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| Iraq |
| An Iraqi Optimist's Tale |
| 2006-05-28 |
| by Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal Nasreen Siddeek-Barwari was just 13 when she entered the Fedhelia women's prison in east Baghdad. It was October 1981, and Saddam Hussein's campaign against the Kurds would soon kick into high gear. Her father, a former Iraqi military officer, was arrested after years of harassment by the secret police; one of his sons was known to be active in the Kurdish resistance up north. She, a younger brother and her mother were placed that same day in a cell with about 40 other women and children. "It was a mix of Arabs, communists, Christians, Islamists, mainly Kurds," she recalls. "The cell was so packed we didn't have room to sleep. We were from different places politically but we were all suffering for the same reason: We were different from the regime." "I became old then," adds the still-young Ms. Siddeek-Barwari, who earlier this month resigned as Iraq's minister for municipalities and public works after serving nearly three years under three governments. She has survived two assassination attempts (not everyone in her retinue was so lucky) and struggled, with mixed results, to reform her hidebound ministry. As she tells her story in fluent English, one begins to understand how this woman--whose personal elegance belies a hard-bitten life--can describe herself as a "realistic optimist" about her country. . . . Go read the rest of it. |
| Posted by:Mike |