Saddam-Era Flag Remains Iraq's Symbol
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) is gone — but his flag flies on.
The green, red, white and black banner — with the words "God is great," added by Saddam in the 1990s — fluttered Monday over government buildings.
The proposed new flag, approved by the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, sank in public esteem faster than a stone in the Tigris river after a firestorm of criticism that the new banner ignored the country's Islamic and Arab character — and looked too much like the Israeli flag.
Although the new flag was never formally withdrawn, even most Governing Council members disavowed it. A bank of the Saddam-era flags, one for each of Iraq (news - web sites)'s 18 provinces, served as the backdrop in a conference room where ministers of the new government took the oath of office Monday.
The proposed new national banner had two parallel blue stripes along the bottom with a yellow stripe in the middle. The blue stripes represented the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The yellow stripe symbolized Iraq's ethnic Kurdish minority, taking its color from the yellow star on the flag of Kurdistan.
Above the stripes, in a white field, was a blue crescent of Islam.
Trouble is, Israel has the only national flag in the Middle East with the color blue.
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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/iraq_saddam_s_flagWe couldn't even come up with a good flag. How sad is that?