Out of Iraq: A Love Story

They're all against gays.

They'll do anything to to destroy them,

to kill them,

to torture them.

- The Middle East has a huge humanitarian crisis.

If no countries are accepting refugees,

a lot more people will end up killed in their home countries

when they're trying to flee.

- Ramadi was the most dangerous area in the world.

I never thought I'm gonna find love

in this place.

Since I was born, I always know I'm gay.

I'm different.

My family is more open

from other Iraqi families,

but not, of course, about gays or straights.

In Saddam time,

if two gays have sex together,

they put them in jail for 15 years.

Or the tribe and the families,

they don't want people talking bad about them,

so they make them run away to get the shame out.

I don't want to shame my family.

So when I was in high school,

I start to go to the mosque.

I start to pray,

and I start to change how I talk.

I want to be so manly.

I want to be like other people

or better than them.

I change a lot of myself.

My father, he asked me to buy cigarettes for him.

And I told him, with Arabic dialect,

I'm not gonna buy the cigarettes for you,

because it's a poison,

and it's gonna poison you and gonna kill you.

And he was like, "Are you crazy?"

because the way--how I talked with him.

And I was wearing--I was wearing, like,

a--like, a shemagh.

And he say to my youngest brother,

"I don't know what's going on with your brother."

The way how I walk in and sit like it,

like--it was, like, funny,

if I remember it now.

But in that time, I was very serious.

I was like, "Yes, that's the new Nayyef now."

And that last maybe two weeks.

This is not me.

So I need to explore,

try to find gay life.

In 1997, I get accepted by Baghdad University,

in fine art college.

There was a lot of students.

They come from Jordan, from Libya, from Yemen,

from Lebanon.

So in that time, I meet a lot of other gay guys,

and I felt like,

"Oh, my God, this is the heaven for me."

I start wearing different clothes,

like skinny jeans.

I start doing stuff with my hair, you know,

start wearing my contacts.

And I was having my first relationship

with other guy.

So the gays back in Baghdad, we still have same problem.

Even if it's a more open area,

two guys together, they're gonna put you in jail.

The funny is, if there's two guys

holding hand each other,

that's normal between two straight guys.

They just friends.

When the Americans come to Iraq,

they think all the guys are gay.

I never hold friends' hands,

because I'm really gay.

- My fellow citizens, at this hour,

American and coalition forces

are in the early stages of military operations

to disarm Iraq, to free its people,

and to defend the world from grave danger.

- 2003, after I graduate, the war start.

American troops come inside Baghdad.

We never thought Saddam will be gone.

All my life, I know how powerful he is.

It's like the walls have ears.

They can hear you, even if you talk with yourself.

So we don't believe it's happening.

I moved back to the South, and I was looking for a job.

Two friends start working as translators with Americans,

with the Dutch, with the British.

They give them $5 every week.

$5--it's enough for me the whole week.

I was looking to them,

and I just wish talk with someone English,

so I can test my English.

And I start talk with some foot patrol,

and I told them about my background.

I was in the college.

And he say, "Okay, just come tomorrow,"

and I start.

They give me a chance.

They're not kick me out--"Oh, you know what?

You're not speaking English very well, so just go."

They start teaching me,

and I start learning military things.

A friend of mine went to Ramadi.

He said, "They pay you,

in a month, $1,200."

This was a big step for me,

and I decide to go there in 2004.

They take us by big convoy to Ramadi,

protect with guns and armor cars.

We'd move in the night,

so the terrorists, they could not see us.

The trip was six hours

between Baghdad and Ramadi.

We didn't know what's in the way.

You heard about the IED bombs

all the time,

so I was very, very scared.

And next morning, the commander for the translators

says, "We're here helping the soldiers

to clear the city from the terrorists."

- Throw the grenade in the bunker.

- They start training me--shooting, run, fight.

They give me American uniform, they give me a weapon,

and I looked like one of the American troops.

I have a nickname.

I not give my real name.

My name was David.

Americans teach us this for our protection.

Because we're teaching the Iraqi new army,

we don't know if Iraqi soldiers work with the terrorists.

And we find, actually,

some of them was a spy for the terrorists.

- The most dangerous part of Iraq remains the region west

of Baghdad, especially the city of Ramadi.

- Half the total number of U.S. servicemen

killed in Iraq during March

gave their lives in Ramadi,

now the last great stronghold of the Iraqi insurgency.

- Grueling fighting continued today in Ramadi.

The U.S. military says it appears

some of these enemy fighters

are foreigners who possibly entered Iraq from Syria.

In the first week I'm there,

there is a tower--a watching tower

and a cam--and two soldier Iraqis was there.

They get shot by a sniper.

And I heard all the soldiers.

They start screaming.

- Fire over there! It's locked in!

Target!

- They find out where the shot come from.

It's a normal family building.

The sniper make a hole in the window,

and he was shooting us from the family.

Watch that building!

- That's when I realized how dangerous Ramadi is.

People give us names.

And those names work with the terrorists,

or they have weapons.

They kick the door when people sleeping.

- Get the up! - Get up!

- Put it down! You--put 'em down.

- Get him back! -

- Get--get the down! Go!

- They all scared, they all scream, kids cry,

and I have to talk with them.

I try to do my best

to tell the family everything will be fine.

They say, "What are you guys doing?

It's wrong. You guys are gonna kill us."

And if one of the names we find,

we have to handcuff him and take him with us.

- You're going to jail tonight for a very long time.

- Which is make all the girls screaming loudly.

They try to hold him.

I have, as translator,

to tell the Americans

what I feel about this person--if he say the truth

or he's lying.

And I have to deal with this.

It's so difficult to judge people.

And what about if my feeling is wrong,

and he's a good guy?

What about if I think he's a good guy,

but he's not?

To be in the military

is not easy,

because I have to deal with weapons,

and I have to see dead bodies.

I see thousands of them. I don't want to see them.

I don't want to see blood.

I don't want to see knives

or anything period--any human.

I'm an artist. I like to make people feel good.

When they see flowers, when they see

beautiful, colorful painting--that's how--