December 15, 2003

‘This is an excellent day’

On April 9, Hassam Hadad watched live television coverage of U.S. marines pulling down a statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and said it seemed like a dream. Eight months later he sat glued to the television watching coverage of the only thing better than the dream: the capture of Saddam Hussein himself.

Hassan Hadad watches the television coverage of the capture of Saddam Hussein.

“This is an excellent day,” he said.

“I know I can go back to Iraq in the future and help my country prosper without fear, because there’s no way Saddam will ever be back to torture the people.”

Hadad, an Iraqi expatriot and economics student at Dalhousie University, said he first heard about Hussein’s capture at 6:30 a.m. yesterday and didn’t stop watching the news all day.

He said his family in Baghdad, including his brother and mother who are visiting there, were elated about the news.

“It’s amazing (in Baghdad), everybody’s just going crazy over there,” he said. “Everybody’s really happy, and they’re firing off their guns in celebration.”

Other Iraqi families in Halifax had previously criticized U.S. President George W. Bush for the Iraq invasion, but Hadad supported the military action as a means to the end of Hussein’s rule.

“Over half a million Iraqis tried to get rid of Hussein before the U.S. invasion and paid with their lives for it,” he said.

“They proved we couldn’t do it alone and so we accepted that we needed the coalition to get rid of Saddam Hussein.”...