April 12, 2003
A HUMAN SHIELD is confused:
A HUMAN SHIELD is confused:
Donna Mulhearn can't reconcile the images of cheering Iraqis greeting the toppling of President Saddam Hussein with the blood on the streets of Baghdad.
Can she reconcile it with the blood of the many more people who died in Iraq's jails and torture cells?
"I had to walk through the blood of working class Iraqis," she told journalists.
How could she tell it was "working class" blood? Was it a different colour? Is that what blood types are all about? "Nurse, get me some upper-class blood for Mr Puddington-Whist! Stat!"
She described how hundreds of Iraqis gathered around to haul down statues of their erstwhile president, but in a city of five million, she said such images meant little ...
The rest of the city was grieving, she said, by the bedsides of the injured, or shuttered away in fear, hoping to ride out the latest episode in Iraq's tumultuous history as they did Saddam's rule.
"There was a lot of grief, a lot of anger. There is a lot of cynicism," Ms Mulhearn said.
How the hell would she know? Mulhearn left Iraq for Jordan back on March 30, when she decided her shielding work was over. She hasn't been in Baghdad for weeks. As the old saying goes, you can't spell "shield" without "l" and "i" and "e" ...
Posted by Tim Blair at April 12, 2003 07:52 PM