Crowds Cheer as U.S. Marines Near Baghdad Center

Reuters ^ | 4/9 | Reuters

[ambrose]

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Crowds Cheer as U.S. Marines Near Baghdad Center Wed April 09, 2003 04:22 AM ET BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Hundreds of jubilant Iraqis mobbed a convoy of U.S. Marines on Wednesday, cheering, dancing and waving as American troops swept toward central Baghdad through slums and leafy suburbs from the east. Reuters correspondent Sean Maguire said crowds threw flowers at the Marines as they drove past the Martyrs' Monument, just two miles east of the central Jumhuriya Bridge over the Tigris river. "These are quite extraordinary scenes," Maguire said after a morning's drive through first the rundown sprawl of Saddam City and then more prosperous, suburbs with villas and trim lawns. The crowds, mainly young and middle-aged men, many wearing the soccer shirts of leading western clubs like Manchester United, shouted: "Hello, hello" as Marines advanced through local traffic. "No more (President) Saddam Hussein," chanted one group, waving to troops as they passed. "We love you, we love you." One young man ran alongside a Marine armored personnel carrier trying to hand over a heavy belt of ammunition. An older man made a wild kicking gesture with his foot, saying "Goodbye Saddam."

[goldstategop]

But but but... its a quaqmire!!! :)

[JohnHuang2]

Ya beat me by a few seconds this time :)

[EternalVigilance]

One young man ran alongside a Marine armored personnel carrier trying to hand over a heavy belt of ammunition.

Flowers are nice and all that, but this young man knows what gifts are most appropriate for a U.S. Marine...

[ambrose]

Haha. I sense that this will be a pivotal day in Operation Quagmire.

[EaglesUpForever]

BBC is now showing a Shia rally in Baghdad celebrating the arrival of the US.

[xp38]

Pivotal indeed...As the Quagmire turns.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

But but but... its a quaqmire!!!

LOL!!!What a relief!

[JohnHuang2]

"..I'm saddened, deeply, deeply saddened over this.."

[JohnHuang2]

hehehe

[Conservative4Ever]

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....VERY FUNNY LINE

Red

[goldstategop]

What was it about the Iraqis welcoming us only with bullets and shoes?? ;-)

[JohnHuang2]

Ah, yes...wonder how those gloomers and doomers plan to spin this? ;)

[Wilhelm Tell]

FREE AT LAST!

[Dec31,1999]

Eat my shorts, please. :)

[Ken H]

And this came from Reuters!

[NTNgod]

Maybe that damage to the Reuters office yesterday knocked some sense into them :)

[Retrofire]

As each new day exhibits more of Saddam's horrors for the world to see, and the coalition is vindicated, rather than relief I am filled with a sense of smoldering anger.

Anger at the Pope, who would rather these poor, bitterly oppressed people squalor in fear and pain beneath the yoke of this vile dictator...

Anger at France and Germany, who tacitly endorsed their suffering in lieu of lucrative trade arrangements...

Anger at the UN, whose miserable failures in everything they ever intervened in makes a United States coalition the only effective law enforcement entity in the world...

This victory is the Iraqi people's victory for long-suffering in spite of an international community who simply found it more convenient to turn their back on them.

America is often called arrogant by the rest of the world...I think they misunderstand us. What they perceive as self-worship I am increasingly understanding to actually be simple contempt for the rest of a world that would rather turn away from hardship than face it head on.

That would rather debate an issue than resolve it.

That would let the image of three dead reporters and a child with no arms, as tragic as it is, stand in trade for a hundred thousand souls damned to torture and humiliation ended only by a death too long in coming.

I've never been prouder to be an American.

[goldstategop]

Let's toast to the greatest country in the history of the world. Cheers!!! :-)

[George W. Bush]

But but but... its a quaqmire!!! :)

It is a quagmire. I just know it is. You wait and see. I told you so many times. Oh, how evil we are to be so powerful. We must be punished for our arrogance.

It only looks like a victory. It's still a quagmire. I read that several of our troops had hangnails and others suffered insect bites recently. Quagmire! How much proof do you need? Don't be fooled by those cheering Iraqi crowds...

[friendly]

Fox reports outraged Iraqis have attacked and are looting the UN headquarters in Bagdad, yelling "freedom, freedom!". I suspect the French better leave Dodge immediately.

[goldstategop]

Baghdad Bob and Robert Fisk will tell us the cheering crowds are Hollywood extras for the filming of Wag The Dog II, you see. And anyways, the Iraqis are making the Americans as every one knows, commit suicide en masse on the walls of Baghdad. ;-)

[Dec31,1999]

Anger at the Pope, who would rather these poor, bitterly oppressed people squalor in fear and pain beneath the yoke of this vile dictator...

Well, the Pope has made it clear where he stands for the oppressed.

The Pope: Shut up and get on your knees!

[Ken H]

I suspect the French better leave Dodge immediately.

Personally, I wouldn't invest in French oil contracts in Iraq at this time.

