I Am An Iraqi Journalist

I am an Iraqi journalist. Every day I am exposed to the nightmare the Iraqi people are living through -- but also to their fortitude and resilience. This experience makes me even more patriotic. Unlike many self-seeking (and non-Iraqi) Arab journalists -- those who are completely oblivious to the damage they are causing -- I have no interest in igniting an already catastrophic situation. Freedom of the press is important, but the consequences of bad journalism are ruinous. In present-day Iraq, sensationalism is synonymous with poisoning the entire nation.

I grew up as a member of Iraq's "war generation" -- a child when the 1980 war started with Iran, and a teenager during 1991's Desert Storm. There was no escape from war and accepting this pushed me into documenting its effects on film. I studied performing arts and film at university, and part of my filmmaking training is a commitment to seeing and presenting the truth.

I was the fourth in our family to flee Iraq. My younger sister, a doctor, escaped after hiding in the bathroom cubicle of a hospital for nine hours to avoid being forced to torture a conscript who had absconded from the army. The fashion then was to remove the top of the ears and brand the forehead as a mark of "cowardice." In hiding, she risked execution for treason.

I fled to Jordan soon after. I had my son there and began working for a large Arabic satellite news company in Amman, where my husband worked as a sound engineer. At least twice a month, the journalists and crew would be rounded up by the secret police, detained and questioned. This continued for months before the Jordanian government finally closed down our offices. My husband and I, unemployed and with a baby, needed to support ourselves. After months of applications, I found a job as a producer with al-Arabiya. The choice I had to make then was whether to build my career in Iraq and be separated from my son for months at a time, or struggle along in Jordan with him. I chose Iraq.

I do not know if I would have made the same choice now. The effect of my work on my son has been far worse than the separation from me, to the point that I have to force myself to not think of it. His awareness and morbid interest in death tolls, car bombs and violence in Iraq are my fault. When his father points me out on the television ("Look, there's mummy!") I am, more often than not, standing in a war zone, reporting on deaths, kidnappings and explosions. This makes me think too of Iraq's other children, who cannot be shielded from their everyday reality as much as their parents try.

The price to pay

Just over a week ago, the circumstances of my work were very different, as I chose to be an "embedded" journalist with Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Iraqi prime minister, on his four-day visit to Brussels, London and Washington. Some friends and colleagues discouraged and criticised my decision. "You are compromising your integrity," they told me; "How will people ever trust what you say? You'll never be taken seriously again."

Iraqi journalists are a very special group. They are the only journalists in Iraq who are frequently accused of treason or are asked to make decisions "in the interests of the nation" -- as if no other journalistic contingent covering Iraq's calamitous reality had any such responsibility. But I see my profession as a service to Iraq, especially when there are so many questions that deserve answers.

As part of al-Jaafari's entourage, I had greater access to information about Iraqi political realities than ever. The paradox -- as it may appear -- is that the closer to the government I became, the greater the quality of my coverage. None of my information was second-hand. On hearing breaking news, I could immediately confirm or refute reports that would go out to an anxious population. I continued to analyze, question, and criticise in a way that was well-informed and constructive in its intentions. I remained a journalist even in close proximity to power.