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Top Ten Myths about Iraq, 2008

December 27, 2008

by Juan Cole | Informed Comment, Dec 26, 2008

1. Iraqis are safer because of Bush’s War. In fact, conditions of insecurity have helped created both an internal and external refugee problem:

‘ At least 4.2 million Iraqis were displaced. These included 2.2 million who were displaced within Iraq and some 2 million refugees, mostly in Syria (around 1.4 million) and Jordan (around half a million). In the last months of the year both these neighbouring states, struggling to meet the health, education and other needs of the Iraqi refugees already present, introduced visa requirements that impeded the entry of Iraqis seeking refuge. Within Iraq, most governorates barred entry to Iraqis fleeing sectarian violence elsewhere.’

2. Large numbers of Iraqis in exile abroad have returned. In fact, no great number have returned, and more Iraqis may still be leaving to Syria than returning.

3. Iraqis are materially better off because of Bush’s war. In fact, A million Iraqis are “food insecure” and another 6 million need UN food rations to survive. Oxfam estimated in summer, 2007, that 28% of Iraqi children are malnourished.

4. The Bush administration scored a major victory with its Status of Forces Agreement. In fact, The Iraqis forced on Bush an agreement that the US would withdraw combat troops from Iraqi cities by July, 2009,and would completely withdraw from the Country by the end of 2011. The Bush administration had wanted 58 long-term bases, and the authority to arrest Iraqis at will and to launch military operations unilaterally.

5. Minorities in Iraq are safer since Bush’s invasion. In fact, there have in 2008 been significant attacks on and displacement of Iraqi Christians from Mosul. In early January of 2008, guerrillas bombed churches in Mosul, wounding a number of persons. More recently, some 13,000 Christians have had to flee Mosul because of violence.

6. The sole explanation for the fall in the monthly death rate for Iraqi civilians was the troop excalation or surge of 30,000 extra US troops in 2007. In fact, troop levels had been that high before without major effect. The US military did good counter-insurgency in 2007. The major reason for the fall in the death toll, however, was that the Shiites won the war for Baghdad, ethnically cleansing hundreds of thousands of Sunnis from the capital, and turning it into a city with a Shiite majority of 75 to 80 percent. (When Bush invaded, Baghdad was about 50/50 Sunni and Shiite). The high death tolls in 2006 and 2007 were a by-product of this massive ethnic cleansing campaign. Now, a Shiite militiaman in Baghdad would have to drive for a while to find a Sunni Arab to kill.

7. John McCain alleged that if the US left Iraq, it would be promptly taken over by al-Qaeda. In fact, there are few followers of Usamah Bin Laden in Iraq. The fundamentalist extremists, if that is what McCain meant, are not supported by most Sunni Arabs. They are supported by no Shiites (60% of Iraq) or Kurds (20% of Iraq), and are hated by Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Jordan, who would never allow such a takeover.

8. The Iraq War made the world safer from terrorism. In fact, Iraq has become a major training ground for extremists and is implicated in the major bombings in Madrid, London, and Glasgow.

9. Bush went to war in Iraq because he was given bad intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction capabilities. In fact, the State Department’s Intelligence & Research (I & R) division cast doubt on the alarmist WMD stories that Bush/Cheney put about. The CIA refused to sign off on the inclusion of the Niger uranium lie in the State of the Union address, which made Bush source it to the British MI6 instead. The Downing Street Memo revealed that Bush fixed the intelligence around the policy. Bush sought to get up a provocation such as a false flag attack on UN planes so as to blame it on Iraq. And UN weapons inspectors in Feb.-Mar. of 2003 examined 100 of 600 suspected weapons sites and found nothing; Bush’s response was to pull them out and go to war.

