Posted on 05/04/2003 10:50:42 PM PDT by Phil V.
In Sadr City, the lawless and impoverished district in east Baghdad formerly known as Saddam City, the US has found a friend.
The Shi'ite residents and their powerful clerics have thrown their support behind American troops, grateful that they rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein and hopeful that the US might drag them out of dire poverty.
"We were the living dead under Saddam," said Said Fathen al-Yasser, a metal trader who specializes in pillaged Iraqi tank and artillery shells. "Now we are free. For the first time in decades we can practice our religion as we please."
Smiling broadly at the irony, he added, "America respects Shia more than Saddam."
This love of the Americans may seem out of place in the heart of a state that has suffered greatly in two consecutive wars with the US. But locals in Sadr City, a place distinguished by its filth and Saddam's relish for grinding his tyrannical boot on this predominately Shi'ite district of more than a million residents, feel truly liberated.
For the first time in almost 35 years they can say what they want, when they want, and how they want. Previously banned flags celebrating Imams Ali, Hussein, and al-Abbas flutter above many households. The markets have sprung to life with loot plundered from dozens of the regime's palaces.
Muhammad al-Sadr, whose mutilated face reveals but a fraction of the scars all over his body, ran up and kissed American journalists on Sunday. His tortured face was transformed by giggles.
"I love you, you are my brothers," said Sadr, as he planted his lips on the only American cheeks with which he has ever come in contact.
Sadr's explanation for his ecstasy over the toppling of Saddam was simple. He lifted up his Iraqi National Soccer Team jersey, freshly looted from Uday Hussein's Iraqi Olympic Committee complex, to reveal a quarter-sized gunshot wound on his rib cage and a half dollar sized exit wound in his back. He was shot for desertion, and when he healed, he fled again. Captured and tortured, he spent much of his time during interrogations strung upside down from the ceiling with metal wires wrapped around and through his ankles.
After he was released, he went temporarily insane from post-traumatic stress and repeatedly slashed his chest with a straight razor.
This grassroots support for the liberation from a leader, as bizarre as he was evil, is being directed by the powerful Shi'ite clerical infrastructure.
The Shi'ites, who represent more than 60 percent of the Iraqi population, remain devoted to imams in the holy cities of An-Najaf and Karbala, despite Saddam's efforts to crush the movement. The imams of al-Hawza Supreme Shi'ite clergy, who developed a speedy word of mouth system of communication, have maintained a decidedly conciliatory stance vis-a-vis the Americans.
On Friday, more than 5,000 worshipers arrived at al-Rahman Mosque, a colossal monument to Saddam's taste for the grandiose and the dysfunctional.
The worshipers arrived with prayer rugs lodged in the crooks of their arms and lined up calmly by the hundreds outside the gates for a security check.The mosque, whose construction was abandoned when the war started, resembles an octopus with eight bubbly nodes.
Security guards of al-Dawa, a Shi'ite movement that withstood years of the regime's religious repression, mingled in the crowd and yanked out those sporting Latin lettering from the back of the throng of kneeling worshipers.
They said it would be "embarrassing" to have those men photographed.
For a few waiting reporters expecting to hear a speech of fire and brimstone, condemning the US for occupying Iraq, Qassen al-Tahi, an al-Hawza member, was a disappointment.
Instead of whipping up the crowd into a fury, he preached patience and tolerance. "The Americans are civilized and admired in many respects," he told the crowd. He advised his people to respect the Americans and hoped that the changeover to a new government goes smoothly without affecting "women, children, and the poor." While chastising the French and the Russians for failing to support the American endeavor to topple Saddam, he praised the Americans for "sticking to initiative."
But there are drawbacks to liberation. In Sadr City, freedom has bred anarchy. Spent artillery shells, automatic rifles, forged passports, even one of Uday Hussein's prized stallions line the al-Mraidi market, having been lifted from Saddam's palaces.
The nights here feature a staccato of gunfire, as gangs fire at each other or revelers let a few rounds off into the air. In lieu of police, residents have begun to organize armed neighborhood patrols. There is a glut of weapons, with Iraqi-made AK-47s selling for as little as $50.
A squad from the Badr Brigades, an Iranian-supported militant group loyal to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, even briefly gained a foothold in an unused school in the city before it was expelled.
Some residents warned that should the Americans fail to alleviate the food shortage now plaguing Sadr City, there might be a backlash.
Still, said Sadr, the residents of Sadr City are reveling in their freedom. Last week they celebrated Saddam's birthday by taping one of the many portraits of the dictator they plundered to a donkey and parading it through town. That prank would have earned dozens a summary execution at the hands of Fedayeen paramilitary just a month ago, said Sadr.
These guys sound like potential "BushBot" Republicans. Perhaps we could introduce them to Terry Mc?
We need some new names in the Bump list Register.
Dude, that ain't neither right nor fair.
Instead of whipping up the crowd into a fury, he preached patience and tolerance. "The Americans are civilized and admired in many respects," he told the crowd. He advised his people to respect the Americans and hoped that the changeover to a new government goes smoothly without affecting "women, children, and the poor." While chastising the French and the Russians for failing to support the American endeavor to topple Saddam, he praised the Americans for "sticking to initiative."
I wonder what "Sadr" means?
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