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IRAQIS - In Search Of Song Amid Sounds Of War - UPDATES

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Bianca
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« Reply #15 on: December 24, 2008, 10:40:25 am »









                           Baghdad's silent movie theaters reflect cultural darkness in Iraq






Jenan Hussein,
Mcclatchy Newspapers –
Tue Dec 23, 2008
BAGHDAD

— Husham al Kanani practically grew up in a Baghdad movie theater, watching films at the cinema his father managed.

Kanani relives that time only in brief moments. He walks into the few remaining Baghdad movie theaters, buys a ticket and imagines the nonstop showings when the city's cinema scene thrived.

He leaves before the film on the screen gets his attention.

"I miss these days now," Kanani, 37, said. "But I'm still there, entering the cinema, if just for five minutes, to revive this ceremony of the past."

Most of the theaters on Sadoon Street , the strip that housed Baghdad's movie scene before the war, closed because of the violence that made catching a film after dark too dangerous a risk for most people.

The theaters that remain have a reputation for playing old American action movies with pornography spliced into some scenes.

They're open only in daytime, and the crowds they draw aren't exactly cinema fans.

"There are no people coming to the cinema looking for pleasure or fun," said Abu Nour , who manages a Sadoon Street theater. "They just come to wait for an appointment or for work to start. If I said there was one who came to the cinema to see movies, I'd be a liar."

Before the war, Sadoon Street drew moviegoers into the early hours of the morning to see films from the U.S., Turkey , India and the Arab world, Nour said.

Showings would start about noon and continue until 2 a.m. , he said, with each pulling in a different audience — children at one, families at another and adults later in the evening.

Nour said if he tried to import the latest American movies now, he wouldn't break even. They wouldn't draw a large enough audience, and most people would sooner pick up the movie on the street from someone selling pirated DVDs.

"Our profession has disappeared now," he said. "In the past, cinema used to be an event for Iraqi families, but now the Iraqi families can stay home and watch movies."

On a recent Monday, Kanani reveled in back-to-back German films at a special, invitation-only showing in Baghdad's National Theater . He sat in the dark auditorium with a wide grin, soaking up the dramas.

He works in the media office for the theater, which holds daytime showings of movies and plays. He doesn't see a popular audience for the shows emerging anytime soon.

"Even if the National Theater shows a clean and suitable movie, there is no one who can come," he said.

Some Iraqi artists are trying to improve that outlook by encouraging film appreciation in small groups.

Yeahya Abrahem, an actor who lives in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, holds gatherings for artists and journalists to watch international films. He'd like to see their thoughts filter through Baghdad society and develop a wider audience for movies.

"We lost the culture in the street," said Abrahem, 32. "There are people who don't know about galleries, museums or the theater.

"We have generations who grew up in the violence and mess that's covered Iraq for more than 10 years," he said. "Now we have this generation walking in the street and driving cars who have never gone to cinema in their lives."

Abrahem wants to nurture a culture of Iraqi film production. He's trying to finish a 30-minute movie about a boy who falls in love with a girl in Baghdad's Zawraa Park , approaches her and discovers that she's wearing a suicide vest.

The boy asks, "Why?"

"To get into heaven," she replies.

"You can't get into heaven without killing us," he responds.

"I'm not against showing dangerous ideas in cinema, like terrorism," Abrahem said. "We should show this to the people. But the producers aren't ready."

Abrahem acknowledged that the Iraqi government has more pressing issues to address, but he said he'd like to see the country invest in promoting culture. If it's successful, he said, Baghdad's cinemas might rebound.

"For that we need to reeducate these people about how to appreciate cinema and galleries, to make the connection between the art experience and them," he said.




