What Iraqi exiles think

I was born on 5 April 1980. That day Saddam's 'amn arrived at our family home and rounded up my extended family. We were later driven by army trucks to the Iranian border. As Shias, we were being persecuted for our religion - my aunts and uncles used to frequent mosques.

We nearly lost my mother on our journey into Iran. She was hemorrhaging heavily. We eventually made it into Iran's refugee camps, where we were reunited with my father who had been detained separately.

My aunt, her husband, her two year old daughter and one of my uncles were also detained. My aunt was raped, soaked with fuel along with her young daughter and set afire in front of her husband. He soon followed the same fate. As for my uncle, we are unsure of his whereabouts.

We spent several months in Iran, nearly six years in Syria, six years in Greece, before moving to Canada in the early 1990s. We struggled to find a country that welcomed refugees. After eight years in Canada, I moved to the UK to enter university in 1999.

I still have a great number of family members in Iraq. We have been told that many in Baghdad say they are willing to be collateral damage as long as Saddam is overthrown. There is no realistic method of removing Saddam apart from military intervention.

Sama Hadad, 23, Medical student, St George's Hospital

My parents lived in Baghdad; my father, a member of the Shia opposition, was an electrical engineer and my mother a Math teacher. One night 22 years ago, the 'amn came to arrest my father and my pregnant mother, but neither was at home. My father fled to Iran and my mother to Northern Iraq, not knowing if they'd ever see each other again. While in hiding my mother gave birth to me. A year later, by sheer coincidence, my parents found each other. My mother learnt that Saddam's regime had executed her sister, two brothers and her baby niece. My father continued to actively oppose the regime from Iran, but was always fearful of what the regime would do to his family in Iraq. He never communicated with his family, afraid to reveal a link between him and them.

In 1987 we came to the UK. My father still works for the opposition. I now study medicine at Imperial College where I have set up the Iraqi Society.

This war will not be like the last Gulf War. The US plans to rule Iraq so perhaps the infrastructure will largely remain intact. There are signs that Saddam's army will not fight for him because it is not loyalty but fear that drives them. With a weakened Saddam, the people of Iraq will rise up against the regime. But will the US allow genuine democracy to be established - a government of the people, by the people, for the people?

Yasser Alaskary, 22, Medical Student, Imperial College, London