This is straight from a Australian friend of mine who is working in Bagdad for an international security company.
Gives an interesting second view of what is happening over there.
G'day Bern (and everybody else)
The old iraqi in the palace who blew up the footy said he had never seen a football like it in Iraq before.
I know what you're saying about the reports on the tele but I probably shouldn't complain about the dickheads in the media who don't cover the positive stories as well, like 1200 fully operational schools being handed over to the Iraqis on Tuesday, thanks to them we all received a pay rise before we even got on the plane to come out here and we'll probably be in line for another one shortly.
Saddam and his henchmen spent billions on their palaces, casinos, hotels, and whorehouses and left the rest of the country to literally rust and rot away, even the essentials such as electricity generation (while all the time being able to blame it on the embargos). As for the once daily occurences of kidnap, murder, rape and torture there's no point in even going there. All I can say is that these people (and there are a lot of them) must be judged by the Iraqi people themselves as we in the west are far too soft for the job. 99% of the waste, wreckage and poverty in this country has absolutely nothing to do with the war.
As for the armchair experts who espouse that just Saddam could/should have been taken out they haven't a clue what they're talking about. This entire country needs to be rebuilt from scratch. The buildings, infrastructure, police, army, public service, the whole lot. And none of it can physically or financially happen without the Yanks, whatever people may think of them. All the constant sniping and negativity does absolutely nothing to help the engineers, planners etc, etc who are literally trying to bolt this country back together again. Clowns like Chirac are just playing politics with peoples lives. But then again, the only reason he wants a totally independant Iraq ASAP is so that he can re-establish in some form the oil contracts that he had when he was in bed with Saddam.
Anyway folks, gotta roll. Have to pop over to the palace and 'protect' the pool. It's not all beer and skittles over here you know.
All the best
Matt
I'm just throwing it into the mix.....you can make of it what you will
Gives an interesting second view of what is happening over there.
G'day Bern (and everybody else)
The old iraqi in the palace who blew up the footy said he had never seen a football like it in Iraq before.
I know what you're saying about the reports on the tele but I probably shouldn't complain about the dickheads in the media who don't cover the positive stories as well, like 1200 fully operational schools being handed over to the Iraqis on Tuesday, thanks to them we all received a pay rise before we even got on the plane to come out here and we'll probably be in line for another one shortly.
Saddam and his henchmen spent billions on their palaces, casinos, hotels, and whorehouses and left the rest of the country to literally rust and rot away, even the essentials such as electricity generation (while all the time being able to blame it on the embargos). As for the once daily occurences of kidnap, murder, rape and torture there's no point in even going there. All I can say is that these people (and there are a lot of them) must be judged by the Iraqi people themselves as we in the west are far too soft for the job. 99% of the waste, wreckage and poverty in this country has absolutely nothing to do with the war.
As for the armchair experts who espouse that just Saddam could/should have been taken out they haven't a clue what they're talking about. This entire country needs to be rebuilt from scratch. The buildings, infrastructure, police, army, public service, the whole lot. And none of it can physically or financially happen without the Yanks, whatever people may think of them. All the constant sniping and negativity does absolutely nothing to help the engineers, planners etc, etc who are literally trying to bolt this country back together again. Clowns like Chirac are just playing politics with peoples lives. But then again, the only reason he wants a totally independant Iraq ASAP is so that he can re-establish in some form the oil contracts that he had when he was in bed with Saddam.
Anyway folks, gotta roll. Have to pop over to the palace and 'protect' the pool. It's not all beer and skittles over here you know.
All the best
Matt
I'm just throwing it into the mix.....you can make of it what you will
Comment