(Hussein is a McClatchy special correspondent in Baghdad .)
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« Reply #16 on: January 24, 2009, 07:40:25 am »










                                    Layers of graffiti on walls tell history of Iraq war






     
Leila Fadel,
Mcclatchy Newspapers –
Fri Jan 23, 2009
BAGHDAD

— Iraq is a nation of walls: Tall concrete blast walls built during the past six years, ancient mud-brick barricades that date to antiquity and walls built of various materials from the centuries in between. The newest walls protect Iraqis from one another, but they also divide families. They separate the government from the people, and foreigners from Iraqis.

The walls don't just stand there; they're a constantly changing record of recent history.

Idyllic murals of flowers and scenic canoe rides mask bullet holes and graffiti, and campaign posters for the candidates who are running in provincial elections Jan. 31 paper many of the remaining free surfaces.

Peel away the layers, however, and you'll find Iraq's recent history: the U.S.-led invasion nearly six years ago, the Sunni Muslim insurgency, a sectarian war and now low-level but steady violence in a year of elections.

In two neighborhoods, one that surrounds a water-purification plant in the Sunni city of Fallujah , the other in Baghdad's poor Shiite Muslim district of Amil, once controlled by the Mahdi Army militia of radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr , two walls tell two histories of the last six years.
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« Reply #17 on: January 24, 2009, 07:41:59 am »









FALLUJAH



It was in Fallujah that the U.S.-led invasion came to grief. Sunnis, disenfranchised and marginalized by an invasion that gave dominance to Iraq's Shiite majority, lost their jobs when the U.S. disbanded Saddam Hussein's army and closed factories. Homegrown rebel groups allied with the foreign-led insurgents of al Qaida in Iraq rather than tolerate a Western military on their soil.

The province rebelled, and two punishing U.S. offensives devastated Fallujah . Ultimately, though, the province was unwilling to live under the harsh interpretation of Islam that al Qaida in Iraq enforced after declaring the region an Islamic state, and the Sunni Awakening movement to drive it out was born. The province is relatively calm now.

Along the low stucco wall that snakes around the water plant, Bassam al Hamadi has stood guard for four years and watched the face of the wall change.

Spray-painted on the wall are the words "God Bless Saddam." Another layer of spray paint obscures some of the words. A banner covers both: "Choose from those who guide you to the good, not those who cheat you." It's by the Independent Bloc of One Homeland, a party that opposes the decentralized federal structure sought by Kurds and the most powerful Shiite party in Iraq , the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq . The Independent Bloc of One Homeland, like many Sunnis, fears that this would break Iraq into three nations.

It's one party of hundreds that are vying for seats on the provincial council, and its slogan brings the wall into 2009, when more than 14,500 candidates are competing for about 440 seats in provincial assemblies.

Hamadi peeled away one poster to reveal what was underneath.

"You can still see it," he said, uncovering graffiti celebrating the group whose rule paralyzed his family and him as violence swept the province and a puritanical code was enforced on this tribal culture.

"Long live al Qaida ," it read. "Down with the Iraqi police." Spray paint masks that slogan, and there's new graffiti proclaiming: "Long live the Anbar Revolutionists."

Fallujah has had a tumultuous history from 2003 to today: anti-American militants-turned-revolutionaries in alliance with al Qaida in Iraq , who then joined the Awakening militia and now serve as cops.

Hamadi gingerly restored the poster, which showed Abdul Sattar Abu Risha , a Sunni sheik who's credited with sowing the seeds of the Awakening movement, which turned on Al Qaida in Iraq in Anbar province. He was killed in a car bombing in 2007.

Today, women in Fallujah show their faces, and residents once again smoke on the streets. On this wall alone, the faces of two female provincial council candidates smile from posters.

The Coalition of Iraqi Awakening and the National Independent People have appropriated Abu Risha's visage — and images of the Iraqi police — for their campaign posters.

A banner for the Iraqi Islamic Party competes with Abu Risha's face on the wall. The Iraqi Islamic Party was the first Sunni group to enter Iraqi politics, and many of its members were assassinated for joining the Shiite-dominated national political system.

"With us your life has value," the yellow poster promises. The party linked to the Iraqi Islamic Party calls itself the Bloc of the Tribes and Intellectuals of Anbar , hoping to draw the backing of the tribal structure that's credited with calming the province.

