THE RAIN IN SPAIN FALLS MAINLY ON HUSSEIN?

Debating Matters of Life and Death in a Baghdad Barbershop (NEIL MacFARQUHAR, July 25, 2003, NY Times)

As soon as the photographs of Uday and Qusay Hussein appeared on the television screen tonight, arguments erupted in the Zein Barbershop downtown. Half the men present exulted that their former oppressors were dead, while the others dismissed the images as forgeries because the dictator's sons were elsewhere when the attack occurred. In Spain, in fact. [...]

"In a few days they will show us another fat body with a beard and say it's Saddam," said Zohair Maty, a 30-year-old laborer. "Everyone says they are in Spain."

The conversation was interrupted by the rat-a-tat-tat of what seemed like celebratory gunfire. The sound was uncomfortably close, though, and several customers either retreated to the back of the store or dove to the floor.

"It's the first time I've ever seen people happy because somebody died," said the barber, Atheer Odeish, who continued his clipping.

The remarkable thing is that given the uselessness of our intelligence and his use of body doubles and what not, Saddam Hussein could have died ten years ago and we'd still not know. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 25, 2003 8:03 AM