Posted on 07/31/2003 5:52:32 PM PDT by PhiKapMom
With the President on his way to Crawford and the Congress getting ready to adjourn for the August recess, we are going to change Countdown for the next week to provide you the In Focus Reports from the White House. These Reports will give you a perspective of where the President stands on the various issues and allow you to defend the President from attacks that are coming from the Democrats and their friends in the media.
Please keep calling talk radio and sending your letters to the editor of your local newspapers using these In Focus Reports as background! The link below is a great resource to use to find media outlets across the Country!
Operation Iraqi Freedom - A White House Special Report
News accounts are painting vivid pictures of the joy and relief of free Iraqis, who are living without fear of Saddam's brutality and beginning to enjoy freedoms unknown for decades. These voices have been silenced for too long, but now they are heard inside Iraq and around the world. For more personal stories of life under Saddam, visit Tales of Saddam’s Brutality.
“It brings us to the future, this train.”
Mohsin al Naif, watching the first train pull into Rabiyah in over a year, Associated Press, 7/31/03
“Their textbooks were filled with Hussein's regime as well: Math texts substituted S and H for the variables X and Y, reading comprehension paragraphs discussed ‘Zionist aggression’ and using oil as a political weapon, and other exercises promoted joining the Popular Army as an everyday activity such as buying a music cassette or acting in a play. … That is changing, as Iraqi teachers and parents team up with U.S. and international organizations to root the former Iraqi dictator out of textbooks and replace militaristic rote learning in Iraqi classrooms.”
Chicago Tribune, 7/31/03
“We didn’t believe these things, but we had to say them. Saddam was there in all the books, even the math books.”
Ghada Jassen, a fifth grade teacher in Iraq, Chicago Tribune, 7/31/03
“We don’t want patriotic education anymore. Nothing about war. We want flowers and springtime in the texts, not rifles and tanks.”
Dunia Nabel, a teacher in Baghdad, Chicago Tribune, 7/31/03
“Long live great Iraq!”
Iraqi students, who are no longer required to salute Saddam at the beginning of class, shouting their new salute, Chicago Tribune, 7/31/03
“We want to have a real education, to be a progressive country. Education is very important to the reconstruction of our society. If you want to civilize society, you must care about education.”
Al Sa’ad Majid al Musowi, a businessman on Baghdad’s city council, Chicago Tribune, 7/31/03
“This is where all the money went—all our money went. I am astonished and angry.”
Salih Fadhil, viewing Saddam’s palace in Tikrit, The Daily Telegraph (London), 7/31/03
“It just reminded me of how powerful Saddam was.”
Mudhfar Awad, after seeing Saddam’s palace in Tikrit, The Daily Telegraph (London), 7/31/03
“Water is returning to the Mesopotamian marshlands, turned into salt-encrusted desert by Saddam Hussein.”
The Christian Science Monitor, 7/31/03
“The return of water had an immediate effect on the people [the Marsh Arabs in Iraq] whom the war had freed. They are fishing again from boats that had not floated for years. Water seems to hold the promise of reviving an old way of life.”
The Christian Science Monitor, 7/31/03
“We have full freedom to print anything we want. The coalition doesn’t interfere in our work but, of course, we have our own red lines.” Ishtar el Yassiri, editor of the new satirical Iraqi newspaper Habez Bouz,
Financial Times (London), 7/31/03
“Volleys of Kalashnikov gunfire erupted above the dusty village of Haush al- Jinoub in southern Iraq. Children and weeping women thronged around the bus as it drew to a halt. Out stepped Thabed Mansour, frail and weary after 12 years of exile, for an overwhelmingly emotional reunion with his wife and family. Mr Mansour was one of 244 men who returned to their native country yesterday in the first formal repatriation of Iraqi refugees since the war ended.”
The Times (London), 7/31/03
“It is like the soul coming back to the body.”