10. Douglas Feith and other Neoconservatives didn’t really want a war with Iraq (!). Yeah, that was why they demanded war on Iraq with their 1996 white paper for Bibi Netanyahu and again in their 1998 Project for a New American Century letter to Clinton, where they explicitly called for military action. The Neoconservatives are notorious liars and by the time they get through with rewriting history, they will be a combination of Gandhi and Mother Teresa and the Iraq War will be Bill Clinton’s fault. The only thing is, I think people are wise to them by now. Being a liar can actually get you somewhere. Being a notorious liar is a disadvantage if what you want to is get people to listen to you and act on your advice. I say, Never Again.

See also my article in The Nation, “Iraq: The Necessary Withdrawal,” and this piece in the Toronto Star.

© 2008 Juan Cole

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Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: They lied about Iraq in 2003, and they’re still lying now

December 23, 2008

Gordon Brown has been spinning his own fairy tale of Baghdad

The Independent, UK, Dec 22, 2008

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Triumphalists are getting off on Iraq again, intoning hallelujah songs as they did after staging the fall of Saddam’s statue then again and again, sweet lullabies to send us into blissful sleep and wake to a new dawn. The composers and orchestrators – Blair, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Straw, Hoon and Rice – still believe history is on their side.

Bush visited his troops at Camp Victory in Iraq this month and said: “Iraq had a record of supporting terror, of developing and using weapons of mass destruction, was routinely firing at American military personnel, systematically violating UN resolutions … Iraqis, once afraid to leave their homes are going back to school and shopping in malls … American troops are returning home because of success.” Only one shoe and one without a sharp stiletto was hurled at him by Muntadar al-Zaidi, an Iraqi who begged to differ.

Gordon Brown, also in Iraq, spun his own fairy tale of Baghdad, where everyone is living happily ever after and British soldiers come home proud heroes. The reality is that some of our soldiers are broken – physically and mentally – fighting this illegal and unpopular war and that too many did terrible things in the land of endless tears. General Sir Mike Jackson now blames the Americans for their “appalling” decisions. And yet he too insists the campaign was a success.

Even the choral backers of Bush and Blair, once oh-so-influential, sound tinny now, out of tune. In a new book, The Liberal Defence Of Murder, Richard Seymour names many usually enlightened individuals who cheered on the disgraceful crusade and have now gone silent. Others who supported the adventure have escaped through passages of ingenious exculpation. Most Tories, for example, now say they were hypnotised by the Government’s false dossiers.

Really? Even hard-of-hearing Mrs Kirkpatrick down the road – she’s 79 – understood that we were being deceived. The UN weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Scott Ritter both told us there were no WMDs. Ken Clarke said this weekend: “I opposed the Iraq war. I’m not sure whether anybody believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that were a threat to anybody. Most American spies didn’t believe that, most British spies didn’t believe that and most of the Foreign Office didn’t believe that”.

Nor did the Opposition but it still backed Blair because Conservatives love wars and one against a swarthy potentate was irresistible.

So to Iraqis, the beneficiaries of our noble “sacrifices”. This week Nahla Hussein, a left-wing, feminist Kurdish Iraqi, was shot and beheaded for her campaigning zeal. Fifty-seven Iraqis were blown up in Kirkuk. Christians in Mosul are being savagely persecuted and sharia law has replaced the 1959 codified entitlements given to women in family disputes. Women in Iraq have fewer rights today than under Saddam. Yes, there is some normality in parts but tensions between Shias and Sunnis are explosive. When troops are withdrawn next year, expect more bloodshed. The resources of Iraq, meanwhile, are being plundered.

For these blessings, one million Iraqis had to die and their children still suffer from illnesses caused by our weapons and our war. Five million Iraqis are displaced and, of these, the US took in 1,700. It is easier for an Iraqi cat or dog to gain entry to the land of the free. Try Baghdad Pups, which offers (for a hefty fee) to get the adopted pets of US soldiers into America. In 2007, 39,000 Iraqis sought refuge in the EU countries and we took in 300. Sweden, which has no responsibility for the havoc, gave refuge to 18,000.

I have been talking to exiled Iraqis in London. One young man has a child whose mother killed herself after giving birth during the war. He both loves and hates this country, as did Bilal Abdullah, the NHS doctor convicted for dreadful plans to blow up people in the UK. A beautiful Iraqi woman told me her nephew gave plastic flowers to our soldiers when first they went into Basra. Last year, they shot him dead, mistaking him for an enemy.

