「フセイン大統領とその家族は、48時間以内にイラク国内から退去すること」 米大統領、ジョージ・W・ブッシュがフセイン政権へ向けて行った最終通告の期限が過ぎた2003年3月20日木曜日の午前5時30分。米英国・合同軍によるイラクへの空爆を皮切りに、対イラク戦争が始まった。夜も明けきらぬ薄暗い空から落ちてくるミサイルの数々、その後続く合同軍とイラク兵士、そして市民との地上での戦い。連日ブラウン管から流れてくる映像と聞こえてくる惨状を、パースの人々は一体どのような思いで受け取っていたのだろうか。イラク戦争が我々の心にもたらしたものは—。

Whether we condone or condemn the 2003 war on Iraq, one cannot deny that this conflict sparked an upsurge of interest in Iraq and what role Australia would play. The coalition forces started bombing Iraq on March 20, 2003. Today, International governments and companies alike are anticipating opportunities for rebuilding Iraq. In this special 'Iraq' edition of The Perth Express we have conducted a series of random interviews with Western Australians, including our local Iraqi community, who communicated their personal stories of hardship under the Hussein regime, and Perth's Uniting Church minister Neville Watson, who recently spent four months mounting an antiwar protest in the heart of Baghdad.

Now that "terrorism" and "mass-destruction" are house-hold terms we thought we'd take a deeper look at Perth's experience of the most internationally protested war to date, the 2003 War in Iraq.