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AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to another of Al Jazeera's most prominent journalists, Ahmed Mansur. He was in Fallujah in April of 2004 during one of the bloodiest assaults by U.S. forces in Iraq. He reported from Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. He was brutally beaten while covering the elections in Egypt just months ago. He's author of 17 books and is the host of a prominent talk show on Al Jazeera called Without Borders. We welcome you to Democracy Now! AHMED MANSUR: Thank you very much. AMY GOODMAN: It is good to have you with us. People in the United States have not heard very much about Fallujah, either what happened in November of 2004 or before that—April 2004. You are one of the journalists who were inside. What happened? AHMED MANSUR: A lot of things happened. I think all of the people around the world don't know, maybe only one percent about this has happened in Fallujah. When I was in Fallujah and Al Jazeera team in April 2004, I hoped that in this time thousands of journalists is there for every street, every house, everywhere to introduce some of the truth or part of the truth to the people around the world. I think I stay one week, but all of the things I did in Fallujah, all of the things I introduced to the world via pictures and reports, maybe one percent only from this things happened there. AMY GOODMAN: What did you see inside during that week that you were there, and what was the response of the U.S. forces to you reporting from Fallujah? AHMED MANSUR: When I try enter Fallujah, every road to Fallujah closed. I try from maybe seven roads going to Fallujah. Everything is closed. United States force was closed everything. But when -- I lost in hope to go inside Fallujah. But I have a chance. I saw someone come within desert -- desert between Fallujah and outside. I asked him: ‘Where you come?’ He told me, ‘I come from Fallujah this way. American forces don't know this way.’ I asked him to take me and my crew to inside. He refused in the first, but he agreed after that. We talked with him a lot of time. He agreed. Within 20 minutes we become inside Fallujah. It is good chance for us. And we are only our media team inside Fallujah. American forces, you know, don't allow to anyone to go out or go inside Fallujah, this siege around the city. It was there in Fallujah on this time more than 300,000 people -- women -- people -- this is population of Fallujah inside this. And after two, three days, everything become little—food and petrol, and everything for life become -- electric from the streets, and this is -- crafts destroy a lot of houses because a lot of people fight against the United States force. Around the city, they destroy everything. Everything was destroyed -- houses and a lot of things. Everything were introduced via pictures and report to the people AMY GOODMAN: Everything you filmed? AHMED MANSUR: Yes. Everything we saw, everything we can -- everything -- every places we can go. A lot of places we can't go because this is battle between -- this is guerrilla people and United States. In some parts of the city, we can't go. But every place we can go to this place we have pictures for children, women, old people, and houses destroyed and a lot of injured people and the people killed—everything were introduced by Al Jazeera. But I remember, this is third day for siege, family, 25 person, women, children, old people killed via rocket. The rocket destroyed the house, and all family killed, only one survived We have the picture and introduce it to the world. Everyone saw it. AMY GOODMAN: So, your – AHMED MANSUR: But it is only – it is only one case. You can imagine how a lot of people happening this on – more than [inaudible] houses on Fallujah. AMY GOODMAN: So your images were countering what the U.S. military was saying about only killing insurgents. Your pictures ran counter to that. They told a very different story. AHMED MANSUR: Yes, I think daily maybe we send from 30 to 50 minutes pictures from a lot of places from Fallujah. I have two cameramen and me. And we can’t go to everywhere, but when some people told us some rocket or tank has destroyed some houses, we try go to this place and take some pictures and send it to Al Jazeera. And this is broadcast to the world. I don't -- some of our cameramen went to some places and have some footage and some photo for this battle between insurgents and American forces. But this plane was destroy a lot of things, and rockets destroy a lot of houses and people. AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Ahmed