On Friday, I met an Iraqi artist, Yousif Nasser, whose studio has become a hub for other exiles, artists, musicians and the mentally ill seeking art therapy. A gentle, melancholic man, he showed me his series titled “Black Rain”, enormous works depicting the violence in Iraq: “There are no bodies, only pieces, bits, of a little bit of this and that. People don’t buy my pictures – they are too dark. How can I tell you what has happened to my country? I have no words, only these images.”

I have words, too weak and inadequate to carry the rage felt by millions at the renewed arrogance of the villains who first devastated Iraq and now garland themselves. Lies, lies and now delusion. There is no glory to be salvaged in this desert.

y.alibhai-brown@independent.co.uk

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Iraqi shoe thrower vows never to apologize to Bush, family says

December 22, 2008

RINF.COM, Sunday, Dec 21, 2008

Shoe-throwing journalist Muntather Zaidi told his family he would never apologize to President Bush for hurling his footwear at the American leader, even if he is chopped into pieces, his brother said after visiting him for the first time Sunday.

Muntather has become an unlikely hero to America’s critics for lobbing his shoes at Bush a week ago during the president’s surprise trip to Baghdad. His actions have been praised by religious leaders, ordinary people and governments hostile to the United States and even prompted marriage offers.

Muntather, from the Cairo-based satellite channel Baghdadiya, has been locked away and kept out of the public eye since last Sunday. The Iraqi government announced earlier in the week that Muntather had written to Prime Minister Nouri Maliki requesting forgiveness for attacking Bush. But Muntather’s brother Uday challenged the government’s assertions after the family’s first visit with the shoe-thrower.

” ‘Muntather said that he was forced to apologize to Maliki and he will never, never apologize to Bush even if they cut him into small pieces,’ ” Uday told The Times after his visit with his brother.

Uday said his brother had lost a tooth and his nose had required stitches because of the beatings he had suffered in custody.

“There were multiple bruises all over his body. There were cigarette burns behind his ears. He was beaten with metal rods. His eyes were swollen. They have assigned two medical doctors … to provide him with treatment in order to hide the evidence of torture,” Uday said

A judge investigating the case told the Associated Press on Friday that Muntather showed signs of having been beaten in custody.

According to his brother, Muntather had no regrets for attempting to hit Bush at a joint press conference with Maliki. He said Muntather told him: ” ‘I do not regret what I did. If I went back in time, I would do the same thing.’ ”

Uday said his brother wanted the world to know that he threw the shoe not for money, fame or an ulterior motive and had been ready to die. ” ‘I thought I was going to be shot immediately as I saw the bodyguards with the guns standing there, but I really did not care. I was prepared for anything because I did this for my country,’ ” Uday said his brother told him.

Meeting with Iraqi reporters on Saturday, Maliki criticized Muntather for giving the world a “bad image” of Iraq and harming the reputation of its journalists. Even so, Maliki said he made sure the journalist had a pillow, clean sheets and clothing his first night in captivity. He vowed the courts would decide Muntather’s fate. Before speaking, he listened to Iraqi reporters condemn Muntather’s behavior.

– Caesar Ahmed and Ned Parker in Baghdad

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Bush attacker ‘incensed by bullet-riddled Koran’

December 21, 2008

Marie Colvin and Ali Rifat

THE young Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at President George W Bush had been incensed by a story he covered about an American soldier who used a copy of the Koran for target practice, according to his family.

Muntathar al-Zaydi, 28, who became an overnight hero in the Arab world, worked as a reporter for the popular al-Baghdadiya satellite TV station.

In May he was sent to report on an incident in Radwaniyah, west of Baghdad, in which Islam’s holy book was found riddled with bullets from an American sniper.

“He talked incessantly about the subject,” recalled his elder brother Uday. It was one of a number of assignments that appear to have radicalised Zaydi during his brief journalistic career.

