Saddam is now history. But unfortunately he is not going to go away. Yes, he headed a cruel regime and ordered brutal killings of dissenters and dissidents. There is credible evidence of his involvement in genocide. Yet, when embedded journalists and the Western press sent in ecstatic reports of favourable Shia acceptance of the US invasion of Iraq from Kuwait, I filed a report from Umm Qasr, a day after the cruise missile attacks on March 18, 2003 on Baghdad that preceded the shock and awe aerial bombing campaign, that the Shias were indeed opposing the invasion. "We will fight for you Saddam, We will give our blood for you Saddam," shouted the Shias when they found out that we were journalists from Al Hind. Other non-embedded journalists accompanying us were stunned when we told them what was happening because all of them had filed reports about how the Iraqis were not resisting the American invasion.
Three years later the Americans are bogged down in the Green Zone in the heart of Baghdad. The rest of Iraq is a deadly war zone, which is neither under the control of 'Coalition Forces', put in place by the Bush-Blair combo, nor under the control of the puppet Iraqi government. The Shias of the South, who were persecuted by Saddam Hussein, and yet supported Saddam when the Americans invaded Iraq, are now bitter enemies of the Sunnis in Central Iraq. Saddam's execution has forever made the Shias and Sunnis intractable enemies because it was a predominantly Shia dominated Court that pronounced the death by hanging verdict and hurriedly ensured that it was carried out. So George Bush is right when he says that Saturday, December 30, 2006 is a "milestone" in Iraq's history because starting today there will be no Iraq anymore. Any and all hopes of reconciliation between the Shias and Sunnis and Kurds have effectively evaporated. Today is the beginning of what will certainly be a violent civil war.
So Iran is happy, the Shias in Southern Iraq are happy and yet not happy with the American presence in their country, the Kurds are obviously happy, large sections of Iraqi expatriates in the US and Europe will be happy. But the streets in West Asia are simmering with anger and that anger will show up sooner than later. The Sunnis will be burning with reprisal plans. The Sunni triangle in Iraq-Ramadi, Falujah and Tikrit-will be waiting to hit back, the Sunni militant resistance in Iraq will become fiercer and there will be mayhem as suicide attackers, bombers, explosive laden car bombers and an assorted variety of terrorist resistance will blast away any hopes of Shia-Sunni reconciliation to smithereens.
Iraq is heading for a three-way split. A Shia South, a volatile Sunni center and a relatively stable pro-West Kurdish north. A lot will be seen and heard before this happens, but it surely will because this is the only way out for the US. The other way is an embarrassing Vietnam-like pullout. But now either ways Iraq's future as a country is just not bright. And what about Sabah? Like most Iraqis he will be worried about his place in a country that is no more. Sabah was once a loyal bodyguard of Saddam, and then he joined the Iraqi intelligence service and rose to be a 'minder'. A 'minder' in Saddam's Iraq was an intelligence official who accompanied a foreign journalist and literally tagged him wherever he went. A foreign journalist could not step out of his hotel without a 'minder'.
Sabah was veteran journalist Satish Jacob's minder in Iraq in March 2003. Satish was pre-positioned in Iraq on March 2, 2003 nearly two weeks before the Iraq war began. I was positioned in Kuwait-Southern Iraq with the brief to enter southern Iraq the moment the war began. So through March as we made our way up from Umm Qasr, Basra, Najaf and Kerbala to Baghdad we were just in time to watch the famous toppling of Saddam's statue by the US Marines on Firdous Square on April 9, 2003. It was event that was televised live by Western networks and like most television events went on to become the symbol of the toppling of Saddam's regime.
