Iraqi Voices
December
30, 2002
Fast
Friends
Elizabeth
Rubin
...For
the young generation of Iraqi exiles who attended the
meeting and have just started a website to gather their
peers, however, U.S. directorship is a price they're willing
to pay to go home. One of these exiles is Yasser Alaskary,
a clean-shaven young man with a British accent, born while
his mother was hiding from Saddam Hussein's secret police.
"Very few people outside Iraq understand the extent
of the suffering, the constant living in fear in every
aspect of life. Because of the way the regime works, and
because of old politics in the 1980s, it's impossible
for the Iraqi people to overthrow Saddam on their own,"
Alaskary said. "But of course people are afraid of
U.S. intentions. We know it is not for the Iraqi people.
Our interests meet only on the removal of Saddam. There
is a notion they are trying to establish democracy in
the whole region. At the same time, they might want to
rule by the military."...
