This article is still being recycled by Reuters, AP, and Sports Illustrated. I wonder if the reporter who elicited these anti-Bush comments was trained by the SI reporter who interviewed John Rocker, the Atlanta braves pitcher, a few years ago?
ABC Online
Iraq soccer players slam Bush over campaign ad - Athens Olympics 2004 - ABC Sport.
[This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/sport/content/200408/s1181861.htm]
Iraq soccer players slam Bush over campaign ad
Last Updated: Saturday, August 21, 2004. 6:34am (AEST)
Iraq's soccer players have slammed United States President George W Bush over his decision to use their Olympic campaign in a campaign ad, but a spokesman for the Iraqi Olympic Committee has accused journalists of setting up the "naive" athletes.
Iraqi footballers reacted furiously when told of the ad and called on Bush to stop using them to win votes.
"Iraq as a team does not want Mr Bush to use us for the presidential campaign," midfielder Salih Sadir was quoted as saying by Sports Illustrated magazine.
"He can find another way to advertise himself."
However, the Iraqi delegation accused journalists of deliberately provoking an angry response from their players.
"Our purpose is not to politicise the football team in any way," Mark Clark, a consultant for the Iraqi Olympic Committee, told Reuters. "It seems the story was engineered."
The flags of Iraq and Afghanistan appear in the Bush commercial which is running ahead of the Republican convention later this month. Bush is seeking re-election in November.
A narrator says: "At this Olympics there will be two more free nations - and two fewer terrorist regimes."
Asked to comment, another Iraqi player asked: "How will (Bush) meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women? He has committed so many crimes."
But Clark insisted journalists were wrong to take advantage of the athletes.
"It is a little naughty," he said. "The players are not very sophisticated politically, they are a little naive. Whoever posed these questions knew that the reaction would be negative.
"It is possible something was lost in translation. It's a free, new Iraq and the players are entitled to their opinions but we are disappointed."
Iraq's footballers once lived in fear of Uday Hussein, son of toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, who used to beat the soles of their feet or throw them in prison for slip-ups on the pitch.
Under current coach Adnan Hamd, they have defied the odds to reach the quarter-finals at the Athens Olympics, where they will play Australia on Saturday night.
Hamd was quoted as saying: "The American army has killed so many people in Iraq. What is freedom when I go to the stadium and there are shootings on the road?"
Clark expressed hope that Iraq could play on without further political waves.
"Any success we ... have here could be beneficial in the broader picture," he said. "But we are here to play football."
--Reuters