[piasa]

Ah, yes...wonder how those gloomers and doomers plan to spin this? ;)

Are they playing dirges over at DU, and wearing sackcloth in Hollywood yet?

[Steve Van Doorn]

hard to believe this came from Reuters. I bet we will never see a pic. : (

[goldstategop]

The DU dummies must depressed as hell. They weren't counting on this news. And the Arab street is going to be even gloomier. Excellent news!

[piasa]

“I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators”, US vice-president Dick Cheney said on March 16, 2003, three days before US-led military forces began their invasion of Iraq

Hope the libs enjoy eating crow foi gras.

[friendly]

Actually if I knew anything about investing I would short sell those French companies owed big money from Saddam and the French oil companies with the big multi-billion dollar deals with Saddam for a post sanctions economy (looking a bit unlikely now ya think?)

Anybody know anything about this type of investment, betting these French companies will drop in stock value?

[Grand Old Partisan]

Ours is indeed the last, best hope of Earth."

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

We need to import a bunch of jubilant Iraqis to the US for a tour with GWB, next year come election season.

[goldstategop]

Someone should send Dick Cheney a note!

[goldstategop]

hehehe... that will make Nancy Pelosi and The Daschle's day. ;-)

[chiefqc]

In the leadership role of the dumb-o-crat party you are suppose to use your brain not your overinfalted ego.

[Ken H]

Fox News: No Iraqi minders from Information Ministry showed up with foreign press in Baghdad today.

Brit Captain saying regime collapsing.

Captain reporting on atrocities Brits discovered in Basra. Says it's tip of the iceberg.

[Hoverbug]

Is it just me, or.........

Hb

[xm177e2]

"No more (President) Saddam Hussein," chanted one group

As soon as I saw this, I swear, I said "wtf is this, is this Reuters or something?"

Only Reuters would go out of its way to stick the word "President" in behind Saddam's name, modifying a direct quote to bias the article in Saddam's favor (if he were actually elected in a real election, it MIGHT make sense to do this). Al-Reuters is in bed with Hussein... I fear when we find Saddam's corpse, there will be a dead Reuters correspondent attached to a certain part of it.

[sit-rep]

bttt...

[alnitak]

Hehe. I picked up on this too, but I thought it was Reuters just being condescending - making sure we know which Saddam Hussein was being referred to! Yes, journalists really are that stupid these days.

[JohnHuang2]

For the Left, news these days could hardly be bleaker.

Despite stiff resistance to coalition forces by Fedayeen Saddamites and other die-hards at the New York Times, Ba'ath Party Headquarters West, lopsided majorities of Americans thus far see the war as a smashing success (better than 80% in most polls). As Saddam's grip on power crumbles in Baghdad, full-scale, bloody urban warfare has erupted among Ba'ath Party loyalists in the Democrat Party, who feared the worst, and are getting it in spades.

Presidential hopeless Howard Dean, head of a cadre of Saddam enforcers, accuses fellow hopeless John F. Kerry of betrayal for voting to authorize military action to topple Saddam. Kerry has struggled for weeks to defend that vote, claiming he had no idea his vote to authorize military action was a vote to authorize military action. Last week, as U.S. troops crossed Baghdad's 'Red-Line', seizing a key Bridge on the river Euphrates, the dreaded WMD trip-wire, an angry Kerry, on cue, unleashed some WMD of his own, telling a crowd of froth-at-the-mouth Fedayeenies in New Hampshire that it was time for "regime change in the United States." The remark, a sop to Democrat primary voters seething over U.S. battlefield success, backfired. Before discharging the deadly stuff, Kerry soon discovered, it's wise to first check which way the wind is blowing. Kerry denied comparing Bush to Saddam Hussein after comparing Bush to Saddam Hussein.

Meanwhile, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, head of Saddam's ideological Command Council in the House, remains defiant as ever, despite tumbling support for Saddam in her district. Indeed, a new Field poll shows "most people in San Francisco, home to the nation's strongest" anti-U.S. protests, now "back the war against Iraq," Reuters reports. Pelosi defends her vote to let the Butcher keep butchering people of conscience as "a vote of conscience."

On the war front, for the Left it's been one crushing blow after another. For openers, Saddam TV is off the air, meaning no Terry McAuliffe or Susan Sarandon or Michael Moore on the air. Garofalo's wet dream, the bloody battle for Baghdad, with planeloads of U.S. 'infidels' coming home in body bags, zapping public support for war, never happened. Coalition casualties remain well below that for Desert Storm, much to media chagrin.

Further demoralizing to Jessica Lange and other Fedayeen remnants: The lack of Stalingrad-like resistance by Iraqi forces, as U.S. tanks thrust into central Baghdad, storming Iraqi defenses, smashing symbols of Ba'athist power, seizing Saddam's opulent palaces and other buildings, in what Col. David Perkins called "a dramatic show of force" last weekend and Monday. The Allied advance on the capital has left Saddam's network of fanatics in Hollywood and Medialand stunned and grief-stricken. Politically, they feel as vulnerable as embedded reporters inside Iraqi tanks close to U.S. Marines.

