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| Iraq | |
| Baghdad in turmoil as regime folds | |
| 2003-04-09 | |
Saddam's regime appears to have folded. The people of Baghdad have come out onto the streets, cheering US Marines and looting shops and government buildings. Television pictures from Baghdad show a city in anarchy, with Iraqi police and soldiers nowhere to be seen. Civilians could be seen attacking posters of Saddam as they celebrated their new-found freedom. ITV News correspondent Neil Connery, in Baghdad, said it feels like "the lid has been lifted off a pressure cooker". The looting came as US ground forces roll into the city, with US military commanders claiming the majority of Iraqi forces in the city have deserted. Journalists in the city reported that their regime "minders" did not appear as usual this morning.
And for once the Iraqi information minister Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf did not appear to insist the regime would triumph. However, the US military has said it is "premature" to say that Baghdad has been taken over. And UK intelligence sources have said Saddam Hussein is probably still alive despite a US air strike at a restaurant in the Mansour district of the city. | |
| Posted by:Bulldog |
| #6 Hope the paperwork showing how much prohibited materials the French, Russians, and Germans sold them survive the shredder and sacking of the buildings |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-04-09 09:40:50 |
| #5 I hope we will soon see the now-traditional post-liberation ritual of Beating Robert Fisk: Fisk: "Ah, here's a band of distraught Iraqis now; reduced by the horror of American bombing to carrying away TV sets and refrigerators." Iraqi: "Hey, thank you, thank you, Brit guy; may Allah smile upon you and bless your sheep with many offspring. Blessings upon Blair, blessings upon Bush!" Fisk: "Arrrgh! Another helpless victim of cowboy aggression, obviously delusional from the horrific effects of American bombing." Iraqi: "Blessings upon American Air Force. B-52, we love you." Fisk: "Please, my good man, I am not one of those, I oppose this hideous aggression against peaceful Iraqi people. I praise your spirit of resistance." Iraqi: "Wait, aren't you that piece of camel dung from The Independent?" Fisk: I am he, the one and only Fisk, and I understand your anger over the horror of American bombing, but I am here to help you and your glorious leader, Saddam Hussein, in your heroic, Stalingrad-like resistance to...." SMACK! |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2003-04-09 06:49:52 |
| #4 Heh heh, Atomic! Apparently all the UN vehicles have been stolen. This and the looting of presidential palaces is one mob property redistribution I'm more than happy to see. Looting in Basra has subsided - hopefully it will not get too out of control in Baghdad either. "So, Ahmed, mind if I use the toilet again?" "Sure, you know where it is: out back behind the broken freezers and the dead cats. Just don't go scraping the gold leaf off it when you're doing your business this time, eh?!" |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2003-04-09 06:08:34 |
| #3 Time to rename Saddam City to Freedom City |
| Posted by: rg117 2003-04-09 06:00:43 |
| #2 In pillaging regime facilities, the people of Baghdad are simply taking back what the criminal saddam regime has stolen from them. I also hear that UN and NGO offices have been looted, meaning that the profits of appeasement and obstructionism are also going to the people who suffered so much to create them. The antiwar mob will undoubtedly do an Orwellian about-face over this, and start deploring anarchy and vandalism for a change. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2003-04-09 05:50:55 |
| #1 from Cnn.com: "There were reports of residents of Saddam City celebrating the end of the Iraqi regime. A Shiite Muslim leader told a group of 400 to 500 people, 'The tyrant of the world is finished, thanks to the coalition. Thank God for Iraq the victorious.'" |
| Posted by: RW 2003-04-09 04:33:57 |