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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lurqer who wrote (42040)	4/9/2004 7:43:24 PM
From: lurqer	Respond to of 89467

More on the irony at Baghdad's al-Firdos (Paradise) Square. Year after fall of Saddam statue, U.S. soldiers visit same spot to bring down portraits of cleric Hamza Hendawi BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) U.S. soldiers tore down posters of a radical, anti-American Shiite cleric that were hung Friday in Baghdad's Firdos Square, where exactly a year ago triumphant coalition forces toppled a statue of Saddam Hussein. Two images of Muqtada al-Sadr one showing the bearded, black-turbaned cleric raising his index finger menacingly and a green Shiite flag of victory and martyrdom were displayed on a bronze sculpture erected on the pedestal where Saddam's statue once stood. A U.S. soldier climbed a ladder and tore the pictures down, while eight others stood at the base. The flag remained in place. There were no Iraqis at Firdos Square to react to what the soldiers did to al-Sadr's posters. U.S. soldiers imposed a curfew on the square, preventing any celebrations of a day that Iraqi leaders last year declared a national holiday. A year ago, U.S. Marines used a crane to haul down the 16-foot, black, bronze Saddam statue. A crowd of jubilant Iraqis applauded and cheered what has since become the moment that signaled the fall of Baghdad and the end of Saddam's brutal, 23-year regime. On Friday, an armored vehicle with a loudspeaker on top circled the square's colonnaded middle island, announcing in Arabic the curfew and a warning that anyone seen with a weapon would be shot. Bradley fighting vehicles and Humvees with heavy machine guns took positions around the square. At the same time, the large, blue mosaic-domed mosque on the square blared the call to Friday prayers but no worshippers could be seen. Nearby stores were shut and the streets empty all day. Several hours later, a mortar slammed into a shed near the square, shaking two hotels where foreign journalists and contractors stay. Late Friday night, a military vehicle made another Arabic announcement, blaming the mortar on al-Sadr's militia and saying it was meant for the nearby Baghdad hotel or the mosque. ''This shows that al-Mahdi Army has no respect for the lives of civilians,'' it said. Al-Sadr's supporters have repeatedly protested at Firdos Square over the past week, bringing flags and portraits of al-Sadr every time. During one protest outside the Green Zone, the area on the west bank of the Tigris housing the coalition's headquarters, young supporters climbed 65-foot-high poles to hang portraits of the 30-year-old cleric. Supporters of al-Sadr this week battled U.S. and coalition troops in Baghdad and several cities in central and southern Iraq. The U.S. military has vowed to crush his al-Mahdi Army militia and to arrest him on murder charges in connection to the gruesome murder of a rival cleric a year ago. boston.com lurqer