My Year in Iraq

"Yes, I bought this book when I was living in Syria in 2007 after escaping with my husband because it was too dangerous for us in Iraq. I started reading it immediately because I was interested in finding out about Paul Bremer’s impressions of Iraq. He was head of the Coalition Provisional Authority which was the provisional government following the invasion of Iraq. When I read his book the thing that caught my eye was, that there were some authorities in Iraq that communicated with Bremer behind closed doors. People like the prominent Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, with whom he exchanged at least 30 letters. But Sistani wanted it to be kept secret because he thought that if people found out it would tarnish his image with the Iraqi people. So what was going on was, that when Bremer wanted to get things done he would get in touch with Sistani who would issue a fatwa to make it happen. Well it made me think there must have been all sorts of things like this going that we just didn’t know about. And I read about the mistakes that were made, how the former opposition exaggerated the true situation in Iraq at the time of Saddam Hussein, which helped to bring about the invasion. They misled the US and the Allies about quite a lot of things. And this really shocked me. “We were being shot at, and for three days a body lay at my front gate and nobody dared to move him. I still remember it was a young man with a can of Pepsi rolling just near him. It was a nightmare.” The power was gradually moving into the hands of the Iranian-backed opposition. The religious side, which are Iranian-backed, gradually took power from the secular side. And if you know what is happening in Iraq you will see that now they have banned the secular side from entering into elections on the pretext of being former Baath Party members. I don’t accept that any foreigner should have an influence on my country. Another thing the book did was open my eyes to many things that weren’t covered by the Iraqi press. They were always talking about the invasion and the invaders and the cost of living. But, we were never informed about anything that was going on behind the scenes, all the political power struggles."