BOB GARFIELD: The mind of a young person, especially one confronting war, can be hard to fathom. On March 1st, just weeks before the bombing began in Baghdad, the organization called Chat the Planet and the New York-based community media arts center DCTV teamed up to film a dialogue between Iraqi teens and their American counterparts. The resulting program, Bridge to Baghdad: A Youth Conversation, is a mix of life discussion and pre-recorded interviews with an array of Iraqi youth like Eminem-aficionado Saif and heavy metal rocker Walid. We see them going through their daily rounds, hanging out with friends and experiencing a healthy dose of teenage angst. The dialogue covers not only typical teen topics like music and dating but also the politics of war.

WOMAN: Would you like if I come with, with an army and force you to kick Bush off? Will you like this? This is up to us. [APPLAUSE, CHEERS]

WOMAN: I actually agree it would be a good idea for them to come in and get rid of Bush but-- [LAUGHTER]

BOB GARFIELD: If you missed the show, that's not surprising. Since the taping, its producers have struggled to find a major TV outlet that will air it. But finding a national broadcaster is just the latest of many challenges says executive producer John Alpert. Getting around the Iraqi ministry of information was another problem. But ultimately the Iraqi government did not choose the Iraqi students who were featured.

JON ALPERT: We found them ourselves, and when we went to do their little biographical portraits with ouir video cameras we tried not to have the baby-sitters with us; if the baby-sitters were along, we kept them occupied. We have diversionary tactics. I don't know if I should reveal all of my techniques here on the radio, but--

BOB GARFIELD: Now give us a little taste.

JON ALPERT:We, we, we would keep the minders pre-occupied, sitting on a couch someplace with some tasty sodas and candies while we went off with the kids and-- talked to them out of ear shot and out of visibility.

BOB GARFIELD: And did anyone in the Iraqi government see your tape?

JON ALPERT:There were some people from the government who were as the dialogue was being taped, and they saw us send these biographical portraits via satellite. But they couldn't alter the content. It was happening live and there wasn't anything they could do about it!

BOB GARFIELD: And did you see steam coming out of their ears or fear in their eyes?

JON ALPERT:No, not particularly. They did not like the part where Walid showed us his bathroom. They're not a very rich family; and the bathroom basically is a hole in the ground. I think they would have liked to have presented something with higher quality plumbing.

BOB GARFIELD:Well, you mentioned Walid, and you mentioned the bathroom -- so let's play a clip from Bridge to Baghdad and you'll hear what one peek into Iraqi family life sounds like.

WALID: This is my favorite place in the house, and it's called the bathroom. I used to [LAUGHS] - write my lyrics in the bathroom. You know it's inspired me to get on nasty words. And every time when I get in here, you know, my mother used to do this. [BANGING ON DOOR] Please shut up the [BLEEP] up. Hey, you know -- I'm facing a hard life. [LAUGHTER] But-- I can handle this.

BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS] Okay, that was Walid. He was your big find, I believe. A very outspoken young man. Tell me about Walid.

JON ALPERT: Walid almost seems like he's an American suburban kid, disenchanted but trapped in Iraqi body. He learned how to speak English by listening to heavy metal lyrics, so his vocabulary is a little bit twisted and has a band called The Black Scorpions.

BOB GARFIELD: Maybe the worst band ever assembled. Like just, just for--

JON ALPERT: Oh-- Oh, please--

BOB GARFIELD: -- just for grins let's listen to a bit of Black Scorpion. [LAUGHTER] [CLIP PLAYS OF BAND BLACK SCORPION]

WALID: And we're gonna rock you out, and we're gonna rock every bone in your body - so-- [DRUMS/GUITAR]

WALID: [SINGING] Hoy! Hoy! Hoy! Hoy! Hoy! Grrrrrrrrrr Haaaaah! [LAUGHTER]

JON ALPERT: Well Bob I kind of give, I kind of give that a, an 8 - it has a very good dance beat-- [LAUGHTER]

BOB GARFIELD:Yeah, you know what-- it calls to mind Glenn Miller to me. So-- you had difficulty getting this on television, and one of the reasons cited by several of the cable channels and broadcast networks was that they were afraid that the Iraqi students would be mouthpieces for the Saddam Hussein regime.

JON ALPERT: Well, I don't know Bob. I - I think that anybody who saw the tape didn't say that. Our biggest problem in getting this broadcast was the lock-step mentality of all the networks counting down to war, and once George Bush declared that there were 48 hours to the war, they didn't want to see anything else except generals analyzing the battlefield, the aircraft carriers, they, they really weren't interested in seeing real Iraqi people.

BOB GARFIELD:All right, well fair enough but-- you entered this as sort of a girl with a reputation, did you not? You had run into difficulties earlier in your career; in fact, during the first Gulf War with the perception that you were somehow an apologist for the Iraqis. Do you want to briefly tell me how that came to pass?

JON ALPERT: I don't think anybody ever thought I was an apologist to the Iraqis. I initially was hailed as a hero because I was the only reporter able to beat Iraqi censorship and to be able to show during the first Gulf War that the smart bombs weren't as smart as we were being told. Saddam Hussein also was telling the same fib; he was saying there's no civilian damage. You can bomb us and we can take it. It was a lie, and we proved it was a lie. I snuck those tapes out of the country in my sock; brought them to NBC. Tom Brokaw looked at this --this was supposed to be the lead story of NBC News, and 3 hours before the broadcast not a journalist but the head of NBC News canceled the program and fired me. We took these tapes to CBS. The executive producer of the CBS Evening News looked at this and said this is amazing; people need to know about this; I will broadcast this tomorrow night on CBS. And at 2 o'clock in the morning he got a phone call and he was fired.