“The war changed Muntathar’s psyche as a result of the horrific scenes he saw, as well as the cruel tragedies, which led to the scene we all saw at the press conference,” Uday added.

In three years at the station Zaydi witnessed many scenes of carnage, including suicide bombings and sectarian killings, his brother said. “But the incident that made Muntathar cry most was the story of Abir, the daughter of Mahmoudiya.”

It is a crime that still angers Iraqis, despite the apologies of the American command. In 2006 five American soldiers raped and killed 14-year-old Abir Janabi in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad. They also shot dead her mother, father and seven-year-old sister. Four of the soldiers have been tried; three were sentenced to life imprisonment and the fourth was jailed for 27 months. The fifth, who had left the army, will be tried in a US civilian court early next year.

Zaydi grew up as one of nine children in a poor Shi’ite family in the south of Baghdad. After his parents died, he started work as a labourer but eventually found work in a juice bar and studied in the evenings.

During the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein in 2003, he fled with relatives to Diyala, a province north of Baghdad, and narrowly escaped an American airstrike that killed a family in a house nearby. He would return as a reporter to tell their story.

Back in Baghdad, he graduated from the Technical Institute, and finally landed a job at al-Baghdadiya, the Cairo-based satellite TV station, which is highly critical of the Iraqi government and the US occupation. He lived in a tiny flat in New Baghdad, a mostly Shi’ite district, where he tapped away at an antiquated computer.

Zaydi, who could face up to 15 years in jail, is now being held in the heavily protected green zone and his family has not been allowed to see him.

Uday said he had received a call from a man identifying himself only as a bodyguard of Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, who was sitting next to Bush at the press conference.

Maliki, said the man, was “feeling guilty” that Zaydi had been injured during the incident. As the news conference carried on, journalists heard screams from a nearby room where Zaydi was allegedly being beaten.

Throughout the Middle East, television stations endlessly replayed the film of Bush ducking as Zaydi threw first one shoe, then the other, saying the second was for the “women, children and orphans of Iraq”.

Demonstrations of support expressed the depth of anger at the Bush administration, but there were lighter notes. A wealthy Saudi offered $10m (£6.5m) for one of the shoes; a Turkish company that claims to have made them said last week 300,000 had been ordered.

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Iraqi shoe-thrower was beaten by security, says judge

December 20, 2008

• Chief investigator says journalist may be pardoned
• Doubts cast on apology as ‘shoe intifada’ spreads

Muntazer al-Zaidi could hardly have anticipated the extraordinary reaction when he hurled his shoes at George Bush on Sunday to protest at the invasion of Iraq. His “farewell kiss” to the US president has kept the previously unknown TV journalist in the centre of global attention – a hero across the Arab world and beyond.

Zaidi, who was wrestled to the ground by security men, was beaten on the face, investigating judge Dhia al-Kinani revealed in Baghdad yesterday. But claims that he has asked the Iraqi prime minister to forgive him for his “big ugly act” were immediately questioned by his brother.

Zaidi’s emergence as a role model for anti-American resistance was confirmed by the Iranian ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who praised what he called the “shoe intifada [uprising]” at Tehran University, where demonstrations against the “Great Satan” have been routine for 30 years.

In a mosque in Baghdad’s Sadr City, Shia cleric Mohanad al-Moussawi told worshippers that “al-Zaidi’s life must be protected and he must be immediately, immediately, immediately released”. Sunni preachers issued similar calls.

In London, Media Workers Against the War presented a box of shoes and a letter – signatories included Tony Benn – to the US embassy, pointing out that the journalist was “guilty of nothing but expressing Iraqis’ legitimate and overwhelming opposition to the US-led occupation of their country.”

Kinani said Zaidi’s letter to prime minister Nouri al-Maliki could lead to a pardon rather than a two-year jail sentence, but Zaidi’s brother Dirgham insisted in an interview with al-Jazeera that any apology could only have been written “under pressure”.

