Newly emboldened Iraqis are revealing to the few reporters left in Baghdad that they see America's military action as their moment of liberation. "Many, many Iraqis are telling us now – not always in the whispers we only heard in the past, but now in quite candid conversations – that they are waiting for America to come and bring them liberty," said New York Times reporter John Burns in an interview from Baghdad on the PBS News Hour last night.
"Along with all of this apprehension," said Burns, "Americans should know that there also is a good deal of anticipation. Iraqis have suffered beyond, I think, the common understanding in the United States from the repression of the past 30 years."
PBS's Gwen Ifill asked Burns to clarify: "They are actually eagerly anticipating war?"
"It's very hard for anybody to understand this," he said. "It can only be understood in terms of the depth of repression here."