Eyes Wide Open Film Series, Part II
Hidden Wars of Desert Storm

October 13, 2005

On Thursday, October 13th, 2005 the “Eyes Wide Open” film series began its fall schedule with the showing of “Hidden Wars of Desert Storm.” This documentary directed by Gerard Ungerman and Audrey Brohy was based on two years of investigation. It features interviews with many prominent personalities including General Norman Schwarzkopf, Desert Storm Commander, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, former U.N. Iraq Program Director Denis Halliday, former UNSCOM team leader Scott Ritter and others. (See the hand-out distributed at the screening)

The film raises several questions among them are: Were all diplomatic means really utilized to try to resolve the issue of Iraq troops in Kuwait? Was there truly a threat, on the part of Iraq, against Saudi Arabia or against any other Gulf States? Why wasn’t Washington’s rhetoric against Saddam ever matched by any real support to the Iraqi opposition groups? Why was “the march to Baghdad” called off? Why were U.S. troops exposed to depleted uranium weapons, without their knowing, until the “mystery” of the Gulf War Syndrome was explained? Isn’t the use of depleted uranium weapons a breach of the Geneva Convention as well?

We were fortunate to have at this viewing a special guest, Ornella Sangiovanni from the Italian organization Un ponte per...Baghdad. Ornella, as a member of this group, has followed the situation in Iraq for many years and contributed to the evening by sharing some of her experience and insights. Before March 2003, she had visited Iraq several times to assist with community projects sponsored by her organization. Presently, she helps to maintain the website Osservatorio Iraq which you can access for timely information in Italian.

The discussion was lively and went on until 11pm! There were several comments about the “lack of courage” on the part of U.S. journalists in not getting the full story to the U.S. populace. It was conjectured that if U.S. citizens knew the whole story of the first Gulf War than there would have been more opposition to the embargo, and continued random bombings. It was thought that certainly the garnering of public support by the Bush administration for the invasion of March 2003 would have been more difficult to obtain if citizens had more information.

The viewing of this film prompted the U.S. Citizens for Peace and Justice-Rome to write a second letter to the U.S. Ambassador to Italy, Mr. Spogli. Once again, we asked for a meeting to dialogue about our differing perspectives and raised more questions about the U.S government’s misguided war in Iraq.

Kathy Ford

Special thanks to filmmakers Gerard Ungerman and Audrey Brohy for their support and to Linux Club for their hospitality.

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