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There are places in the world that the power goes out in hospitals, and there isn't clean water, and it's horrific.

Before our kids start coming home from Iraq in body bags and women and children start dying in Baghdad, I need to know, what did Iraq do to us?

I couldn't imagine not having clean water.

If one's memories of Baghdad women were only of those to be seen in the streets, they would be of leathery, wrinkled faces, prematurely old, figures which have lost all shape, and henna-stained hands crinkled and deformed by toil.

Some countries have more water than others - some can afford to use clean water to flush their poop away, and some can't.

In 2009, I traveled to South Sudan with my organization PSI. While there, I visited a local school and met with a group of children who had formed a water club. The group learned about how to treat their drinking water and use proper hygiene practices, such as washing their hands before eating or after going to the bathroom.

All of a sudden their husband's dead and maybe a child is dead and they have absolutely nothing - and they're heading through the desert at night.

More than a billion people lack adequate access to clean water.

When I first arrived in Baghdad in January 2003, I thought I would soon rent a house and envisioned myself swimming in the Tigris to cool off after reporting in the city the caliphs called Madinit al-Salam, the City of Peace. A year later, I realized I wouldn't be taking any midnight dips - Madinat al-Salam no more.

They're not even within 100 miles of Baghdad. They are not in any place. They hold no place in Iraq. This is an illusion... they are trying to sell to the others an illusion.