Iraqis are yet to see true press freedom:
Before the U.S.-led invasion, billed as the liberation of Iraqis, newspaper journalist Nadjha Khadum was as close to a trailblazer in her field as the era permitted.
During the 1980s war between Iraq and Iran, she was embedded with the Iraqi army and filed dispatches from the front lines. Her 1991 exposé of corruption at the Iraqi tax agency led to a minister’s dismissal.
Her latest venture — launching an independent online news site — offers a snapshot of the present travails of Iraqis who yearned for basic freedoms during years of dictatorship. As Operation Iraqi Freedom draws to a close, Khadum is finding that the brand of freedom the United States ushered in is at best tenuous, at worst a temporary illusion.