Mansur, one of the leading journalists of Al Jazeera, was there covering the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, covered the U.S. attack on Afghanistan, and then the invasion of Iraq, was in Fallujah in April 2004. I have a question to ask about a man, an Al Jazeera reporter, who is being held at Guantanamo, Sami al-Hajj. Now, do you know him? AHMED MANSUR: I know him like anyone. I don't meet him at all. AMY GOODMAN: You have learned that in the interrogations of this Al Jazeera reporter, they have questioned him about you? AHMED MANSUR: Yes. The lawyer told me, “They asked Sami about you one hundred times, more than one hundred times.” AMY GOODMAN: Sami al-Hajj's attorney told you? AHMED MANSUR: Yes. Not Sami al-Hajj. Sami al-Hajj told his lawyer, and the lawyer told me. I had interview with him. And he told me, “They asked Sami about you more than one hundred times.” I don't know why, but I think they angry, they very angry. The United States, they very angry with me from this Fallujah battle. When at April 8, this spokesman of United States forces, a general -- I remember him. I know him very well. He accused me on – lie, Ahmed Mansur is lie and all his report is false. Spokesman of United States Foreign Ministry talk about me a second time, maybe April 17, and told, Ahmed Mansur, all his words from Fallujah is false. So, I become a number one of – they maybe put me -- if Bush says that anyone not with us is against us, maybe they put me against them. But I was in Fallujah to introduce the truth to the people. This is my job, and this is my work. I introduce picture to people to see what is United States forces doing on civilian people in Fallujah. So I think they try to destroy me, destroy my job, destroy my life, because only I am only there. I don’t know why they ask Sami about me more than one hundred times. AMY GOODMAN: Ahmed Mansur, you also covered the elections in Egypt – AHMED MANSUR: Yes. AMY GOODMAN: -- this past – was it – November. Can you describe what happened to you? AHMED MANSUR: I should have an interview with – this is opposition leader in Egypt, Dr. [inaudible] I go down to Al Jazeera office to meet him outside. A lot of people come to me and shake hand me, and some of the people ask me photo, like any star working on TV. And another one come to me – I was talk Dr. -- to my guest on phone. I asked him why you are late? Someone come and asked me, “Are you Ahmed Mansur? I don't answer him. And I asked him to wait to finish my phone. After that, when I finish, he back again. “Are you Ahmed Mansur?” I told him, “Yes.” He began hit me on my face, and another one was behind me, butt me on my head, too, and they -- before he hit me, he told me, “Why you talk about Al-Qaddafi on your program, bad words about Al-Qaddafi?” I think it is message to [inaudible], who sent them to hit me. Within 30 seconds only, they hit me and run. AMY GOODMAN: So your face was very bruised. AHMED MANSUR: Yes. My face and my hair and my head, too. I stay maybe three weeks under treatment. AMY GOODMAN: And yet you went on the air? AHMED MANSUR: My program was after 20 minutes only. I go to my program and -- AMY GOODMAN: Completely a mess from being -- AHMED MANSUR: Yes, yes. I appear live on my program. I introduce -- complain to Interior Ministry. I told him this is two people try kill me maybe, because they strong -- too strong, and everything was blending very good. AMY GOODMAN: So you issued a challenge on your program that night and demanded that the Egyptian authorities investigate who beat you? AHMED MANSUR: Yes, they investigate, but everything is closed. Because I -- this is week after before this interview my guest should be Ministry of Parliament on the government. AMY GOODMAN: You believe that the Egyptian government was behind the beating? AHMED MANSUR: Yes. I don't believe -- I don't accuse anyone, but this is part of this story because some newspapers write about it, maybe some people don't like Ahmed and the government and they do that and this is some journalists around the world listen to Egyptian government asked him about this. AMY GOODMAN: Well, we're going to have to leave it there, though we will continue certainly to cover your story and to bring you tomorrow more on Al Jazeera. I want to thank you very much, Ahmed Mansur, for joining us. AHMED MANSUR: Thank you. *** Ali Fadhil is perhaps best known for his documentary film on the aftermath of the US siege on Falluja in November, 2004. In the assault, American and Iraqi forces surrounded Fallujah, expelling the city’s residents, bombing hospitals and shelling buildings. We