If it is confirmed, Zaidi’s remorse may not be appreciated by supporters such as the Egyptian who offered to marry his 20-year-old daughter to Zaidi or the Palestinian from the West Bank town of Nablus who went further: pledging both a daughter and $30,000 for the Iraqi’s legal costs. A Bahraini admirer offered to buy him a luxury limousine.

It could also be a disappointment for the Saudi who reportedly said he would pay 10m riyals for the size 10 “freedom shoes.” Following the old adage that success has many fathers, cobblers all over the Middle East have claimed they manufactured the loafers though most footwear in Iraq is Chinese-made. The most convincing claim came from Turkey, where manufacturer Ramazan Baydan said he might change the name of the shoe, prosaically called Model 271, to the Bush Shoe or Bye-bye Bush model. “Thanks to Bush, orders are flying in like crazy,” he said. Ayatollah Jannati called for the shoes to be deposited in a museum in Iraq. But Judge al-Kinani revealed they had been destroyed by investigators trying to determine whether they contained explosives.

Copycat footwear hurling has apparently also begun elsewhere, with a Ukrainian nationalist, as yet unnamed, throwing his boots at an Odessa speaker arguing in favour of Nato expansion.

It has also been a busy week for the spinoff online game Sock and Awe, which lets players throw virtual brown loafers at Bush. The site says 46m cyber-shoes have struck the presidential head as of Friday afternoon.

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Gordon Brown rejects call for early Iraq inquiry

December 19, 2008

Prime minister says inquiry into war will be held ‘once troops come home’

Gordon Brown in Basra, Iraq

Gordon Brown at the Basra airbase memorial on Tuesday. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/PA

Gordon Brown today rejected opposition calls for an early inquiry into the Iraq war.

As he made a statement in the Commons about the withdrawal of troops, the prime minister refused to go beyond a repetition of his broad commitment to an inquiry “once our troops come home”.

But Brown did announce that the Ministry of Defence was spending £150m on more than 100 new all-terrain “Warthog” vehicles and that the memorial in Basra commemorating the 178 British servicemen and women who have lost their lives in Iraq will be brought to Britain when the operation is over.

Brown, who said that almost all British troops would leave Iraq by the end of July 2009 during a surprise visit to the country yesterday, told MPs that Iraq had made “very significant progress” since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

He said that from August next year fewer than 400 British troops would be left in Iraq. That was equivalent to what would be expected from a “normal defence relationship” with a country in the region.

Most of the remaining troops would be dedicated to naval training, Brown said.

In his response to Brown’s statement, the Conservative leader, David Cameron, said that the government ought to “strike a realistic tone about what has and has not been achieved” in Iraq and remember that, for many Iraqis, conditions remained “dire”.

For some time the government has been committed to setting up an inquiry into the Iraq war after the withdrawal of British troops. Cameron asked Brown for details of when this would happen, saying: “If we do not learn lessons from the mistakes of the past, then we are more likely to repeat them in the future.”

Cameron also said that if Brown meant his promise about having no inquiry until all the troops were home literally, then, with a few hundred remaining, there “would be no inquiry for many, many years”.

Brown did not clarify whether he would be willing to start an inquiry after July. Instead he just insisted that he would consider the matter “once our troops come home”.

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, said Barack Obama, the US president-elect, was right when he described the war as “dumb” before the invasion in 2003. Clegg said that the Lib Dems were the only major party to oppose it.

“This was the single worst foreign policy decision for the last 50 years. It is time the government and the Conservatives held up their hands and said sorry to the British people for Iraq,” he said.

There had to be a full public inquiry, he said. “The government must not be allowed to end this war as it began it: in secrecy and misdirection.”

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Armed with a shoe, Iraqi journalist inspires resistance

December 18, 2008


By: Michael Prysner| pslweb.org, December 17, 2008

Bush ducks footwear, but still gets a kick to the face

During George W. Bush’s final visit to the country that has endured indescribable death and destruction under his administration, the defiance of one brave journalist encapsulated the sentiment of people all over the world.

