Time Out

December 21, 2004
Book of the week

By Gareth Evans

Dubbed 'the perfect guide through occupied Iraq' by Naomi Klein, and the work that 'does for Iraq what "Dispatches" did for Vietnam' (Tim Page), 'The Freedom' comes with an impressive array of plaudits and deservedly so. In a veritable tsunami of rushed-to-press potboilers on the conflict of the moment, this is a book about that most abused of nations that genuinely demands attention.

In one of many memorable scenes, the US investigative writer and activist asks adoctor in Ramadi whether he sees many children with symptoms related to possible radiation poisoning a potential legacy of depleted-uranium weapons used by US forces in 1991 and 2004. 'I cannot answer, ' the doctor replies. 'Why not?' Parenti asks. After a long pause, the doctor finally offers a coded apology: 'This is the freedom.' As another Iraqi wryly observes: 'Ah, the freedom.

We have the gas-line freedom, the looting freedom, the killing freedom, the rapefreedom. I don't know what to do with all this freedom.' Rather than try to provide a 'sweeping analysis' of the invasion and its subsequent unravelling, Parenti instead offers 'a slice of political feeling and flavour, a snapshot of a time and place: Iraq during the first year of US occupation'. Here whether he's hanging out with US soldiers, meeting members of the resistance or interviewing the daughter of an Iraqi caught up in the occupation's capricious system of mass detention he conveys with great strength the deliriously destructive nature of the whole enterprise.

Clearly nobody's fool, he brings an urgently needed sense of compassion for the victims both US and Iraqi of this ongoing criminal fiasco.