Iraq Idea: Better Than Calling Congress

Iraqi.

That doesn't help. We're reading different history books.

I'm telling you reality. Who knows who writes your history books.

Congressman Moore, on the verge of having to strain his brain, got up and left.

Several Congressional staffers asked questions as well, most of them supportive. But a staffer for Congressman Randy Neugebauer (R., TX) had concerns along the lines of Moore's.

A reporter from Telesur (the only large camera in the room) asked why Hashmeya believes the United States is still in Iraq. She cited oil and other resources, and the creation of large military bases.

"I don't mean that the American people want these things," she said. "I mean the administration. We consider the American people friends."

Woolsey asked what the unions in Iraq were doing to pressure Parliament to keep Iraq's oil for the Iraqis. Hashmeya described educational efforts and letters of opposition, and said that she believed the pressure was responsible for the delay in adopting the new oil law, which has not yet been adopted.

Earlier Woolsey had asked what the unions do for their members. Hashmeya said they were working, with limited success so far, to overturn an unfair law on salaries put in place by Paul Bremer, attempting to win compensation for risk on dangerous jobs, obtaining payment of late wages, training professional workers, winning ownership of residences for workers long living in them and about to retire, standing up for workers abused on the job, and fighting corruption in government despite resulting death threats and assassinations.

During the Saddam Hussein era, Hashmeya said, there was an unfair labor law (Law 150, from 1987). But the occupation maintained that law and added another unfair law (Law 8750, from 2005). Under Saddam, one could find work by bribing someone. Now, there is no work. There's 60 percent unemployment. And there are attacks on workers. So, compare, Hashmeya urged those present. Which is worse?