broadcast excerpts of the documentary, produced last year by Guardian Films for Channel Four News. Whole neighborhoods were attacked and relief workers were denied access. When the dust had settled, 10,000 buildings were destroyed with thousands more seriously damaged. At least 100,000 residents were permanently displaced and over 70 U.S. soldiers were killed. The Iraqi death toll remains unknown, but is well into the hundreds. Ali Fadhil compiled the first independent reports from the devastated city, where he found scores of unburied corpses, rabid dogs and an embittered population. In a Democracy Now! U.S. exclusive, we air an excerpt of the documentary. It was produced last year by Guardian Films for Channel Four News, it's called "Fallujah - The Real Story." AMY GOODMAN: In a Democracy Now! U.S. exclusive, today we air an excerpt of this documentary. It was produced by Guardian Films for Channel 4 News in Britain. This is Fallujah: The Real Story. ALI FADHIL: Fallujah has been closed as a city for two months. Rahena is one of the first Fallujans to go back home since the Americans occupied the city. She wanted to show me what had been left behind. RAHENA: Look at it! Furniture, clothes thrown everywhere. They smashed up the cupboards and they wrote something bad on the dressing table mirror. ALI FADHIL: She doesn't speak English, so I explained to her what the words mean. RAHENA: I knew it. I knew those words were insulting. ALI FADHIL: Every Fallujan knows this song. It was written after the war and is full of hatred towards the Americans. It is impossible to live in the city at the moment. There is no water, no electricity, and no sewage. It's almost a city of ghosts. Most of the 350,000 people who used to live there now live in refugee camps. I wanted to get inside the city, but it was closed. So I started by looking for Fallujans in the surrounding villages and camps. I began my journey in Habaniya, 35 kilometers west of Fallujah. This place used to be a tourist resort. Saddam’s own son, Uday, used to come here for his holidays. People here are cutting down trees and making fires to keep warm. Abu Rabiyah has been living here for two months now. ABU RABIYAH: We’re meant to be the country of oil, aren’t we? But look at me. I'm measuring the kerosene for this lamp by the drop. We have no heat here. We're using wood for the fire. ALI FADHIL: These people are freezing. They have received no food aid for three months. They are meant to be voting on January the 30th. FALLUJAN REFUGEE: We won't vote. We just won’t vote. They must take us back to our houses first. ALI FADHIL: Inside one of the tents, I met Hamid Allawi. I asked him if he had received his voting papers. HAMID ALLAWI: No, I didn't receive them, and I don't want them anyway. None of the Fallujans here got their voting coupons. ALI FADHIL: Suddenly, we were told that some people were unhappy that we were filming. It felt dangerous, and we had to leave. We go straight to Saklawiya, a village just north of Fallujah. At Friday prayers, the talk is all about the elections. SHEIKH JAMAL AL RAHAMIDI: When they hand out food rations, they should give out voting papers as well. Why isn't the government giving the people their vote? ALI FADHIL: Sheik Jamal al Rahamidi is a powerful man. Many Fallujan refugees come to listen to his sermons. He gets very emotional when he talks about last November’s attack. SHEIKH JAMAL AL RAHAMIDI: And I saw, with my own eyes, the Holy Koran thrown on the floor of the mosque by those sons of pigs and monkeys. The Americans were treading on the Holy Koran, and it broke my heart. ALI FADHIL: I wanted to speak to the sheikh, because back in November, the Americans had asked him to remove bodies from Fallujah. I wanted to know what he had seen. SHEIKH JAMAL AL RAHAMIDI: The Americans had marked the houses that had dead bodies with them with a cross. That’s where we found the martyrs. In my opinion, these people were civilians, not terrorists. They were men who had stayed behind in the city to protect their homes. I say this because we found the bodies in groups of two or three or four. It was Ramadan, and people would naturally gather together for Iftar, the first meal after fasting. We found the bodies right behind their front doors. It looked to me as if they had opened their front doors to the Americans and had been immediately shot dead. That's how we found them. ALI FADHIL: Sheikh Jamal took me to a cemetery on the edge of the city. He showed me where he had buried the bodies. He claimed none of them had weapons with them and that he had found an old man of ninety who had been