"Today is the first day of a new beginning for our department," proclaims Ali Sadoon, director general of civil defense, as he proudly gestures to a dozen firemen of the invigorated Baghdad Fire Department, clad in brand-new "Baghdad Fire Department" T-shirts supplied by the U.S. military. "I'm happy the Americans helped us," agreed one of them. "But if I'm going to fight fires, I'm going to need better clothing than a T-shirt. It's nylon and will burn right off. We want the same kind of gear we see in American movies." (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/World/iraq030827_reconstruction.html) The reconstruction movement in Iraq is at best, going slowly. Every opened door only leads to another locked door in the seemingly wasted desert country. The gloomy liberation of Iraq has transpired into little more than the obliteration of a country that can never be wholly restored. .
Why should the citizens of Iraq hail the coalition force who destroyed thousands of lives, the electricity or "beating heart of Iraq", water purification, and manufacturing capability? (page 10, Sept.) "The war interrupted the therapy, he relapsed and now there is little chance, without new and more effective medicine, that he will survive," a journalist discovered, in regards to a young boy, diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, who once had an optimistic chance of surviving beyond the youthful age of six. (page 10, Sept.) "Many more will die," a doctor painfully admitted, "We do not have proper drugs nor do we have proper electricity, water, sanitation, or oxygen supply. We had all of that before the war." (page 10, Sept.) No one likes to have their country invaded and their army defeated, even if it was for a good reason," a former Iraqi soldier explained. (page 11, Sept). Despite the overthrow of the abysmal regime of dictator Saddam Hussein, there have been few victories for the Iraqi people to rejoice as we stumble over the smoking desert sands, irresolute of how to reconstruct their country.