Story Archives of 'Iraq'

More than four thousand American soldiers have been killed and tens of thousands injured since the U.S.- led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Another number gets far less notice - the 4.7 million Iraqis who’ve fled their homes. Millions remain displaced inside Iraq, while miliions more have spread-out to neighboring states.

That refugee population has overwhelmed authorities in some host countries and created significant brain drain in Iraq. Many educated Iraqis have already left the country. Among those are four guys who just want to rock. Together they form a band called Acrassicauda, drawing the name from the Latin term for a black scorpion native to the Iraqi desert. As far as anyone can tell, Acrassicauda is Iraq's only heavy metal band, and its survival is the subject of a documentary that’s won-over the festival circuit. It's called Heavy Metal in Baghdad and the DVD hits stores today. We talked with one of the films directors, Eddy Moretti.

Many of us remember the shock we felt the first time we saw the snapshots of mistreated detainees at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq -- images of human degradation and humiliation captured on film. A new book lets us in on what was happening outside those gruesome picture frames. Filmmaker Errol Morris conducted hundreds of hours of interviews for his documentary about the prison called Standard Operating Procedure, and he collaborated with award-winning writer Philip Gourevitch for a book of the same name. It reveals new stories of American jailers who claim that what happened at Abu Ghraib was condoned, encouraged, and even rewarded. Phillip Gourevitch joins us on Word of Mouth to talk about the legacy and lessons learned from the Abu Ghraib scandal.

This week, General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker told Congress security gains in Iraq were “fragile and reversible”…and said U.S. forces need more time. But the reaction on Capitol Hill was decidedly mixed… We’ll dig into what was said and look at where the Iraq effort goes from here.

Guests

• Wayne Lesperance, Associate Professor of Political Science at New England College
• Bill Martel, Associate Professor of International Security Studies at the Fletcher School at Tufts University
• Jeremy Pressman , Assistant professor of political science at the University of Connecticut.

Over the next year some 12,000 Iraqi political refugees are expected to be resettled in the United States.

New Hampshire is likely to receive 100 to 150 of them.

But people charged with preparing for the refugees’ arrival worry they might not be well received.

New Hampshire Public Radio’s Dan Gorenstein reports.