Reuters Reporters Say Every Man on Iraqi Street Opposes US
From The Weekly Standard, an article by Dan Dickinson
When the Iraqi Governing Council announced the appointment of British educated neurologist and anti-Saddam dissident Iyad Allawi as Iraqâs new Interim Prime Minister on May 28, you would think that many Iraqis would have approved of the choice, or at least seen Allawiâs selection as a sign that the U.S. led occupation was at last starting to wind down. But thatâs not how Iraqis saw it, at least according to Michael Georgy, a Baghdad reporter of the British owned Reuters, a 153-year-old institution that bills itself as the worldâs largest multimedia news agency. In a "man on the street" piece, Georgy couldnât find a single Iraqi who had a good thing to say about Allawi, or, for that matter, the United States. "Iraq is the same as under Saddam Hussein," said one hotel manager whom Georgy reports "refused to give his name." "I reject him," declared Hassan Ali, a policeman.
Just a few days earlier, President Bush outlined his commitment to a free Iraq and an end to the occupation in an address seen in both the U.S. and Iraq. The Iraqis, this time according to Reutersâ Alastair MacDonald, didnât like that, either. "Bush is a scorpion. He is a liar," opined policeman Ayman Haidar. Again, no one could be found to say a good word about anything the Coalition does. Nor is this detestation of all things American a recent development in Reutersâ reporting. Indeed, from the start of the war, Reutersâ quotes make it very clear that virtually everyone in this country of 25 million, with its contending ethnic groups and its history of enduring one of the twentieth centuryâs most savage dictatorships, is united in at least one respect - they all hate Bush and America. No matter whom Reuters talks to, be they Sunnis, Shiites, or Kurds, male or female, they are all mad as hell, and they are not going to take it any more. Collectively, they are the "Angry Iraqi."
The article continues along this line.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-06-03 |