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To: tonto who wrote (7765)	6/8/2006 9:37:04 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 14758

Uncontainable excitement Posted by Richard Engel, Middle East bureau chief (09:07 am ET, 06/ 8/06) It began like this: We got a phone call this morning that we had to come to an important press conference by the Iraqi prime minister here in the Green Zone. We were given no details, but we were told that it was important that we should come. Once we got there, it was clear that something else was afoot. They were setting up American flags and Iraqi flags at the podium and it was clear that if this was just an announcement by the prime minister, there would be no American flags in the building. Quickly the prime minister arrived and he was flanked by General Casey and the U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. At that stage we knew a big announcement was coming, to have all three of them together. And Maliki got up the podium and right away he said, "This is a message to all of the people who commit acts of terrorism; Zarqawi has been eliminated." Then all of the Iraqi journalists who were in the room started to applaud. There were women in the back who started "ululating" – which is that traditional Arabic way of celebration when someone wags the tongue back and forth and makes sort of a wailing or shrieking noise. People started applauding and cheering. I hadn’t seen that kind of reaction since Saddam Hussein was captured and there was a similar spontaneous outpouring of excitement from the Iraqi press corps that was gathered. There were very few journalists in the room - there were probably only 20 of us there – because the press conference was organized on such short notice, but there was a great amount of excitement. People were throwing out questions to the prime minister and Casey to try to get details on what happened. Then afterwards, I walked up to one of al-Malaki’s aides who I know and started giving him a hard time, saying "What are you doing to me? Why didn’t you tell me about this beforehand?" He just smiled. He couldn’t contain his excitement. He gave me a hug. It was just an indication of how ecstatic they are that not only is Zarqawi dead, but that this can be a new start for the Iraqi government. He was literally hugging me because he couldn’t contain his excitement. baghdadblog.msnbc.com