Local Iraqi's cheer as Saddam portraits are torn down
Joshua Heard
U.S. Marines Rip Down Saddam Portraits
By ELLEN KNICKMEYER, Associated Press Writer
SAFWAN, Iraq - U.S. Marines hauled down giant street portraits of Saddam
Hussein (news - web sites) in a screeching pop of metal and bolts Friday,
telling nervous residents of this southern Iraqi town that "Saddam is done."
Milling crowds of men and boys watched as the Marines attached ropes on the
front of their Jeeps to one portrait and then backed up, peeling the Iraqi
leader's black-and-white metal image off a frame. Some locals briefly joined
Maj. David "Bull" Gurfein in a new cheer.
"Iraqis! Iraqis! Iraqis!" Gurfein yelled, pumping his fist in the air.
"We wanted to send a message that Saddam is done," said Gurfein, a New York
native in the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. "People are scared to show a
lot of emotion. That's why we wanted to show them this time we're here, and
Saddam is done."
The Marines arrived in Safwan, just across the Kuwait border, after Cobra
attack helicopters, attack jets, tanks, 155 mm howitzers and sharpshooters
cleared the way along Route 80, the main road into Iraq (news - web sites).
Safwan, 375 miles south of Baghdad, is a poor, dirty, wrecked town pocked by
shrapnel from the last Gulf war (news - web sites). Iraqi forces in the area
sporadically fired mortars and guns for hours Thursday and Friday. Most
townspeople hid, although residents brought forth a wounded little girl, her
palm bleeding after the new fighting. Another man said his wife was shot in
the leg by the Americans.
A few men and boys ventured out, putting makeshift white flags on their
pickup trucks or waving white T-shirts out truck windows.
"Americans very good," Ali Khemy said. "Iraq wants to be free."
Some chanted, "Ameriki! Ameriki!"
Many others in the starving town just patted their stomachs and raised their
hands, begging for food.
A man identifying himself only as Abdullah welcomed the arrival of the U.S.
troops: "Saddam Hussein is no good. Saddam Hussein a butcher."
An old woman shrouded in black - one of the very few women outside - knelt
toward the feet of Americans, embracing an American woman. A younger man
with her pulled her away, giving her a warning sign by sliding his finger
across his throat.
In 1991, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died after prematurely celebrating
what they believed was their liberation from Saddam after the Gulf War. Some
even pulled down a few pictures of Saddam then - only to be killed by Iraqi
forces.
Gurfein playfully traded pats with a disabled man and turned down a dinner
invitation from townspeople.
"Friend, friend," he told them in Arabic learned in the first Gulf War.
"We stopped in Kuwait that time," he said. "We were all ready to come up
there then, and we never did."
The townspeople seemed grateful this time.
"No Saddam Hussein!" one young man in headscarf told Gurfein. "Bush!"
Voronwe
almost too good to be true uh?