In Washington DC, the fasters walked the halls of Congress trying to pressure our Senators and Representatives for an exit strategy, but were disappointed at the lack of momentum. When we learned, however, that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki was coming to Washington to meet with George Bush and Congress, we thought the visit would present an excellent opportunity to promote a exit plan. After all, polls show that 87% of Iraqis want a timetable for US withdrawal, a sentiment echoed by the majority of Americans.
We immediately requested a meeting with the Iraqi Prime Minister. We called his office in Baghdad, published an Open Letter to Al-Makili in the Iraqi newspaper Assabah Al-Jadid, and set up an encampment outside the Iraqi Embassy in Washington. But under pressure from the Bush administration, the Prime Minister refused to meet with us.
Our efforts, however, were rewarded when Iraqi Parliamentarians, expressing sympathy for the hunger strikers and dismay at the Prime Minister's dismissal of their repeated requests for a meeting, invited the group to Amman, Jordan, to break our 30-day fast as part of an historic gathering between US peace activists and Iraqi Parliamentarians.
On Wednesday, August 2, a 14-person delegation, including "peace mom" Cindy Sheehan, former Colonel Ann Wright, Iraq war veteran Geoffrey Millard, writer/politician Tom Hayden, Iraqi analyst Raed Jarrar and CODEPINK co-founders Medea Benjamin, Jodie Evans, Gael Murphy and Diane Wilson, traveled to Jordan to meet with official representatives of the largest Shiite coalition in the Iraqi government, the minority Sunni bloc, the secular parliamentary coalition, the Muslim Scholars Association and torture victims from Abu Ghraib.
The common thread among this extremely diverse group of Iraqis was a desire to set a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops and ensure no permanent bases in Iraq. Other issues that emerged in two days of intensive talks include the need to dismantle militias, compensate victims of the violence, provide amnesty for prisoners and the various armed groups, revise the Constitution to preserve the unity of Iraq, reverse US-imposed de-Baathification and economic policies, and ensure a US financial commitment to reconstruction.
This historic meeting between US peace activists and Iraqi leaders resulted in an agreement to promote Iraqi efforts for a comprehensive reconciliation plan; a commitment to bring Iraqi parliamentarians to the US to meet with Congress; financial support for health treatment for Iraqis abused by US forces; and an effort to demand that the United Nations Security Council formally end its authorization of the US occupation when it meets this December.
On the heels of these meetings in Jordan, some members of our delegation traveled on to Lebanon via Syria while the fighting was still raging. After a harrowing ride over freshly bombed roads and bridges, we were greeted in Beirut by the constant booms of the Israeli bombardment. We visited the devastated neighborhoods of Southern Beirut. We provided aid to traumatized children in improvised refugee camps. We heard from angry Lebanese residents who condemned the Bush administration for providing Israel with the green light—and the weapons—to kill more than 1,000 civilians and destroy their airport, ports, bridges, roads, factories, and worst of all, entire towns and residential neighborhoods.
Our delegation left the day the ceasefire went into effect. We agreed with our Lebanese friends that we would send new high-level delegations, raise grassroots funds for reconstruction and pressure our government to provide significant reconstruction funds. But most of all, our Lebanese friends besieged us to go home and pressure our elected officials to totally reorient US policies in the Middle East. "If the US would show that it cares about the lives of not just Israelis but Iraqis, Lebanese and Palestinians," a Lebanese aid worker told us, "if it indeed became an honest broker in the region, then we would have a greater chance of ending the violence that is consuming the Middle East as well as the blowback that threatens the security of Americans."