Ibrahim Abdullah, a refugee returning to Iraq, The Times (London), 7/31/03
“Since Iraq’s liberation, the dominant theme of Western news reporting has been the guerrilla attacks against U.S. troops. The focus obscures a larger truth: Life is returning to normal in Iraq—better than normal, actually, because this ‘normal’ is Saddam-free. All of the country's universities and health clinics have reopened, as have 90 percent of schools. Iraq is now producing 3.4 gigawatts of electric power—85 percent of the pre-war level.”
National Post (Canada) commentary, 7/29/03
“The tension is reducing every day. We are seeing a change. People are starting to realize that the soldiers are not here to occupy Fallujah forever—they’re here to help us rebuild.”
Taha Bedawi, mayor of Fallujah, The Washington Post, 7/29/03
“It’s a chance to defend our country for our people. It’s good to work with the American soldiers. They give us new training and a mutual respect.”
Omar Abdullah, a recruit for Mosul’s newly formed joint security group, Associated Press, 7/29/03
“I want to serve a new Iraq.”
Shevin Majid, a former Kurdish fighter who is now a recruit in the Mosul joint security force, Associated Press, 7/29/03
“We’re happy, we’re rid of Saddam Hussein; the torture and executions of 35 years are over. We should wait to see what the Americans will do.”
Ahmed Abdel-Sahib, in Najaf, The Washington Post, 7/28/03
“Most Iraqis aren’t worried we’ll stay too long; they’re petrified we’ll leave too soon.”
Paul Gigot, The Wall Street Journal, 7/28/03
“There is a certain harmony. But you can not rebuild a city or country—a country destroyed by war—in one month.”
Mohammed Tahar al-Abid Rabu, a member of the Mosul city council, Agence France Presse, 7/28/03
“More and more businessmen are coming to Iraq. It is a rich country and the Iraqi market is enormous. All the world wants to come and do business here.”
Captain Adel Khalaf, director of the port at Umm Qasr, Agence France Presse, 7/27/03
“For the first time I feel really free.” R Latif Yahia, Uday’s former double, after hearing of Uday’s death, Agence France Presse, 7/26/03
“The Iraqi people have got rid of two of the biggest criminals in history. Their victims and the sons of their victims, who lived for 35 years under oppression, are feeling proud and happy.”
Muwaffak al-Rubaiei, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, Agence France Presse and Reuters, 7/25/03
“We are more free nowadays. My father gave me the full freedom to marry whom I choose.”
Raina Nuri, a woman in Baghdad, Christian Science Monitor, 7/25/03
“We heard about Uday and Qusay being killed and, frankly, we are happy.”
Fadil Abbas, in the Sadr City suburb of Baghdad, Associated Press, 7/24/03
“We felt better after the regime fell, now we are really happy—we have been freed from our nightmare.”
Alaa’ Kathem, an Iraqi soccer player who had been punished for losing games, Financial Times (London), 7/24/03
“If it’s really him, we will be so very happy. We will be able to start a new regime of Olympic sport in Iraq. OK, he’s gone. We start a new life.”
Jaffer al-Muthafer, an Iraqi soccer player, Los Angeles Times, 7/24/03
“Iraq is now free from torture. Free from Uday.”
Amu Baba, a legendary soccer star in Iraq, Los Angeles Times, 7/24/03
“We feel safer now because we used to hear lots of stories about girls. We were so afraid to go out in case Uday saw us.”
Farrah, a 15-year-old Iraqi girl, Newsday (New York), 7/24/03
“My father died because of Saddam. I don’t want to speak about the reasons. But I was so happy. I was at home when I saw it on the TV. I woke up my aunts and told them the good news. I used to hate those guys so much and so I felt so at ease in my heart.”
Osama Zaid, a distant cousin of Uday, after learning of Uday’s death, Newsday (New York), 7/24/03 “
On July 4, some shops and private homes in various parts of Iraq, including the Kurdish areas and cities in the Shiite heartland, put up the star-spangled flag as a show of gratitude to the United States.”
National Post (Canada), 7/22/03
“Mobile phones rang Tuesday morning, ushering in the cellular era for Iraqis long deprived of the latest in information technology during their isolation under the fallen strongman Saddam Hussein.”
