2008 Woodie Awards
Freelance journalist discusses Iraq war
By Jaime Wright
Rocket Staff Writer
Issue date: 3/10/06 Section: Life
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Tychostup, a freelance reporter, worked for the peace mission group Voices in the Wilderness (VitW). She visited Iraq four times, including the period of the Iraqi government elections. Tychostup has made several radio and television appearances, such as the Fox News interview featured during the lecture.
Tychostup posed the hypothetical question, "Do Iraqis want to be free?" She said the Iraqi people would rather have ten Saddams than one Bush. She said they are better off being in control of their own destiny and are better off without the United States interfering.
It is a fact that 95 percent of the Iraqi population relies on food ration programs.
"We have been annihilating these people," Tychostup said. "I went to put a face to the Iraqi people."
She asked how many people ever met an Iraqi person. Not many people had. She said that she was not allowed to bring a bottle of vitamins to the children there.
"Where are these weapons?" she asked, referring to weapons of mass destruction that the U.S. government had claimed to know of after the events of Sept. 11, 2001.
Tychostup made it clear to the audience that she was not a peace activist.
"I went for Voices in the Wilderness," she said.
According to its Web site, VitW was formed in 1996 to nonviolently challenge the economic warfare being waged by the United States against the people of Iraq, and continues its work today, acting to end the US occupation of Iraq.
Tychostup shared a photograph of downtown Baghdad in 2004, where she pointed out a traffic circle with many Saddam Hussein statues.
Another photograph was of a bullet-riddled vehicle, in which an Iraqi citizen was shot to death. Three gunshots had been fired, but the lethal bullet went horizontally through the dashboard. They may have come from an angry neighbor, not necessarily terrorists.
Tychostup took a photo of a meeting. Pictured was a group of insurgents, surrounding the head of the interim government. People called him the 'sheik' and were talking over him. Tychostup's group had to move out of the meeting because they were accused of being spies.