Iraqis show solidarity with shoe thrower al-Zaidi, 12-15-08
Iraqis demonstrate in solidarity
with al-Zaidi, Dec. 15.

Muntadhar al-Zaidi, a journalist with Al-Baghdadia television, hurled his shoe at Bush while shouting: “This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog! This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!” Al-Zaidi’s shoe narrowly missed Bush’s ducking head.

Bush laughed off the incident, ignorantly claiming, “I’m not sure what his cause was.” Even before the shoe hit the ground, Bush’s propaganda apparatus and the corporate media were already spinning the act as evidence of Iraq’s progress toward democracy and tolerance of dissidence.

This much-touted tolerance, however, did not prevent Maliki’s guards from dragging al-Zaidi outside and beating him mercilessly. Blood could be seen where guards had tackled al-Zaidi, and witnesses say his cries could be heard for the duration of the news conference.

Al-Zaidi was promptly whisked away to a detention facility for interrogation, and is still being held. The journalist’s brother says al-Zaidi suffered a broken hand, broken ribs, internal bleeding and an eye injury. Al-Zaidi faces charges of “insulting a foreign leader and the Prime Minister of Iraq,” which could land him in prison for seven years.

Al-Zaidi knew full well that he would face severe consequences, but he was determined to give a voice to those who have suffered. Sitting just a few feet away from the man who, for so many, has been the incarnation of the war policy that killed over 1 million Iraqis, and maimed and displaced millions more, al-Zaidi burst Bush’s bubble and effectively ruined his end-of-term victory parade. Who would have thought that the disdain and hatred felt for Bush all over the Arab world and, for that matter, across much of the globe, would fit into a single shoe?

Continued  >>

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George Bush Shoe-Thrower ‘Too Severely Beaten’ for Court Appearance

December 18, 2008

Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US president was not taken to court because it could ‘trigger anger’, alleges brother

by Peter Walker and agencies | Guardian,UK,  Dec 17, 2008

The brother of an Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at George Bush claimed today that the television reporter was too badly beaten to appear in court, as the speaker of Iraq’s parliament reportedly announced his resignation over the issue.Dargham al-Zaidi said he was told a judge had been to see his younger brother, Muntazer, at the jail where he has been held since throwing his shoes at the US president during a press conference in Baghdad on Sunday. The television reporter – whose actions have made him a star in the Arab world – called Bush a “dog” and said he was angry at the US occupation of his country.

[Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi, who hurled shoes at US President George W. Bush. The journalist who has since become a star in the Arab world appeared before a judge on Wednesday, his brother said. (AFP/File)]Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi, who hurled shoes at US President George W. Bush. The journalist who has since become a star in the Arab world appeared before a judge on Wednesday, his brother said. (AFP/File)

The family went to Baghdad’s central criminal court expecting a hearing, Dhargham said, but were told the investigative judge had been to the prison and they should return in eight days. “That means my brother was severely beaten and they fear that his appearance could trigger anger at the court,” he said.Iraqi officials have denied that Muntazar, a 29-year-old reporter for the private Al-Baghdadia TV station, has been injured. Under Iraq’s legal system a judge investigates an allegation before recommending whether to order a trial. Initial hearings are often conducted informally rather than in court.

According to Dargham, his brother suffered a broken arm and ribs, as well as injuries to an eye and a leg after being beaten by security officials, and was treated at the Ibn Sina hospital, in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone. Dargham said he did not know whether the injuries happened when Muntazer was being overpowered at the press conference or later.

The journalist faces possible trial under a clause in the Iraqi penal code outlawing “aggression against a president”. If convicted, he could be imprisoned for seven to 15 years. Dargham said he was told by the investigating judge that his brother “had co-operated well”, but had no other details.

During a press conference marking Bush’s farewell visit to Iraq as US president, Muntazer jumped up and shouted: “It is the farewell kiss, you dog”. He threw both his shoes at the US leader – a severe insult in the Arab world.

Iraq’s parliament erupted into chaos today as MPs debated Muntazer’s continued detention. An official in the office of the speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, said he had resigned after the row, although it was not clear why this had happened.