Agence France Presse, 7/22/03
“Thanks to them [the U.S. army] the security is good. Without them, people would be killing each other.”
Abdul Wahed Mohsen, in Iraq, Los Angeles Times, 7/22/03
“Even the blind can see what Saddam Hussein did, taking Iraq into so many wars and doing little even for this town, no sports club, no decent hotels.”
Wail al-Ali, Tikrit’s new mayor, The Guardian, 7/22/03
“Also, some 85 percent of primary and secondary schools and all but two of the nation's universities have reopened with a full turnout of pupils and teachers. The difference is that there no longer are any mukahebrat (secret police) agents roaming the campuses and sitting at the back of classrooms to make sure lecturers and students do not discuss forbidden topics. Nor are the students required to start every day with a solemn oath of allegiance to the dictator.”
National Post (Canada), 7/22/03
“A stroll in the open-air book markets of the Rashid Street reveals that thousands of books, blacklisted and banned under Saddam Hussein, are now available for sale. Among the banned authors were almost all of Iraq's best writers and poets whom many young Iraqis are discovering for the first time. Stalls, offering video and audiotapes for sale, are appearing in Baghdad and other major cities, again giving Iraqis access to a forbidden cultural universe.”
National Post (Canada), 7/22/03
“We don’t know who are those people who say that. They are outlaws. They just want to make problems.”
Abdul Wahed Mohsen, on anti-U.S. sloganeering in Iraq, Los Angeles Times, 7/22/03
For more great quotes, please CLICK HERE!
The Iraqi people talk about mass graves and Saddam’s crimes against humanity
Excerpts below:
"Now, 12 years later, Mr. Shaati cannot remember if the women and children beside him screamed as the bullets hit, or whether the men in the hole moaned as they died. He only recalls a moment of hollow silence when the soldiers stopped shooting. Then came the throaty rumble of a backhoe and the thud of wet earth dropping on bodies. He survived but saw hundreds of other innocents buried in another of Saddam Hussein's anonymous mass graves."
-- The New York Times, June 2, 2003
"The soldiers took them out in groups of 100 to 150 people. When his time came, Mr. Shaati was ordered to remove his T-shirt and rip it into strips that were tied over his eyes and around his hands. The prisoners were herded onto a bus, everyone holding on with their teeth to the shirt of the person in front of them. When they arrived at a field - Mr. Shaati is still not sure where - their grave had already been prepared. 'They led us down an incline into a wide long hole,' he said. 'It was quiet. No one fell or even cried. I was positioned very close to the corner, maybe second or third from the wall. Then they started shooting. Somehow I wasn't hit. By then, I guess, they didn't go to the trouble of shooting all of us.' After the grave was covered, Mr. Shaati, alive but choking on dirt, wormed his way out of the ditch. He punched through the earthen blanket with his head, and worked himself free of the cloth straps. Gulping the cold night air, he knew that all his soldierly ideas about honor and country counted for nothing."
-- The New York Times, June 2, 2003
Click Here to Read More Unspeakable Acts: Mass Murder
She spent one year being moved from prison to torture center to prison and back. Her tormenters would hang her from a hook in the ceiling by her arms, which were bound behind her back. Sometimes they added electric shocks. Sometimes they beat her on the soles of her feet until they were engorged with blood and her toenails fell off. She was 25. "'I was lucky that I became like a dead body,' she said. 'I didn't know what was going on around me. There was no water, no bathroom. The only food was two big pots they brought in, one with dirty rice and one of soup. You had to fight for it. If you were strong and healthy, you'd get food. If you were weak, you'd wait.' "After the torture came the sham trial, then a sentence to spend her life at Rashad women's prison, a maze of unheated cells where the sewage would float from the one toilet down the corridors and seep onto the women's rough mattresses."
-- The New York Times, June 2, 2003
"First they broke his right arm with a pipe. Then they punctured his right eardrum with a skewer. And then they tried to break his right leg with a bat. But when the X-rays that Uday Hussein demanded as proof of their efficiency showed in fact they had not broken Tariq Abdul Whab's leg, his captors took him back to prison where someone smashed his right leg with such ferocity that his toe hit his kneecap. Mr. Whab received all this treatment simply because Uday thought the sports television reporter was being disloyal to him by talking to soccer players he didn't like."
