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NORFOLK, Va. - Like Anne Frank, Pakeza Alexander
had to hide in a home as a child, with the slightest
sound making her fear that her family would be
discovered and killed.
The family eventually fled Iraq and went to the
United States, but Alexander always worried that
terrible things might befall them or those they left
behind.
"I was here for 26 years," Alexander told sailors
and military families Wednesday at Norfolk Naval
Station. "I wasn't free until 2003," when the United
States went to war with Iraq and ended Saddam
Hussein's reign.
Alexander and fellow Iraqi-American Tamara Quinn
have been asked by the Defense Department to tour
military bases nationwide to talk about their lives
and the progress they saw when they returned to Iraq
to help with reconstruction. They stopped at four
bases in southeastern Virginia this week.
"We just want to let you guys know Iraqi people are
grateful for what you are doing," Alexander said.
The women also wanted to point out that a lot of
good things are happening in Iraq, even though, they
said, the media concentrates on the bad.
For example, Quinn said she visited her old high
school last year and saw broken windows and peeling
paint. When she returned some months later, the
windows had been fixed, the walls had been painted
and the library had been restocked because of U.S.
and coalition troops.
Most Iraqis love Americans, Alexander said, with a
few terrorists and insurgents stirring up trouble
because they do not want democracy.
Anti-war activist Eric Garris said the military is
trying to battle morale problems among the troops by
having people like Quinn and Alexander thank them.
"I'm sure it (Iraq) was horrible for them, and I'm
sure that for many Iraqis things are much better
than they were under Saddam, although it depends on
who you are," said Garris, director of antiwar.com,
a Web project against U.S. interventionism.
But, "whether or not we may have improved things,
that does not necessarily justify us going in,"
Garris said, adding that Americans need to take care
of problems at home.
Alexander is a Kurd, and her father fought against
Saddam's Ba'ath Party three decades ago. The family
was forced to hide in their home in 1975. After nine
months, they fled on foot for 21 days over the
mountains in northern Iraq into Iran, where
Alexander lived as a refugee until she came to the
United States in 1977.
Alexander went back to Iraq in June 2003 to serve as
the assistant director of the Iraqi Reconstruction
and Development Council. She returned to the United
States in July 2004 and lives in Nashville, Tenn.
Quinn, who lives in Chattanooga, Tenn., immigrated
to the United States in 1973 at 19 to avoid the
Ba'ath regime. She has worked with the Coalition
Provisional Authority in Baghdad as a member of the
Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council.
Quinn, who was born in Baghdad, recalled that when
she began attending college in Iraq in 1972, a
student group of Saddam supporters had formed that
was more powerful than the dean. She was harassed
and followed and feared for her life until the
moment the plane carrying her to the United States
took off.
In this country, she was amazed to find that people
her age "were concerned with actually enjoying life"
and, filled with hope, making plans for the future.
"I never thought that hope could be extended to the
people in Iraq, until you came along and liberated
Iraq," Quinn said.
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