shot dead in his kitchen. The gravestones had no names, only numbers. I counted 76 of them. The Americans claim they killed 1,200. So even if these people were insurgents, where are the other graves? I wanted to get inside Fallujah itself, but to do that, I have to get the new Fallujah identity card. Everyone who wants to return to the city now has to get this I.D. from the American military. To most Iraqis, this seems crazy. It's the only place in Iraq where you need an I.D. in order to get into your own city. MAJOR PAUL HACKETT: This card will allow them to get back into the city in a controlled, organized manner. ALI FADHIL: But the men queuing for the card told me they saw it as another punishment given to them by the Americans. Fallujans have always been so proud of their city. Concepts such as honor and dignity matter a lot here, so to be fingerprinted by an American soldier just to go home is embarrassing. That's why these men are covering their faces. FALLUJAN: This is just another humiliation for people of Fallujah. I think they're doing it on purpose just to humiliate us. MAJOR PAUL HACKETT: My understanding is ultimately they can hang their card on a wall and keep it as a souvenir, but eventually, not too distant in the future, that card is going to be unnecessary for access to Fallujah. ALI FADHIL: Finally, we made it into Fallujah. The first thing we noticed was graffiti saying “Long live the mujahedeen!” I couldn't believe it. The whole city is destroyed. It was a big shock. I wasn't prepared for this much destruction. I was here just before the American attack. It's hard to believe this is the same city. Fallujah used to be one of the few modern Iraqi cities, and now there is nothing. The only people I see are Fallujans trying to work out where they used to live, people like Abu Sallah. This is all that remains of his home. ABU SALLAH: Look at these mattresses here. These were from my son's wedding! This was my son's room. And look here, this was our kitchen. This is the sugar bag that we left in the kitchen right here. If Allawi really wants us to vote in the elections, then let him come here first and look at the state we're living in. ALI FADHIL: I could smell bodies beneath the rubble. I went to the old city of Fallujah. This was the place where the four American contractors were brutally lynched last March. The Americans don't allow anyone to go here. They say it's not safe. It is a scary place, but these Fallujan people insist on taking me somewhere. They want to show me something really gruesome. I counted four dead bodies. They were rotting. It looks like these people were shot while they were sleeping. It's very common for friends in Iraq to sleep in this way together. There are no signs of a gun battle, no bullet holes. I could not see any weapons, no obvious signs that they were insurgents. I'm told they were civilians. Nearby, in another house, another dead body. But here, there were definite signs that this was an insurgent. There is an R.P.G. launcher on the roof of his car and a booby trap bomb by the door. In both cases, the corpses have been eaten by hungry dogs. I see a lot of dead dogs in the city. There is a serious outbreak of rabies. FALLUJAN DOCTOR: We have seen in our hospital many, many cases suspected to be rabies. You know we have no toxin or vaccine in our hospital, so most of the patients die. About 50, 50 cases. ALI FADHIL: Dr. Chichen and his colleagues are living in Fallujah’s main hospital. This city is empty so they have no patients. Their only job is to recover the rotting corpses and to bring them for burial. When I went to the main cemetery in Fallujah, they were still burying their dead. Two months after the fighting started, we still don't know how many Fallujans died. But we do know the American casualty figures. 51 U.S. soldiers were killed and over 400 were wounded. AMY GOODMAN: Ali Fadhil's documentary, Fallujah: The Real Story, produced by Guardian Films for Channel 4 in Britain. This, a U.S. exclusive, an excerpt of that film. Ali, your conclusion at the end of the film, which we are not playing right now? ALI FADHIL: Yeah, it's about the defeat of the insurgency that the U.S. forces had claimed at that time, because they said ‘This is a big win for us against the insurgency in Iraq,’ which actually wasn't true. With the time of the raid on Fallujah, there was exclusive and enormous military operations in different areas in Iraq, especially, for example, Baghdad and Mosul. There were, for example, the raid -- the explosion, the suicidal explosion inside one of the military camps -- big American military camps in