Arab World Reels as TV Reveals 'Lies'

April 10, 2003
By Paul Martin, The Washington Times

DOHA, Qatar — Live pictures of Iraqis toppling a statue of Saddam Hussein from its towering pedestal yesterday sent shock waves through the Arab world, forcing both rulers and ordinary people to reconsider long-held beliefs.

From Morocco to the Persian Gulf, viewers of Al Jazeera and other Arab television networks sat transfixed by the same images of cheering Iraqis jumping on the ruins of the dictator's statue that fascinated U.S. television watchers.

"Today is a clear lesson for dictatorships in the Arab world. I think they should start looking for ways to change their people's lives," said Mohammed al-Jassim, editor of Kuwaiti newspaper al-Watan.

The vivid images forced viewers for the first time to admit there was no truth behind the bluster of Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, who asserted until Tuesday that no U.S. forces were near Baghdad.

"We discovered that all what the information minister was saying was all lies," government worker Ali Hassan told the Associated Press in Cairo, where many turned off their television sets in disgust at images of U.S. troops in the Iraqi capital.

"Now no one believes Al Jazeera anymore," he said.

And in Yemen, homemaker Umm Ahmed watched the pictorial evidence of the collapse of Saddam's regime with tears streaming down her face.

"Why did he fall that way? Why so fast?" she asked. "He's a coward. Now I feel sorry for his people."
In country after country, Arabs clustered around TV sets in shop windows, coffee shops, kitchens and offices, unable to pull themselves away from the pictures of the capture of Baghdad.

But while U.S. networks focused on the triumph of the Americans and the glee of liberated Iraqis, the Arab stations were quick to remind their viewers of the human toll in the war, interspersing pictures of Baghdad's fall with those of wounded civilians and soldiers.

Al Jazeera seized on a scene in which a U.S. soldier draped the Stars and Stripes over the face of Saddam's giant statue. "The future of Iraq will now have an American smell," the reporter remarked. "This flag represents what is really happening in Iraq."

The network also showed the flag being replaced by an Iraqi one immediately afterward but generally avoided close-ups of the crowd and of the statue's head being dragged through a dusty street with a rope.

In neighboring Syria, where the government fears increased U.S. pressure for change, the tumultuous scenes were available to those with satellite dishes but ignored by the official state television, which, instead, showed a program about Islamic architecture.

Hard-line television stations such as Al-Manar, which is controlled by Lebanon-based Hezbollah, a militant organization, focused entirely on the casualties of the war. "This is the agony of a people who wanted to live in peace, but the allies served them up daily missiles," ran the commentary.

But in most countries where there is access to independent satellite stations, viewers could not escape the evidence before their eyes.

"We are all in shock," Abu Dhabi Television's reporter told his viewers from Baghdad's streets. "How did things come to such an end? How did U.S. tanks enter the center of the city? Where is the resistance? How come Baghdad falls so easily?"

A similar sentiment was expressed in Cairo, where many Egyptians had believed Iraqi promises of stiff resistance to the U.S. and British invaders.

"We thought that Baghdad would be the impregnable fortress of Iraq," wrote Samir Ragab, chief editor of the government daily Al Gumhurriya, in a commentary yesterday.

In Cairo, as in other Arab capitals, government leaders were restrained in their official reactions while insisting that Iraqis must determine their own future.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who last week had warned that the war would create a hundred Osama bin Ladens, avoided such rhetoric while calling for an early handover to the Iraqis.

"The fact of Iraq being governed by its sons, and as soon as possible, is the quickest way to ensure stability for the Iraqi people," he said.

Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal was similarly noncommittal.

"The government in Baghdad we will deal with is the one chosen by the Iraqi people," he said at a news conference.

In Amman, the Jordanian foreign minister emphasized the need to preserve internal security in Iraq, warning that "a breakdown of security would have serious repercussions."

Some Arab professionals concluded that the Iraqi regime's collapse stemmed from the nature of Arab leaderships.

Saddam's regime was a "dictatorship and had to go," said Tannous Basil, a 47-year-old cardiologist in Sidon, Lebanon.

"I don't like the idea of having the Americans here, but we asked for it," he added. "They come here because our area is filled with dictatorships like Saddam's."

•This article is based in part on wire service reports.

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