: "You say bad words about Saddam, they take you in there and you never come out."


ukjeeper
04-03-2003, 02:49 AM
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39040000/jpg/_39040293_id203.jpg
Their faces stared up at me in black and white, snap shots of individual lives frozen in time. Dozens and dozens of Iraqi national identity cards were spread across the chief of police's abandoned large oak desk.

All of them were men, aged between around 20 and 50 - people's sons, husbands, brothers, or fathers.

In Saddam Hussein's Iraq, it is a crime not to carry these identity cards wherever you go, a crime punishable by imprisonment.

We stopped to think why these dozens of men did not need their ID cards anymore.

Good story by the BBC reminding us WHY we are there (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2908827.stm).

Long and depressing read, but well worth the time. :(

Oxjockey
04-03-2003, 04:17 AM
I guess noone told them we're in there for the oil. :rolleyes: