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Fleeing from hell

George Bush, John McCain, Dick Cheney, Tony Blair and John Howard can all bang on about how things are improving in Iraq because democracy has been restored and the people had a vote but it's just not the reality.

What the Iraqis don't have is a life in any sense of the word. In fact, those Iraqis who have fled the country, including to Syria, describe life in Iraq as hell - as AlterNet graphically reports:

"Refugees from Iraq scattered around Damascus describe hellish conditions in the country they managed to leave behind.

"I used to work with the Americans near Kut (in the south)," Sa'ad Hussein, a 34-year-old electrical engineer said. "I worked for Kellogg, Brown & Root in construction of an Iraqi base there, until I returned to Baghdad and found a death threat written on a paper which was slipped under my door. I had to flee."

Hussein, who left three months back, described Baghdad as a "city of ghosts" where black banners of death announcements can be seen hanging on most streets. The city, he said, lives on an hour of electricity a day, and there are no jobs to be had.

"I was an ex-captain in the Iraqi Army, and I think that's why I was threatened," he said. Asked how many of his former army colleagues had also received death threats, he replied, "All of them." He said it was not safe for him to go back to the Iraqi Army because it was likely he would be killed.

"Most of the deaths are due to the Iraqi politicians and their militias," he added.

Security, electricity and potable water supply, healthcare and unemployment are all much worse than during the reign of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, refugees say."

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