Monday, March 29, 2004

Days I do not want to forget.

The 29th of March 2003

Today’s news upset me very much. The coalition forces stop their march towards Baghdad for the few coming days, despite that a military American spokesman denies that and speaks about rearrangement and redistribution. The truth is that I don’t feel good about all this because it gives a chance to Saddam and his propaganda in and outside Iraq to speak about their 'bravery and strength' and how they 'forced' the coalition troops to stop.

The coalition forces establish 12 centers for distributing humanitarian aids in the southern of Iraq and Kuwait supplies Basra with fresh water through a newly established pipeline.

News still talk about a bombing to military targets on the line between Mosul and Kurdistan. I think the northern front is about to be opened and this will, surely, strengthen the siege on Saddam, but there’s still very little effort on this front and I don’t know why the coalition don’t allow the Kurdish militia to take part in the operations. There seems to be an American decision that the Iraqi opposition groups should not take part in the liberation, although I’m not sure about that yet.

The good news today is the control of (Ali’s airbase) in Nassireah and the landing of the 1st American airplane there. This will sure aid in the logistic support of the troops and will make it easier for the coalition to use their short ranged attacking airplanes more effectively.

Iraq fires a silkworm-missile on Kuwait and hits a trading center without causalities. China has now to clarify how Saddam got these missiles!

Bombing continues on Baghdad to target again the communication centers and the ministry of culture and information. There were also successful raids on the republican guard division (Al-Madina Al-Monawara)

Tonight the chatting was depressing. The news speaks about a disagreement between the American defense ministry and the central command about the plan to liberate Iraq. Most of the discussion was about this issue. Some said that the Americans didn’t prepare well for this battle and others said that these people know exactly what they are doing and that they earned those stars on their shoulders, and cannot be compared to the illiterate people commanding the Iraqi troops. Here our host, who was really depressed couldn’t stand it anymore and stood up and shouted” where the h*** is Schwartzkov? We need him NOW!!”

We looked at each other and struggled to keep our laughter inside. He stared at each one of us and said “YES, it’s only Shwartzkov who can kick Saddam’s a**” my friend, his son, laughed out loud and said “dad, it’s not a football match to call for (Ammo Baba)”*

* Ammo Baba is a famous Iraqi soccer coach who was hated by Oday, but nevertheless when the Iraqi football team didn’t perform well in any competition, Oday would call for him to fix the trouble.

-By Mohammed.

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