Corrections to David Swanson's Aug. 1 report on the delegation

The People's Peace Delegation to Iran returned to Washington, D.C., on July 30. The following morning we held a press conference at Busboys and Poets, a progressive restaurant on 14th Street. Among the reporters present was David Swanson, a co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org. David's report has been circulated around the world and now appears in many publications and blogs. (The complete report is reprinted below.)

We are deeply grateful for David's timely reporting and support. However, we need to correct a few inaccuracies in the report:

"Art Barber of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, said that in Iran illiteracy increased significantly when they were fighting the war against Iraq."

Actually, Art Marburg (not Barber) stated that it was literacy, not illiteracy, that had increased sharply in Iran despite the eight-year war. The increase was about 30 percent, a stunning achievement for a country that had just gone through a revolution and whose government was not yet fully in place. Art contrasted that commitment to education with the federal cutbacks in U.S. education that are resulting from the rising cost of the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

"The members of the delegation said that they did see a lack of women's rights."

This is incomplete. The delegation members did report on how Iranian women are compelled by law to wear at least a head scarf and "manteau," or knee-length coat, as well as to cover their arms and legs. Many women choose to wear the full-length black "chador," but this is not compulsory. However, the members also detailed some of the many areas in which women in Iran are far advanced as compared to their sisters in other Middle-Eastern countries. For example, more than 60 percent of college and university students are women, as are 30 percent of the doctors. There are women film makers, taxi drivers, teachers and sales people. In addition, unlike in the U.S., working-class women are greatly helped by the government support for free education and health care.

Finally, the correct spelling of the delegation members' names are: Art Marburg, Tyla Matteson, Geoff Millard, Tom Palumbo and Phil Wilayto.

The following is David's complete report:

People's peace delegation to Iran reports back
by David Swanson
August 1, 2007

"On Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C., a five-member group of Americans reported on their just-completed 12-day trip through Iran.  As with other delegations of this sort, they reported on a country that bears very little resemblance to the horrifying axis-of-evil member we hear about on U.S. television.

Phil Wileto of the Virginia Antiwar Network and the Richmond Defender said the Iranian people were extremely welcoming.  They were mobbed by 80 school children wanting to practice their English.  They encountered by chance 300 members of the Iranian National Guard who were delighted to meet Americans and spoke immediately of peace and friendship.  There does not appear, Wileto said, to be any campaign in Iran to prepare the people there for war.  The Iranian people view Americans with friendship, admiration, curiosity.

Tom Palumbo of Norfolk, Virginia, a member of Veterans for Peace, said that they met with Imams, goat herders, students, in planned meetings, and spontaneously stopping in the desert for tea by the side of the road.  They had open access to the opinions of Iranians.  They were assisted by an interpreter whom they trusted completely.  They went to a peace museum and met victims of the war with Iraq, people who had been gassed and wounded.  These Iranians agreed with the Americans that weapons of mass destruction serve no people's interests.  Palumbo found the desire for peace to be dominant in Iran.

Tyla Madison of Richmond, Virginia, the only female member of the delegation, echoed Palumbo's report and said that they found friendship and warmth in Iran.

Art Barber of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, said that in Iran illiteracy increased significantly when they were fighting the war against Iraq.  He said he saw similarities to how military spending in the United States is now draining resources for vital needs.

Geoff Millard, Washington D.C. Chapter President of Iraq Veterans for Peace, said Iranians and Americans do not view war the same way.  In Iran they speak of the 8-year war, not the Iran-Iraq War.  They do not say Iraq gassed them.  They say Saddam Hussein gassed them.  They do not blame a people, but a regime. 

We drove past a nuclear power plant, Millard said, and then a town full of people.  They would be the victims of bombing that plant, he said.  "The victims of wars are people just like the people in this room.  The makers of war, the governments, will not be victimized."

The speakers took questions from those gathered in the Washington, D.C., restaurant Busboys and Poets.  One question was about the rights of women in