"Our way to a better future," reads a poster with a picture of a sunflower, also promising "integrity . . . credibility . . . ability." Other posters campaign against foreign influence, whether American or Iranian. "Together to kick out the Persian and American Occupations," one says.

"This wall tells the story of our horror," al Hamadi said. "God knows, in a day, in a second, things could change and this wall could change again. We used to see dead bodies thrown here. We never imagined that police would control this area."
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« Reply #18 on: January 24, 2009, 07:43:42 am »









AMIL



In the streets of the Amil neighborhood in Baghdad , where sectarian warfare controlled the lives of poor Shiites and the few Sunnis who weren't run out, Sadr still watches from the billboards. The firebrand Shiite cleric, who inherited a grass-roots movement of the poor and disenfranchised from his dead father, is shown holding open his hands in prayer above the traffic that flows into the neighborhood.

The Sadrists started out as the protectors of the Shiites and a national resistance movement, but evolved into sectarian killers and extortionists in the eyes of many, and the apparent support that parts of the militia got from Iran further tarnished their image. Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki sent the Iraqi army to attack the Mahdi Army in southern Iraq and in Baghdad's Sadr City district, and many were killed, have fled or melted away.

Here, the writing on the wall tells the Shiite story: the creation of the Mahdi Army and its campaign against the U.S. military and the militia's Shiite rivals.

A wall surrounding a girls' school now is painted white, but the outline of the black Arabic script shows through.

"Just like Saddam, Badr will go," the slogan says. The line refers to the Badr Organization — the armed wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq — which has been absorbed into Iraq's national security forces. The top ledge of the wall is covered in rusted concertina wire embellished with discarded pink and yellow plastic bags that got caught on the razor-sharp teeth.

Girls leaving school sashay past the graffiti toward a national police checkpoint at the end of the road. Just over a year ago these checkpoints were manned by plainclothes militiamen.

"Let it be known, Bush, that your soldiers are under our control," the black-painted words read through the white paint. The militia and the man who decided to invade Iraq are no longer in power.

Another slogan, written during Maliki's assault on the Mahdi Army , refers to " Al Maliki al Aar ," Maliki the disgraceful. Another calls the head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq " Abdel Hakim al Haqeer ," replacing his last name, Hakim, with the word despicable. The words were hastily painted over with swirls of black spray paint.

Hakim isn't a popular man in Amil, judging by a campaign poster for his party in the local elections, Shaheed al Mihrab, the martyrs of the places of worship. "With you, with you," the posters say. Many Shiites view the powerful party as a group of elite exiles, and some of the posters are ripped through his face.

Early in 2007, Kurdish soldiers were brought here to man the sectarian fault line between Sunni and Shiite Arabs. The Mahdi Army tried to force them out.

"No, no to the Peshmerga," shows through a mess of scribbles and white paint, referring to the Kurdish militia, which now is part of the Iraqi army. The Peshmerga have since returned to Kurdish territory in the north.

For all its brutality, the Mahdi Army had some pithy slogans. "Beware of the lions of the daylight and the foxes of the night," read its words on the same wall.

On top of all the other layers of graffiti, the latest to grace the wall in Amil is that of the national security forces, which report to Maliki. "Long live the National Police ," proclaims the graffiti in red, black and blue, probably painted by the security forces themselves.

More layers are no doubt yet to be painted or plastered, but some residents have had enough of the chaos and mess, both on the walls and in political life.

"We should have clean walls and clean hearts," said Mohammed Jassim , 42, a barber in Amil.
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« Reply #19 on: January 24, 2009, 07:51:29 am »









                               2009 in Iraq: A new era dawns, but old fears still hold sway







McClatchy
Leila Fadel
/ MCT
BAGHDAD

— With the arrival of 2009, Iraq has achieved, at least on paper, something it hasn't enjoyed since American troops entered the country almost six years ago and toppled the long ruling Baath party regime of Saddam Hussein: the declaration that it is a sovereign nation, free of a United Nations mandate that allowed the U.S. to run Iraqi affairs.

