Expatriate waits for Iraq rebirth

Like most Americans, Lamees Hanna spends a lot of her time monitoring the war on TV, in the newspapers and through a variety of independent sources on the Internet.

She hopes for a quick end to the bloodshed in Iraq, for the long-awaited removal of Saddam’s murderous regime, and for the eventual rebirth of a nation that has been oppressed for so long.

But as the bombs fall on Baghdad, there is another dimension to Hanna’s fears that the rest of us cannot know as intimately, not even those of us concerned both for the lives of American soldiers and the safety of innocent civilians caught up in the fierce struggle.

Hanna was born in Iraq, to an American mother and an Iraqi father. When her family departed in 1981, a year after the start of the eight-year war between Iraq and Iran, they left behind family and friends whose daily lives have become a perilous struggle for survival.

Hanna lives in Bangor with her Egyptian husband, Ehab Hanna, a physician who works at Eastern Maine Medical Center. She prefers not to divulge the names of her family members in Baghdad, nor even how they are related to her. She feels that anonymity is the best shield in a distrustful society where everyone is vulnerable.

Except for an e-mail she received on the third day of the fighting, Hanna has heard little from family members in Baghdad. Several of them managed to flee the country when they sensed that a war had become inevitable. Two of Hanna’s close friends tried unsuccessfully to escape to Jordan, but might have made it to Syria, she said.

“They left because they were scared,” said Hanna, who is 29 years old and expecting her first child. “They just knew that this would be the mother of all wars, as they say. The last war, in 1991, and the sanctions on Iraq had made life very difficult. People had become almost desperate and felt endangered on a daily basis without access to food and water. Another war would have pushed them to their limits.”

Those family members who have remained in Baghdad have spread themselves throughout the city to increase their chances of survival.

“They’ve stocked up on water, especially, because clean water is so difficult to get there,” she said. “My father is tremendously worried not only for his family but for everyone he knows there. The Iraqi people are definitely resilient, after all they’ve been through, but there is a breaking point.”

Hanna was 8 years old when she, her two older siblings and her parents left Baghdad. The war with Iran already had begun to take its toll on the people there, she said, both physically and psychologically.

“Saddam’s rule had become much more evident to everyone because of its brutality,” she said. “You might come home one day and hear of a neighbor who had suddenly disappeared. A lot of civil liberties were being taken away from the people. My memories were of waking up to sirens and hearing them at school whenever bombs were going to be dropped. There were lots of frightening sounds for a child, although the family did try to live as normally as possible.”

Her father, who was a teacher at the University of Baghdad, decided it was time to leave Iraq when his 14-year-old son was about to be drafted into Saddam’s army.

“To my father, that was unthinkable,” she said. “That was the deciding factor in our leaving. But we never even told anyone we were going for fear that their lives would be in danger if we did. You never wanted to tell people things that they

might be forced to reveal. Under Saddam, the social fabric of life had broken down, and no one could trust or depend on anyone. It wasn’t uncommon for children in school to be asked by military guards about what their parents said at home about the government.”

Hanna’s parents, who met while at the University of North Carolina, had traveled back and forth to Iraq after their marriage in the 1960s. They eventually decided to live in Baghdad for good and to raise a family there.

“My father had lived in a much more liberal Iraq, before there was a Baath Party, before Saddam’s rise to prominence,” she said. “My mother grew to think of Baghdad as her home, and had always imagined that the family would be there. They want life to flourish there again, but they are not sure what will happen to Iraq when this is over.”

Contrary to what some Americans might choose to believe, she said, Saddam does not have the support of the majority of Iraqis.

“I am sure there are no Iraqis, no sane ones, who will feel badly when Saddam is gone,” she said. “There will be no remorse, no tears. Any Iraqis who seem to support the regime do so out of fear. They know the monster they’re dealing with and that any attempts to get rid of him would get them tortured or killed. It’s a matter of survival.”

Yet there is widespread suspicion among Iraqis about America’s motives in their country, she said. They remember when the West once supported Saddam and then turned its back when the dictator brutally quelled the uprisings of his own people. And as bad as life has been under their cruel dictator, she said, Iraqis have no choice but to be wary and skeptical of how their country will be refashioned by outsiders when Saddam is gone.

“I don’t think people are too hopeful as long as there’s so much oil there,” she said. “Oil is almost a curse for them. As long as it’s there, they feel they will never be left alone.”

Like her parents, Hanna imagines herself going back to her childhood home someday. But she knows that cannot happen until Iraq has had ample time to heal – not only from the wounds of war, but from the damage that their oppressor has inflicted on them for decades.

“Yes, I would love to go back, but not until I can feel safe there,” Hanna said. “The healing process will also require a rebuilding of the trust and openness among people that was lost under Saddam. I think that will take some time.”