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Couple offer firsthand look at Iraq and impact of war

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Media bias, the history of Iraq, and the current chaotic state of the country were only some of the topics touched upon at Wednesday evening’s lecture and slideshow presentation ‘Obscured by Spin,’ featuring writer Maura Stephens and her husband, playwright and photographer George Sapio.

Stephens, a former Newsweek editor who is currently the editor of Ithaca College’s alumni magazine, and Sapio presented images and recounted stories from their recent publication Collateral Damage: Faces and Places of the Iraqi People. The book is a culmination of their multiple visits to Iraq over the past year.

Stephens said she is particularly interested in discrepancies in the coverage of the war in Iraq between popular media sources, including television, major newspapers and news magazines, and alternative news sources on the Internet. 

She spoke about how a friend had e-mailed her over a year ago with a newsletter concerning a humanitarian peace mission to Iraq.

The timing, Stephens said, struck her. She presented the idea to Sapio, who instead of rejecting the idea in the name of safety, asked if she needed a photographer.  They ended up going to Iraq with eight other people in December 2002.

Both Sapio and Stephens commented that they had no idea what to expect in terms of the environment and citizenry of Iraq.

‘We had this vague image of a country with a bunch of Saddam Husseins with machine guns.  So we made our wills and said our goodbyes to everyone,’ Stephens said.  ‘We weren’t trying to be dramatic.’

The couple were immediately struck by the excessive presence of Saddam Hussein, on posters, billboards, building facades, and statues.

‘You couldn’t walk 10 feet without seeing a picture of Hussein,’ Sapio said.  ‘His face was just embedded in my brain.’

So moved by their initial visit to Iraq, Stephens and Sapio returned in June, about three months after the United States and its allies invaded.  The presence of U.S. forces had prompted sweeping physical, social, and economic changes.

‘Instead of seeing [Hussein] everywhere, we saw GI soldiers everywhere.  It was the summer, it was 120 degrees, and the GIs were just sitting ducks.  They were miserable,’ Stephens said.  ‘There was a language barrier, they couldn’t talk to the Iraqi citizens and they didn’t know why they were there in the first place.  And the people don’t want them there.’

When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the United Nations ‘ at the request of the United States ‘ in an effort to stymie the invasion, imposed economic sanctions on Iraq.  Hussein’s refusal to remove troops from Kuwait resulted in the Gulf War a year later, and although the war ended fairly quickly, the sanctions remained.

Iraq’s economy prior to the Gulf War was strong, and the Iraqi people, although politically repressed, enjoyed immense economic freedom and were socially liberated, Stephens explained.  After the war, the economy crumbled, and the country fell apart, she said. Inflation was astronomical; women’s lives more inhibited, Stephens added.

Sickness and infection rates due to polluted drinking water have soared during the Gulf War in 1991, and have only continued to rise.  As war raged, hospitals emptied to make room for soldiers and victims.  There was no electricity when the couple visited in June, and the dawn of night brought the continual sounds of gunfire.

The lack of electricity was one of many examples Stephens provided of a trickle-down effect from the war. She also cited gas stations that couldn’t provide gas, and consumers lucky enough to find gasoline having to pay incredibly high prices. Men couldn’t get to work, governments couldn’t afford to pay employees, and businesses crumbled.  Stephens speculated the unemployment rate was almost 90 percent.

Sapio documented images of children playing in garbage dumps and fields littered with artillery, much of which was live.  Hussein, he explained, took to storing his weaponry in residential neighborhoods and play areas for children.

Stephens and Sapio took a marked interest in rehabilitating the schools and universities, bringing books and other supplies with them.  The universities had received minimal supplies since 1990 due to the economic sanctions.  Whatever supplies they did have were looted after the United States invaded Iraq last year.

Stephens and Sapio focused the end of their presentation on urging audience members to differentiate between popular media sources and alternative news sources, saying there is a wide gap between the two.

And the people of Iraq, Stephens said, want a voice.  They are people just like us, she said.  But given the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq, a crumbling economy, and tumultuous political situation, Iraq is on a steady trajectory toward destitution. The couple asked people to explore ways in which they can channel their energy and some funding into rebuilding the country.


Jess Buchsbaum
Communications Department
315.228.6637