-- The Vancouver Sun, May 3, 2003
Click Here to Read More Unspeakable Acts: Torture
"Uday's physical ailments seemed to heighten his sadistic tendencies. According to his chief bodyguard, when Uday learned that one of his close comrades, who knew of his many misdeeds, was planning to leave Iraq, he invited him to his 37th-birthday party and had him arrested. An eyewitness at the prison where the man was held says members of the Fedayeen grabbed his tongue with pliers and sliced it off with a scalpel so he could not talk. A maid who cleaned one of Uday's houses says she once saw him lop off the ear of one of his guards and then use a welder's torch on his face."
-- Time, May 25, 2003
Click Here to Read More Unspeakable Acts: Mutilation
"'I am one of millions who have been tortured,' said 33-year-old Ali Khadem Al Essery, whose knuckles were smashed with a club while he was being interrogated in 1994. Everyone here knows someone who was tortured, and many victims see a bleak future without a measure of justice exacted on the torturers."
-- Newsday, April 21, 2003
Click Here to Read: Pervasive Fear
"Clawing through the dirt, Abdelhassan al-Mohani collected his brother bone by bone. He knelt in a hole at the edge of a cemetery near the village of Muhammad Sakran, just outside Baghdad. The faded writing on a plastic armband in the grave told him this was his brother, Abdelhussein. Mr. Mohani held the skull and gently brushed the dirt from the eye socket. Then he wept.
"Abdelhussein had disappeared on his way to work in Baghdad on Jan. 23, 1981. His family never heard a word from the government, but eventually they drew the obvious conclusion: as a Shiite, he must have been arrested in the Islamic Dawa Party roundup."
-- The New York Times, June 2, 2003
Click Here to Read The Disappeared: Living with the Terror
"His mother tried to keep him close, but her hands were tied and she could not hold the children. They all stumbled into the ready-made grave. 'They were shooting at us, but I didn't get hit,' Mr. Husseini said. 'I was lying on top of my mother. Then someone came down in the hole and dragged me up by my collar and yelled, "Shoot this kid!" I was pretending to be dead. And they started shooting at me again, but still I didn't get hit. Then the shovel came.' He felt himself being lifted with the dirt and dropped once again into the hole. 'I rolled myself to the edge and then to a place where there were reeds and water and the reeds were all sticking in my face,' he recalled. 'My body wasn't covered with the dirt, just my head. I could breath but I didn't move. A man came to check and was standing over the hole where everyone was buried and he called to the shovel driver, "Come and cover this kid." But the driver, maybe he didn't hear, because he didn't come.'"
-- The New York Times, June 1, 2003
Click Here to Read The Children: No Iraqi Too Small
"Abas Rahim, a speedy 24-year-old left wing for Police, is one of Iraq's finest players. After returning home from 1997 Junior World Cup qualifying matches in South Korea, Rahim was jailed for 21 days. He was the team captain, as well as the tournament's most valuable player, and he was punished for the team's failure.
"Five years later, after trying to quit the team, Rahim missed a crucial penalty kick against the Union Club in Qatar. He was held captive in Hussein's Republican Palace for seven days, he recalled, blindfolded the entire time. Today, he played unafraid."
-- The Washington Post, May 17, 2003
Click Here to Read The Athletes: A High Price for Defeat
"Her most disturbing memory is of the time she felt nothing but her own pain. After the beatings and electric shocks, Suriya Abdel Khader would find herself once again in the fetid cell, a room so crowded that most prisoners could only stand. The women died upright, then slumped to the floor, but Ms. Abdel Khader remembers registering only a dull flash of annoyance whenever that happened. 'Get this body out of the way,' she would think to herself. 'It's taking up room.' She was imprisoned, she believes, because her four brothers had been arrested in Mr. Hussein's blanket crackdown on Shiites suspected of supporting Iran or the Islamic Dawa Party."
