What made you start “Alive in Baghdad”?
I founded the project with a few other people about a year ago, basically looking at the idea that when you turn on CNN or Fox News or any of these TV news affiliates, they say they’re “live from Baghdad.” We chose the name … as kind of play off of that, to say, there are people living there and why don’t we talk to them. The hope has always been to try and bring the perspective and views of Iraqis to other people … to let them speak for themselves and say what they’re experiencing.

What was your first trip to Iraq like? What surprised you?
Baghdad is certainly very interesting, because it looks a lot like some cities in California or Florida … It’ not really a big desert, it’s pretty much a thriving city and I think that’s something people wouldn’t necessarily believe or understand.

The people everywhere in Jordan and Iraq were very welcoming of me. They tried say again and again, “We don’t have a problem with the American people … but we don’t feel it’s right what their government is doing, we don’t feel their military should be here … but Americans, we don’t have a problem with Americans.”

How do Iraqis feel about the occupation?
One really important thing that Iraqis expressed to me is that there are people in Iraq who (they) don’t want here, there are terrorists and insurgents and maybe even Al Queda, but there’s also a legitimate resistance. For the most part, pretty much everyone supported the idea of resistance to occupier. The main distinction appears to be how you should resist. The Shiites, who are benefiting from the new government, would say they support the idea of resistance, but they may not say what’s going on is a resistance. A lot has to do with the fact that they feel Israel’s occupied Palestine for almost 60 years, so it’s very easy for them to discuss resistance. They told me a lot about their daily lives and how security (has changed). Saddam was a bad guy and basically everyone I talked to agrees they didn’t like Saddam … but one woman I talked to said “At least I could go out in the street and I didn’t have to worry and it was safe.” When Saddam was around, you could take your mother and wife and go out at three in the morning and no one would do anything to you. And now there’s no there’s safety at all. It’s been a really easy thing to connect the question of electricity (to the occupation’s progress, for example). During the Gulf War, (Saddam) had electricity on in Baghdad and the rest of country in three months, and here we are almost three years later … and some people think the electricity is at its worst point in the entire occupation.

What was everyday life like for you in Iraq?
I sort of underwent an entire appearance change when I got to Iraq, to look pretty similar to folks there. Although I’m not fluent in Arabic, I have some rudimentary knowledge and certainly more than just tourists have. And I had a translator I lived with while I was there. We would go out during day, run errands when we needed to, get up in morning, check news … check the schedule, see if I had an interview. I traveled around Baghdad pretty freely. I didn’t speak Arabic while I was outside, I just kept silent. I only had trouble the first day when we were stopped by an Iraqi police officer and he didn’t believe I was American and he could see that I obviously was not Iraqi. But I think that kind of exemplifies some of things about being safe. They just couldn’t imagine an American go wandering around the streets and going into shops and talking to people. I had an exchange with one of my neighbors in the apartment building and he thought I was Iranian. I didn’t feel like there was much risk a lot of time, but then again, I would do exactly what my translator/fixer would tell me to do. We wouldn’t travel at some times of day, we wouldn’t go to bombings, I was there basically just talking to people.

What do you think are some stories coming out of Iraq that are either under-reported or ignored by the mainstream media?
Something that’s really interesting …  There’s a town called Madain … it’s a location where there was supposedly a kidnapping of 150 Shiities and that appeared to be a hoax. (Iraqi president) Jalal Talabani said the bodies were found downriver … but there was never any proof. Two and a half weeks later, they found over a dozen Sunnis killed and nobody in media makes the connection and says, “Here’s the encouragement of civil war in action.” And the reason they couldn’t make connection is they’d have to accept the media is partially responsible for that. I interviewed another Iraqi, somebody from Najaf, near Karballa. He’s a Shiite, and he told me a similar story how the Iraqi TV agencies had spread this story in summer of 2004, where they said there’s 30 suicide bombers who are going to go down to Karballa and stop this festival, and then it just never happened, and the story just disappeared and people had this tension … but it didn’t happen. These sorts of stories and the lack of understanding is really feeding the conflict more than any religious … or ethnic … or sectarian conflict. Certainly it seems like the idea of civil war is much more likely between Kurdistan and rest of Iraq because (Kurdistan) will probably secede in the next few years. But nobody talks about that. It really shows that media doesn’t have an idea what’s going on in Iraq. They don’t understand tribal politics, they don’t even understand who the tribes are.

A lot of your stories cover how media outlets and even reporters themselves distort some of the stories coming out of Iraq. How does a person get a clear, accurate picture of what’s going on?
I still have a number of contacts and people I speak to in the region on a regular basis. I’m still working for Inter Press Service writing some stories in conjunction with a friend who’s there. A big way is really just being humble and showing that you’re interested in what people have to say and to talk to them and to let them explain what they have to say, to show that “look, I’m just here to hear what you have to say” and not say, “I have an agenda and I’m here to support X.”

You’re 25—do you think your age gives you a different perspective than the other reports coming out of Iraq?
I think that my age and my sort of lack of familial responsibilities and lack of entrenchment in society … makes me less tied down in a lot of ways. I certainly have a lot more freedom to travel to Iraq and go to dangerous places than if I had a kid or two. Beyond that, I don’t know. I think sometimes my age could be a detriment in terms of getting a serious response from people in Iraq. It never seemed to come up that way, but I can’t be too sure. I really just don’t know whether people find me less threatening because they find me younger and more trustworthy … or whether people don’t account for that. Being younger gives me the freedom to … sort of go out and do things that maybe I’d think better of if I was in my late 30s. I don’t have quite as much concern for my own well being as maybe I should.

Will you be using the footage you shot in Iraq to make a full-length documentary?
I’ve posted some to the Web and I’m working on cataloging the rest of it. During my talks, I’ve been endeavoring to split half and half between me talking and showing the actual thoughts of Iraqis, whether talking about thoughts of Iraqis about the resistance or their daily lives or the occupation. I feel like it’s better to show people that it’s not just me saying this, here’s three Iraqis saying the same thing. I’m also going to be working on a long-form documentary, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to complete that before I return, I don’t know if I have enough footage. That’s more long term. My hope now is to catalogue footage and get it online and have people see for themselves what Iraqis are saying.

What are your plans for your next trip?
Basically, I’m touring now for two reasons. One is to let people know what’s going on in Iraq and the other is to raise the money to return. I’ll go back to Iraq as soon as I can get the money together. It’s still to me (safe), even with the recent experience with (kidnapped American journalist) Jill Carroll. I don’t think it is totally applicable. They’re focused on how she tried to use her appearance to stay underground; but from folks I talked to, she was living in a hotel just like any other Westerner. When I was in Iraq, I hung out with myself and my translator and a couple other friends we knew. So I hope to go back, I think I’ll probably go back by mid-March or early April.

It’s coming on the third anniversary of the invasion in March? Where do you see things in Iraq a year from now?
It may be a little too bold to suggest this, but I feel Bush is going to try and cut down troop levels as much as he can in the next six months to a year. And I think that will happen at the expense of the Iraqi people. A lot has to change if anything’s going to get much better in Iraq in the next year. With the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank trying to take over Iraq’s economy, I don’t think that will be helpful. If things are going to get better in Iraq, it will take five to 10 years at least of selfless conflict resolution going on, and I don’t see that happening.