Nineveh, north of Iraq, and everywhere actually. So, the conclusion was that this is not true. The Americans -- the insurgents, sorry, they just separated out from Fallujah. They just fled Fallujah a few days before the invasion, the American invasion on Fallujah. AMY GOODMAN: You won the Foreign Press Association award for this, Amnesty International’s award, as well as others, and you've come here with a Fallujan I.D. Now, it was talked about in the film by an American major, American Major Paul Hackett who is now running for Senate in Ohio. He's who you interviewed there. ALI FADHIL: Yes, well, I didn't know, actually. But I met him there in Fallujah, in a camp where they do these I.D.s. American soldiers sitting beside computers and having computer machines and printers. So they print kind of I.D.s, where they take the print of the iris, they take the print of your – the ten fingers, and then they give you this I.D., which is -- you can't get in or out of Fallujah without it. It's with a picture and you can say until now, this very day, Fallujans can't get in or out of their city without this I.D. AMY GOODMAN: And it’s a photograph of you with a bar code at the top, with your name written in English. ALI FADHIL: Exactly, so it can be read by the computer, and -- of course, I'm not a Fallujan. And I had it by coincidence. I don't know how; it was very exclusive. You can see here the type of the Fallujah -- of the personnel holding this I.D. is “C,” which is contractor. So I was allowed to get in as a contractor inside Fallujah with the cameras and everything. I -- before I come to America, for a few days, I met two Fallujans, friends of mine I made through this film, in Amman in my way to America. And I asked them about the situation there. And they just said it's just the same when you left it. It's a siege, nobody allowed to get in or out without this I.D. And they're having problems with the Americans, the Iraqi forces and with the insurgents. So nothing changed, actually. AMY GOODMAN: And how did you get these images, for example, the bodies at the end, in their homes, dead? How did you get in? ALI FADHIL: Well, the thing is, that was the north part of the city, which is known in Fallujah as the Souk. It was banned, and there were tapes, yellow tapes saying, ‘Danger Don't Cross!’ These were areas announced by the military forces. If you cross it, then it's a green light for anybody to shoot you. So some Fallujans actually said, “You have to come to this place. You have to. Come with us. We'll get you, don't worry. We'll take care of your safety.” Some of the few Fallujans who got in these days because these were the first days where Fallujan civilians were allowed to get in to see their houses. So they took me and they sneaked me through the small alleys and rows, and I found myself in these places and this house, and actually, I got a shot from a sniper on me on the top of one of the buildings when I got the shot for the mosque, the dome of the mosque. AMY GOODMAN: You're an un-embedded journalist. ALI FADHIL: Un-embedded. Yeah. AMY GOODMAN: Compare that situation to the other reporting you're seeing from there? ALI FADHIL: Well, if you remember, at that time, all of the reports came about Fallujah it was from the journalists embedded with the military forces, because they didn’t allow anybody to get in -- any media to get in. And everyone who wants to get in, he has to be embedded with the U.S. forces. So I would say this film is really, really something. It means a lot of things to me, and it's kind of exclusive in the way it's been done, in the way the access we got inside the city, because it was dangerous, not only from the military forces, from the American forces, but also from the insurgents inside. AMY GOODMAN: We only have 30 seconds. But you're a general practitioner. You were a doctor in Iraq. Why did you put that down to pick up a camera? ALI FADHIL: The main reason is because, while I'm sitting in 2003, I returned back to Iraq. I was in exile in Yemen, practicing also medicine. When I returned back, I found myself just writing death certificates and doing nothing to my patients. So I decided to – I mean, I was in a total despair, so I was ready to do anything. When I was visited by a Guardian reporter, he asked me to work as a translator with him. When I started that, I found that the media is much, much stronger than medicine. AMY GOODMAN: Well, Ali Fadhil, I want to thank you for being with us. Now coming to the United States to go to journalism school at New York University with your family. Welcome to the United States. ALI FADHIL: Thank you.