BOB GARFIELD:Let's get back to the dialogue in your documentary between Iraqi students and American students. In this clip they talked about movies and politics.

JON ALPERT: I was wondering where you get your sources for American history.

WOMAN:We are too interested in American movies. I think it shows your-- you know, normal life; ordinary life. Don't you think that it's a good source to know about you?

JON ALPERT: Movies-- [LAUGHTER] often do not portray normal American life to be honest with you.

JON ALPERT: What do you think about the proposed alternative to war which is a, a strengthened inspection process?

WALID: We have a solution; your government will quit and give up because we don't have anyone biologic weapons and just turn the soldiers back home and have a rest and-- let the world be in peace.

JON ALPERT: How are things resolved within the government when there are differences of opinion?

WOMAN: We, like, change the subject a bit. Do you like sports? Any of you--? Do you -- you do anything. I mean--

WOMAN: I go dancing a lot -- it's great.

BOB GARFIELD:How frightened do you think the Iraqi students were of-- the consequences of what they may say to you and to the American public?

JON ALPERT: I thought that they showed some degree of courage because they knew that there would be sensitive questions asked. I thought that some of the answers were candid and some of the answers like this one any intelligent listener can read between the line and realize it's something they don't want to talk about.

BOB GARFIELD:I saw some of the conversation among the young people as-- I would say intermittently interesting. A little stilted; a little predictable. Not entirely illuminating on a question by question basis. But in its entirety it was a most affecting broadcast because it really enabled you to see these people as people.

JON ALPERT: I think that is the major point of what we were trying to do, and if you felt that way, I'm flattered, and I think we did our job. The only thing we failed to do was we failed to get it seen by as many people as should have seen it, and I don't know whether this was one of the reasons why we had difficulty getting this broadcast but everybody who watched that tape changed their minds about how they felt about the Iraqis. We had kids on the panel without initially were pro-war, and we had one of these kids come in to us after he had talked to the Iraqis and he said you know - I can't sleep. I wake up and I see their faces, and I can't sleep. We have to try to come up with a way of dealing with the situation besides bombing them. The kids who are against the war had actually been going out to some anti-war protests, and the Iraqis thanked them and said we really appreciate you supporting our government and supporting Saddam. And they said wait a minute -- we, we don't support Saddam! We are against the war! And, and they become quite troubled. It really changed the minds of everybody who participated in the dialogue.

BOB GARFIELD:Gradually you are getting it on television, at least in bits and pieces. You've been on Good Morning America and MTV; you've aired on public television in New York. Are there any prospects for this as the war proceeds to get a wider audience?

JON ALPERT: Lot of the networks are now saying that the events of the war have passed this story by and the bombs are falling and it's too late. But I don't think it's ever too late to really see the people on the other side of the conflict and to get to know them. If you forget about the people - if they're de-humanized, you know all you see are the flags waving as the missiles take off from the aircraft carrier and the big maps and the general's talking about it -- that's not the complete picture and that's a dangerous situation.

BOB GARFIELD:Let's just for a moment visit another one of the Iraqi students. His name is Saif, and he's from a fairly well to do family, and he himself has a car. [OUTDOORS AMBIENCE]

SAIF: I bought this car from my own money. This is one of my favorite music shop. [SPEAKS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE] I like Eminem. This-- his album - his new album. I like it very much. I'm Slim Shaddy. [PLAYS EMINEM SONG]

EMINIM: [RAPPING] YO. YO. [MUSIC] HAVE YOU EVER BEEN HATED OR HAS DISCRIMINATED AGAINST? I HAVE.

BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS] Well he is not in fact slim; he's a kind of heavyset young man and very, very charming and very sweet. Have you been in touch with him and the other students since the war began?

JON ALPERT: Yeah, we managed to get a hold of Saif the day after the bombs started to fall. He was really excited to talk to us, but he started to cry, and he said "I'm scared. I'm scared. I'm so scared." He, he is, he is quite shaken. Walid, the heavy metal rocker-- sort of is pretending like give me a cruise missile -I'll eat it for breakfast. Nothing's going to bother me. And we talked to one other person - Heva -- she said that nothing has happened to her neighborhood. The rest of the kids we don't know what happened to them. A lot of people, just before the bombing started, tried to get out of Baghdad and-- maybe they succeeded.

BOB GARFIELD: Well John Alpert, thank you very much.

JON ALPERT: Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it.

BOB GARFIELD:John Alpert is the director of the community media arts center DCTV in New York and executive producer of Bridge to Baghdad: A Youth Conversation. [THEME MUSIC] That's it for this week's show. On the Media was produced by Janeen Price, Katya Rogers and Megan Ryan with Tony Field; engineered by Dylan Keefe and Rob Christiansen, and edited--by Brooke. We had help from Brian Tilley. Our webmaster is Amy Pearl.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:Arun Rath is our senior producer and Dean Cappello our executive producer. Bassist/composer Ben Allison wrote our theme. This is On the Media from NPR. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield.