JESSICA DESVARIEUX: On a planned presidential trip to the E.U.
headquarters, it was supposed to be all handshakes and photo ops about a new trade deal.
But instead, President Obama, in his speech before the E.U., took to defending the United
States' decision to invade Iraq.
BARACK OBAMA: But even in Iraq, America sought to work within the international system.
We did not claim or annex Iraq's territory.
We did not grab its resources for our own gain.
Instead, we ended our war and left Iraq to its people in a fully sovereign Iraqi state
that can make decisions about its own future.
DESVARIEUX: But back home in Washington, the soldiers who fought that war and the Iraqi
civilians who are still living through the aftermath had a much different take on the
war's legacy.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed in the war, and they took the opportunity
to speak to the lasting impact of the war at a people's hearing.
YANAR MOHAMMED: Sovereignty for whom?
I think he's talking about the 275 or 300-something parliamentarians who are living inside the
International Zone.
(And that's the new name for the Green Zone.
It's not "Green" anymore.)
It's only the sovereignty for those people.
And they have the whole wealth of Iraq, while the people are suffering.
And there's a number that was produced by the UN reports: almost 38 percent of the Iraqi
people are living under the poverty line.
Sovereignty for whom?
DESVARIEUX: Many questions still remain for the people of Iraq after, almost 11 years
ago, troops toppled the government of Saddam Hussein and brought to power the Shiite government
of al-Maliki.
Iraqi labor organizer pointed out how the U.S.-backed al-Maliki government is more concerned
with amassing wealth and seizing resources, and it aims to crush organized labor movements
and remain in power.
FALAH ALWAN: The new government, busy with how to redivide the wealth and how to seize
the resources of the society and how to spend mountains of dollars and gold--and this corrupted
government, supported directly by the U.S. government.
The new Iraqi authorities, despite the tragic situation in Iraq, they want to impose a new
legislation, which enable them to be in power and [incompr.] in power by controlling the
so-called elections and to issue new labor laws to control the workers and prevent them
from expressing their demands and their interests, and keeping the old laws of Saddam, which
would prevent the workers from organizing themselves, from holding strikes, from negotiating,
from calling for their interests.
All--we can talk about the tragedies day and night.
DESVARIEUX: The tragedies don't stop there.
Speakers pointed out to the high levels of toxic chemicals in Iraq left over from depleted
uranium used in both the 1991 Gulf War and the recent Iraq War.
Also, abandoned bases, like this one in Basra, have left scores of military vehicles abandoned,
leaving some scientists concerned over the exposure of chemicals like lead and mercury.
MOZHGAN SAVABIEASFAHANI: These abandoned sites, these abandoned military vehicles, are the
perfect reservoir for toxic material to get into the environment, and eventually into
the bodies of the people.
Basra is one of the most highly impacted.
People are suffering from cancers, birth defects.
Dr. al-Sabbak, who is my collaborator in Basra maternity hospital, told me a story last few
times I've talked to him.
He has patients who've had--for example, a couple who've had 19 miscarriages.
And on top of that, the woman is suffering from cancer.
So imagine the kind of mental, emotional, physical pressure on the population of Iraq.
DESVARIEUX: The aftereffects are not only being felt by those in Iraq, but by the veterans
who fought in the war.
According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, in 2013, 22 veterans committed suicide everyday.
That's one suicide an hour.
Many of these veterans suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder or other mental issues, veterans
like Ramon Mejia, who spoke to the mental affects of war.
He served in the Marines on resupply missions.
When he returned from Iraq, he found himself walking up in the middle of the night with
seizures, but no doctors could pinpoint the cause.
Before the people's hearing he gave an emotional testimony to how he's been living since he
returned.
RAMON MEJIA: It's been difficult for me and family to not know why I have seizures.
Either way, I was retired out of the military.
I was, you know, sent home packing.
They gave me some medication.
And even then, after they gave me the medication, I didn't know what was wrong with me.
So I went back to Dallas.
I started to heavily drink.
In my neighborhood, you know, no one thinks about--other than just what--their own--just
other than themselves.
So in my neighborhood, you know, there's gang violence, there's drug sales.
And that's who my friends were.
My friends were drug dealers and my friends were gangsters.
So I got mixed up into that whole lifestyle again.
And it wasn't until I finally questioned--.
My uncle helped me.
He was a Vietnam veteran.
He was able to kind of help me out and pull me from the downward spiral of attempting
to take my life.
And my wife finally pulled me out of that environment, and we moved to Ohio.
And that's when I kind of started to question the war.
Sorry.
Those questions started to rise up again.
And then, in the process of me questioning the war, questioning my intent, I ended up
converting to Islam.
And for a moment I found peace.
And at this moment I am at peace.
But these are issues that I still have to deal with on a daily basis.
DESVARIEUX: Another purpose of the hearing was for those to make the case that government
U.S. officials who lead Americans into the war be held accountable.
PAMELA SPEES: Justice requires an accounting from those individuals who so perverted and
twisted the truth and cavalierly drove this country into a war of aggression that claimed
hundreds of thousands of lives of Iraqis and treated U.S. servicemembers like cannon fodder:
Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, and George W. Bush.
DESVARIEUX: The hearing pointed to the U.S. media's resounding silence leading up to the
war in Iraq, and how even today Iraq still gets limited coverage.
JOHN TIRMAN: --that the news media, which was almost completely silent about civilian
suffering in Iraq, has constantly brought out the issue of human suffering in Syria,
which of course is a good thing.
But I did a quick count of references in The New York Times and The Washington Post, and
in 2012--so I haven't even done it in the last year--in 2012, it was four times the
number of references to Syrian civilians as there were to Iraqi civilians during the height
of the war in 2006.
And I think the reason for that is because we weren't doing the killing in Syria.
DESVARIEUX: Wrapping up the hearing, speakers addressed how to ensure that reparations go
directly to the Iraqi people instead of the Iraqi government.
SPEES: There are other models for this, but the important thing is that communities that
are affected be involved and have some say in what should happen.
And one could envision a similar type of mechanism, where the funds could be channeled through
it and for the betterment, with the involvement of people who are most affected.
DESVARIEUX: For The Real News Network, Jessica Desvarieux, Washington.