-- The New York Times, June 2, 2003
Click Here to Read Unimaginable Places
Past Repression and Atrocities by Saddam Hussein's Regime
For over 20 years, the greatest threat to Iraqis has been Saddam Hussein's regime -- he has killed, tortured, raped and terrorized the Iraqi people and his neighbors for over two decades.
When Iraq is free, past crimes against humanity and war crimes committed against Iraqis, will be accounted for, in a post-conflict Iraqi-led process. The United States, members of the coalition and international community will work with the Iraqi people to build a strong and credible judicial process to address these abuses.
Under Saddam's regime many hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result of his actions - the vast majority of them Muslims.
According to a 2001 Amnesty International report, "victims of torture in Iraq are subjected to a wide range of forms of torture, including the gouging out of eyes, severe beatings and electric shocks... some victims have died as a result and many have been left with permanent physical and psychological damage."
Saddam has had approximately 40 of his own relatives murdered.
Allegations of prostitution used to intimidate opponents of the regime, have been used by the regime to justify the barbaric beheading of women.
Documented chemical attacks by the regime, from 1983 to 1988, resulted in some 30,000 Iraqi and Iranian deaths. Human Rights Watch estimates that Saddam's 1987-1988 campaign of terror against the Kurds killed at least 50,000 and possibly as many as 100,000 Kurds. The Iraqi regime used chemical agents to include mustard gas and nerve agents in attacks against at least 40 Kurdish villages between 1987-1988. The largest was the attack on Halabja which resulted in approximately 5,000 deaths. o 2,000 Kurdish villages were destroyed during the campaign of terror.
Iraq's 13 million Shi'a Muslims, the majority of Iraq's population of approximately 22 million, face severe restrictions on their religious practice, including a ban on communal Friday prayer, and restriction on funeral processions.
Click Here for more Details about Life Under Saddam Hussein
Dr. Condoleezza Rice Interviewed by Jim Lehrer , July 30, 2003
Q The President's defense of National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice today came at a critical time. A week ago, her chief deputy, Stephen Hadley, acknowledged he had been warned by the CIA in two separate memos that the Agency would not stand by information suggesting Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program. That claim made it into the President's State of the Union speech, and CIA Director George Tenet took the blame.
But with Hadley's admission, new questions emerged. If he knew about the error in advance, who else did? Was it overlooked simply because the administration was anxious to bolster the case for war?
Here to answer these, and other, questions, is National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
Welcome, Dr. Rice.
DR. RICE: Thank you, nice to be with you.
Q So the first question becomes the ones I just posed. Did you know, or should you have known that the information that went into the President's State of the Union speech regarding the purchase, or the efforts to purchase uranium in Niger, or from Africa, another country in Africa -- did you know that that information was not correct?
DR. RICE: When the line was put into the President's State of the Union address and cleared by the Central Intelligence Agency, when I read the line, I thought it was completely credible and that, in fact, it was backed by the Agency. What happened here is that we're really talking about two different processes. The State of the Union was put together, the speech went out for clearance. But the speech that the President had given in Cincinnati in October had also been sent out for clearance and --
Q That's the speech where he made the case for war?
DR. RICE: Well, this is one of the speeches in which he made the case for war. And in that speech, a line had been there about the uranium issue and Saddam Hussein seeking uranium in Africa. And Director Tenet had called Steve Hadley and he told him, in no specifics, he told him, I don't think you should put that in the President's speech because we don't want to make the President his own fact witness. Both Steve and Director Tenet remember the conversation in that way. What we learned later, and I did not know at the time and certainly did not know until just before Steve Hadley went out to say what he said last week, was that the Director had also sent over to the White House a set of clearance comments that explained why he wanted this out of the speech. I can tell you, I either didn't see the memo, I don't remember seeing the memo -- the fact is, it was a set of clearance comments, it was three-and-a-half months before the State of the Union. And we're going to try to have a process now in which we don't have to depend on people's memories to link what was taken out of the speech in Cincinnati with what was put into the speech at the State of the Union.
Click Here for COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT
Bush give thumb's up and uplifting radio message.
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