Iraqi Women Visit Oakland to Speak Out Against the War! March 24, 2006

U.S. Tour of Duty's Real Intelligence Project, Global Exchange, CODEPINK, and Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Social Justice Committee present

Iraqi citizen FAIZA AL-ARAJI
Former Chief UN Weapons Inspector SCOTT RITTER
Founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK MEDEA BENJAMIN
Retired Senior CIA Analyst RAY McGOVERN

Friday, March 24, 7:00 PM

First Unitarian Church
685 14th Street
Oakland, CA

$15 tickets in advance, $20 at the door.
Advance tickets available by phone at 415-255-7296
Reserve your ticket now. Due to limited seating, we expect this event will sell out.

ASL Interpretation available.

FAIZA AL-ARAJI is an Iraqi woman who is visiting the US on a speaking tour for International Women?s Day and Women Say No to War (see www.womensaynotowar.org ). She is a Shia muslim engineer who fled Iraq with her Sunni husband and children after her son, a student at Baghdad University, was imprisoned without charges by Iraqi officials from the Ministry of the Interior. The family had to pay ransom to secure his release, and then fled to Jordan. Faiza and her sons write a blog called A Family in Baghdad (afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com).

SCOTT RITTER was the UN's top weapons inspector in Iraq between 1991 and 1998. Before working for the UN he served as an officer in the US Marines and as a ballistic missile adviser to General Schwarzkopf in the first Gulf war. He wrote the introduction to Neo-CONNED! Again which will be available for sale. Scott will be signing copies of of Neo-CONNED! Again immediately following the event.
?The important thing to know about Scott Ritter is that he was right.? ? Seymour Hersh

RAY McGOVERN served as a captain in the U.S. Army from 1962 to 1964 before working as a CIA analyst for 27 years. From 1981 to 1985 he conducted daily briefings for Ronald Reagan's vice president, George Bush, the father of our current president. Ray is a member of the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He wrote a chapter in Neo-CONNED! Again, which will be for sale at the event. Ray will be signing copies of Neo-CONNED! Again immediately following the event.

MEDEA BENJAMIN is Founding Director of Global Exchange and a powerful charismatic force in human rights activism who has struggled for social justice in Asia, the Americas, and Africa for over 20 years. She is a leading activist in the peace movement and helped bring together the groups forming the coalition United for Peace and Justice Medea also co-founded Code Pink, a women's peace group which has been organizing creative actions against the war and occupation of Iraq. In June of 2005, Medea was nominated as one of 1,000 exceptional women from around the world to receive the Nobel Peace Prize collectively.

U.S. TOUR OF DUTY (www.ustourofduty.org), a non-profit project of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), supports the anti-war advocacy of Iraq veterans, military families, policy analysts, and performers by organizing public forums, developing communication strategies, and producing video/audio content.

GLOBAL EXCHANGE (www.globalexchange.org) is a membership-based international human rights organization dedicated to promoting social, economic and environmental justice around the world. Since our founding in 1988, we have successfully increased public awareness of root causes of injustice while building international partnerships and mobilizing for change. Whether it is US companies such as Nike abusing the women who make its shoes, the US government fueling an illegal, unjustified, murderous war in Iraq, or the World Trade Organization (WTO) undercutting consumer and environmental protections, Global Exchange offers itself as a partner for peace and social justice.

We Won't Get Neo-CONNED Again
A citizen response to lying, spying and dying for the "war on terror"

The Must-Read Set on Gulf II

"The neo-cons conned us once. Neo-CONNED! and Neo-CONNED Again! will help to ensure they don't get away with it a second time." - Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr.

"These essays meet an urgent need for analyses inspiring resistance to a moral catastrophe that can otherwise last years or decades." - Daniel Ellsberg

Neo-CONNED! and Neo-CONNED! Again (www.neoconned.info) are published by Light in the Darkness Publications, an imprint of IHS Press (www.ihspress.com).