The US state department said yesterday it would condemn “unnecessary force” used against Muntazer, but it did not know whether any had occurred.

Bush’s press secretary, Dana Perino – who was sporting a bruise under her eye after being struck by a microphone stand during the melee – said the president held “no hard feelings” about the incident and accepted it was up to Iraq to decide on any punishment.

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008

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Precedent for the shoe-throwing protest

December 17, 2008

Al-Zaidi may have been beaten for his outburst at George Bush, but Iraqi journalists are entitled to righteous indignation

Muntadhar al-Zaidi will go down in Arab folklore as the man who dared to throw his shoes at George Bush but his immediate problem is how to recover from the reprisals he suffered after his bold gesture. His older brother, Dargham, has told reporters Muntadhar suffered a broken hand, broken ribs and internal bleeding, as well as an eye injury, and is in hospital.

If true, the reports confirm what the TV clips shown on the Guardian’s website in the aftermath of the incident seemed to suggest. A number of Western news reports referred to Zaidi as “screaming” while he was taken out of the press conference room. They gave the impression he was ranting at Bush. The soundtrack hinted otherwise. It contained a series of agonised yelps and grunts, as of a man being repeatedly kicked and thumped. By then, Zaidi was on the floor, and cameras could not catch him in the melee. But listen to the message of the microphones. It seems to tell a vicious tale.

Who was doing the punching, if that is what it was? Was it Iraqi security men or Bush’s bodyguards from the US Secret Service? Either way, whatever brutality it is now alleged was meted out to Zaidi far outweighs the violence involved in his gesture. This will only serve to add to Zaidi’s status, making him a martyr as well as a hero in large sections of the Arab world, where commentators have been vying with superlatives to describe his action.

The judicial fate that befalls him will also play a role. Will he receive a prison sentence, or released after a few hours, as tends to happen to protesters who throw eggs or tomatoes at politicians in western countries? The Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, has condemned Zaidi’s action as an insult to a foreign guest, but Maliki – who, of course, has no influence over Iraqi’s independent prosecution service – must know that a harsh sentence will only damage his own new-found reputation as the nationalist who managed to get Bush to agree to a withdrawal timetable.

Zaidi’s coup de théâtre was imaginative, but his readiness to disrupt a high-level US press conference in Baghdad was not unique for an Iraqi journalist. I will never forget the one Colin Powell gave on March 19 2004. As the then US secretary of state took his place at the podium in the Green Zone’s convention centre, Najim al-Rubaie from the newspaper Al-Dustour rose to his feet and read a statement: “We declare our boycott of this press conference because of the martyrs. We declare our condemnation of the incident which led to two journalists being killed by American forces.”

Around 30 other Iraqi and Arab journalists then stood up and followed Rubaie out of the hall. In silence, we watched them leave, as stunned as Powell. It was the bravest collective action I have ever seen a group of journalists take. I have attended press conferences in several dozen countries where reporters – at least, not the lapdog ones – compete with each other in the usual macho way to ask officials tough questions. A collective protest, and taking a stand on an issue? It never happens.

The protest that day in 2004 was over the shooting of a reporter and his cameraman from the Al-Arabiya TV station. They had been driving up to investigate a suicide bomb several minutes after it exploded, but were gunned down by nervous US soldiers at a Baghdad checkpoint. They were not the first reporters to be killed by the Americans in the year after the invasion, so their colleagues’ indignation was not a sudden flare-up; it was more like a slow burn.

Presumably, that was the case with Zaidi. Several dozen more journalists have died in the line of duty in Iraq since 2004. You can see why any journalist would be angry. There’s no other profession that allows a person close and regular access to the world’s top decision-makers in a context that permits plain speaking. Add to that the perpetual daily tension of life in Iraq, the bereavement which so many Iraqis have suffered in their own families, and the humiliation which being occupied by foreign troops causes on a constant basis, the surprise is that it has taken so long for an Iraqi journalist to throw a shoe.

