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Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at George W. Bush says his only regret is he "only had two shoes"
While the NY Times is remembering the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq - without mentioning their role in the lead up or Judith Miller's lies - an Iraqi journalist, who threw his shoes at George W. Bush has a few opinions himself...
Two decades after the U.S. led the invasion of Iraq, one of the most memorable moments for many in the region remains the 2008 news conference in Baghdad when an Iraqi journalist stood up and hurled his shoes at then-U.S. President George W. Bush. As the U.S. leader spoke alongside Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, he was forced to duck the flying shoes as the journalist shouted: "This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog!"
The man was quickly pounced on by security forces and removed from the room, and says he was subsequently jailed and beaten for his actions.
"The only regret I have is that I only had two shoes," Muntazer al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who expressed the feelings of many Iraqis at the time, told CBS News on Monday, exactly 20 years after the beginning of the U.S.'s campaign of "shock and awe."
Then-President Bush's administration justified its decision to attack the Iraqi regime headed by Saddam Hussein with assertions that the dictator was hiding chemical or biological "weapons of mass destruction," but no such weapons were ever found.
:snip:
The journalist says some of Iraq's infrastructure still hasn't been repaired, and he blames the invasion for "political and financial corruption" and the current political gridlock in his country, where "every political party has its own armed faction or militia that kills and terrifies people, kills their opposition and assassinates protesters."
Al-Zaidi returned to Iraq after living and working outside the country for years, and he's among the thousands of people who have joined protests since 2011 against Iraq's Western backed government.
"We are trying to tell the world that the Iraqi people are being killed and ripped off," he said. "We are suffering and we will continue to suffer, but the future of Iraq is in our hands and we want to remove this authority that ruled Iraq for the past 20 years."
The man was quickly pounced on by security forces and removed from the room, and says he was subsequently jailed and beaten for his actions.
"The only regret I have is that I only had two shoes," Muntazer al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who expressed the feelings of many Iraqis at the time, told CBS News on Monday, exactly 20 years after the beginning of the U.S.'s campaign of "shock and awe."
Then-President Bush's administration justified its decision to attack the Iraqi regime headed by Saddam Hussein with assertions that the dictator was hiding chemical or biological "weapons of mass destruction," but no such weapons were ever found.
:snip:
The journalist says some of Iraq's infrastructure still hasn't been repaired, and he blames the invasion for "political and financial corruption" and the current political gridlock in his country, where "every political party has its own armed faction or militia that kills and terrifies people, kills their opposition and assassinates protesters."
Al-Zaidi returned to Iraq after living and working outside the country for years, and he's among the thousands of people who have joined protests since 2011 against Iraq's Western backed government.
"We are trying to tell the world that the Iraqi people are being killed and ripped off," he said. "We are suffering and we will continue to suffer, but the future of Iraq is in our hands and we want to remove this authority that ruled Iraq for the past 20 years."
More: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iraq-war-journalist-threw-shoes-george-w-bush-muntazer-al-zaidi-on-only-regret/
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