Certainly!
U.S. Marines Rip Down Saddam Portraits
SAFWAN, Iraq - U.S. Marines hauled down giant street portraits of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in a screeching pop of metal and bolts Friday, telling nervous residents of this southern Iraqi town that "Saddam is done."
Milling crowds of men and boys watched as the Marines attached ropes on the front of their Jeeps to one portrait and then backed up, peeling the Iraqi leader's black-and-white metal image off a frame. Some locals briefly joined Maj. David "Bull" Gurfein in a new cheer.
"Iraqis! Iraqis! Iraqis!" Gurfein yelled, pumping his fist in the air.
"We wanted to send a message that Saddam is done," said Gurfein, a New York native in the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. "People are scared to show a lot of emotion. That's why we wanted to show them this time we're here, and Saddam is done."
The Marines arrived in Safwan, just across the Kuwait border, after Cobra attack helicopters, attack jets, tanks, 155 mm howitzers and sharpshooters cleared the way along Route 80, the main road into Iraq (news - web sites).
Safwan, 375 miles south of Baghdad, is a poor, dirty, wrecked town pocked by shrapnel from the last Gulf war (news - web sites). Iraqi forces in the area sporadically fired mortars and guns for hours Thursday and Friday. Most townspeople hid, although residents brought forth a wounded little girl, her palm bleeding after the new fighting. Another man said his wife was shot in the leg by the Americans. [unlike saddam our troops will nurse his wife back to health. Love the way AP slips that in the story.]
A few men and boys ventured out, putting makeshift white flags on their pickup trucks or waving white T-shirts out truck windows.
"Americans very good," Ali Khemy said. "Iraq wants to be free."
Some chanted, "Ameriki! Ameriki!"
Many others in the starving town just patted their stomachs and raised their hands, begging for food.
A man identifying himself only as Abdullah welcomed the arrival of the U.S. troops: "Saddam Hussein is no good. Saddam Hussein a butcher."
An old woman shrouded in black — one of the very few women outside — knelt toward the feet of Americans, embracing an American woman. A younger man with her pulled her away, giving her a warning sign by sliding his finger across his throat.
In 1991, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died after prematurely celebrating what they believed was their liberation from Saddam after the Gulf War. Some even pulled down a few pictures of Saddam then — only to be killed by Iraqi forces.
Gurfein playfully traded pats with a disabled man and turned down a dinner invitation from townspeople.
"Friend, friend," he told them in Arabic learned in the first Gulf War.
"We stopped in Kuwait that time," he said. "We were all ready to come up there then, and we never did."
The townspeople seemed grateful this time.
"No Saddam Hussein!" one young man in headscarf told Gurfein. "Bush!" Link
A U.S. marine standing on his military vehicule drives past a portrait of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in Safwan, southern Iraq (news - web sites), Friday, March 21, 2003. Allied troops were advancing through the deserts of southern Iraq Friday after launching the war's ground assault, meeting resistance from Iraqi forces in some areas and soldiers surrendering in others. (AP Photo/Laurent Rebours)
Is he or isn't he?ABCNEWS has learned that witnesses at the site of a Baghdad suburban residential complex on Wednesday night have told U.S. intelligence officials that Saddam was observed being taken from the bombed complex on a stretcher, with an oxygen mask over his face.
U.S. intelligence sources also said there had been an important lack of communication from the Iraqi leader to his government and military structure since the bombing.
The report came amid doubts about whether a speech broadcast on Iraqi television shortly after the war began on Wednesday (ET), was made by a double. Saddam is known to have several doubles as a security measure.
Reports of Saddam's injury came amid dramatic gains by U.S. and British troops rolling towards the Iraqi capital of Baghdad and the strategic southern city of Basra. U.S.-led coalition forces in southern Iraq today encountered hundreds of surrendering Iraqis and some resistance from the Iraqi military.
U.S. Marines encountered armed resistance as they seized the strategic southern Iraqi port town of Umm Qasr. The American flag and the flag of the U.S. Marines was briefly raised over the strategic southern port, according to the BBC's Adam Mynott, who is embedded with a Marine unit. More
HLL, you can see a video of the Iraqi getting water from the solider at the link.
"Americans very good," Ali Khemy said. "Iraq wants to be free." Kind of a goosebump moment! Good morning, all. Good luck to Stewart in the second round! Hope you're feeling better soon, Granny. I almost hate to post this morning's usual roundup of news tidbits, but who can resist the marvelously oblivious Elizabeth Taylor?
"The thought sickens me beyond belief," she told us. "I was a refugee when I came to this country because of World War II. I listened to the radio all the time and thought, 'Why don't the Americans do something?' Now I think, 'What the [bleep] are the Americans doing by saying [to Saddam], 'Pack up your bags, mount a camel and get out of town!' What if someone said that to Bush? You don't think [terrorists] are going to retaliate? You don't think they're going to bomb the s--- out of us? It's going to be terrifying."
Hey Liz, they already started bombing us. Remember the WTC in 1993 and 2001, the embassies, the USS Cole? What a ditz. But she's not alone. Roy Scheider, desperately in need of publicity, has done his bit for peace:
JOWLY "Jaws" star Roy Scheider staged a silly peace protest in the Hamptons the other day, lying down in the middle of Montauk Highway pretending to be a casualty of war. Scheider, who lives in the Hamptons year-round, headed up a contingent of 75 peaceniks who staged a mock funeral procession down the middle of Route 27 in Sagaponack Tuesday morning, causing a brief traffic jam but mostly confusion in the resort community, where the off-season is usually uneventful.
Scheider and friends dressed in all black and carried white coffins bearing anti-war slogans, led by a veiled woman cradling a folded American flag. Then someone played "Taps" while they lay down "dead" beside their caskets, causing a 45-minute traffic jam. "This war is insane," Scheider told the Southampton Press about his actions. "Bush is doing everything he can to make you look unpatriotic if you disagree with him. This is fear-mongering. Now I am really afraid of terrorism. I wasn't before [Bush's address]."
.... Some motorists offered their own protest. One man yelled at Scheider to "Get out of the road, hippie!" while others shouted "Remember 9/11!" and "If you don't like it here, move to Iraq!" Page Six
Meanwhile ...
WHILE President Bush was on TV announcing the first missile strikes on Iraq Wednesday night, his predecessor Bill Clinton was having drinks with Whoopi Goldberg and other friends at the Hudson Hotel. Clinton and company considered going to the Hudson penthouse to watch coverage of Bush's address on the TV there, but he opted to stay in the cozy confines of the hotel's Library Bar, spending much of the time talking excitedly on his cell phone.
I guess that's why they call them, well, "call girls."