"I do believe this city is freakin' ours," Capt. Chris Carter jubilantly declared Saturday, Mike Farrell and Rob Reiner sobbed uncontrollably. Even "Baghdad Bob," who Tuesday again denied there were 'infidel' invaders in Baghdad, vowing to 'slaughter' those 'infidel' invaders in Baghdad, couldn't buck Hollywood up anymore.

In southern Iraq, more dreadful news as "British paratroopers...walked unopposed into the center of Iraq's second city Basra" Monday "and," dealing Democrats a further stunning blow, "were warmly received," Reuters reports.

News that an A-10 "Warthog" had been shot down by enemy fire early Tuesday over Baghdad was, for the Left, too little, too late. Adding insult to injury, Reuters reports that "German prosecutors" have "launched a murder inquiry against" Saddam "after a Kurdish woman wounded in a 1987 gas attack in Iraq died in Germany last month."

"Health records and an autopsy on the woman offered preliminary evidence she died from gas after-effects," said Reuters, citing the "state prosecutors office in Nuremberg, a southern German city made famous as the home of the war crimes tribunal after World War Two."

But nothing compares to the shock and grief on the Left after news that Saddam may have been the bull's-eye of 4 JDAM bunker-busters in the Mansur district of Baghdad Monday afternoon.

"Two houses were flattened in an air raid on Mansur on Monday," Reuters glumly reports, adding that "Mansur is a stronghold of Saddam's Ba'ath Party. Security and military intelligence headquarters are located in the area, and the district is also home to many military officers."

The Washington Times reports that "Multiple U.S. intelligence sources saw Saddam Hussein enter a building in Baghdad Monday and not emerge before four 1-ton Air Force bombs destroy it. One official said some analysts believe the multiple eyewitness accounts suggest the Iraqi dictator is dead."

I've got even more solid confirmation: The grim, sullen look on Ba'ath Party faces since Monday. Judy Woodruff springs to mind. ;)

Anyway, that's..
My two cents...
"JohnHuang2"

[visualops]

Are you watching the film of the looters?
I have never condoned looting, but I have to say in this case, these people deserve a little "Christmas" in April.
It's payback time for these folks, and I dare say this is therapeutic.

[Ken H]

ABC radio newsfeed on local station-- "Looting and cheering in Baghdad as regime collapses". (lead story, said in a loud, dramatic voice)

[livius]

Anger at the Pope, who would rather these poor, bitterly oppressed people squalor in fear and pain beneath the yoke of this vile dictator...

To tell the truth, he's one of those I feel angriest at. I expected such behavior from the rest of them, but I hoped that the Pope might be above that. Very disappointing.

[dokmad]

"The remark, a sop to Democrat primary voters seething over U.S. battlefield success, backfired. Before discharging the deadly stuff, Kerry soon discovered, it's wise to first check which way the wind is blowing"

Outstanding. I can't wait until election 2004 when the dems will once again find themselves behind the proverbial eight ball. How many times must they shoot themselves in the political foot before they find out it hurts? Personally, I am enjoying the show.

[doosee]

To tell the truth, he's one of those I feel angriest at. I expected such behavior from the rest of them, but I hoped that the Pope might be above that. Very disappointing.


Your anger is greatly misplaced. You are reacting to snippets of what the Pope has said that were selectively published by leftwing newspapers. Yes, he is a man of peace and should be, but let's get real here and stop the Pope bashing as well as Catholic bashing. Go read the complete and official pronouncements from the Vatican, not what Reuters and the NY Times wanted you to hear. By the way, how often do these papers spotlight the Pope's statements on chastity, the sin of abortion, etc. Cant you see this?
Anyway, this is a great day for the Bush administration and the whole coalition. Enjoy it.

[JohnHuang2]

Personally, I am enjoying the show.

So am I ;)

[Jim Noble]

Ah, yes...wonder how those gloomers and doomers plan to spin this? ;)

America has won the war, only to risk losing the peace.

The damage cowboy Bush has done to the international community is beyond repair.

In Cuba, they have healthcare (oops, wrong despotism)

Well, you get the idea, anyway. We actually should learn from the Left-they never, never let up, not even for a second.

[JohnHuang2]

hehehe

[ishmac]

To tell the truth, he's one of those I feel angriest at.

You ought not be. The Holy Father said only that war should be a last resort. That decision is left to the relevant secular authorities. You might want to see the FR thread, War in the Gulf. What the Pope Really Said .

If you read the criteria for just war, each one has been arguably met. JPII simply insisted that these criteria be heeded. I believe they were. The Pope is within his rights to insist on this.

You should never be more sceptical of the media than when it reports what the Pope, or more frequently, the Vatican, allegedly says or thinks.

[alnick]

"No more (President) Saddam Hussein," chanted one group, waving to troops as they passed. "We love you, we love you."

Paging Janine Garafolo. There's a walkway lined with broken glass leading to the front door of the White House with your name on it.