Our second visit to the US base

One of our prime motivations for visiting the base again was to talk with Dennis Gray, an Associated Press reporter who, we were surprised to discover, was “embedded” inside the base. We had gotten his e-mail address and asked him to meet us at the gate. It took a while, but we did finally have the pleasure of meeting him. He seemed interested in our project, asked a lot of questions, and took notes while we answered. I don’t know if he has filed a story on us, or if it has made it past the editors. But we enjoyed talking with him, and were impressed to hear of his experiences in Cambodia and southeast Asia in the horrifying days of Pol Pot. Our interactions were sincere and mutually respectful. We left feeling glad that we had made the effort to contact him.

One thing did seem odd to us, though. Here was the only US reporter we had met in our entire trip, reporting on the situation in Najaf… from inside the barbed wire and defensive walls of the US camp. He had never walked freely down the streets of Najaf, as we did every day, and see the people going about their daily routine. He had never gone to the internet café to file a report, or stopped in at a neighborhood store for a bag of chips or some cookies. What kind of view did he have of Najaf? What can he tell the American people about what is really happening in Najaf?

mariogalvan44@hotmail.com writes

Yesterday we carried out a very successful action at the largest military base here, on the outskirts of Najaf on the road to Kufa. We were able to get a considerable amount of media, which no doubt contributed to the success of our action, and helped insure our safety.

We held a press conference at the al-Najaf Sea hotel at 1:00 pm. There were almost twenty video cameras trained on us, and more still photographers. The crowd of media was perhaps 30 altogether. We unfurled the banners we would carry to the base: one said "Peace" in arabic, english, and spanish. One said "U.S.A.:  Don't Be The New Saddam. Come Home" in English (addressed to the U.S. soldiers).  One said "No U.S. occupation" in Arabic. A third banner read "Peace" in Arabic, English and Spanish (Salaam in Arabic letters, Peace, Paz).  Each member of the delegation made a brief statement, and then we left in a cab for the base, which was just a kilometer or so down the road. On the way, the press followed us on all sides, with their cameras following us through the windows. Later we heard that the footage of our event was carried on twelve different stations. There press here is largely from the Arab world.