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An Iraqi doctor speaks

02.14.2003

This letter just ran in UK's The Guardian. It was written by Dr. B Khalaf, an Iraqi emmigré:

I write this to protest against all those people who oppose the war against Saddam Hussein, or as they call it, the "war against Iraq". I am an Iraqi doctor, I worked in the Iraqi army for six years during Iraq-Iran war and four months during Gulf war. All my family still live in Iraq. I am an Arab Sunni, not Kurdish or Shia. I am an ordinary Iraqi not involved with the Iraqi opposition outside Iraq.

I am so frustrated by the appalling views of most of the British people, media and politicians. I want to say to all these people who are against the possible war, that if you think by doing so you are serving the interests of Iraqi people or saving them, you are not. You are effectively saving Saddam. You are depriving the Iraqi people of probably their last real chance get rid of him and to get out of this dark era in their history.

My family and almost all Iraqi families will feel hurt and anger when Saddam's media shows on the TV, with great happiness, parts of Saturday's demonstration in London. But where were you when thousands of Iraqi people were killed by Saddam's forces at the end of the Gulf war to crush the uprising? Only now when the war is to reach Saddam has everybody become so concerned about the human life in Iraq.

Where were you while Saddam has been killing thousands of Iraqis since the early 70s? And where are you are now, given that every week he executes people through the "court of revolution", a summary secret court run by the secret security office. Most of its sentences are executions which Saddam himself signs.

I could argue one by one against your reasons for opposing this war. But just ask yourselves why, out of about 500,000 Iraqis in Britain, you will not find even 1,000 of them participating tomorrow? Your anti-war campaign has become mass hysteria and you are no longer able to see things properly.

Which brings up an interesting question: Why haven't we seen the Iraqi-American community protest the upcoming war against Iraq? Do white middle class folk understand politics better?

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And here's an addendum, following Blix's latest report to the Security Council, from The New Republic:

Blix reported this morning that, "At the meeting in Baghdad on the 8th and the 9th of February, the Iraqi side addressed some of the important outstanding disarmament issues and gave us a number of papers.... Although no new evidence was provided in the papers and no open issues were closed through them or the expert discussions, the presentation of the papers could be indicative of a more active attitude focusing on the important open issues." Could be indicative of a more active attitude? Was Blix listening to his own report?

The obvious point here is that if the Security Council wants to believe that Iraq's reluctant presentation of meaningless documents is a sign of future cooperation, we can all forget about that "better world" France is so committed to. To his credit, Powell did his best to emphasize this in his own response, stating, "More inspectors--sorry--are not the answer. More inspectors ... will not lead us to the essential problem facing us ... and that is Iraq not complying with [Resolution] 1441." "Force must be a last resort. I have preached that all my professional life as a diplomat and as a soldier," Powell continued. "But it must be a resort."

Posted by Miguel at 01:17 PM

Comments

Posted by: Melli at February 14, 2003 02:03 PM

Posted by: Miguel at February 14, 2003 02:30 PM