U.S. troops are still here, of course, and will be for some time. Under a new bilateral security agreement, however, they must defer to Iraqi officials, seeks arrest warrants and judicial orders before detaining people, and by June largely withdraw from Iraq's cities.

Those changes won't be evident all at once, and some are open to interpretation. U.S. officials insist their forces will remain at the Joint Security Stations that they man with Iraqi troops inside Baghdad possibly after the June 30 deadline for being out of the cities.

There's no doubt, however, that Jan. 1 marks a major step in Iraq's evolution. U.S. officials already have moved out of Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace, which they'd used as their headquarters since U.S. troops took control of Baghdad, and are occupying a brand new, sprawling 104-acre U.S. embassy complex that's America's largest in the world.

Still, Iraqis aren't willing to say that the bad years of sectarian bloodshed are over or that what's taking place will lead to better days.

They expect a power struggle over territory between the Arabs and Kurds in the north. With provincial elections scheduled for later this month, they worry about political rivalries that could lead to violence. They're still unsure of the government — and a future they can't predict.

Open-air markets are busy once again, stores have reopened and historic cafes, bookstores and restaurants have been rebuilt. The paralyzing fear and tragedy in 2006 and 2007, when sectarian killings and rampant explosions forced Iraqis to cower in their homes, seems largely to have passed. It's difficult, however, for hope to return so quickly after so much bloodshed.

At the Shaabandar Cafe, an intellectual institution on al Mutannabi Street, Baghdad's historic book-selling district named for an Iraqi who became one of the most famous poets in Arab history, loyal patrons have returned after the cafe, which burned after a terrorist bombing in 2007, was rebuilt.

Mohammed Kadhim al Khashali feels little joy as he sits at his desk at the front of the cafe, as he's done for 50 years, with a book of Iraqi folklore in front of him, collecting from his patrons for the tea and conversation. On the wall to his left five pictures hang with a black strip across the top. His four sons and grandson were killed in the 2007 bombing.

Just five years ago he had four educated sons and 13 grandchildren, he said. He'd realized his dream of building a gathering place for intellectuals to discuss poetry and philosophy — a place where tourists could learn about Iraq's history and culture. Now in his cafe, rebuilt with government money, his eyes are weighed with sadness.

"I considered myself a prince before," he said. "The printing houses and coffee shop are rebuilt, but life has changed. I went from a father living with his sons to a father living to support his children's orphans . . . life became torture."

His wife is gone now, too. He says she died of grief. Outside, the sounds of drills and saws underscore the change on a new al Mutanabbi Street built over the rubble of the old and scarred one.

Between the neighborhoods of Adhamiyah, a Sunni Muslim enclave, and Kadhimiyah, a Shiite one, the Aimma bridge is once again open after years of being closed to stop warring religious factions from killing one another.

Now residents from one neighborhood frequent the other neighborhood. It's not unusual to hear Shiite chants blasting from a car caught in the gridlock of Sunni Adhamiyah. Still, it isn't yet normal.

Busloads of pilgrims, some visiting the Shiite shrine in Kadhimiyah, others visiting the Abu Hanifa Sunni mosque in Adhamiyah, are ordered from their vehicles before they cross the bridge. Soldiers pat them down, search their vehicles and send them on their way.

Under the bridge lies a cemetery of almost 6,000 graves. It opened on July 5, 2006, at the height of the sectarian killings, when Sunni families had no other place to take their dead. The danger was too great. Ninety-five percent of the dead here were killed by Shiite militias, said Ahmed Akram, who oversees the cemetery.

Above him, cars buzz between the Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods. Here in "The Martyrs Cemetery," however, there's a sea of death that many think won't be forgotten.

"Do you think Iraq will be clear of vengeance with the blood that has been spilled? Never!" Akram said. "Revenge cannot be forgotten. There is no success in this war."

