Jennings: “There’s Not a Good Deal for
Iraqis to Be Happy About”
Putting a damper on any happiness by Iraqis about Saddam Hussein’s capture, during ABC’s prime time special on Sunday night, Peter Jennings declared that “there’s not a good deal for Iraqis to be happy about at the moment. Life is still very chaotic, beset by violence in many cases, huge shortages. In some respects, Iraqis keep telling us life is not as stable for them as it was when Saddam Hussein was in power.”
Earlier, Jennings, who spent the day flying to New York from Los Angeles, opened Sunday’s World News Tonight by emphasizing how Hussein had once been a U.S. ally: “After ten months hunting him, in the end the man who has gone from American ally to American nemesis, surrendered without a fight.”
During ABC’s 8pm EST special, Saddam Hussein: Captured, Martin Seemungal in Baghdad relayed how many Iraqis were joyous at learning of Hussein’s capture, but others were more muted. He suggested a reason why: “This muted response is really shock, that he went down without a fight. In fact, some people are that while they’re happy he was captured, they’re disappointed because they’re disappointed that the man who terrorized them for so many years went down without a fight. They feel cheated. They’re essentially saying that it would have been much better, they would have been happier to see him fight because it would have justified the fear that they had for him for these so many years.”
Without explaining his personal contact with Iraqis during the day, Jennings asserted: “On the other hand Martin, as people have suggested to us today, there’s not a good deal for Iraqis to be happy about at the moment. Life is still very chaotic, beset by violence in many cases, huge shortages. In some respects, Iraqis keep telling us life is not as stable for them as it was when Saddam Hussein was in power. Is that a factor today?”
Seemungal agreed that many suffer from power outages and water shortages, but see Hussein’s capture as a turning point for things getting better.
It’s stability over freedom for Jennings.
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