 My name is Noor Al-Samarai. I am a 24-year-old Iraqi-American woman, and I am testifying in the Tribunal for the Iraq War. In thinking about what to say in this testimony is very difficult for me to think about where to begin or what to share exactly. The impact on the war on myself, on my immediate family living in the United States, as well as my family members who are in Baghdad or who are scattered elsewhere around the world, it's very difficult to think of something that can sum up the impact that it's had because it's been huge and there are so many memories that are associated with it. Some things are so small, like the fact that as a result of ongoing war, I've never had the opportunity to visit or meet my grandparents, all of whom died in a state of war before I was born. There's, I guess one good place to start is 9-11. Like many Americans, I have a very strong memory of that day, although perhaps for slightly different reasons. I was 9 years old and my mom was taking me to school that day. Before she let me out of the car, she held me back and she said, Don't tell anyone you're Iraqi. At the time I couldn't understand why she would say this. I was always raised to have a lot of pride in my heritage and the place that my parents were from. I was taught that we were from Mesopotamia, the land between two rivers, the cradle of civilization, the home of poetry and the first laws of Hammurabi, Gilgamesh, the land of giants. And so of course, it's a very headstrong child, as well as a very optimistic one. I didn't pay her any heed and if somebody asked me, as they did, I indeed told them that I was of Iraqi origin. This came back, this came back to me later because I guess a year later I must have been around 10 at the time. I wanted to play volleyball with some boys. Me and my friend went. We thought it would be easier to get in on the game if we went together. But they allowed her to play. However, for me they called me a terrorist and two boys proceeded to come kick me until I fell to the ground where they continued to kick me. I didn't get very badly hurt, aside from the bruises which was an ankle. Nothing that you think was such a big deal as a kid, maybe. And of course at the time, although they had called me a terrorist, I was a really bookish kid and thought that the reason why it happened was just because I'm weird and like to read more than I liked to play games a lot on time. But now, given the most recent presidential campaign and the inelike of President-elect Trump, as hate crimes have been on the rise, it's very difficult to look back on that memory in the same light. As reports of children hurting other children, adults, as well as children have been on the rise recently, I can't help but think about what a travesty it is that our foreign policy, our propaganda, the way that we speak about Iraq as well as the wider Arab and Muslim worlds has been such a virus infecting even our children who should be the most loving and positive of us all. It is a testament to the fact that we live in a violent military police state and it's something that we cannot and should not accept. Now to think about what it means to be an Iraqi is very difficult. I mean, you look at Iraq and it is completely different from the Iraq that I was raised to believe that I came from. Now more than half of Iraqis live outside of the country. Our propaganda, our media tells us that Iraq is a place devoid of culture, devoid of humanity. And that has become a self-fulfilling prophecy as we Americans, I'm American too, I can't help but feel somehow implicit in everything that has happened in Iraq during this occupation, as young as I was. So as our military has cleared the map of Iraq and changed it forever in many ways, environmentally, culturally, it has changed irreparably. And until, I think until every other origin views themselves as complicit in what has happened, in the genocide that has happened there, it's impossible for Iraq to recover.