Michael Otterman and Dr Richard Hil presented a human portrait of the Iraqi Diaspora as told by those who experienced it first-hand: Iraqis themselves. The presentation gave first hand accounts of Iraqi immigrants visited by Otterman and Hil in both Sweden and Syria. In February 2008, Otterman visited Syria and Jordan to speak with Iraqi refugees about their lives before, during and after the 2003 US-led invasion. Richard Hil recently returned from Sweden where he interviewed members of one of the world's largest Iraqi exile community outside the Middle East. Otterman and Hil recounted the real world experiences of many of the Iraqis they met, plus contextualized the current five-million-plus Iraqi refugee crisis with relevant history of the conflict. New York-native, Michael Otterman, is a visiting scholar at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney and author. Dr Richard Hil is Senior Lecturer in the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Southern Cross University, Australia and author.