Akram recounts the acid burned corpses, the heads and the tortured bodies he buried. He blames the American invasion. Then, in almost the same breath, he worries that the violence will begin again with the withdrawal of American troops.

"What did democracy give us? It gave us cemeteries. They (the U.S.) succeeded. They succeeded in making people kill each other, " he said. "Despite that, the place that (the U.S.) destroyed needs their presence because the people will kill each other again and Iraq will be on fire."

Last week, he said, was proof of his point. A bombing in Kadhimiyah killed 24, including a Sunni mother and daughter, who were being washed for burial on Wednesday. Perhaps they'd finally gotten the nerve to revisit the Shiite district and never made it back.

Will Iraq ever recover its sense of well being?

Akram is unsure. "I live with the dead and for that my heart is dead," he said.
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« Reply #20 on: January 24, 2009, 07:52:16 am »




           

Mohammed Kadhim al Khashali, who runs the Shaabandar cafe, hangs the pictures of his dead sons and one grandson who were killed in a bombing on Mutanabbi street, the street of books.


By Leila Fadel
| McClatchy Newspapers
« Last Edit: January 24, 2009, 07:53:43 am by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #21 on: February 24, 2009, 08:59:19 am »










                                                               Iraq before the war - WWI


 
 


By Lynn Harnett
seacostonline.com
February 22, 2009

Landof Marvels
Barry Unsworth
Doubleday/Talese

The faded glory of Mesopotamia meets the faction-fractured mess that will become Iraq in Unsworth's latest, a 1914 brink-of-war novel.

Booker prizewinner Unsworth sets this carefully crafted tale on an archaeological dig in the undeveloped desert oil fields of Mesopotamia. British archaeologist John Somerville, 35, has invested all his hopes and money in Tell Erdek, a mound "on the borderlands of empire," where he hopes to find the buried remains of a palace or a temple.

But in three years the mound has yielded little and failure looms. Not only is Somerville at the end of his finances, but rumors of imminent war abound. Worst of all, the railroad the Germans are building is headed straight for his dig. The Arab he pays to keep him informed of its progress, Jehar, takes a certain pleasure in informing him of its progress.

Jehar "was sensitive in certain ways and had understood very early in their acquaintance that the Englishman was one of these — he had met others in his time — whom Allah for reasons inscrutable to mortals had predisposed to feel singled out for harm."

Somerville's wife of four years, the beautiful Christine, has accompanied him on the dig. She had fallen for a man of passionate ambition, a man who now seems harried, preoccupied and "almost pathetic." Discontented, a victim of her own conventional ideas of "womanly" behavior, she is ripe for cultivation by the dashing, unscrupulous Alex Elliott, an American oil geologist posing as an archaeologist, foisted on the expedition by British intelligence.

Ah, British intelligence. The desert is crawling with spies and schemers of various nationalities, swarming over the soon-to-be spoils of the crumbling Ottoman Empire. While the Germans scramble to acquire as much of oil- and ore-rich Mesopotamia as possible through their rapidly crawling railroad (land on either side having been deeded to them), the British, French, Turks and Americans are also vying for influence, wealth and colonial expansion.

Meanwhile, Somerville finds a few intriguing relics. His hopes rekindle — along with his fatalistic desperation. His imagination and observation fuel each other, informed by his knowledge and professional judgment. In Unsworth's prose Somerville's transformation into a man of greatness — a man who harnesses his imagination to his knowledge and professional judgment in pursuit of a momentous goal — is a subtle and beautiful thing, somewhat spoiled by his nagging sense of doom.

Lies, intrigues and betrayals mount as Unsworth brings his various plot threads together in a spectacular finale, which at first seems over-the-top, but on reflection appears all but inevitable.

The intrigue leading up to World War I, the deadly greed over oil and ore, and the eventual forced cohesion into colonial Iraq, juxtaposed to the crumbling, forgotten, bloody empires of the past, is subtly done. Unsworth's prose, as always, is exquisite and keenly atmospheric.

