IRAQ THROUGH IRAQI EYES

Jeff Jacoby writes about a fascinating new perspective on the war in Iraq...an Iraqi perspective.

A YEAR AFTER Saddam Hussein was captured, how goes the liberation of Iraq? If a phrase like "the liberation of Iraq" strikes you as ironic, chances are most of what you know about the situation there comes from the mainstream press. After all, a tidal wave of journalism has been portraying Iraq as a chaotic mess more or less from the moment US troops entered the country. The drumbeat of bad news is inescapable: looting, insurgency, terrorists, kidnappings. And, always, the grimly mounting toll of Iraqi and US casualties. This is liberation? But how would Iraq appear if we saw it through not the reporting of Western journalists, but the candid testimony of Iraqis themselves? American reporters accustomed to freedom and the rule of law experience Iraq today as a place of danger and violence. Iraqis who lived under Saddam were accustomed to tyranny, cruelty, and secret police. What do they make of their country today?

Last spring, three enterprising Americans -- filmmakers Eric Manes and Martin Kunert, both former producers for MTV, and Gulf War veteran Archie Drury, a former Marine -- decided to find out. They distributed 150 digital video recorders to ordinary Iraqis and asked them to film anyone or anything they thought worthwhile -- and then pass the camera on to someone else.

From April to September, the cameras traveled from hand to hand through every region of the country. What eventually came back to the three Americans was 450 hours of raw video recorded by more than 2,000 Iraqis from all walks of life -- and not one frame of it influenced by an outside director or crew. Edited down to a taut 80 minutes, the result -- "Voices of Iraq" -- is a gripping documentary that for the first time shows Iraq as even the most skillful American journalist will never be able to show it: through the eyes and ears of Iraq's people.

What a fantastic project! Follow the link to Jacoby's article, then to the site about the documentary.