 I remember the night that the bombing began, planes flew over with such regularity and we thought if each plane had a payload that it was firing at cities beyond where we were and maybe there would be nothing left of places like that, but we were very caught off in a remote and isolated place. Every job in the region started to bark and the dogs barked themselves hoarse. I remained in Iraq through most of the war. We were evacuated out of Baghdad and on the roadway out, we could see mangled cars and overturned vehicles and we saw smoking and a charred ambulance and we knew that was the only way out for refugees and the only way in for humanitarian supplies and those economic sanctions were the most comprehensive sanctions ever imposed in modern history and because of the economic sanctions, people in Iraq, ordinary, average civilians couldn't get the kinds of equipment that would be needed to repair electrical facilities, to repair sewage and sanitation systems often dependent on electricity and that in itself occasioned widespread disease affliction such as the afflictions of gastroenteritis or when people can't get adequate water the afflictions of dehydration. Iraqis also couldn't any longer trade their oil for other things they needed even items such as food and so that occasioned hunger and pretty soon it was a perfect storm. Children, children under age five were directly affected by economic sanctions which punished those children to death. If a child caught a common cold and then also had the very unfortunate affliction of gastroenteritis, the combination of a respiratory infection, hunger, gastroenteritis, lack of water, lack of x-rays, lack of antibiotics, were a child to need surgery lack of even an anesthetic for the surgery these children were brutally punished, legally punished and the united nations began to say look it's beginning to seem as though the numbers make it clear that 500,000 children under age five have already died because of these economic sanctions. Never did the doctors have the equipment at that point that they would need to treat people in such a hideous and terrible emergency. These are wars of choice that the United States has initiated a tremendous cost to the United States and certainly to people in Iraq who have meant us no harm. I close by recalling a young mother in a Baghdad pediatrics ward she had just learned that her baby could not survive. The baby had a respiratory infection that had combined with hunger and gastroenteritis and the baby was having a very difficult time breathing. The doctor gave the baby mouth to mouth resuscitation and the baby started to breathe again and the mother's hopes raised and then the doctor said I am sorry your child she cannot breathe. We have not the oxygen we have not the tube. The tubing they lacked was tubing the size of the child's nostril. They had a piece of tubing that was the size of a pencil but it was irrelevant for this little child's nostril. So if I wanted a piece of plaster this child would not survive at that moment and the mother realized that she began to cry and cry. My shoulder was left in her toes and then she said to me believe me in this Kathy I pray I pray that this never happens to a mother she is from your country believe me I pray I pray that this never happens to a mother from your country. I think the United States bears the responsibility for a tremendous chaos and upheaval and cruelty but I do not believe it is the responsibility now of the United States to decide who gets the upper hand in these terrible civil wars. I believe we should pay reparations always accompany with a deep felt admission of our soul. We're so very sorry for the suffering because of the death the bloodshed the trauma