The Iraq I never knew

Post Reports

The Washington Post

Daily News, Politics, News

4.4 • 5.1K Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2023

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What is it like to leave a country in crisis - only to return years later to a devastated homeland? Today, a Post photojournalist journeys back to Iraq after 24 years.

Salwan Georges, a photojournalist at The Post, left Iraq more than two decades ago. Georges and his family spent five years in Syria as refugees, eventually settling in Detroit, Mich.

As The Post prepared to cover the 20th anniversary of the Iraq war, Georges traveled back to his homeland for the first time since leaving. Through his camera lens, he rediscovered the Baghdad he left behind, and the sites of familial joy and tragedy that had long been left to imagination. Today on the show, Georges talks about his homecoming and what it meant to return to Iraq as a photojournalist. You can view Georges’s photo essay, “The Iraq I Never Knew,” here.

The Post Reports team has two pieces of exciting news to share. First, we’ve been nominated for four Webby Awards, including best hosts. If you like the show, please consider voting for us! You can learn more about the Webby Awards and vote for our show here.

Second, don’t miss a chance to experience Post Reports live. Post Reports senior host Martine Powers will be in conversation with author Curtis Sittenfeld at Sixth & I in Washington, D.C., at 7 p.m. on April 13th. Get tickets here.

Transcript

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0:00.0	As I set on a plane on my way to Baghdad, the city where I was born, I can't help but wonder
0:08.0	if my country will recognize me.
0:13.0	I would just eight years old when I left.
0:15.6	I'm 32 now and I've come back to document how we are has changed.
0:21.5	Salman George is a photojournalist for the post and Salman has traveled all over the world
0:26.8	for his job.
0:28.4	He's covered the war in Ukraine, child labor abuses in West Africa, the fentanyl crisis
0:34.6	across the US.
0:36.4	But for over two decades, Salman has never been back to the place he still considers
0:41.9	home, Iraq.
0:44.6	And this year, that changed.
0:47.4	As our newsroom prepared to cover the 20th anniversary of the war in Iraq, Salman traveled
0:52.8	back to Iraq for the first time since he left.
0:56.4	He wrote about it for the post in this essay that he's reading here.
1:02.6	As the clouds clear, I see Baghdad and tears fill my eyes.
1:07.0	My parents and I left as the US sanctions made life in Iraq nearly impossible.
1:21.3	When the US invaded Iraq, Salman was watching this all unfold from afar.
1:27.2	At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations
1:33.2	to disarm Iraq, to free its people.
1:36.1	He watched as the war ended.
1:38.3	After nearly nine years, the America's war in Iraq will be over.
1:44.2	And as the Islamic state devastated Iraq.
	...

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