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Dan Handelman died last week at age 60. Most Portlanders who kept abreast of local politics knew him as the founder of Portland Copwatch, birddogging the Portland Police Bureau and its officers. But his earliest foray into public life came as an anti-war activist at the turn of the millennium—a time when the White House was laying the groundwork to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Handelman repeatedly traveled to Iraq, drawing scrutiny from both U.S. customs agents—who seized his videos and returned them only after he sued the government—and a police informant who filed a “criminal incident” report on his protest activities. In 2002, on the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Nigel Jaquiss interviewed Handelman about his most recent trip to Iraq.
This story first appeared in the Sept. 11, 2002, edition of WW.
To most Americans, Iraq is that big, sandy country with a lot of oil and a bad man named Saddam who, our president tells us, poses a threat to our security. To Dan Handelman, it’s home to 23 million people who need our medicine, not missiles. Handelman, whose political activism was launched by the first Gulf War, fears that the Bush administration will use the 9/11 terrorist attacks to justify a war with a country he has twice visited through a program sponsored by Voices in the Wilderness. The Chicago-based group is campaigning to normalize relations with Iraq and end the U.S./U.N. sanctions imposed after the Gulf War.
Initially, the sanctions were intended to prompt a change of regime in Iraq by cutting off oil exports and restricting imports. The U.N. later allowed oil sales to finance the purchase of essential imports.
On both of Handelman’s trips, he took donated medicine and brought back videos and photographs documenting conditions in Iraq. This past May, Handelman traveled again to Iraq. He recently talked with WW reporter Nigel Jaquiss about what he saw and why he’s so taken with this one-third of the “axis of evil.”
Willamette Week: What did you hope to accomplish by going to Iraq?
Dan Handelman: I wanted to go back and see what was going on after Bush had named Iraq part of the “axis of evil,” and to bring back images to help remind people, again, that this is a country of 23 million people, and the war talk is not just about a regime change—this is about millions of people’s lives, in a country that has already been pounded back to the Stone Age. If most people could get past the propaganda and see what has happened to the people of Iraq because of our policies, it would be easier to communicate what the issues are.
Did you notice much change from your first visit to your second?
Yes, I did. In 1997, everything was in horrible shape. When we visited the hospitals, it was horrible. They were doing operations without anesthesia, and they didn’t have sutures. The lights were burned out, it smelled like urine, there were no sheets on the beds, there were stained mattresses, there were flies everywhere. When I went back, there was noticeable improvement. They don’t have chemotherapy, things that we take for granted in this country, but the day-to-day medicine they need is there.
What troubled you most?
All the children who are dying of waterborne diseases, diseases that could be eradicated if the sanctions were lifted. Everyone you meet either has somebody in their family who’s died or they know somebody who has. At least 350,000 children have died, and that’s something people need to understand, that regardless of who’s to blame, whether if s the U.S. or the Iraqi government, something has to be done.
Who sets your agenda, in terms of where you can go, what you can see?
We ask the foreign ministry of Iraq if we can go to certain places, and from there they make decisions about where we can go. But we go a lot of places on our own, walking around the streets and talking to people.
So how do you know that you’re not being used as a propaganda vehicle, that you’re not just being shown the worst of the worst, in order to send a message?
Among other things, there are certain things that you can’t fake, like the deformed children we saw. The Iraqis contend that they’re deformed because of the depleted uranium the U.S. used (in armor-piercing antitank ammunition) in southern Iraq in the Gulf War. The U.S. says depleted uranium is completely safe. But there have been increases in birth defects, spontaneous abortions, leukemia, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to think there might be a connection. The World Health Organization wanted to go and see if depleted uranium was causing these things, but the U.S. did behind-the-scenes lobbying and there has been no investigation.
What’s the response when Iraqis learn you’re an American?
When we tell people we’re from America, the Iraqis are always welcoming to us, because they know very well the difference between a government and its people. They have no say in their government at all, and it’s arguable whether we do here. So, the first time, there was graffiti everywhere saying “Down with the U.S.A.,” and people would say to us, “Why are you doing this? What’s wrong with your government?” But nobody spit on us. When we went to Babylon, and the tour guide and I were out of earshot of the government guide and the rest of our group, he said, “What do you think of 9/11?” And I said, “I think it’s a very tragic thing, but I also think it’s tragic that our government is using it as an excuse to do harm to people.” And he said, “Well, here we were all very saddened by it. We think that only Allah should decide who lives and dies.”
You’ve traveled to Iraq with citizens from other countries. My impression is that there’s more support for normalization of relations outside the United States than there is here.
I think that’s true. I think Americans by and large don’t pay that much attention to politics beyond their school districts, and I think that’s a shame.
What have you seen in Iraq that has affected you the most?
The first time I was there, we went to a bomb shelter, which the U.S. claimed was being used for military purposes, but it was a civilian shelter north of Baghdad that was bombed on Feb. 14,1991, and at least 400 people were killed. The tour guide showed us where she said human skin had been burned to the wall, and that triggered a lot in me. I grew up in a Jewish family, and some of my relatives had been killed in the Holocaust. It was hard, thinking that my government had dropped an incendiary bomb to melt human flesh, in a civilian bomb shelter, and was not held accountable for it, and that there will never be any kind of apology or compensation, because I guess whoever wins the war gets to do whatever they want.
We’re approaching the one-year anniversary of 9/11. Do you think this country has learned anything from the attacks having happened?
I don’t know. I think there’s a disconnect between what our government is doing and what the people of this country want. I think that everyone’s natural reaction is revenge, but I think that a lot of people, including several people whose families died in those attacks, said, “No, not in our name. Let’s find a humane and compassionate way to respond and show that we are above this.” Instead, the Bush administration has unsigned the international criminal-court treaty, attacked Afghanistan and killed at least as many civilians as died in 9/11, if not more. It’s arrogance that makes the rest of the world, including Europe, turn their backs on the United States. If the U.S. would just learn to be a world partner instead of a world superpower, we would be at much less risk of more terror attacks.