‘I regret striking Saddam’s statue’

BAGHDAD, July 6

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The Iraqi man who was filmed attacking Saddam Hussein’s statue with a sledgehammer when US troops stormed into Baghdad in 2003 said Iraq was in a better shape under his rule and George W. Bush and Tony Blair should be put on trial “for ruining” it.

Kadhim Hassan al-Jabouri was speaking on Wednesday as British former civil servant John Chilcot released a long-awaited report criticising Britain’s role in the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. The report said the “policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments”, and that claims that Iraq posed a threat by possessing weapons of mass destruction were “presented with unjustified certainty”.

It said the turmoil unleashed in Iraq since the invasion should have come as no surprise. “I regret striking the statue,” said Jabouri, a Shi’ite who lost more than a dozen relatives under Saddam, a member of the Sunni Muslim minority. He said they were killed for opposing the Iraqi leader, who was hanged in 2006.

The 12-metre statue of Saddam was pulled down by US Marines shortly after Jabouri and other Iraqis attacked it on April 9, 2003. Images of it being ripped from its plinth were broadcast live around the world and came to symbolise the overthrow of Saddam’s quarter-century in power.

“I wish Saddam would return; he executed many of my family but he is still better than these politicians and clerics who got Iraq to the way it is,” he said, referring to the Shi’ite religious political parties that took over after the invasion. Jabouri, 58, owned a motorcycle repair shop in the Karrada district of central Baghdad at the time of the invasion.

The mainly Shi’ite neighbourhood was hit by a truck bomb on Saturday night, claimed by the ultra-hardline Sunni group IS, which killed about 250 people. It was the highest toll from a single bombing in more than a decade of chaos following the war which toppled Saddam. Blair and Bush “must be put to trial as they have ruined Iraq with their lies. It turned out there were no weapons of mass destruction”, Jabouri said.

Different viewpoint

Others who suffered under Saddam had a different view and several said they were grateful to the governments in Washington and London for putting an end to his rule.

“Overthrowing Saddam’s regime was a dream that came true thanks to the US and Britain and all those who say otherwise are liars,” said  ex-political prisoner Faris Mohammed, 46, who was serving a life sentence in Basra when the invasion took place.

But Abu Yasser, 67, a retired manager of Iraqi Airways and a member of Sunni community, said Chilcot’s report offered little comfort to Iraqis marking the start of the Eid holiday on Wednesday, overshadowed once again by the violence which has plagued Iraq since 2003. Abdul Illah Risan, an Appeal Court General Prosecutor in Baghdad, said he rejected the Chilcot report as “it questions the legality of the war to depose Saddam”. — Reuters