But, as absorbing and fine a novel as it is, "Land of Marvels" is not compelling, not a book you can't stand to set aside, and the reason for that is a certain distance from the characters. While sharply delineated, there is no warmth to any of them. Even his masterful portrayal of Somerville's passion arouses no empathy for the man, or not much. At his best, Somerville remains a bit, well, pathetic.

But, given the book's scope, intelligence, and vivid setting, this seems almost a quibble. Anyone who enjoys thoughtful, literary historical fiction will appreciate this novel.




Lynn Harnett, of Kittery, Maine, writes book reviews for
Seacoast Sunday.

She can be reached at lynnharnett@gmail.com.
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« Reply #22 on: March 01, 2009, 09:16:21 am »









                                               Madam, Your Perfume Is Divined






By Anwar Ali
The NY Times
Feb. 27, 2009

Each day I pass through a checkpoint on my way to work, and now it has a new detector that is supposed to discover explosive materials. It has an aerial that moves around and points to whatever it detects.

Iraqis started to notice this device two months ago in some of Baghdad’s main streets. It is a new phenomenon, and a little bit funny at the same time.

Each time our family’s car is searched, it gives off the alarm and the guards take a long time searching the car while we are sitting in it. My husband was worried at first that we may have a sticky bomb in our car that we didn’t know about. The guards were searching the car, and sometimes my purse and bag. Yet the alarm was still on.

It turned out that the problem was the car freshening deodorant that my husband keeps in the car. We threw it away. Next day, the same problem, this time because of the scented wet tissues in the car. We handed all that to the guards.

The next day, another alarm, although I made sure to leave all suspect things at home. The problem was my headache medicine and a small bottle of nail polish in my purse.

One checkpoint guard told me that they once searched everything in a minibus that was raising the alarm, but nothing was there. Then they saw a small hole in the car, and the driver said, “A long time ago the American forces randomly shot my car and the bullet is still somewhere in my car.”

Another time they searched everything inside the car until they noticed that when the driver was out of the car, the device gave off no alarm, and the pointer turned towards the driver. Of course they
searched him and found nothing. The problem turned out to be that he had a piece of platinum in his jawbone from a medical operation.
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« Reply #23 on: March 13, 2009, 07:14:42 am »









                                    Joy in Baghdad: Its soccer teams are playing again
         





Matthew Schofield,
Mcclatchy Newspapers
– Wed Mar 11, 2009
BAGHDAD

— A series of quick, short passes suddenly left Haitham Kadhim with an opening about 25 yards from the goal. His left foot lashed the ball into the far corner of the net. The thousands of Jawiya supporters packed into Shaab Stadium erupted.

"Say prayers to the Prophet Muhammad. Say prayers to the Prophet Muhammad," they chanted.

Across the thick iron fences that separated opposing fans, the Shurta team's fans applauded politely. They were acknowledging the quality of the goal and the sheer joy that after years of fighting, of games canceled because of invasion, car bombs, sniper attacks or sectarian strife, soccer is back in Baghdad .

"This is the first time since 2003 I've felt safe enough to come back to the stadium," said Mohammed Salih , 28, with the smile of a man whose team was winning. "There's so much news about bad politics and poor security. Football is the only thing that brings relief to my soul."

For many here, life is soccer. Young boys wear European team shirts until they're threadbare; Barcelona is popular, but there are more than a few shirts celebrating David Beckham's superstardom in Los Angeles . Soccer logos have replaced war graffiti on blast walls. Adults chant and dance by the thousands again, in pure celebration, while watching matches.

In some ways, soccer defines this war-ravaged country. Want to understand Iraq over the last couple decades? Study the league standings.

