Ahmad's War, Ahmad's Peace

NPR reporter Michael Goldfarb came to Northern Iraq two days before war began there in 2002 with an assignment "to tell the story of the war through the eyes of the Iraqi people". The man he chose was his interpreter, Ahmad Shawkat, a Kurdish professor and writer who survived Saddam Hussein's torture chambers and years in exile from his hometown of Mosul. The two struck up a friendship and six month's after Goldfarb's documentary was finished, Ahmad Shawkat was murdered for his criticism of Islamic intolerance and violence. Today on the Exchange we look back at the Iraq war through the lens of one Iraqi Kurd, Ahmad Shawkat, and the reporter who knew him so well. Laura's guest is Michael Goldfarb, former NPR reporter and author of "Ahmad's War, Ahmad's Peace: Surviving Under Saddam, Dying in the New Iraq.