Meeting of Iraqi Minds Prompts Tumult

By John Burnett

Published April 19, 2003 at 12:00 AM EDT

Iraqi intellectuals, persecuted for decades, meet for the first time since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime. The gathering at the University of Baghdad was called to form a committee on Iraqi cultural life. But it quickly devolved into a raucous, free-wheeling debate. NPR's John Burnett reports.

John Burnett

As NPR's Southwest correspondent based in Austin, Texas, John Burnett covers immigration, border affairs, Texas news and other national assignments. In 2018, 2019 and again in 2020, he won national Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio-Television News Directors Association for continuing coverage of the immigration beat. In 2020, Burnett along with other NPR journalists, were finalists for a duPont-Columbia Award for their coverage of the Trump Administration's Remain in Mexico program. In December 2018, Burnett was invited to participate in a workshop on Refugees, Immigration and Border Security in Western Europe, sponsored by the RIAS Berlin Commission.

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