Iraqis are throwing flowers and kisses at their liberators, and not from bunkers:
The New York Times reports from Qalat Sukkar on Khuder al-Emiri, a onetime resistance fighter who fled Iraq in 1991 and returned yesterday as a translator for the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit:
Word of Mr. Emiri's arrival spread through town by way of children's feet. Their hero was with the Americans and the crowd believed the marines' intentions were good. They began to chant in English. "Stay! Stay! U.S.A.!"
The euphoria nearly spilled over into a riot. Children pulled at the marines, jumped on their trucks, wanting to shake their hands, touch their cheeks. A single chicken hung in the butcher's window and still the residents wanted to give the Americans something, anything. Cigarette? Money?
"You are owed a favor from the Iraqis," said Ibrahim Shouqyk, a clean and remarkably well-dressed man, considering the abject poverty here. "We dedicate our loyalty to the Americans and the British. We are friends."
The Washington Post has this vignette from Baghdad:
An Army medic, Sgt. Mario Manzano of St. Petersburg, Fla., said one wounded prisoner offered him a thick wad of Iraqi dinars for treating him. When he refused, Manzano said, the Iraqi man began weeping, thanked him for the medical treatment and denounced President Saddam Hussein in broken English.
London's Telegraph describes jubilation on the streets of Basra:
English-speaking Iraqis came up to reporters to express their own delight. Among them was Saad Ahmed, a 54-year-old retired English teacher. "We have been waiting for you for a long time," he said. "We are now happier than you.
"You are victorious as far as the war is concerned, but we are victorious in life. We have been living, not as human beings, for more than 30 years."
His son Emad, a 23-year-old student, added: "It's a great day for us and for all Iraqi people. Every family in Iraq have one, two, three deaths because of Saddam, either from wars or in his prisons. I am very happy." One of those joining in the celebrations, Qusay Rawah, said the downfall of Saddam's regime in Basra was a day "we had prayed for." |
