'Hey, hey George Bush and Tony Blair, well done'

The Daily Telegraph ^ | April 10, 2003 | Damien McElroy and Julius Strauss

[MadIvan]

The streets of the Kurdish capital, Erbil, filled with American, Iraqi and Kurdish flags yesterday as tens of thousands took to the street to celebrate the demise of the regime.

Kurdish Iraqis celebrate in the northern Iraqi town of Arbil

"Saddam, the criminal, the murderer, the savage, wild animal is gone," shouted a widow, Fauziya Ali, 45. "The black criminal, perpetrator of Halabja, is dead," she said.

Halabja, a town that bore the brunt of Saddam Hussein's genocidal attempt to quell the Kurds with nerve agents and chemical weapons, is foremost among the reasons that the Kurdish people hunger for the death of the dictator.

It was not a day to dwell on the past or concentrate on the future, simply to revel in the glorious present: the moment of liberation appeared to have arrived.

Young men rode through town on motorcycles, banging drums. Men walked up to foreigners presenting daisies to strangers, offering a hand of friendship and a kiss on the cheek in gratitude.

"Hey, Hey George Bush and Tony Blair, well done," came the roar of the crowd at the foot of Erbil's Citadel. On bus windows a cartoon was pasted of Saddam falling into the dustbin of history.

"Saddam Hussein is dead," said a television actor, Tahar Jahan. "We need not worry that he will use chemical weapons against us ever again."

The northern strongholds of Saddam remain hostile territory, however, and as long as that remains the case and the dictator is not known to have died, the potential for one last atrocity remains. Mosul and Kirkuk, oil-rich and densely populated, lie just outside the Kurdish autonomous region which broke free from Baghdad's rule in 1991 after British and American intervention.

As word spread that Baghdad had erupted against the dictatorship, an elderly electrician in Shekhan, the biggest town to be liberated so far in the north of Iraq proper, explained what it meant to be free from the shadow of Saddam for the first time in 30 years.

"I can speak what is in my heart," said Ismail Bir Elais, 65. "The Ba'ath Party agents have fled, the spies are gone, there is no one left in Shekhan to stop me saying whatever I believe."

In the hills of central Kurdistan, where Saddam shipped off and massacred up to 180,000 men during the Anfal campaigns of the Eighties, there was joy and relief.

Aziz Jabar Abdullah, 30, a shepherd, stood in a field aiming a Kalashnikov assault rifle at a wood pigeon 30 yards away. He said: "When I heard that the Americans were in Baghdad and that Chemical Ali was dead I felt a great wave of happiness.

"We've waited for this for a long, long time. I lost four of my brothers to Saddam's executioners. Now finally we can seek the bodies of our dead relatives."

Kawar Rashid Hamashallah, 32, another shepherd, was the only member of his family to survive. The day the soldiers came he was in Kirkuk selling sheep at market. He said: "I lost my father, mother and all my brothers and sisters. When I came back that day even the house was no longer standing. Saddam's downfall has been what we have prayed for for years."

[MadIvan]

Share this with a leftist you loathe.

Regards, Ivan

[MadIvan]

Bump!

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[Puppage]

The entire world applauds you both!

[alnick]

The entire world applauds you both!

Except for that one guy in the front row wearing the blue jacket. ;-)

[OldFriend]

Thank you american military. Thank you British military. Thank you Australian military and thank you Spanish military too.

[Mo1]

"Hey, Hey George Bush and Tony Blair, well done," came the roar of the crowd at the foot of Erbil's Citadel.

Thanks for the ping Ivan

Whatever happens in the future .. One thing I do know and that is Tony Blair, George Bush, Jose Aznar will go down in history as being leaders that stood stong and did the right thing

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

What?! No praise, no nice gestures, no purple flowers for Jacques Chirac and Gerhardt Schroeder?? What bad manners...

[spitz]

Don't forget Prime Minister John Howard in Australia and Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller.

[Mo1]

Yes .. you are so right

Thank you for correcting my mistake

[Libertina]

He said: "I lost my father, mother and all my brothers and sisters. When I came back that day even the house was no longer standing. Saddam's downfall has been what we have prayed for for years."
May these people finally have peace and freedom.

[Lady In Blue]

ping

[Scenic Sounds]

"Share this with a leftist"

Bush-Blair have been quite a team.

Interesting alliance!

[ladyinred]

I keep thinking of those exiled Iraqis who were at the DC rally that was broadcast on CSPAN with the DC freepers. They can finally go home now!!! I am so happy for them!

[American Soldier]

I think Japan has committed to sending peacekeepers... If there's something they know, it's rapid development. That's going to be just as important to the Iraqi people as liberation.

(I have to say this; I missed the war but am hoping to get in on the rebuilding. Fingers crossed.)

[VOA]

I just say thanks to the Coalition.
Even the countries that step up with humanitarian/peacekeeping (Japan, South Korea)
and probably others deserve thanks.

Absolutely the opposite of what France, Germany and teh Axis of Weasels should get.

[Byron_the_Aussie]

[OldFriend]

Japan needs to get it's defenses well ordered. Can't let NK think they'll have a cakewalk if they decide to invade SK.

[blackie]

Bush, Blair ... Bump For Good Guys!

[Deb]

Good one, Byron.