage. We survive."

BAGHDAD -- CSM
Over lamb chops in a busy Baghdad restaurant, Ahmed looks around nervously, falling silent when anyone comes close enough to listen.

Dining with a Westerner can raise suspicions. Even now, after decades under the rule of President Saddam Hussein, Ahmed fears that he will make the mistake that will bring the authorities to his door.

"If you are arrested," Ahmed says, "your life is over."

Ahmed is no subversive. "That is not my character," he says. But he does resist quietly, carving out a small circle of freedom in which his family and a few friends can say what they really think about Iraq's "beloved leader."

Within this circle, they mock Mr. Hussein, remember the dead and the disappeared who have run afoul of the regime, and hope aloud for something better to come along.

"Ahmed" is a pseudonym for an Iraqi businessman and father of three who lives in Baghdad. Even speaking to a foreign reporter about life here entails risk. But at a time of international scrutiny of Iraq and its regime, Ahmed agreed to provide an intimate picture of his life during the reign of Hussein.

Ahmed's candor reflects a growing willingness among some Iraqis to speak out. For a few days earlier this month, following a general amnesty for Iraqi prisoners, scores of Iraqis approached the Ministry of Information in Baghdad and a police facility on the city's outskirts, demanding to know why their relatives had not emerged from prison. The demonstrators mixed their complaints with praise for Hussein, but such protests are unprecedented in this city.

During more than seven hours of interviews, Ahmed never mentions Hussein's attempts to acquire biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons, but he talks at length about life under Hussein's dictatorship.

Some specifics of Ahmed's account cannot be confirmed, including allegations that the regime has imprisoned and executed people known to him. Attempts to verify such details would likely compromise Ahmed's anonymity and safety. But his assertions are consistent with the accounts from exiled dissidents, human rights organizations, and scholars.

He was interviewed without the presence of Ministry of Information "guides" with whom foreign journalists in Iraq are required to work.

Ahmed seemed most at ease driving a reporter around Baghdad at night. His vehicle offered privacy. He seemed certain that it wasn't bugged. On the road, speaking his mind about the regime, he seemed to breathe more freely.

* A 'gray man' in Baghdad
* 'We shrunk ourselves back'
* Membership has its privileges
* One leader, many eyes
* He dismantled the dish.
* 'We want change, but...'
* The American way?
(More: A Christian Science Monitor News Source)
2002 © The Christian Science Monitor.

Dan