Start Listening to the Iraqis

A Reconciliation Plan

Last August, Jodie Evan, a Co-Founder of CODEPINK, called and invited me to join her and 14 other peace activists for a meeting in Amman, Jordan with members of the Iraq Parliament, sheiks, professors, business leaders, and torture survivors - all of them Iraqis. Apparently CODEPINK's "Troops Home Fast" fast campaign had attracted their attention and with the help of Global Exchange and Raed Jarrar, face to face meetings were set up in a hotel in Amman.

Since I had lost faith in whatever I hear from the Bush administration and since I question news articles I read, I jumped at the chance.

Before that, I'd gone through book after book trying to get a sense of what we could have done and what we should do now. Perhaps this meeting would give me better answers.

I expect I am not alone in my frustration about knowing what and who to believe regarding Iraq and the Middle East. Sometimes, just face-to-face honesty is needed, listening to words of people who are there.

And this is what the meeting provided - an honest assessment of what was going on and what should be done.

The very first night we were there, Dr. Nada M Ibrahim, a member of the Iraq Parliament living in exile in Jordan, surprised us when she said that the American troops could not leave yet. Death squads were operating within the militias (private security forces), kidnapping people and roaming Iraq killing mostly Sunnis civilians. She wanted the Americans to stay long enough until the militias were under control or disbanded and Iraq was protected by an Iraqi security force.

But actually, I don't really remember how she phrased it. And so, rather than doing to you what I complain when everything we hear or read is hearsay, go to the document we compiled from the sixteen hours of videotape I shot over the three days of meetings.

Now you can start hearing directly from Iraqis and maybe listen to them. Go to the Iraq Reconciliation Plan and read about 10 points the Iraqis see as the basis of ending this crisis.

--
Written in collaboration with Jennifer Hicks