[lbo-talk] Americans leave deep impression on Iraqis

Stephen Philion philion at hawaii.edu
Wed Dec 24 09:04:01 PST 2003


American officials hinted that the predawn cacophony - which could be heard miles away, rattling windows across the entire capital - might have been intended mainly as a show of force to intimidate pro-Hussein guerrilla cells thought to be operating in the area.

Residents on this ragged edge of the city responded to the intense four-hour barrage, which ended at around 3 a.m., with angry complaints.

"I've got eight kids, and I swear to God none of them slept," said a red-eyed Abbas Abu Zeina, 52, who runs a car-repair shop. "What's the point of all this? My littlest girl was trembling through it all, no matter how close my wife and I held her."

Support for the insurgents runs high in the swath of riverside territory on Baghdad's southern outskirts, a Sunni and tribal-dominated area where the city peters out into date plantations and lettuce fields.

"My uncle is in the resistance - almost all of us have a family member who is," said Walid Mohammed, 31, who was sheltering around a campfire with a group of plantation workers.

"The Americans are just trying to flex their muscles," his 25-year-old companion, Rifat Hadi Nayef, added disdainfully. "We are not impressed." http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-122403iraq_lat,1,5121265.sto ry?coll=la-home-headlines



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