posted April 15, 2003 at 6:50 p.m. MDT'After the anarchy will come natural selection' - "Ahmed Shames is an Iraqi exile living in Britain. Born in Baghdad in 1975, he was forced to flee in 1996 when security forces arrested his mother, suspecting her of hostility to the regime. He is the chairman of the Iraqi Prospect Organisation (IPO), a group of Iraqis campaigning for democracy in Iraq. He explains how he felt as Tikrit fell into the hands of coalition forces"
" ... I am very worried about future government. To be honest, I don't think the coalition forces know what they want to happen next. My work at the IPO will involve monitoring the transition to democracy: we need to work with the American generals as well as establishing an Iraqi transitional government. We are also campaigning to cancel the $400bn loans against Iraq, so that we can have a chance of rebuilding.
I just ask people hostile to this war to be realistic. Seeing the scenes of jubilation, I think it is clear there is no way the US forces could have entered these cities if the Iraqi people did not want them to.
There has been sporadic fighting, but my friend in Hilla said many non-Iraqis were fighting on Saddam's side. In 1914, when British forces claimed Iraq during the first world war, Iraqis delayed their passage from Basra to Baghdad by using stones, sticks, anything that they could get their hands on. "
