TO FREE ALI:

Iraqi Deserter Tells of Desperation (BRIAN MURPHY, March 31, 2003, The Associated Press)

The soldier covered his face and wept.

It was a deep, sudden sobbing he couldn't control. His shoulders heaved. Tears wet the frayed cuffs of his green Iraqi army sweater.

He cried because he was alive. He cried because his family may think he's dead. He cried for his country. He cried because - for him - the war was over.

"I'm so sorry. Excuse me. I just can't stop," wept the soldier who fled Saddam Hussein's army and was taken Monday into the hands of U.S.-allied Iraqi Kurdish fighters. "Could this terrible time be over soon? Please, tell me."

The soldier - part of a front-line unit - was among at least 18 Iraqi deserters who staggered into the Kurdish town of Kalak as U.S. warplanes stepped up airstrikes on Iraqi positions near the Kurds' autonomous region. He agreed to share his story, but with conditions: no details about him or his military service could be revealed. Call him Ali.

He feared Saddam loyalists could retaliate against his family. They may have already, he said.

"The army knows I ran away. They could come and take revenge," he said in the central police barracks in Kalak, about 20 miles northwest of the Kurdish administrative center Irbil. "My only hope is that I'm not alone. There are so many deserters and those who want to run. They cannot attack all these families with a war going on."

War for this foot soldier was one of desperation. "We only prayed we'd stay alive long enough to get a chance to escape," Ali said through an interpreter.

His unit - about 30 men - slept in muddy burrows on a hillside, he said. Breakfast was tea and crusty bread. At midday: rice and a single cucumber to share between two soldiers. There was no dinner.

His commanders described the war as an American grab for Iraqi oil. He couldn't contradict them - there were no radios or chances to call home. Occasionally they would receive copies of the Iraqi military newspaper. One issue featured a poem with the lines: "The enemy will tire, and Saddam will remain."

"We knew nothing. We were told only that America was trying to take over Iraq," Ali said. "But we are not so stupid. We know how Saddam rules the country. We know in our hearts we'd be better off without him." [...]

"I can say now what I always felt: Saddam led to this war," Ali said. "We don't want to fight America. We don't want to fight for Saddam. We just want an end to all this." [...]

"The people know that any uprising against Saddam now would mean terrible things to them and their family. They force them to chant `Down with America,' but not everyone means it. Saddam's people are afraid for the future."

That's when he started to cry. Moments later came the thud of a U.S. bomb hitting the ridge just across the river.

Honorable people can question the wisdom of this war, but what person of honor could read this story and argue that it is morally wrong to liberate the Ali's of Iraq? Posted by Orrin Judd at April 1, 2003 7:23 PM