That day Sabah burst into our room. "Saddam gone!" he screamed and pointed towards our balcony on the 14th floor of the Palestine Hotel. We rushed to Firdous Square and were witness to the elaborate US marine show of pulling down the statue. There were marines, journalists and some local Iraqis who were shouting anti-Saddam slogans. Tight shots of a handful of Iraqis sloganeering as the statue was pulled down were televised over the world as "Iraqis rejoice". Only Al Jazeera and one half hour foreign affairs show on Doordarshan for which I worked said the opposite. Sabah was happy that Saddam was gone but he was not happy that the Americans were responsible for toppling his regime. This nuance was lost on the western media and, obviously, is yet to be understood by the neo-con worldview of George Bush. "We are free of Saddam, but now we have to be free of the Americans," said Sabah. But the Americans who pat themselves for freeing Iraq, getting rid of Saddam and bringing "democracy" to Iraq, are just not culturally-able or civilizationally-capable to understand their armed presence in the midst of people who have a proud identity and history is offensive and disrespectful. And with the insensitive hanging of the despotic Saddam, the Americans have made their presence in the entire West Asia untenable. That is why Saddam's hanging is a "milestone" not for the strategic reasons that George Bush peddles, but for the fact that the USA will have to sink in more resources and will have to endure more body bags in Iraq and elsewhere to be safe.
In his death, Saddam Hussein, may still have the last laugh. And, oh yes! Mr. George Bush starting December 30, 2006 the world is not safe anymore. Today the world is truly at war. Between your ideas and those who resist American domination. Between the Muslims and Christians, between the Shias and Sunnis, between Them and Us.
Wouldn't it have been better to keep Saddam in prison for life, forever? He would then have been a living symbol of what could happen to rulers and leaders across the world when they misuse the power and trust reposed on him by his people. But now by killing him Bush has made him more dangerous than Osama. Phew! What a twist of destiny!first published:December 30, 2006, 13:21 ISTlast updated:December 30, 2006, 13:21 IST
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I don't know what Sabah would be thinking this morning. The man he once protected has been hanged to death. He was one of Saddam Hussein's bodyguards when the Iraqi dictator visited New Delhi in 1983 for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. At that time Sabah had just retired from the Iraqi Air Force and joined the Iraqi intelligence service. He was a fighter pilot in the Iraqi Air Force and had seen some action in the First Iraq War in 1991, but as the war intensified he along with many Iraqi fighter pilots were instructed to fly Iraqi Air Force fighter planes to Syria for safekeeping. Saddam wanted to protect his Air Force from the American bombardment.
Saddam is now history. But unfortunately he is not going to go away. Yes, he headed a cruel regime and ordered brutal killings of dissenters and dissidents. There is credible evidence of his involvement in genocide. Yet, when embedded journalists and the Western press sent in ecstatic reports of favourable Shia acceptance of the US invasion of Iraq from Kuwait, I filed a report from Umm Qasr, a day after the cruise missile attacks on March 18, 2003 on Baghdad that preceded the shock and awe aerial bombing campaign, that the Shias were indeed opposing the invasion. "We will fight for you Saddam, We will give our blood for you Saddam," shouted the Shias when they found out that we were journalists from Al Hind. Other non-embedded journalists accompanying us were stunned when we told them what was happening because all of them had filed reports about how the Iraqis were not resisting the American invasion.
Three years later the Americans are bogged down in the Green Zone in the heart of Baghdad. The rest of Iraq is a deadly war zone, which is neither under the control of 'Coalition Forces', put in place by the Bush-Blair combo, nor under the control of the puppet Iraqi government. The Shias of the South, who were persecuted by Saddam Hussein, and yet supported Saddam when the Americans invaded Iraq, are now bitter enemies of the Sunnis in Central Iraq. Saddam's execution has forever made the Shias and Sunnis intractable enemies because it was a predominantly Shia dominated Court that pronounced the death by hanging verdict and hurriedly ensured that it was carried out. So George Bush is right when he says that Saturday, December 30, 2006 is a "milestone" in Iraq's history because starting today there will be no Iraq anymore. Any and all hopes of reconciliation between the Shias and Sunnis and Kurds have effectively evaporated. Today is the beginning of what will certainly be a violent civil war.
