Iraq - The Full Story (Yuri Kozyrev)

Yuri Kozyrev has a new book coming out in the spring, “Iraq - The Full Story” and Schilt Publishing has a blurb about it in their new brochure:
Yuri Kozyrev
Texts by Brian Bennet and Michael Ware Iraq – The Full Story

Yuri Kozyrev: ‘I have had the privilege to be a witness of the major events happening in Iraq since 2002 until now. It is a unique experience and this book is my testimony. It looks like the diary of what I remember, what impressed me most. Example: I came to this war with the more or less clear-cut idea that this was a battle between good and evil. I had already travelled for months throughout Iraq and witnessed Saddam Hussein’s oppression. When the war started in March 2003, I was working from Baghdad and did not have the opportunity to drive in an Abrams tank or fly in the cockpit of a sparkling American fighter jet. Instead, I moved from ruin to ruin, and from one human tragedy to another. My original idea of the glorious good guys defeating the evil bad ones grew more and more distant until it vanished like a mirage in the desert.

Here I am now, older and almost 7 years into this war, and yet no wiser about how good should combat evil. I know both sides believe that they are both fighting against evil, but I have seen each move closer to the dark side. Killing does not make anyone better. Initial motives stop making sense after a while because war is brutal. Human goodness is the main casualty; it disappears in front of your eyes.

The book contains three chapters. The first one is about Iraq before the war and the invasion itself. It contains snapshot photos and movies of Saddam’s family and his surroundings that Brian Bennet and I found in the destroyed and looted lab inside of the palace’s compound in Bagdad. It is pretty unique, there are a lot of unknown images. Bennet, journalist from Time and based then in Bagdad, writes about Saddam’s family. Aside from the family pictures this chapter also contains images from me as well as notes taken during my first trips to Iraq when the Baathists were in control. I was there when they lost power, covering the last chapter of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship and the first weeks of the American occupation.