Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (106210)	7/18/2003 2:50:37 AM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Sinister voice back to haunt Baghdad chicken diners By James Hider in Baghdad timesonline.co.uk A GROUP of Baghdadis sat in a spartan chicken restaurant 6,200 miles from Washington yesterday discussing a very different address to a very different nation. Saddam Hussein was back, denouncing the “lies” of Tony Blair and his ally George Bush. With an exquisite sense of timing Saddam — or someone sounding remarkably like him — chose the Prime Minister’s big day, and the 35th anniversary of the Baath party’s rise to power, to release a tape exuding defiance of the coalition’s leaders. Addressing their failure to discover any weapons of mass destruction, the voice demanded: “What will the two liars, Bush and Blair, say to their people and to humanity. What will they tell the world? What they said was wrong and baseless. “The lies were known to the President of the United States and to the Prime Minister of Britain when they decided to wage war on Iraq.” The voice mocked the new Governing Council of 25 prominent Iraqis that the coalition set up this week, declaring: “Whoever is appointed by the foreign occupier cannot give his people and the country anything other than the will of the occupiers.” The only solution, the voice continued, was to “resist the occupation through jihad (holy struggle) so to inflict losses and evict the enemy from Iraq”. The tape was the only topic of conversation in the restaurant on central Baghdad’s As-Sadoun Street, where the noise of generators powering the garish, brightly-lit coffee shops and ice-cream parlours was punctuated by regular bursts of distant gunfire. And the diners’ reactions reflected the ambivalence of a nation that for the most part loathed Saddam but likes the Americans little more. “I feel very sad for my country, and happy to hear his voice,” declared Salman Qasel, 47, a taxi driver as he sipped strong black tea. “I hope he comes back. I would never work for the coalition. Look at the chaos we live in. People here need two things, electricity and security, and they don’t care who gives it to them.” Baha Maadi, a 27-year-old waiter, demurred. “I’m not scared by the speech. Saddam is just looking for media attention. He cannot come back,” he said. Outside the restaurant, a vendor selling cans of cold drinks to motorists insisted: “I think it was a Saddam double used by the Iranians. I think the coalition should finish up here and invade Iran.” But a middle-aged passer-by said he would fear to work for the coalition after hearing the speech. “We’re worried we’d be attacked. We would be working for his enemies. When I heard his speech, I thought he sounded very powerful. Maybe he still has power in this country.” The tape was broadcast by two Arab satellite television stations, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. US intelligence officials said it was being studied to determine its authenticity. The CIA has said the voice on a similiar tape broadcast on July 4 was almost certainly Saddam’s, and Washington now acknowledges that he is still alive and in Iraq.