"Iraq: Death of a Nation" examines how the U.S. invasion and occupation created a multi-faceted civil war in which the U.S. is now actively arming multiple factions. Last summer, the project focused on how Iraq's refugee crisis was created by the invasion and the fighting that has followed.
Anything is better than civil war
Published July 28, 2008
A hot summer, even for Baghdad.
The Tigris drops. Sea grass under the bridges.
'Are you a river?' asked Al-Sayyab, 'or a forest of tears?'
They only found 83 bodies last week.
Rebar and concrete husks punched through by rockets.
Facades wrapped around hot air and broken furniture.
A hundred miles of concrete, and the wooden stock, warn smooth under his hand.
Exhale, and count the beats against his wrist.
Once more before we die - a lungful of Anbar's fine dust, and a mouthful of Tigris water. . .
'If I could, I would drink the whole river.'
16 buried in shallow graves
40 ripped apart by car bombs
18 in suicide attacks
9 by small arms fire
These years taught us calculations we never should have made:
A dictatorship is better than an occupation, but anything, anything is better than civil war.
David Enders, for the Pulitzer Center
Pulitzer Center Staff
Grantee
Richard Rowley of Big Noise Films has made four award winning feature documentaries with international theatrical distribution and dozens of short films and television pieces. He has reported from...
