Former Iraqi Ambassador to Egypt: The People Who Toppled Saddam's StatueWere Brought to Baghdad from Kuwait by US Forces

The following are excerpts from an interview with former Iraqi ambassador to Egypt Muhsen Khalil. Mustafa Bakri, editor of the Egyptian opposition weekly Al-Usb'u also participated in the discussion:

Muhsen Khalil:I believe that the cruelty we are witnessing on the part of the occupying force – neither Saddam nor any other ruler accused of being a dictator would have sunk to the level of barbarism and contemptibility that the Americans have reached. Not only barbarism and cruelty, but also contemptibility, moral decline, sadistic behavior, and psychological, mental, and behavioral deviation.

Interviewer: But we saw on TV, towards the end of Saddam Hussein's regime, the Iraqi people used ropes to toppled the statue you people had erected. (In Saddam's time) there was treachery and cruelty…

Mustafa Bakri: These were 250 people they brought from abroad.

Interviewer:…There was treachery, cruelty, and ungratefulness it seemed to us (to reflect) repulsion and frustration.

Mustafa Bakri: These were 250 people that the American forces brought with them. They are not part of the Iraqi people.

Interviewer: Not part of the Iraqi people?

Mustafa Bakri: No, they brought them from Kuwait.

Muhsen Khalil: This is a group of 3000 followers of Ahmad Chalabi, the Israeli spy whose deputy, Mithal Al-'Alusi, is now in Israel. They were trained in Romania I think, and entered with the American forces, guided by Hollywood film producers. So toppling the statue was a Hollywood production and all the published photographs were prepared in advance.