The best teams have always come from Baghdad . Of the 28 teams in the leading league, which dates to 1974, eight are based in the capital. The air force sponsors Jawiya and the Baghdad police sponsor Shurta. The Ministry of Transportation sponsors Zawraa, the country's proudest club. The Ministry of Higher Education sponsors Talaba, the students' team. Together, they make up the big four, with a combined 21 championships. Only two teams from outside Baghdad had won the league before the U.S.-led invasion.

The invasion killed two seasons — and changed everything.

When it sputtered back to life in autumn 2004, the Dawri al Mumtaz wasn't much of a league. Teams couldn't travel to games. The best players and coaches had fled.

The worse the violence was in an area, the worse its soccer teams were.

Ramadi , in insurgent- and al Qaida in Iraq -infested Anbar province — and always a fan favorite — was knocked out of the league.

Basra, where Shiite militiamen battled British troops, struggled to schedule games.

Najaf, where U.S. troops tried to pin down firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr , was patchy at best.

In Samarra, where the bombing of the Golden Dome mosque ignited Shiite-Sunni Muslim sectarian war, the team crashed to the bottom of the league.

In the tightly controlled Kurdish north, however, the teams were finding success for the first time. Irbil won two titles, its first ever, in back-to-back years.

It was the fall of Baghdad teams, however, that raised the most eyebrows. It wasn't as simple as games lost.

Husham al Salman , a soccer writer for the newspaper Azzaman, can't remember all the players who were killed, especially after the sectarian violence escalated in 2006. He counted: three in a car bomb attack; one, while practicing, by mortar fire; another executed in his home; a stray bullet found another one.

Of course, there also were the kidnappings and the shrapnel injuries.

"Just now, it feels like a league again," Salman said. "With all the stars gone, how is the quality of play? It is much better than sectarian violence."

Which is why this past weekend, twice, Shaab, Iraq's national stadium and home to the big four, attracted thousands of spectators.

Shaab was built before Saddam Hussein's reign as part of Iraq's Olympic training complex. In decades past, Odai Hussein , Saddam's son, infamously tortured national team soccer players for losing games there. He also forced national team members to join his professional club, Rasheed, which won three championships.

Nearby are the turquoise clamshells of the Martyrs Monument, for Iraqis who died in the Iran - Iraq war, a reminder of the previous time that the league shut down for war. The stadium is also about a mile and half from Sadr City, the teeming Shiite slum, the site of the most recent and deadly U.S. military efforts in Baghdad .

Ahmed Nouri , a 42-year-old fan of the Shurta club and the owner of a travel agency, sees the game as a way to forget everything else that's happened.

"I'm a big fan, for more than 30 years," he explained. "I consider football my first hobby and my second job. With football, I forget the troubles."

He was among an estimated 10,000 people who turned out for this match. About half that many would turn out the following day for a match between Talaba and Nasiriyah .

With him was his brother, Hussein Nouri , 37, a Jawiya fan, who was just happy that Baghdad was safe enough again to make it possible to enjoy soccer. He's one of the estimated millions of Iraqis who fled the country after the invasion. He lives in Sweden , and he returned for the match.

"I spent the week visiting all the areas of Baghdad I love," he said, as his team won 2-1. "And I love Jawiya. I think they can win the league this year."

Soccer journalist Sajid Saleem , 47, of the sports paper Al Malaab , is thrilled that fans can think about championships again. He said that teams in the north still had an advantage this season. It's still safer to practice on their fields, and unlike clubs in the south, their players all have enough money to eat and train properly. Still, he suggested, "Soccer is the biggest issue in Iraq right now. After the invasion, the bombings, the strife, this is exactly what we need."

He went on to explain that with so many professionals having fled, the league now has many very young players, some as young as 16. They're skilled and exciting at times, but they lack experience, so they make mistakes. This is not unlike his country, he said.

"It is obvious the base is here," he said, smiling as he carefully avoided the Arabic phrase for "the base" — al Qaida . "The future looks good."



