caption: In "Beyond Baghdad," airing Thursday, February 12, at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings), FRONTLINE correspondent Martin Smith, left, travels across Iraq to see whether democracy can be established in this war-torn land. Image may only be used in editorial conjunction with the direct promotion of this film in North America. No other rights are granted. All rights reserved. Photo credit: © WGBH

» Beyond Baghdad

Thursday, February 12, at 9pm, 60 minutes

As Washington continues to celebrate the capture of Saddam Hussein, FRONTLINE takes viewers on a journey across Iraq to reveal just what it will take to stabilize the volatile nation and accelerate the transfer of power to the Iraqi people.

In "Beyond Baghdad," airing Thursday, February 12, at 9 P.M. on PBS (check local listings), FRONTLINE® correspondent Martin Smith travels the length and breadth of Iraq for five weeks, interviewing everyone from tribal sheiks and ayatollahs to politicians and Iraqi soldiers. "When Saddam was captured, we were in Nasiriya in Southern Iraq," Smith says. "There was a small street demonstration and some bullets were fired into the air, but I couldn't help thinking that the news meant more in Washington than in Iraq. Most Iraqis know that even with Saddam captured they still have a long, hard road to travel."

"Beyond Baghdad" reveals a seriously fractured Iraq, where modest successes in nation-building have been offset by widespread inter-ethnic and sectarian rivalry, frustration, and violence.

"Having visited every major city from north to south, I sense a great ambivalence among Iraqis about the shape of the nation they wish to form," says Smith. "The Iraqi people survived a ruthless dictator for 35 years. Now they seem paralyzed and very distrustful of one another."

On each leg of the journey--his third to Iraq since the war ended--Smith finds a unique set of problems. He begins in the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk, where a sense of subdued optimism about U.S. efforts is undercut by anti-American violence and fears of an Arab-Kurd civil war. In the rebellious Sunni lands of central Iraq--the heart of the Iraqi resistance--U.S. troops are bunkered down and reconstruction efforts are largely on hold or invisible. Further south in the sacred Shia cities of Kufa, Najaf, and Karbala, there are deep divisions between moderate and radical Shias over whether Iraq should be an Islamic republic or a secular state.

The trip ends in the marshlands near Nasiriya, where Smith discovers old Shia resistance fighters bitter that the Americans have favored returning exiles over those who stayed and fought the war at home against Saddam.

"As impressed as I was with the American military and the efforts they are making, Iraqi expectations are extraordinarily high," says Smith. "Even if the Americans do everything right, the problem is it may not be enough. The whole experiment can still fail."

"Beyond Baghdad" is a FRONTLINE co-production with RAINmedia, Inc. The producers are Marcela Gaviria and Martin Smith. The film is written and reported by Martin Smith.

FRONTLINE is produced by WGBH Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS.

Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers. Additional support is provided by U.S. News & World Report.

FRONTLINE is closed-captioned for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers.

FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation.

The executive producer for FRONTLINE is David Fanning.

Press contacts:
Erin Martin Kane [erin_martin_kane@wgbh.org]
Chris Kelly [chris_kelly@wgbh.org]
(617) 300-3500

FRONTLINE XXII/February 2004

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