What Iraqi exiles think about the anti-war marches: Not much:
It's a just war, say Iraq's exiles
By Adam Lusher and Fiona Govan
(Filed: 16/02/2003)
Iraqi exiles in Britain yesterday condemned the anti-war march and warned that it would make it easier for Saddam Hussein to continue massacring his own people.
As hundreds of exiles, many of them with first-hand experience of Saddam Hussein's brutality, prepared to stage their own counter-demonstration in London today, many spoke with anger as they watched the peace protesters pour through the streets of London.
Some of the strongest feelings were expressed at a house in Shepherd's Bush, west London, where a group of exiles from Basra in southern Iraq gathered to view television coverage of the anti-war demonstration.
As his sister Nibal, 43, prepared the chicken and rice, Ali al-Ezzawi, 51, insisted that there had to be "a war against Saddam to help the Iraqi people" as he struggled to make sense of protesters' slogans, shaking his head with disbelief as he spotted one saying: "A scud against Bush is worth two against Saddam."
"Why do they say these silly things? No one inside Iraq will agree with what they are doing now. They are waiting day by day for Saddam Hussein to be deposed, for the unfinished business of 1991 to be completed," said Mr al-Ezzawi.
He reflected with sadness upon the brutal suppression which followed the Shi'ite uprising in his home region after the Gulf War in 1991. "I lost my wife, my brother, my wife's sister. The Iraqi soldiers just came and shot them as they put down the uprising. Every Iraqi will tell the same story."
Mr al-Ezzawi's friend, Saad Qasim, 53, recounted his own experiences as he too watched the marchers with visible distaste showing on his face. "My 11-year-old son was killed in 1991 by Iraqi soldiers. He was just a kid. They shot him as he went to get some water," he said tearfully.
"Saddam Hussein doesn't care. He is the biggest criminal in the world. There needs to be a war against Saddam Hussein, a war for the Iraqi people. That has to be better than allowing him to continue killing all these people."
Mr al-Ezzawi was unable to keep the anger out of his voice as he agreed. "Yes, no-one seems to be thinking about that. The people on the anti-war march, they don't seem to realise, they don't have any idea what Saddam Hussein is like, the massacres, the genocides he has committed.
"I am supporting a war against Saddam Hussein. It's not a war against Iraq - it is a war against Saddam. It doesn't seem to be a point that many people on the anti-war march are making."
Mr al-Ezzawi added that, in London, people were allowed "the luxury" of being able to march against their government but in Iraq such a move could end in murder.
"March against Saddam Hussein's government? In Baghdad? You couldn't even think about it," he said. "You couldn't even dream about it. Saddam Hussein's security men would be after you straight away. You would not be jailed for life, of course not. You would be hanged, shot or executed."
Elsewhere in Britain, other Iraqi exiles were equally critical of the marchers. Among them was Dr Khalaf, a consultant neurologist at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, who worked in the Iraqi army during the country's war with Iran in the 1980s and during the Gulf War, before fleeing to Britain to escape Saddam's regime.
"Most Iraqi people will feel hurt and anger when they see Saddam Hussein show great pleasure at the scenes of the march today on television," he said.
"The march will not serve Iraqi people. It will serve only Saddam Hussein. This is probably the last real chance to get rid of him and finish this dark era in history. They should not even go to the UN. The UN is a system which can be very easily deceived."
Dr Khalaf said he was particularly angry at the lack of action, or even vocal protests, by those on the march against the years of atrocities carried out by Saddam against the Iraqi people.
"Where were you all while Saddam was killing thousands of Iraqis since the early 70s? And where are you now, given that every week he executes people through the "court of revolution", a summary court run by the secret security office?" he said.
"Just ask yourselves why, out of 500,000 Iraqis in Britain, you will not find even 1,000 of them participating in the march? I am so frustrated by the appalling views of most of the British people. Your anti-war campaign has become mass hysteria and you are no longer able to see things properly."
Meanwhile, in Edinburgh, three more Iraqi exiles met Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, handing over a letter urging him to remove Saddam Hussein. The letter insisted that the international community had a "golden opportunity" to remove Iraq's "brutal dictatorship" and claimed the vast majority of its citizens would back a war.
One of the authors, Dr Safa Hashim, a 47-year-old university lecturer living in Glasgow, said: "We have the view that perhaps force is the only way to remove Saddam from power as well as removing his weapons of mass destruction.
"He's a brutal man and he has committed countless human rights abuses leading to the loss of one million lives and the displacement of four million others and he's also a danger to Iraq's neighbours."
Dr Hashim, originally from Basra and who has been living in Scotland for 22 years, said that the opponents of war were misguided. "They are missing the point, they don't understand that Iraqis themselves want Saddam to be removed by force. Let's listen to the Iraqi people for a change."
Dr Hashim said a new UN resolution on war was "not necessary" and he argued that a debate could take place after a war about the future of the country's oil reserves.
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