March 23, 2003
Group shows Iraqis welcoming U.S.
By Arnaud de Borchgrave
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
AMMAN, Jordan ? A group of American anti-war demonstrators, part of a Japanese human-shield delegation, returned from Iraq yesterday with 14 hours of uncensored video, all shot without Iraqi government minders present, with Iraqis eager to tell of their welcome for American troops.
The Rev. Kenneth Joseph, a young American pastor of the Assyrian Church of the East, said the trip to Iraq "had shocked me back to reality."
Some of the Iraqis he interviewed on camera, he said, "told me they would commit suicide if American bombing didn't start. They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam [Hussein]'s bloody tyranny."
Mr. Joseph said the Iraqis convinced him that Saddam is "a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler. He and his sons are sick sadists.
"Their tales of slow torture and killing made me ill, such as people put in a huge shredder for plastic products, feet first so the [torture masters] could hear their screams as bodies got chewed up from foot to head."
The pastor and others making it across the border into Jordan tell harrowing stories about their journey. The only gasoline station between Baghdad and the border, a distance of 400 miles, was blown up by U.S. fighter-bombers. The station, in the one-camel village of Ramadi, had the only telephone booth on the road across the desert and a Jordanian, who had stopped to call his parents in Amman to let them know he was on his way home, was killed in the explosion.
The few taxi drivers in Baghdad willing to drive to the Jordanian border are charging $1,500 per passenger. Very few Iraqis can afford the fare, and only about 300 "third-country nationals," mostly Sudanese and Egyptians, have reached the border post since the "shock and awe" campaign began. Travelers have to struggle with their luggage across the last two miles on foot to Al Karama, the first Jordanian outpost. From there, they are taken by bus to a tent city at the Ruwaished refugee camp, 36 miles inside Jordan.
Group shows Iraqis welcoming U.S.
By Arnaud de Borchgrave
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
AMMAN, Jordan ? A group of American anti-war demonstrators, part of a Japanese human-shield delegation, returned from Iraq yesterday with 14 hours of uncensored video, all shot without Iraqi government minders present, with Iraqis eager to tell of their welcome for American troops.
The Rev. Kenneth Joseph, a young American pastor of the Assyrian Church of the East, said the trip to Iraq "had shocked me back to reality."
Some of the Iraqis he interviewed on camera, he said, "told me they would commit suicide if American bombing didn't start. They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam [Hussein]'s bloody tyranny."
Mr. Joseph said the Iraqis convinced him that Saddam is "a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler. He and his sons are sick sadists.
"Their tales of slow torture and killing made me ill, such as people put in a huge shredder for plastic products, feet first so the [torture masters] could hear their screams as bodies got chewed up from foot to head."
The pastor and others making it across the border into Jordan tell harrowing stories about their journey. The only gasoline station between Baghdad and the border, a distance of 400 miles, was blown up by U.S. fighter-bombers. The station, in the one-camel village of Ramadi, had the only telephone booth on the road across the desert and a Jordanian, who had stopped to call his parents in Amman to let them know he was on his way home, was killed in the explosion.
The few taxi drivers in Baghdad willing to drive to the Jordanian border are charging $1,500 per passenger. Very few Iraqis can afford the fare, and only about 300 "third-country nationals," mostly Sudanese and Egyptians, have reached the border post since the "shock and awe" campaign began. Travelers have to struggle with their luggage across the last two miles on foot to Al Karama, the first Jordanian outpost. From there, they are taken by bus to a tent city at the Ruwaished refugee camp, 36 miles inside Jordan.