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Iraq Speakers Bureau

raed

About Raed Jarrar

Raed Jarrar is an Iraqi political analyst and consultant to AFSC's Iraq Program currently based in Washington, D.C.  After the U.S.-led invasion, Jarrar became the country director for CIVIC Worldwide, the only door-to-door casualty survey group in post-war Iraq. 

He then established Emaar, (meaning "reconstruction" in Arabic), a grassroots organization that provided humanitarian and political aid to Iraqi internally displaced persons (IDPs).  Emaar delivered medicine and food as well as helped initiate micro-enterprise projects for IDPs.  Additionally, Emaar engaged in political advocacy on behalf of displaced populations.

Selected Media Coverage:

  • Getting Iraq to Pay More Is Not the Answer
    Foreign Policy in Focus, May 2008
    "Congress should stop blaming the Iraqi government for our economic woes. As our economy sputters to a halt and Congress is set to spend an additional $160 billion on the war, U.S. lawmakers are openly criticizing the Iraqi government for not paying the bills."
    Read more >

  • Iraq: What mission?
     On NPR, May 2008
    "It's been more than five years since President George W. Bush declared "mission accomplished" aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. "Because of you," he told sailors, "Iraq is free. America is grateful for a job well done." Five years later, it's open for debate what the job is, was, or should be. Today we ask, what mission can, or should the United States aim to accomplish in Iraq? We check in with unembedded journalists and Iraqi advocates."
    Read/listen >
  • Where Is Raed Now?
    From Mother Jones, May 2008
    "In 1998, 20-year-old Raed Jarrar watched from the roof of his family's home in Baghdad as American Tomahawk cruise missiles struck government buildings close by, blowing out the windows and sending him scrambling for cover. Five years later, during Operation Iraqi Freedom, coalition planes targeted the same buildings, as well as the nearby airport and Saddam Hussein's palace, killing and wounding dozens of people from Jarrar's middle-class neighborhood. "
    Read the story >
  • Petraeus Expected to Urge Troop Strength Freeze
    On NPR, April 2008
    "The situation in Iraq will be front and center on Capitol Hill Tuesday as Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, begin two days of testimony. Petraeus is widely expected to recommend a temporary freeze in U.S. troop reductions."
    Read/listen >
  • The battle for Iraq is about oil
    and democracy, not religion!
    From AlterNet, Sept. 2007
    This week, we'll be buried under a crush of analysis about an Iraq that's being ravaged by a religious civil war -- an incomprehensible war between "militants" of various stripes and "the Iraqi people." But Americans will be poorly served by the media's singular focus on Iraq's "sectarian violence." It obscures the fact that sectarian fighting is a symptom -- a street-level manifestation -- of a massive political conflict over what kind of country Iraq will be, who will rule it and who will control its enormous oil wealth.
    Read more >

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