Dr. Frank's What's-it

Topple Saddam at any cost,

Topple Saddam at any cost, say Iraqi Kurds

As well they might.

John Weidner has posted this article from the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (not available on-line.) Here's an excerpt:

"I want him dead, even if I or my family lose all our belongings and our whole existence," said Farugh, a 39-year-old trader in Suleymanieh. "And believe me, I mean it," he added.

The bitter hatred towards the Iraqi president in the Kurdish regions is unanimous. No Kurd can forget the genocide in 1988 when Saddam brutally killed hundreds of families in the northeastern Kurdish town of Halabja by dispersing toxic gas. "The hatred is genuine and justified. What he did to us (Kurds) in 1988 is unimaginable," said Saadi Pireh, the foreign policy spokesman of Suleymanieh, the centre of the Patriotic Union (PUK) governed Kurdish autonomy. "He should be on trial at the Hague Tribunal as war criminal at least," said the spokesman.

The Kurdish people however are less diplomatic and call for Saddam's assassination either by United States military intervention or a coup within the ruling Baath party. "I want to see his death live on CNN," said Rahman, a member of the PUK Peshmargas (Kurdish military forces) and one of the few survivors of Halabja, where he lost his parents and his younger sister. "Only then might I forget Halabja and only then might my recurring nightmares of the massacre of so many innocent Kurds come to en end," he said.