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BUSH IS ‘JUST AS BAD AS SADDAM’
While President George W. Bush drew applause in America for his plans to destroy the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, in Baghdad yesterday there were only jeers and scoffs.
“Bah. These are just gestures that mean nothing,” said Zaineb Hamid, a 30-year-old typist.
“Anyway they can just build another jail if they want. Saddam and Bush: they are one and the same.”
Bayan Kubeysi, a professor of Arab literature, said: “Abu Ghraib is not the issue. The issue is the way the Americans treat us Iraqis. They must leave at once and that’s it. Anything is better than this.”
If six months ago many educated Iraqis still wanted the American troops to stay, today that support has withered to almost nil. Dhaher Sadoon, 35, who runs a furniture shop in the smart Mansour suburb of Baghdad, is typical of the middle-class Baghdadi who has turned against them. “The situation here is ground zero,” he said. “There is no security, no life. The Americans simply look after themselves. If they leave, there will be chaos but there is chaos anyway. I would prefer to take my chances as a citizen of a free country. Saddam humiliated us but he never went this far.”
In his speech to the US Army War College, Mr. Bush said the destruction of Abu Ghraib would be “a lifting symbol of Iraq’s new beginning.” But Hamid al-Bayati, the deputy foreign Minister, said the decision was not one for Mr. Bush to take. It should be left to the new interim government which takes over on June 30, he said.
The reasons for the growing hatred of the Americans are not difficult to fathom. Since they took over, Baghdad has become a virtual war zone. Explosions rock the city day and night. There are shootings, roadside bombs and banditry is rife. The military’s reply has been to erect miles of barbed wire and concrete barricades, block major bridges and close dozens of important roads. Many Iraqis are forced to spend hours queuing at US-manned checkpoints in the baking sun. The main motorway to Basra has been requisitioned for sole US military use, forcing locals to make a long detour through bandit-infested towns.
With each attack against westerners, new security measures are enforced.
The so-called Green Zone – where ordinary Iraqis are not allowed – is now far larger than any of the restricted areas Saddam Hussein inflicted on his people.
Meanwhile stories are legion of undisciplined shooting and bullying of locals. Scores of cars have been crushed by US armour.
Falah Jassan Hassim, 37, a co-owner of an outside billiard bar favoured by students, said: “If we don’t move our cars quickly enough they smash our windscreens.”
Ahmed Hussein, 27, was selling petrol in dirty plastic canisters near Freedom Square, where the Americans famously toppled Saddam Hussein’s statue. “They helped us to get rid of Saddam,” he said. “But now they must go. Every action they take provokes people further. If they leave, things will be more peaceful.”
A restaurant manager in central Baghdad said: “We have got to the end of the movie only to find out that Saddam was the son of the Americans all along.”
By Julius Strauss,
May 26, 2004
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