...This chapter considers the films that represent the war in Iraq. Iraq in Fragments, which depicts the war from an Iraqi perspective, invites viewers to question preconceptions of the Iraq War as a singular unified event defined in relation to the US invasion, and instead to hold...

...In this chapter, Rahma Abdul Kareem Abbas, Mohammed Abbas Abdul al-Hur, Farid Hadi Abdul Zahra, Ali al-Shaheen, and Tahseen al-Shaikhli talk about their experiences during the Iraq war. Rahma remembers hearing the war come to her family's home in a poor area of southeastern Baghdad called...

...In this chapter, Ali Abdul Majid talks about his experience during the Iraq war. Ali Abdul Majid was living with his mother, father, and two younger brothers in Malaysia at the time of the invasion. His father was working in the Iraqi embassy there, a career intelligence man under Saddam Hussein...

...In this chapter, Ayad Allawi and Mithal al-Alusi talk about their experiences during the Iraq war. A former Ba'ath party official, Ayad Allawi had been heavily involved in Iraqi dissident politics since the 1970s. For decades he plotted against Saddam Hussein while living in various corners...

...In this chapter, Ali Jawad Kadhem, Saddam Hatif Hatim al-Jabouri, Sami Hilali, Hayfa Kareem Sabi'a, and Rasim Hassan Haikel talk about their experiences during the Iraq war. Ali Jawad Kadhem had been serving for four years as a guard at a largely abandoned Iraqi airbase near the border with Saudi...

...In this chapter, Khail Ibrahim al-Nasir, Um Omar, Ibrahim Ishmael Khalil, Yousef Aboud Ahmed, Anham Muhana Hasoon, Ali Ibrahim Baher, and Khalid Adnan Khalid talk about their experiences during the Iraq war. Khail Ibrahim al-Nasir worked as a reporter for state television under the old regime. Um...

...In this chapter, Sajad al-Hakim, Wissam al-Rashied, and Saif Majeed al-Ta'ee talk about their experiences during the Iraq war. Sajad al-Hakim was a student at Baghdad University in 2003 studying graphic design. The early days of the U.S. occupation opened something of a boom industry for young men...

...In this chapter, Ali Mohammed Hial recounts his experience during the Iraq war. Ali Mohammed Hial is from a Shi'ite area of northwestern Baghdad. His left arm is missing, and his right hand is badly scarred with burns. He was working at a vegetable stand before the invasion. Things were fine...

...In this chapter, Sheik Hamid al-Hais, Sheik Ahmed Buzai Abu Risha, Sheik Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, Sheik Mustafa Kamil Hamad Shabeeb al-Jabouri, and Ahmed Basim Mohammed al-Abaje recount their experiences during the Iraq war. Sheik Hamid al-Hais was among the first of the Anbar sheiks to take up arms...

...In this chapter, Ra'ad Jamal Habib recounts his experience during the Iraq war. Before the war, Ra'ad Jamal Habib was a long-haul bus driver doing routes all over Iraq from Baghdad, where he has lived all his life. He continued working as a driver for hired cars running convoys between Baghdad...

..., with brief epilogues for the participants. Not since Studs Terkel's The Good War has a book captured so acutely the human consequences of a conflict we are still struggling to understand. This book makes utterly vivid the meaning and legacy of the Iraq war....

...Shortly before the current Iraq War, Bush administration economist Larry Lindsey suggested that the costs of war might range between $100 billion and $200 billion, other officials quickly demurred. But it is now clear that Lindsey's numbers were a gross underestimate. Concerned that the Bush...

...This chapter examines “sectarian balancing” (co-opting Sunnis to balance the Shi'a) in the Bahraini Parliament. In the midst of the Iraq War, the ruling Al Khalifa family in Bahrain tried to institutionalize the Shi'a opposition and blunt the appeal of more rejectionist elements. At the same time...

...In this chapter, Ra'ad Obaeid Hussein and Ahmed Abu Ali share their experiences during the Iraq war. Born in 1970, Ra'ad Obaeid Hussein joined the military at an early age and rose to the rank of major by 2003. He was an artillery officer when the war started, second in command overseeing three...

...In this chapter, Abdul Hadi Isma'il talks about his experience during the Iraq war. Abdul Hadi Isma'il was a principal at a middle school in a poor area of northern Baghdad during the time of the U.S. invasion. The ministry of education ordered them to dismiss classes the day the war started. Abdul...

...In this chapter, Omar Yousef Hussein talks about his experience during the Iraq war. A Sunni born in Baghdad, Omar Yousef Hussein had served roughly eight years in prison for political dissidence but was released toward the end of 2002, when he began pursuing a career as an academic and historian...

...In this chapter, Abu Mustapha, Azhar Abdul-Karim Abdul-Wahab, Ahmed Ibrahim Abdul Wahab, Ka'ab Zuhir Ahmed, and Saman Dlawer Hussein talk about their experiences during the Iraq war. Abu Mustapha was working as a procurement bureaucrat for the Iraqi Department of Agriculture at the time of the U.S...

...In this chapter, Mohammed Ra'ad Ahmed talks about his experience during the Iraq war. Sometime shortly after the U.S. invasion, neighboring Iran began to offer training, arms, and funds to Iraqis out to fight American forces in Iraq. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Iraqis journeyed from Iraq...

...In this chapter, Zaid Allwan Jafar and Salim Kamel Shawal talk about their experiences during the Iraq war. Zaid Allwan Jafar was born in the northern city of Kirkuk but raised in Baghdad, where his father served as a high-ranking member of the Ba'ath party until 2003. He was attending college...