"a prominent Iraqi painter, sculptor and internationally known plastic surgeon who once treated thousands of Iraqi soldiers for disabilities arising out of wounds sustained during the 1980-1988 war with Iran. He was also a senior surgeon at Baghdad's Ibn Sina hospital where he provided medical services to Saddam Hussein and senior Iraqi cabinet members. Dr Bashir left Iraq after US-led occupation forces reached Baghdad on 9 April and stayed in Qatar for a while before moving on to Norway."
Anderson described the friendship the two developed and the point at which he eventually broke his silence months before the war broke out. The two met in an art gallery where, as Anderson tells in the captivating interview Bashir
"stood, I'll never forget it, about four inches from my face, it was very unusual. There was an air conditioner nearby, a very noisy old one. . .and began to tell me that everything I had heard about Iraq was true, that there where thousands of disappeared people, that the fear that I felt, that the silence was because everybody was terrified, that nobody was ever going to tell me the truth. It was as though the earth moved or opened beneath my feet-this was the man, I mean after all was Saddam's confidant. This was his personal doctor who had served him faithfully for years and he was telling me that the man he served was after all a terrible killer. And he was taking a huge risk in telling me this."
The reporter goes on to describe his further meetings in Bashir's home during which he expanded on the their conversation in the meseum.
"And it was quite extraordinary because there was something unreconcilled in this. He would swerve between telling me graphically about the brutalities of Saddam or people around him and then he would fall back on statements about how Saddam was necessary for Iraq, that Iraq's history has always been about killing and dying. There was a kind of fatalism to his reflections on Saddam. And like many people around figures of often great and brutal power, he attributed the excesses to the people around Saddam."The Connection interview continues and Anderson tells of Bashir's hiding in his sister's home during the invasion of Baghdad after being summoned by Saddam. Bashir did not obey the summons and escaped according to Anderson. Bashir worked with the CIA and helped to turn over many of the individuals on the infamous deck of cards.
Bashir is now living in Qatar where he is paiting a series of canvases titled the "Masks of Cain" (one of which can be seen on the Aljazeera link above and another of his paintings can be seen here).
I found listening to this conversation and learning about Dr. Bashir fascinating as it gives us a look inside the real Iraq that most Americans have no context for. This man obviously is a very intelligent and complex individual and l hearing his story is effective tool for creating that much more context for this war that has split not only the U.S. down the middle but changed the world.
Read John Lee Anderson's "Letter From Baghdad" regarding Dr. Ala Bashir and check out Anderson's book, The Fall of Baghdad.