So Iran is happy, the Shias in Southern Iraq are happy and yet not happy with the American presence in their country, the Kurds are obviously happy, large sections of Iraqi expatriates in the US and Europe will be happy. But the streets in West Asia are simmering with anger and that anger will show up sooner than later. The Sunnis will be burning with reprisal plans. The Sunni triangle in Iraq-Ramadi, Falujah and Tikrit-will be waiting to hit back, the Sunni militant resistance in Iraq will become fiercer and there will be mayhem as suicide attackers, bombers, explosive laden car bombers and an assorted variety of terrorist resistance will blast away any hopes of Shia-Sunni reconciliation to smithereens.
Iraq is heading for a three-way split. A Shia South, a volatile Sunni center and a relatively stable pro-West Kurdish north. A lot will be seen and heard before this happens, but it surely will because this is the only way out for the US. The other way is an embarrassing Vietnam-like pullout. But now either ways Iraq's future as a country is just not bright. And what about Sabah? Like most Iraqis he will be worried about his place in a country that is no more. Sabah was once a loyal bodyguard of Saddam, and then he joined the Iraqi intelligence service and rose to be a 'minder'. A 'minder' in Saddam's Iraq was an intelligence official who accompanied a foreign journalist and literally tagged him wherever he went. A foreign journalist could not step out of his hotel without a 'minder'.
Sabah was veteran journalist Satish Jacob's minder in Iraq in March 2003. Satish was pre-positioned in Iraq on March 2, 2003 nearly two weeks before the Iraq war began. I was positioned in Kuwait-Southern Iraq with the brief to enter southern Iraq the moment the war began. So through March as we made our way up from Umm Qasr, Basra, Najaf and Kerbala to Baghdad we were just in time to watch the famous toppling of Saddam's statue by the US Marines on Firdous Square on April 9, 2003. It was event that was televised live by Western networks and like most television events went on to become the symbol of the toppling of Saddam's regime.
That day Sabah burst into our room. "Saddam gone!" he screamed and pointed towards our balcony on the 14th floor of the Palestine Hotel. We rushed to Firdous Square and were witness to the elaborate US marine show of pulling down the statue. There were marines, journalists and some local Iraqis who were shouting anti-Saddam slogans. Tight shots of a handful of Iraqis sloganeering as the statue was pulled down were televised over the world as "Iraqis rejoice". Only Al Jazeera and one half hour foreign affairs show on Doordarshan for which I worked said the opposite. Sabah was happy that Saddam was gone but he was not happy that the Americans were responsible for toppling his regime. This nuance was lost on the western media and, obviously, is yet to be understood by the neo-con worldview of George Bush. "We are free of Saddam, but now we have to be free of the Americans," said Sabah. But the Americans who pat themselves for freeing Iraq, getting rid of Saddam and bringing "democracy" to Iraq, are just not culturally-able or civilizationally-capable to understand their armed presence in the midst of people who have a proud identity and history is offensive and disrespectful. And with the insensitive hanging of the despotic Saddam, the Americans have made their presence in the entire West Asia untenable. That is why Saddam's hanging is a "milestone" not for the strategic reasons that George Bush peddles, but for the fact that the USA will have to sink in more resources and will have to endure more body bags in Iraq and elsewhere to be safe.
In his death, Saddam Hussein, may still have the last laugh. And, oh yes! Mr. George Bush starting December 30, 2006 the world is not safe anymore. Today the world is truly at war. Between your ideas and those who resist American domination. Between the Muslims and Christians, between the Shias and Sunnis, between Them and Us.
Wouldn't it have been better to keep Saddam in prison for life, forever? He would then have been a living symbol of what could happen to rulers and leaders across the world when they misuse the power and trust reposed on him by his people. But now by killing him Bush has made him more dangerous than Osama. Phew! What a twist of destiny!
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