>Baghdad :: Rageh Omaar :: 1335GMT
>
>Just occasionally you get to lift the lid on this restricted society
>- and talk to real people about why the uprisings against Saddam
>Hussein that coalition forces expected didn't happen.
>
>I had an opportunity to talk to some ordinary Iraqis who were out
>shopping. I asked one man if the Iraqi people thought of this as a
>war of liberation.
>
>He told me, "People in the west need to understand that if even if
>people here are anti-Saddam, that does not equal pro-American or
>British." This man was not even a Baath party member, but he said,
>"I'm an Iraqi, and all I know is my country is being attacked. Why
>do you expect me to celebrate?"
>
>People here do not see it as a war against the regime, they see it
>as a war against Iraq.