Report From Iraq

In April, 1991, a "team of doctors, lawyers, and students from Harvard University" went to Iraq to assess the damage following the Gulf War. Ostensibly, this program is about that visit. We see a bunch of people riding on a bus: no names, no credentials. Most of them look like students. They talk about their impending investigation in gratingly self-righteous tones, leaving no doubt that what they'll "discover" will be wholly negative. Clad in designer clothes, their sunglasses artfully riding the tops of their heads, these students visit and talk about key sites in and around Baghdad, including the infamous baby milk factory, a power plant, and a sewage treatment plant, while making a few ludicrous observations like: "these were pinpoint bombs; they knew everything they were hitting." If you could ignore the "team," which, unfortunately, one cannot, the interviewees offer sad and powerful stories that remind us that no war is clean, regardless of what the media may say. With the destruction of the sewage treatment plant, a genuine problem has been the amount of raw sewage pouring into the waterways. Diarrhea seems to be widespread and particularly prevalent in children. The tape concludes with a report stateside of the Harvard group's findings: a strong possibility of famine, a broken down medical system, and 170,000 children dying in the near future-all delayed results of the bombing of Baghdad. How these "findings" were arrived at is not mentioned. While some of the information in the program is compelling (as are the shots of Baghdad in the wake of the bombing), this program will likely frustrate viewers since the name "Harvard" is all the credibility, attribution, or documentation that is offered. For me, anyway, that's not enough. Not recommended. (See FUELING THE FUTURE: RUNNING ON EMPTY for availability.)