NEW YORK - The U.S. government is unduly restricting visits by victims of the Iraq war, peace groups say as they prepare to host a scaled-down delegation of Iraqi women on a first-of-its-kind speaking tour of America.
The seven-woman delegation, due to begin its visit on Sunday, was to have comprised nine Iraqi women who have lost family members and suffered in other ways as a result of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of their country, said tour organizers at the CODEPINK women's peace collective and the rights advocacy group Global Exchange.
Two women whose husbands and children were killed, reportedly at the hands of the U.S. military, were denied visa requests on the grounds that they have no family to return to in Iraq, said Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of both U.S.-based organizations. Thats the most ignorant thing I have ever heard, but this is America under Bush...
Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department informed activists who had invited the Iraqi women that the two--Anwar Kadhim Jawad and Vivian Salim Mati--had ''failed to overcome the presumption of intending to emigrate,'' Benjamin said.
''It's really disgusting,'' she told OneWorld. ''These women have no desire to stay in the United States. We had a very hard time convincing them to come.''
Jodie Evans, a member of CODEPINK who met Anwar in Baghdad two years ago, said ''we all cried when we heard Anwar tell her story about losing her husband and three children.''
''If the American people heard these stories, their image of the Iraq war would be completely different,'' Evans added. ''I suppose that is why the State Department does not want her to come here.'' exactly
Anwar's husband and four children were driving down a road one day when they were suddenly caught in a hail of bullets from an unmarked U.S. checkpoint, according to sources who have visited Baghdad. Anwar was pregnant at the time. Only her 14-year-old daughter survived the attack.
The U.S. Army has compensated Anwar with $11,000 but she has described her loss as ''incalculable'' and her grief as ''immeasurable.''
''In my family, like many Iraqi families, the husband takes care of all the family business. My job is to take care of the well being of the family inside the house while my husband's job is to take care of everything else,'' Susan Galleymore, a US military mother who visited Baghdad in 2004, quoted Anwar as telling her.
''Now I have no husband. I have no income. I have no house any more. I live with my parents and these two children. Everything else is gone. I will never recover,'' Anwar was quoted as saying.
Vivian, the other woman whose visa application was rejected, and her family had decided to flee their home when the U.S. military began bombing their neighborhood three days after entering Baghdad, according to an account published by CODEPINK.
Vivian's husband drove the family car, with their three children sitting in the back, when they crossed paths with a U.S. tank. The U.S. soldier atop the tank began shouting at them and within moments her husband and three children were killed. She, too, was hurt but survived, the group said.
As of Thursday morning, at least 2,303 U.S. personnel had died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, according to the Pentagon.
The U.S. government provides no record of local civilian casualties but research published last year by the British medical journal The Lancet concluded that the war had claimed at least 10,000 civilian lives in Iraq.
Peace activists said they hoped the Iraqi women's stories would highlight the plight of ordinary Iraqis.
''These women are not politicians but ordinary Iraqis who are desperate to see an end to the violence and are taking great personal risk to come to the U.S.,'' said Benjamin. ''It's a rare opportunity to hear from Iraqis themselves, and we hope that U.S. officials will listen.''
The seven-woman delegation's U.S. itinerary includes a stop in New York on March 6 to deliver to Washington's U.N. representatives the ''Women's Call for Peace,'' a document signed by more than 50,000 women from around the world and calling for a raft of measures designed to stop the bloodshed in Iraq.
Had Anwar and Vivian been allowed into the United States, said Benjamin, ''they would have spoken at public events and with policymakers and newspaper editors. They would have told them stories about the horrors of war.''
Despite the setback, the seven women who were granted visas--and who also have lost dear ones in the war--would attend public events in New York and Washington, organizers said. This, they added, would be the first time since the invasion that Iraqi victims of war would visit the United States. So far, only pro-U.S. Iraqi politicians and government officials have been allowed onshore.
The women on the delegation come from diverse ethnic, religious, and professional backgrounds ranging from journalism to civil engineering and medicine. They are scheduled to meet United Nations officials in New York and U.S. government officials in Washington next week.
Celebrities to have signed on to the women's peace campaign include film star Susan Sarandon, playwright Eve Ensler, comedienne Margaret Cho, and award-winning authors Alice Walker, Anne Lamott, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Barbara Ehrenreich.
Cindy Sheehan, the founder of Gold Star Families for Peace whose son Casey was killed while serving the U.S. Army in Iraq, and whose subsequent vigil near President George W. Bush's Texas ranch to demand a face-to-face meeting garnered massive media attention, was among the campaign's first signatories.
''The pain that this war has caused for people all over the world is unimaginable,'' Sheehan said in a statement. Women, she added, ''are ready to stand together to make our leaders end this mess.'
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