(Schofield reports for The Kansas City Star .)
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« Reply #24 on: March 16, 2009, 07:53:18 am »









                                                 Iraqis 'more upbeat about future' 



 


BBC NEWS
March 16, 2009

Violence and insecurity are no longer the main concern of most Iraqis, for the first time since the 2003 US-led invasion, an opinion poll suggests.

It says Iraqis are much more hopeful about the future and are increasingly pre-occupied with more conventional worries like the economy and jobs.

But Iraqis remain unhappy about the role foreign powers play in their country, notably Iran, the US and UK.

The survey was carried out for the BBC, ABC News and NHK in February.

A total of 2,228 Iraqis were questioned across all 18 provinces. The margin of error is 2.5%.
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« Reply #25 on: March 16, 2009, 07:55:46 am »




               








Security

The poll is the sixth in a series of surveys stretching back to March 2004 and shows a marked overall improvement in perceptions, the BBC's Adam Mynott says.

Its findings show striking shifts in opinion since the last poll in March 2008.

On security, 85% of all respondents described the current situation as very good or quite good - up 23% on a year ago:

a total of 52% say security has improved over the last year, up 16% on March 2008

only 8% say it is worse - against 26% last year
59% feel safe in their neighbourhoods, up 22% from 37% last time.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7942974.stm

See poll results on security and democracy
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« Reply #26 on: March 16, 2009, 07:59:45 am »








Supplies improving



The numbers of people who report direct experience of car bombs, suicide attacks, sectarian fighting, kidnappings and assassination in their areas are much lower than last year.





 Iraq Poll 2009


Iraq Poll questions and answers in full [605KB]
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7942974.stm



Confidence grows as fear ebbs



Those who say their lives are going very well or quite well are now 65% of the total, up 9%. And there is a 14% increase - to 60% - of those who think things will be better in Iraq as a whole in a year from now.

The survey shows that some aspects of everyday life are improving, too.

The availability of power has been a major issue in the past six years, with only about 10% of the population saying in previous polls that they have had reliable supplies. In the latest poll, that figure has leapt to 37%.

And the number of those who say that availability of fuel for cooking or driving is now very good or quite good has also shot up to 67%, a 48% rise on the 19% of March 2008.
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« Reply #27 on: March 16, 2009, 08:00:58 am »









Sunni shift



As with previous findings, it is possible to distinguish between the responses of Shias and Sunnis.

All earlier polls have shown stark differences between them, with the Sunni minority profoundly more pessimistic than Shias about the current situation and Iraq's prospects.

These differences persist, but the new poll poll shows a pronounced shift in Sunni opinion towards a more optimistic view:


overall, there is a 9% increase among those who think their lives are going very well or quite well (Shias +8%; Sunnis +16%)
14% more think things will be better for Iraq in a year's time (Shias +13%; Sunnis +29%)
there is a 23% increase in those who say their local security situation is very/quite good (Shias +21%; Sunnis +32%)
21% more support democracy as the preferred model of government for Iraq compared with a strong leader or Islamic state (Shias +21% , Sunnis +27%).
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« Reply #28 on: March 16, 2009, 08:01:57 am »










Regional differences



Asked whether foreign countries are playing a positive or negative role in Iraq, Britain, the US and Iran get the most negative scores.


Overall, 59% of those questioned think Britain's role is negative, 22% positive; 64% say the US is negative, 18% positive; 68% view Iran negatively, 12% positively.

Also, 56% think the 2003 invasion was wrong (up 6%), while 42% say it was right (down 7%).

Only 30% think coalition forces are doing a good job, 69% a bad job - more or less the same as a year ago.

In the light of an imminent withdrawal of British troops from southern Iraq, Iraqis were asked about the value of the British presence since 2003.

The responses were mixed on this issue: 36% call it generally positive, 42% generally negative.

The poll also suggests that there are some marked differences in responses between the northern, central and southern regions of Iraq.

Overall, respondents in central Iraq, which includes Baghdad, are significantly less positive about how well things are currently going in their lives.
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« Reply #29 on: March 16, 2009, 08:03:05 am »





             
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