Through rain, snow, sleet, dead of night, but not to Iraq

Albany Democrat-Herald, Tuesday, June 24, 2003 Last modified Friday, June 13, 2003 1:41 PM PDT By Jennifer Rouse

When Roger Hawthorne of Albany went to the post office to mail a letter to Iraq last week, he was hoping to make a connection.

"We always just hear about what the government is doing in Iraq," he said. "I'd like to know how I can help specific local people over there. I'd like to be able to close my eyes and see a person, not a mass of people."

He thought he had a good chance of making a personal connection, because through his church he had obtained the address of the National Protestant Evangelical Church in Mosul. So he was dismayed when he went to mail the letter and learned that the U.S. Postal Service has discontinued all mail service to Iraq.

"It's important to me that the people of Iraq know that the people of America care about them," Hawthorne said. "I don't understand why we can't get the mail through."

According to the U.S. Postal Service Web site, mail in Iraq has been suspended since April 7. That doesn't affect mail to military personnel staying at military bases and camps, just Iraqi citizens. According to the site, the post was suspended due to the war and there "being no viable option for postal deliveries to that country."

Any mail for Iraq that gets to the post office will be returned to the sender with a note explaining the suspension of the mail service.

Private companies like UPS and Fed-Ex have not delivered to Iraq in years because of the United Nations' trade embargo. Roger House, a window technician at the Albany Post Office, said until the ban is lifted, it's better for everyone if people just wait to send their mail.

"When there is an uprising in a certain country, if someone here sends a letter, it might just get destroyed, not delivered," House said.

Iraq is not the only country with postal restrictions. Mail to Afghanistan is restricted to "airmail letter post-items, including post cards, postal cards, and aerogrammes, weighing a maximum of four pounds," the Web site says.

Other countries that currently have postal restrictions include Cuba, Guinea Bissau, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, North Korea, Somalia and Venezuela. More information about the restrictions is available online at www.usps.com.

Hawthorne has written to Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., and he's hoping that things will change soon.

He doesn't see why the government can't at least truck a load of mail in to be distributed on a will-call basis once a month. A retired pastor in Hawthorne's church, Dick Cochran of Albany, was a missionary in Mosul in the 1950s. Two young men Cochran worked with back then are now elders at the Mosul Presbyterian church, and Hawthorne was hoping to get in touch with them and find out how people here could help people there.

"I think something neat could come out of it," he said. "I'd like the people of Iraq of all faiths to know that we care. It just doesn't seem like it should be that complicated to get some mail through."