verte76
Blue Crack Addict
This was on my ISP's news. These people seem like ordinary Iraqis. They don't hate Americans and are not members of any anti-American militia. They're just frustrated and who can blame them?
Rid of Saddam Sons, Iraqis Want Better Life
Updated 10:27 AM ET July 26, 2003
By Miral Fahmy
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqis said on Saturday they were grateful to the United States for ridding them of Saddam Hussein's dreaded sons but now wanted their occupiers to provide the power, water and security they really crave.
Hordes of Iraqis crowded round newspaper stalls in Baghdad for a first look at gruesome pictures of Uday and Qusay Hussein under banner headlines proclaiming their death.
But hardly anyone bought a paper, a testament to the poverty of most Iraqis after years of war, dictatorship and sanctions.
"We've got to thank the Americans for killing Uday and Qusay, but where is the electricity and water they promised us?" taxi driver Abdel Latif Fazzaa asked.
"Getting Saddam and his sons is good for them, but it's done little to better our lives."
On Baghdad's busy Saadoun Street, Iraqis swapped tales of atrocities wrought by the hated sons while gazing at the pictures of their battered faces with morbid fascination.
One man recounted to a rapt audience how Uday, a notorious rapist, had drunkenly snatched a bride on her wedding night to return her to her groom three days later.
But talk soon turned to the power, water and security lapses that frustrate Iraqis living under a U.S.-led administration.
The mass-circulation Azzaman daily, in a front-page report, said Iraqis had celebrated the deaths of the two brothers after seeing their pictures in the press and on television.
But newspaper seller Zeidan Hatem said he only caught a few minutes of the footage of Uday and Qusay's reconstructed faces on an Arabic satellite channel in a nearby cafe before the electricity cut.
Satellite television, banned under Saddam, remains a luxury to most Iraqis dogged by unemployment and meager wages.
"It's them for sure, but it would have been nice if we could have been able to see them for a bit longer," he said. "We've not had power in my house for days now and the food in the fridge has already gone bad."
Iraq's infrastructure, which was already failing under 12 years of U.N. sanctions and neglect, was damaged during the U.S.-led war and the rampant looting that followed.
Gunbattles still ring out in the capital at night and rare is the Iraqi who does not have a horror story to tell about life after Saddam. Some say the Americans are doing such a shoddy job that they long for their deposed leader to return.
Two men shovelling sand at a building site said they had only heard about Uday and Qusay's death in a U.S. raid on Tuesday from their friends, but did not have the time or the resources to read newspapers of watch the news.
"Some people say the bodies look like Uday and Qusay and others say they don't," one sweat-drenched labourer said. "If they really are dead, God will deal with them, but who will deal with us?"
Rid of Saddam Sons, Iraqis Want Better Life
Updated 10:27 AM ET July 26, 2003
By Miral Fahmy
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqis said on Saturday they were grateful to the United States for ridding them of Saddam Hussein's dreaded sons but now wanted their occupiers to provide the power, water and security they really crave.
Hordes of Iraqis crowded round newspaper stalls in Baghdad for a first look at gruesome pictures of Uday and Qusay Hussein under banner headlines proclaiming their death.
But hardly anyone bought a paper, a testament to the poverty of most Iraqis after years of war, dictatorship and sanctions.
"We've got to thank the Americans for killing Uday and Qusay, but where is the electricity and water they promised us?" taxi driver Abdel Latif Fazzaa asked.
"Getting Saddam and his sons is good for them, but it's done little to better our lives."
On Baghdad's busy Saadoun Street, Iraqis swapped tales of atrocities wrought by the hated sons while gazing at the pictures of their battered faces with morbid fascination.
One man recounted to a rapt audience how Uday, a notorious rapist, had drunkenly snatched a bride on her wedding night to return her to her groom three days later.
But talk soon turned to the power, water and security lapses that frustrate Iraqis living under a U.S.-led administration.
The mass-circulation Azzaman daily, in a front-page report, said Iraqis had celebrated the deaths of the two brothers after seeing their pictures in the press and on television.
But newspaper seller Zeidan Hatem said he only caught a few minutes of the footage of Uday and Qusay's reconstructed faces on an Arabic satellite channel in a nearby cafe before the electricity cut.
Satellite television, banned under Saddam, remains a luxury to most Iraqis dogged by unemployment and meager wages.
"It's them for sure, but it would have been nice if we could have been able to see them for a bit longer," he said. "We've not had power in my house for days now and the food in the fridge has already gone bad."
Iraq's infrastructure, which was already failing under 12 years of U.N. sanctions and neglect, was damaged during the U.S.-led war and the rampant looting that followed.
Gunbattles still ring out in the capital at night and rare is the Iraqi who does not have a horror story to tell about life after Saddam. Some say the Americans are doing such a shoddy job that they long for their deposed leader to return.
Two men shovelling sand at a building site said they had only heard about Uday and Qusay's death in a U.S. raid on Tuesday from their friends, but did not have the time or the resources to read newspapers of watch the news.
"Some people say the bodies look like Uday and Qusay and others say they don't," one sweat-drenched labourer said. "If they really are dead, God will deal with them, but who will deal with us?"