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Thousands Demand Release of Iraqi Journalist Who Threw Shoes at George W Bush

December 16, 2008

The Telegraph, UK, Dec 15, 2008

Thousands of Iraqis have taken to the streets to demand the release of a reporter who threw his shoes at President George Bush.

Arabs across the Middle East hailed the journalist a hero and praised his insult as a proper send-off to the unpopular U.S. president.

'This is a farewell kiss, you dog, this is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.' (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)]A shoe is raised during a protest against the visit to Iraq of US President George W. Bush, in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday. Dec. 15, 2008. Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zeidi threw his shoes at President George W. Bush during a press conference in Baghdad on Sunday, while yelling in Arabic: ‘This is a farewell kiss, you dog, this is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.’ (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

Muntadhar al-Zeidi, who was kidnapped by Shiite militants last year, was being held by Iraqi security today and interrogated about whether anybody paid him to protest during the press conference.He was also being tested for alcohol and drugs, and his shoes were being held as evidence.

Showing the sole of your shoe to someone in the Arab world is a sign of extreme disrespect, and throwing your shoes is even worse.

In Baghdad’s Shiite slum of Sadr City, thousands of supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr burned American flags to protest against Bush and called for the release of al-Zeidi.

“Bush, Bush, listen well – Two shoes on your head,” the protesters chanted in unison.

Newspapers across the Arab world printed front-page photos of Bush ducking the flying shoes and satellite TV stations repeatedly aired the incident, which provided fodder for jokes and was hailed by the president’s many critics in the region.

“Iraq considers Sunday as the international day for shoes,” said a text message circulating around the Saudi capital Riyadh.

Many users of the popular internet networking site Facebook posted the video of the incident to their profile pages, showing al-Zeidi leap from his chair as Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki were about to shake hands.

“This is a farewell kiss, you dog,” al-Zeidi yelled in Arabic as he threw his shoes. “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.”

Al-Zeidi was immediately wrestled to the ground by Iraqi security guards. The incident raised fears of a security lapse in the heavily guarded Green Zone where the press conference took place. Reporters were repeatedly searched and asked to show identification before entering and while inside the compound, which houses al-Maliki’s office and the U S Embassy.

Al-Zeid’s tirade was echoed by Arabs across the Middle East who are fed up with U.S. policy in the region and still angry over Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein.

Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the influential London-based newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, wrote on the newspaper’s website that the incident was “a proper goodbye for a war criminal.”

The response to the incident by Arabs in the street was ecstatic.

“Al-Zeidi is the man,” said 42-year-old Jordanian businessman Samer Tabalat. “He did what Arab leaders failed to do.”

Ghazi Abu Baker, a 55-year-old shopkeeper in the West Bank town of Jenin said, “This journalist should be elected president of Iraq for what he has done.”

Hoping to capitalise on this sentiment, al-Zeidi’s TV station, Al-Baghdadia, repeatedly aired pleas to release the reporter Monday, while showing footage of explosions and playing background music that denounced the US in Iraq.

“We have all been mobilised to work on releasing him, and all the organisations around the world are with us,” said Abdel-Hameed al-Sayeh, the manager of Al-Baghdadia in Cairo, where the station is based.

Al-Jazeera television interviewed Saddam’s former chief lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi, who offered to defend al-Zeidi, calling him a “hero.”

In Najaf, a Shiite holy city, some protesters threw their shoes at an American patrol as it passed by. Witnesses said the American troops did not respond to the protesters and continued on their patrol.

Al-Zeidi, who is in his late 20s, was kidnapped by Shiite militias on Nov. 16, 2007, and released three days later. His station said no ransom was paid and refused to discuss the case.

Violence in Iraq has declined significantly over the past year, but daily attacks continue to occur. The truck bomb that killed five police officers Monday also wounded 13 others, said Iraqi police.

Hours earlier north of Baghdad, a female suicide bomber knocked on the front door of the home of the leader of a local volunteer Sunni militia and blew herself up, killing him, said Iraqi police.

The police officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the press.

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2008

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