The woman grabbed Zell Allred with such gusto, wrapping both arms about her shoulders and kissing her squarely on the cheek, that she nearly lost her balance.

The hug was unrestrained, comfortable and loving — not at all reminiscent of the feelings Allred had fostered toward Iraq since she welcomed her son home from the desert country in an American-flag-draped casket. The woman hugging her was Iraqi — the people her son had died to help — and yet, for some odd reason, Allred felt compelled, watching mascara ink its way down this stranger's cheeks, to tell her, abruptly, "I love you."

"It's just, you know, my son loved these people," said the 56-year-old Highland Park mother, dabbing away tears of her own. "I didn't understand before. I didn't see them. I didn't know. But now I see why and I love them too."

"I love you" seemed the phrase of the hour, Friday, as Allred, along with six other Utah women who have lost sons to the Iraq war, mingled with 10 Iraqi women leaders, including the former minister of state for women's affairs.

The Iraqi delegation came to Utah with the non-profit F.U.T.U.R.E., which stands for Families United Toward Universal Respect, to study business, humanitarian aid and the organizational structure of the Relief Society of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Since last Sunday, they'd been whisked from meeting to meeting, quilting at the American Fork Humanitarian Project, taking classes at Salt Lake Community College and conversing with government officials. On Friday afternoon the Iraqi women met with the American Gold Star Mothers.

"I think as women, we should be a tool for peace," said Azhar Abdul Karem Al-Shakly, former Iraqi minister of state for women affairs. "This is the first step."

The two groups of women — Iraqi and American — seemed wary of one another at first. Preferring to chat with familiar faces as they dished up their eclairs and blew the steam off their tea.

Colleen Parkin, a bubbly blonde from West Valley, dressed patriotically in a star-spangled denim jacket, broke the unseen barrier when she stood, unceremoniously, and began to cry as she related her son's death on the battlefield.

"I thought I'd cried everything out," she said, pressing her hand to her chest, where a portrait of her son hung in a locket. "I guess I'm wrong again."

Suddenly, political tensions seemed beside the point.

Noha N.S. Ahmad Al-Agha, a leader in Iraqi humanitarian aid, sprang out of her chair, pulling Parkin in for a hug. Another Iraqi woman fumbled for tissues.