ARAB REACTION / REACTION IN IRAQ / OUTSIDE IRAQ

ARAB REACTION

‘Every honest Iraqi is happy today. Saddam

is out.’

-- Abdul Jalil Jawad

An Iraqi exile in Amman, Jordan

*

‘There are many who are unhappy.

I mean, nobody loved Saddam. But you saw the pictures in the paper of the kids dead. Is that the price to pay for getting rid of

one man?’

-- Khalid Maeena

Editor of the Arab News in Saudi Arabia*

‘I taste defeat for the Arabs. Our regimes showed no power to stop this war and now they have to go. They have

lost all credibility. We are defeated.’

-- Ahmad Mahmoud

A cabdriver in Doha, Qatar

*

‘We Arabs are clever only at talking. Where are the Iraqi weapons? Where are the Iraqi soldiers?’

-- Haitham Baghdadi

A resident of Damascus, Syria

*

‘What’s next? We’re all fearful of what the Americans have in store for us.’

-- Abeer Maghribi

A Syrian living in London

*

‘This is a message for the Arab regimes, and could be the beginning of transformation in the Arab region. Without the honest help of the Western nations, the reforms will not take place in these countries.’

-- Tarek al Absi

A university professor in Yemen

*

REACTION IN IRAQ

‘Total control has been replaced by sheer anarchy.’

-- James Bays

a British journalist in Baghdad

*

‘My hope is to never forget this day. It will be

a day in our history. We’ve been afraid for so long. Afraid he would attack us. But the fear

is gone and we won’t live that way anymore.’

-- Aram Maroof

an Iraqi Kurd

*

‘Anyone with a car has to sleep inside or post a guard all night if they want to keep it. They’re even stealing our license plates.’

-- Sattar Tamini

33-year-old resident of Basra

*

‘It’s turning into a jungle. I just finished university, but

I can’t get my documents because the school has been destroyed.’

-- Saef Ali Ahmed

a student in Basra

*

‘Everyone wants security and a solution. But it’s not going to happen overnight. We were the first into Pristina

[in Kosovo] and the same thing happened.

It takes time.’

-- Maj. Ben Farrell

of the Irish Guards in Basra

*

‘People, if you only knew what this man did to Iraq. He killed our youth. He killed millions.’

-- An elderly man in Baghdad beating a portrait of Saddam Hussein with his shoe

*

OUTSIDE IRAQ

‘Until this war is fully won,we cannot be overconfident in our position, and we must not underestimate the desperation of whatever forces remain loyal to the dictator.’

Vice President

Dick Cheney

*

‘The game is over, and I hope the peace will prevail.

I hope

the Iraqi people will have a happy life.’

-- Mohammed Douri, Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations

*

‘Certainly, we would like to have certain knowledge about Saddam Hussein’s fate.... I think that if you put yourself in the place of an Iraqi citizen, they would like to see closure.’

--ARI FLEISCHER

White House press secretary

*

‘The Iraqi people should themselves be given the opportunity, fast, to choose the way they want to administer their affairs, and there should be an end to the occupation as quickly as possible.’

-- Saud al Faisal