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[VICE NEWS]
[IN SADDAM'S SHADOW PART 4 OF 4]
The US may have withdrawn from Iraq, but the country is far from rebuilt.
The people who know this best are the reporters at Al Nahar,
a newspaper that's been a thorn in the side of the Maliki Administration.
What do you think America accomplished by coming here and occupying your
[HASSAN GUMAA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, AL NAHAR] country for 8-9 years?
To add insult to injury, a lot of the money that was meant to help Iraq
get back on its feet, has either been stolen or squandered.
Sometimes, with deadly results.
Case in point: a bomb detecting device known as the ADE651.
[ADE651 PROMOTIONAL VIDEO]
[PREVENT IT]
[USE ADE EXPLOSIVE DETECTORS]
[ADE651]
[DETECT EXPLOSIVE SUBSTANCES]
While passing through the various checkpoints,
we kept seeing the military using these little magic wands,
that are supposed to detect explosives.
The thing is, they don't.
["THE DEVICE WORKS "ON THE SAME PRINCIPLE AS A OUIJA BOARD"] The New York Times revealed that these devices were a scam in 2009.
And yet, more than 3 years later, the military was still relying on them
to detect bombs being brought into Baghdad.
No wonder so many people were getting killed.
Now, with these units being sold to the Iraqis at up to $60,000 each,
you'd expect a little production value.
But instead, they're a cheap piece of plastic with an AM/FM radio
antenna on it, and no power supply.
The cards they speak of, the ones that supposedly calibrate the device,
to detect different types of explosives, are little more than
business cards with words like "C4" written on them.
[HASSAN SALMA KHALIFA VICE DEPUTY COMMANDER OF DEFENSE OPERATIONS]
The wands are the invention of Jim McCormick,
[JIM MCCORMICK FOUNDER, ATSC LTD.] a British businessman who sold them to the Iraqi government
for a total of $85 million, promising that they would save lives.
[ADE651 PROMOTIONAL VIDEO] But what they did was the exact opposite,
They allowed bombs to slip past checkpoints,
while making McCormick rich.
The most insane part of the story,
is that in spite of the obvious uselessness of the device,
and in spite of the arrest and trial of Jim McCormick,
the Iraqi military and police are still using them at every checkpoint
in the city.
With our time in Baghdad drawing to a close,
We headed back to Alid's place.
We wanted to see how he was feeling about the home he left behind.
The electricity's coming back.
Generator's kicking in?
So, my family has basically three lines right now.
Two generators, and one governmental line.
So whenever one goes off, the other one kicks in.
They have electricity around the clock.
So what was it like for you to come home after 8 years?
The difference between 8 years ago and now, is titanic.
This city is in this complete state of sterile living.
Everybody is trying to keep it together,
but nothing is together.
I don't think Iraq found its comfortable middle ground yet,
because the city still exists within two extremes.
You have the religious massive extreme,
and then you have the other, wanting to be westernized
without really understanding what westernism is.
So what is your family telling you now that you're here?
What's it like for them?
They are praying for the days of Saddam to return.
In 1991, America came and destroyed literally 75% of Iraqi infrastructure,
and all of the cities. It was all destroyed, completely.
Saddam restored everything within six months.
People started saying, "well if Saddam was able to do it during the sanction,
and he had nothing, really. The country had just
come out of a major war.
why is America incapable of doing the same?
The worst thing America has done to Iraq and Iraqis is this:
They made a dictator look like an angel
in comparison to what we have right now.
That's what America accomplished.
They made Saddam look good.
Nostalgia is a powerful thing.
It can make the past seem better than the present.
Even when that past was ruled over by a tyrant
who murdered those who opposed him,
and treated the majority of Iraq's population, the Shia,
like second-class citizens.
For all of America's efforts, for the billions of dollars spent,
and more than a million lives lost,
today, Iraq is looking to the past instead of the future.