Posted on 04/09/2006 5:06:22 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
IRAQ today marked the third anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, with hundreds of Shiites expressing joy at the ouster of the former dictator while the former Sunni elite denounced the presence of US-led foreign troops in the country.
Shiites rallying in the capital took a huge poster of Saddam emblazoned with the words "fall of the tyrant" and trampled on it repeatedly, in memory of the toppling of the former ruler's statue in a Baghdad square on April 9, 2003.
Chanting slogans in favour of embattled Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the demonstrators also marked the anniversary of the assassination of Shiite cleric Mohammed Baqr Sadr, slain under Saddam's old regime.
But Sunni Arabs, the once powerful elite under Saddam, denounced the presence of foreign troops in Iraq, which is mired in sectarian violence, anti-US attacks and hostage-takings.
The Iraqi Islamic Party, the principal Sunni faction, said the US-led invasion of Iraq had made the country a "victim of disaster".
The leading Sunni religious body, the Muslim Scholars Association, also said "the occupation has brought destruction" to Iraq.
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