Democracy Now! April 23, 2003

8:00-8:01 Billboard 8:01-8:06 Headlines 8:06-8:07 One Minute Music Break 8:07-8:20: In Baghdad, hundreds of Shiites yesterday staged demonstrations outside the Palestine Hotel for the second straight day. They demanded the release of Baghdad s leading Shiite cleric Sheikh Muhammad al-Fartusi, who they said had been arrested by US forces. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal is reporting hundreds of flourishing gun fairs have sprung up around Iraq since the fall of Saddam. Under Saddam, Iraqi s needed to go through strict background checks by the secret police before they could obtain a gun license; now anyone who has money can buy a gun. At one market in a Shiite area of Baghdad, an oil-company worker told the Journal people are buying weapons to kill US soldiers if they don t leave the country. We go now to Amman to speak with Kathy Kelly of Voice In the Wilderness. She recently left Iraq where she was during the U.S. invasion. * Kathy Kelly, founder of Voices in the Wilderness. She just traveled to Jordan from Baghdad and speaks to us from Amman. 8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break 8:21-8:40: Mines and unexploded munitions have killed 52 people and injured 63 in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk over just the past week. The Daily Mirror of London is reporting that most of the victims were children. Iraq is being reminded once again that long after the combat fighting ends, the killing continues. Over the past week the mine-clearing charity The Mines Advisory Group has removed 30 truckloads of explosives that is: 11,000 mines plus 200,000 bombs and missiles. But it is estimated that 10 million mines remain lying in Iraq over the past war-torn decade. * Sean Sutton of the Mines Advisory Group joins us from Northern Iraq. 8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break 8:41-8:58: "War is not healthy for children and other living things." These words were first written by mothers in the United States during the Vietnam War. They were concerned that their children were being sent halfway around the world to kill the children of Vietnamese mothers. They put the statement on a postcard and sent it to Congress. Since then, the words have become a powerful description of wartime destruction of not only people but also animals and the environment. In the invasion of Iraq the Pentagon reportedly has enlisted dolphins, chickens, dogs, sea lions and pigeons. Plus there are reports that Moracco gave the U.S. 2,000 monkeys to assist with de-mining projects. Dolphins are scouting seaports in search of mines. The dolphins are equipped with cameras that transmit video images back to their handlers. When they find a mine they are trained to report back by playing with a so-called I ve found something rubber ball. When the dolphins find a mine, their minder sends a group of human divers to the area to detonate it. The Washington Post reports that Atlantic bottlenose dolphin is the seafaring equivalent of bomb-sniffing dogs. The Marines have been using chickens and pigeons in Kuwait to detect poison gas. But the Marines have admitted that dozens of the birds never made it to the Middle East after dying in transit. The deceased chickens and pigeons will hardly be the first U.S. animals not to return to the states after a war. According to PETA, 5,000 dogs served alongside U.S. troops in Vietnam. Only 140 came home. Some died in Vietnam but most were abandoned by the military. * William R. Rivas-Rivas, PETA Campaign Coordinator * David Helvarg, Author of Blue Frontier - Saving America's Living Seas and founder of the Blue Frontier Campaign in Washington D.C. 8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie Karran, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press with help from Noah Reibel and Vilka Tzouras. Mike Di Filippo is our music maestro and engineer. Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Emily Kunstler, Orlando Richards, Simba Rousseau, Rafael delaUz, Gabriel Weiss, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Karen Ranucci, Fatima Mojadiddy, Denis Moynihan and Jenny Filipazzo.