Iraq. bad moon rising
The nightmare begins, Robert Fisk
Indeed, more and more Iraqis were saying before Saddam’s capture that the one reason they would not join the resistance to US occupation was the fear that – if the Americans withdrew – Saddam would return to power. Now that fear has been taken away. So the nightmare is over – and the nightmare is about to begin. For both the Iraqis and for us.
In a move that seems certain to outrage the US administration, one of the Pope’s most senior officials yesterday expressed “pity” and “compassion” for Saddam Hussein, and warned that his capture might do more harm than good.
The Pope was fiercely critical of the Iraq war, which he repeatedly described as a “defeat for humanity”.
From Baghdad Burning
Today there were pro-America demonstrations in Baghdad organized by SCIRI and there were anti-America demonstrations in Tikrit, Falloojeh, Samirreh (where 11 Iraqis were killed- CPA claim they were ‘insurgents’), Baghdad, Imsayab and the biggest one was in Mosul. Thousands of students from the University of Mosul took to the streets with an anti-occupation demonstration and some of the residents joined them…
Political analysts and professors in Iraq think that Saddam’s capture is going to unite resistance efforts, as one of them put it, “People are now free to fight for their country’s sovereignty and not Saddam.”
Saddam’s total recall: the story of another american crony-dictator recalled to the factory
The irony of it all is that this is the man who was also lauded in the West during the 1980s as a great modernizer and the father of modern Iraq. The fact that he was also a strategic ally of the United States of America and helped to contain the so-called “threat” of Iran has also been conveniently forgotten.
DJ Mitchell comments in email
Bush said yesterday that Saddam Hussein would be accorded POW status. Isn’t it a violation of the Geneva Convention to televize pictures of POWs? I seem to recall an outcry in Washington when Iraq televised pictures of U.S. POWs.
Tanker explodes on Baghdad road
A fuel tanker explosion has killed 10 and wounded 15 at a busy crossroads in Baghdad, Iraq’s interior ministry says.