Marines say ‘Saddam is
done’
March 21, 2003
A U.S. Marine pulls down a poster of Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein on Friday in
Safwan, Iraq. |
SAFWAN, Iraq, March 22 — U.S.
Marines tore down pictures of Saddam Hussein in a screeching pop of metal
and bolts Friday, rigging winch chains to the giant street portraits in
newly taken southern Iraq. Crowds of men and boys watched, briefly joining
Maj. David “Bull” Gurfein in a new cheer. “Iraqis, Iraqis, Iraqis!” Gurfein
yelled, pumping his fist in the air.
“WE WANTED to send a message that Saddam
is done,” said Gurfein, a New York native in the 1st Marine Expeditionary
Force.
“People
are scared to show a lot of emotion. That’s why we wanted to show them
this time we’re here, and Saddam is done,” he said.
Marines
next to him attached metal ropes on the front of their Jeeps to one metal
portrait of Saddam, backing up to peel the Iraqi leader’s black and white
image off the metal frame.
The
Marines arrived in Safwan, just across the Kuwait border, after Cobra attack
helicopters, attack jets, tanks, 155 mm howitzers and sharpshooters cleared
the way along Route 80, the main road into Iraq. |
Safwan, 375 miles south of Baghdad, is a poor,
dirty, wrecked town pocked by shrapnel from the last Gulf War. Reminders
of the first war abound, among them a leftover missile that detonated inside
a soccer field a year ago, killing eight children.
Iraqi
forces in the area sporadically fired mortars and guns for hours Thursday
and Friday. Most townspeople hid, although residents brought forth a wounded
little girl, her palm bleeding after the new fighting. Another man said
his wife was shot in the leg by the Americans.
A
few men and boys ventured out, putting makeshift white flags on their pickup
trucks or waving white T-shirts out truck windows.
“Americans very good,” Ali Khemy said.
“Iraq wants to be free.”
Some
chanted, “Ameriki! Ameriki!”
Many
others in the starving town just patted their stomachs and raised their
hands, begging for food.
A
man identifying himself only as Abdullah welcomed the arrival of the U.S.
troops: “Saddam Hussein is no good. Saddam Hussein a butcher.”
An
old woman shrouded in black — one of the few women outside — knelt toward
the feet of Americans, embracing an American woman. A younger man with
her pulled her away, giving her a warning sign by sliding his finger across
his throat.
In 1991, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis
died after prematurely celebrating what they believed was their liberation
from Saddam after the Gulf War. Some even pulled down a few pictures of
Saddam then — only to be killed by Iraqi forces.
Gurfein
playfully traded pats with a disabled man and turned down a dinner invitation
from townspeople.
“Friend,
friend,” he told them in Arabic learned in the first Gulf War.
“We
stopped in Kuwait that time,” he said. “We were all ready to come up there
then, and we never did.”
The
townspeople seemed grateful this time.
“No
Saddam Hussein!” one young man in a headscarf told Gurfein. “Bush!”
|