On 1 March 2003, tensions were running high at United Nations headquarters in midtown Manhattan. Opposition to a US-led invasion of Iraq stiffened when, despite chief weapons inspector Hans Blix's report of “significant progress” toward achieving Iraqi compliance with UN Resolution 1441, the Bush Administration modified its demands (Barringer and Sanger 2003; Tyler 2003). Speaking at a morning press briefing, White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer announced that war could be prevented only if Iraq disarmed and Saddam Hussein stepped down from power. Prior to the announcement, regime change was never a formal US foreign policy objective. Now, all that had changed. The announcement sent shockwaves through an anxious and increasingly acrimonious diplomatic community. As members of the world body assembled in an effort to avoid rupturing already strained international relations, a group of high school and college students gathered in a cramped television studio on Manhattan's Lower East Side to take part in another historic discussion.

From the second story of a landmark firehouse that is home to Downtown Community Television (DCTV), young New Yorkers spoke via satellite with a group of Iraqi youth meeting at the Orfali Art Gallery in Baghdad.