re: saddam not mad-his son is
Local Iraqis support U.S. ousting Saddam Expatriates say a war must be for right reason -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Peter Smith [email protected] The Courier-Journal
Related Story • Historian looks at factors in '91 revolts
Rahim Abbas, the imam (spiritual leader) of the Al-Zaharah Islamic Education Center in Jefferson County, said he spent 10 years in an Iraqi prison because he opposed Saddam Hussein. If a war with Iraq is "just to invade and kill people, even the American people won't accept it,'' Abbas said. But people will support a war "to give freedom to Iraqi people and get the dictator away.'' Here he is shown during evening prayers at the mosque.
For Heider Al-Zaidi, a television news report on weapons inspections in Iraq brings back memories of a brief period of freedom he and others experienced from the oppression of Saddam Hussein in early 1991.
In February of that year, an American-led coalition ejected Saddam's army from Kuwait. In the chaos that followed -- and in answer to U.S. President George Bush's call to oust the Iraqi leader -- citizens launched rebellions in southern and northern Iraq, including in Al-Zaidi's city, Al Diwaniya.
''This was really like a dream,'' said AlZaidi, who was a teen-age college student at the time and recalls people saying, ''Oh, Saddam Hussein is gone.''
''Then you wake from your dream,'' said Al-Zaidi, who is now an assistant case manager for refugees at Catholic Charities in Louisville. ''It was like a nightmare.''
They are the lesser-known veterans of the Persian Gulf War, opponents of Saddam who now -- as the prospect of a new war with Iraq grows more likely -- are working in local warehouses, on construction sites, at restaurants and on other jobs.
In recent interviews about their role in the earlier rebellions, some claim direct involvement, while others were merely supporters of it -- or observers who got caught in the fighting.
Some wanted to take up guns and fight Saddam, said Salah AlHindawy, owner of Babylon Arabian Restaurant in Louisville's South End and now an American citizen. But as the Iraqi army's helicopters and tanks came in, he said, ''Most people just go ahead and leave.''
All those interviewed said Saddam's Republican Guard heavily bombed rebel cities -- accounts backed by other military histories and human-rights reports.
And while most Muslims oppose a U.S.-led war on Iraq, saying it would hurt Iraqis and destabilize other Muslim nations, Iraqis in Louisville said they support President George W. Bush's push for military action.
''The devil has more mercy'' than Saddam, said Abdul Amir, an engineer who said that when he fled his native city of Najaf in 1991, he had to run through streets that were strewn with the body parts of victims of shelling.
The local Iraqis caution, however, that any attack must not be merely an oil war, but a move to finally oust Saddam, whom they blame for decades of war, repression and international sanctions.
''It's a good idea to kick Saddam Hussein out, and we support that,'' said Al-Hindawy. ''But if the idea is to get into Iraq and use Iraq because (it's) got a lot of oil, that's not the way we should treat other countries.'' Thaiaa Al-Derawi said he spent four years in a desert refugee camp in Saudi Arabia. Derawi, who works in a food warehouse, has since brought his wife here, and they have a 13-month-old daughter. He sends money to relatives back home but can't talk freely with them by phone because he is certain Iraqi secret police are listening: "I can say nothing about the government,'' he said.
A sense U.S. let them down
Al-Zaidi said that under the right circumstances, he would not only support a war but would fight in it if he could.
''If the United States goes after Saddam Hussein, I'm going. I mean, now, I go.''
Like many Iraqis, his opposition to Saddam's regime stems from his childhood, when, he said, he and his classmates were marched out to watch executions of political prisoners.
''We used to hear about how the United States have animal rights, but we are human, we don't have rights'' in Iraq, he said.
Iraqis here said they believed the elder President Bush was talking to them on Feb. 15, 1991, when he called on ''the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands to force Saddam Hussein the dictator to step aside.''
But once the American-led coalition drove the Iraqi army out of Kuwait, it called a cease-fire and stood by while Saddam's loyalists crushed the revolts.
Local Iraqis said they felt let down by the Americans. But ''it appears the United States is serious'' this time, said Rahim Abbas, the spiritual leader of the AlZaharah Islamic Education Center, a Shiite Muslim mosque in southern Jefferson County.
Abbas and about 10 other worshippers talked with a reporter recently after evening prayers.
If the impending war is ''just to invade and kill people, even the American people won't accept it,'' Abbas said in Arabic as Amir interpreted. ''Nobody will accept it.''
But Abbas, who said he spent 10 years as a political prisoner in Iraq, said people would support a war ''to give freedom to Iraqi people and get the dictator away.''
Jihaad Abdul-Majid, an Americanborn Muslim who participates at the Al-Zaharah mosque, said he also would support a war.
''I knew some of (Saddam's) tendencies before, but never as I do from hearing it from'' Iraqis at the mosque, said Abdul-Majid, a University of Louisville student. ''It's a shame that all the things that have happened since 1991 could have possibly have been prevented when the people had the uprising.''
i'm sure the 4 million other Iraqi refugees deeply appreciate the anti war protestors for their humanitarian contribution to peace..........
