"I still owe the United States whatever I can offer," Alibrahimi, who barely escaped Hussein's murderous postwar rage in 1991, explained. "No one else came to save my people. No other Arab or Islamic country tried to get Saddam to stop killing us. Without America, I would still be a refugee and there would be no election here, no constitution, and no freedom. We would be living under Saddam and his sons forever. I had to come."
Does he have doubts about the outcome of this war?
"I am more than 100 percent sure we will win," he said. "There is no war, only a fight against terrorists that don't like stability in Iraq. They are thugs and want to go back to when thugs ruled the country. It was better for them than peace and democracy."
Nevertheless, when it is all over, there is only one place Alibrahimi calls home. "When I am at an airport in the Middle East, they see my hair and skin and know I am Arab," he said. "But when they ask what country I am from, I am proud to tell them I am American. In Iraq I had no life. It is only in America that I ever began to live."
