Unembedded: Four Independent Photojournalists on the War in Iraq

Truth, it has been said, is the first casualty of war. In the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, official truth died months before the bombing of Baghdad began. Unembedded bears witness to the enduring power of independent journalism. In their unflinching look at war-ravaged Iraq, four freelance photojournalists show that life there is brutal yet poignant; that compassion coexists with anger, hatred and fear. By gaining the confidence of Iraqi civilians and insurgents, these photojournalists have brought back images of life in wartime, from beauty parlors and joyful wedding scenes to the carnage of civilian casualties, the heartbroken faces of grieving parents, and the glassy-eyed shock of parentless children.
This is not the view from a Marine base. These photographers were on the streets of Baghdad when it fell, amid a crowd of civilians under aerial attack, and in the holy Imam Ali shrine with the Mahdi Army during the siege of Najaf. Their images document issues often underrepresented: the insurgency as seen from inside the separate resistance movements, civilians affected by the battles between U.S. and insurgent forces, growing conservatism and fundamentalism and their effects on women, and the devastating effects of ongoing civilian casualties.
Working outside the U.S. military's official "embedding" program, the authors bring us face-to-face with the people of Iraq. They combine photographs and essays with excerpts from two years of personal letters, journal entries, and feature stories to take us across front lines and cultural barriers into the lives of a nation in crisis. Theirs is a path to understanding the cost of war.

Kael Alford

Born in Middletown, NY, 1971. Kael is a freelance photojournalist who has spent more than eight months of the last year and a half in Iraq. She was based in Baghdad during the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Her recent work from Iraq focuses on the growing culture of resistance, conservative religion and the grass roots movements developing since the invasion of Iraq.

Kael has worked extensively covering culture, politics and conflict in Southeast Europe and the Middle East for many major US and European magazines and newspapers. Her work from the conflicts in Kosovo and Macedonia was recognized in the Pictures of the Year competition in 2001 and 2002.
Thorne Anderson

Born in Montgomery, Alabama, 1966. Thorne has been covering international news with Corbis/Sygma since 1999. Thorne's photographs are regularly published in magazines and newspapers including Time, Newsweek, Stern, New York Times, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Times (London), The Guardian, and others.

Thorne has spent ten months of the last two years in Iraq. He is among the few active journalists who worked in Iraq during the sanctions period before the most recent war. While covering the war itself from Baghdad, he was arrested by Iraqi intelligence and expelled from the country. He returned to Iraq as soon as the borders opened at the end of the war and has covered the nascent occupation resistance movements - both Sunni and Shiite.

Rita Leistner

Born in Toronto, Canada, 1964. Rita has been covering stories in Iraq since April, 2003, spending a total of eight months in country.

With a focus on in-depth, long-term projects, her feature work includes a profile of an American Cavalry Unit during a three month embed in the spring and summer of 2003, a portrait story of women residents at the Al Rashad Psychiatric Hospital (encompassing four months of interviews and photgraphy in 2004), and a feature on the gravediggers at the cemetery of Najaf during the August-September siege of 2004. She often writes as well as photographs her stories. Her photographs and stories from Iraq have been published in The Daily Mail of London, Washington Post, Boston Globe; The Walrus Magazine, Expresso (Portugal), Newsweek, The Times of London, Expresso (Italy), Outpost, The Globe and Mail, Colors Magazine, and Maclean's.

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

Born in Baghdad, Iraq, 1975. Ghaith studied architecture in Baghdad University and had never traveled outside Iraq until after the recent war. A deserter from Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army, Ghaith lived under ground in Baghdad for six years, changing his residence every few months to avoid detection and arrest.

He began making street photography in 2001 and determined to document conditions in Baghdad during the war. Ghaith’s stories and photographs appear in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, The Times (London), and others.