The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq

This book is a genuine depiction of my experiences in Al Fallujah. Mr. Parenti was one of few journalists to truly imbed himself with my platoon; often displaying more regard for his craft than his personal safety. I recommend "The Freedom" to the serious reader seeking a true depiction of our struggle to simultaneously fulfill the roles of warrior and statesman.

This excellent book gives a vivid picture of the horrors of the US-British occupation of Iraq. It is now three and a half years since Bush promised to get `the people who knocked these buildings down'. Instead, he attacked the one Middle Eastern country where there was no Al Qa'ida. What does the occupation mean? 40,000 prisoners, torture, atrocities, beatings, humiliation, intimidation, killings, death squads, house searches, raids, demolitions. No jobs, no water, no electricity, no rebuilding, no security. Power plants, telephone exchanges, sewage and sanitation systems all still in ruins. The US government pledged $18.4 billion for rebuilding Iraq, but any money goes straight through to firms like Halliburton, which gets $1 billion of taxpayers' money every month, saving it from bankruptcy. (Cheney had bought Dresser Industries for $7.7 billion, without noticing that it owed billions in damages.) Bechtel got the $1.8 billion contract to rebuild Iraq's water, sewage and electricity systems. Both Halliburton and Bechtel have been fined for corrupt practice. Another US firm got a $780 million contract, despite convictions for fraud on three federal projects and a total ban on receiving US government work. The coalition gets ever smaller, the insurgency ever larger: the longer the occupiers stay, the more insurgents there seem to be. Rumsfeld, while publicly promising a swift victory, said in a private memo that the USA is in for a `long, hard slog' in Iraq and Afghanistan. Cheney said in April 1991, "I think to have American military forces engaged in a civil war inside Iraq would fit the definition of quagmire, and we have absolutely no desire to get bogged down in that fashion." It's an old story. T. E. Lawrence wrote in August 1920, "The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiqués are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse that we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows." We should be demanding that the troops come home, and let the people of Iraq run their country in the way that they want to. Imposing foreign rule is not democratic, but despotic.

Fantastic! Is worth more than a year's worth of CNN, NPR, and New York Times rolled into one. Parenti's foremost accomplishment is in letting his concise description of events in occupied Iraq speak for themselves. He has no heavy-handed agenda - just a clear sense of justice betrayed. The hypocrisy and ineptness of American policies glow frightfully from the pages of this priceless book.

"The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq" is the cumulative result of journalist Christian Parenti's three trips to Iraq. He examines the occupation through the eyes of all involved parties--from the soldiers and marines who serve there to the Iraqis whose country has fallen into complete chaos. Parenti takes us to the land where "the freedom" lays waste a country, and it's here, Parenti argues that we see "the Conradian end of the river where empire's lawless opportunities mix with personal madness to form a potent political and psychedelic cocktail." In a sympathetic fashion, Parenti interviews several members of 3rd Battalion of the 124th Infantry--National Guardsmen from North Florida. When not on patrol, the guardsmen live in cramped quarters where the men suffer from water rationing, chronic boredom, and ever-delayed, morale-crushing departure dates. With his faithful and colourful translator, Akeel, Parenti makes several dangerous sorties into Iraq--beyond the fortified Green Zone ("a clean air-conditioned oasis") and talks to Iraqis who are willing to tell their stories. Some are victims of checkpoint incidents; others survive after their families are wiped out in incidents hurriedly covered up and termed 'mistakes'. And some Iraqis make the trip to Abu Gharib to see their incarcerated family members. Parenti also details the carpet-bagging atmosphere in Iraq--the ridiculous so-called 'reconstruction' that has escalated into a free-for-all. "The idea of American imperial beneficence and competence" in action is an opportunity to loot millions in reconstruction money. "Iraqi reconstruction is a racket", says Parenti as he describes the projects which, according to reconstruction companies, are underway, when in reality, the country is in ruins, and billions are 'missing'. "One 'repaired' school, for example was overflowing with raw sewage." Parenti interviews many Iraqis who hated Saddam, but are dismayed, distraught, and angry at America's dismantling of their economic and civil structure. Billions earmarked for Iraq has ended up in the pockets of contractors--one of whom--Halliburton--Parenti speculates would be facing bankruptcy without all those overly generous contracts from the U.S government. In a system smacking of nepotism, the book details the fact that many companies banned from gaining government contracts (for past fraud) are now happily engaged in the great Iraqi reconstruction rip-off--and this great rip-off had left Iraqis without electricity, water, and extremely angry. Gangs roam the streets raping girls--kidnappings and murders are daily events. Ironically, there's even a juicy quote from Dick Cheney made in 1991 predicting the anarchy that would follow the removal of Saddam. Parenti lived in Iraq--and not in a protected, guarded area. This book is not a compilation of regurgitated approved PR reports--this is a record of a country's disintegration, and the details are simply mind-boggling. The au

This book has been compared to Michael Herr's Dispatches and I think that's deserved. This is a crazy, creepy, scary, tragic and sometimes really funny story about the US occupation of Iraq. The author traveled around the Sunni Triangle over the first year and a half of the occupation. Unlike many books on Iraq that either cover US troops or just the civilian perspective, this guy embedded with US troops, saw some combat, met the resistance, hung with normal Iraqis and has some weird insights on the journalists and civilian occupiers. It's all combined into a vividly real and surreal portrait of the disaster that is unfolding in Iraq. He also works a lot of information about Iraq and Iraqis. I particularity like that the author, though harsh on American policy is sympathetic to the troops stuck with the job of carrying out the policy. It's a quick read, worth checking out.