they have come forward now that saddam is on the way out....and,his son udai(yes,i said udai) was even worse....udai(yes,i said udai)would tie athletes in a cell for days with their arms suspended high behind them....they would also beat the bottom of their feet with sticks and let police dogs loose in cells with poorly performing players.....they said saddam would occasionally forgive them,although not often....but udai(yes,i said udai)was the worst...he always spat on the players and seemed to enjoy torturing them.....nice guys....especially that udai(not this time)......
you're about 2 years late with this report ! For the record i believe it to be true.
What's the deal with udai(yes, I said udai) anyway ?
--------------------------------
25 to life because you couldn't controll your anger
What's the deal with udai(yes, I said udai) anyway ?
--------------------------------
25 to life because you couldn't controll your anger
Radio it was on ESPN TV a couple of years back
--------------------------------
25 to life because you couldn't controll your anger
--------------------------------
25 to life because you couldn't controll your anger
I doubt Mickey did this:
Indict, a human rights group, submitted this photo of Karzan Muhammed Latif, a Iraqi table tennis player who claims he was tortured under orders of Uday Hussein, in its report to the International Olympic Committee
Report: Iraq's Olympic chief turned on top aide
http://espn.go.com/oly/news/2003/0308/1520173.html
As the longtime deputy chairman of the Iraqi National Olympic Committee, Aseel Tabra was known by former athletes as the trusted lieutenant to whom Uday Hussein turned to carry out many of his orders, even when those directives involved the imprisonment and torture of athletes and coaches.
To Uday, apparently, loyalty only counts for so much.
Tabra, whom the International Olympic Committee will likely want to speak to in its ethics probe, has been sent recently to one of Iraq's toughest prisons, according to the Iraq Press, a publication run by exiles from the Middle East nation and funded by the U.S. government.
Uday, president of the Olympic committee since 1984 and the eldest son of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, placed Tabra and several other senior aides in the notorious al-Radwaniya detention center on the outskirts of Baghdad following "revelations of large-scale embezzlement and fraud" in the Olympic committee, the Iraq Press reported.
The IOC Executive Board, headed by president Jacques Rogge, endorsed Feb. 21 a formal investigation of the Iraqi Olympic committee, which former athletes and associates say is a front for Uday's wide-ranging criminal business operation.
"Let (Tabra) go to hell," said Issam Thamer al-Diwan, a former national team volleyball player and coach who alleges he was twice tortured on orders of Uday. "Sooner or later, Tabra would have been killed anyway by the Iraqi people. He is Uday's protector."
The exact reasons for Tabra's apparent punishment remain unclear, although former national team athletes familiar with the Iraqi Olympic committee suspect Tabra in some in way angered Uday, whose mood swings and reputation for violence are legendary. They doubt Uday had blamed Tabra for the charges of torture that the IOC Ethics Commission is now starting to look into, as Tabra only acts on behalf of Uday, they say.
"As a person, he was a nice guy to me," said Sharar Haydar, a former national team soccer player. "But if you work with Uday, you have to be evil."
The former players say Tabra is from a wealthy family in Iraq and was recruited by Uday to the Olympic committee for his polished manner. As a top Olympic official, he has often been used to greet and meet foreign delegations interested in lifting the United Nations embargo that has been in place since Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
In May 1998, the Hussein family sent Tabra to the United Arab Emirates "for discussions on bilateral relations, issues of mutual concern and conditions of the Iraqi handicapped and ways of helping them," according to a press release by the UAE Ministry of Information and Culture.
In October 2000, Tabra was the Iraqi official selected to welcome a plane from Tunisia carrying doctors, soccer players and humanitarian aid to Baghdad, The Associated Press reported. The next month, Tabra, again ostensibly in his role with the Olympic committee, greeted a plane from Syria that arrived at Saddam International Airport.
Former athletes and associates of Uday told ESPN.com in a December report that the real purpose of the Iraqi Olympic committee is not to serve athletes, but to steer black-market business to Uday, who allegedly has made money off cigarettes, oil, stolen cars and other goods, some of which have been stored at the Olympic headquarters in Baghdad.
"Tabra is very important," Thamer said. "He's one of the criminals."
Amid concerns about the logistics of investigating allegations of torture at a time when the U.S. is preparing for a war with Iraq, the IOC last month began seeking the contact numbers and addresses of former Iraqi athletes and associates of Uday. Some of them filed affadavits with Indict, a London-based human rights group funded by the U.S. government, while others had shared their stories with ESPN.com in its report.
The ethics commission appears to be moving cautiously with its probe, to the disappointment of former athletes who have offered their testimony.
"I haven't received a letter or a call," Haydar said. "They must not be serious people."
Meanwhile, other former Iraqi athletes are coming forward for the first time to share their accounts. Najem Alekabi, a former heavyweight wrestler, said he was shot in the torso in 1988, a year after winning the national championship. A Shiite Muslim, he said he was attacked by one of Saddam's commando units for praying too often (the Hussein family is Sunni Muslim, a rival sect in Iraq considered more moderate in its religious beliefs).
Alekabi, who now lives in the San Diego area, said he was not tortured as an athlete but knows of others who were. One fellow wrestler on his club team was executed, he said. He also claims Uday abused sports facilities such as the lone Olympic swimming pool in the nation, where he filled the water with emptied liquor bottles from personal parties.
"Where was the IOC on that?" he said.
On the Iraq Press Web site, Saad Qeis, a top Iraqi soccer player in the 1990s, wrote an extended first-person account of his experience of being tortured in 1997 after a 4-0 defeat against Turkmenistan. Uday was "furious" with him for getting ejected from the game, he wrote.
"Upon arrival in Iraq, I was immediately driven to the headquarters of the Olympic commission and after warnings, threats and censure I was sent to Radwaniya," he wrote, of the same prison Tabra allegedly was placed in. "There they put me in a room with an array of canes mounted on the shelves on the wall. They ordered me to strip to the waist and lie on the ground. They flogged me. I bled profusely and fainted."
Confirming what Haydar told ESPN.com in December, Qeis said a two-day probe into the rumors of torture by the world governing body for soccer was flawed by the players' inability to speak honestly with investigators. FIFA, the governing body, later announced it had found no evidence of torture.
"I was there when the FIFA investigators came to Baghdad," Qeis wrote. "They asked athletes questions about whether they were tortured or not. No one (sic) of us could have admitted to torture and stayed alive. Nobody dares to tell the truth of what happens while he is in Iraq."
That veil of silence has slowly been lifting in recent years, and particularly in the past three months. Among the personal accounts Indict says it has shared with the IOC is an affidavit signed Sept. 2 of last year by Karzan Muhammed Latif, a national team table tennis player whose identity Indict had not disclosed originally to the media. In his affidavit, acquired by ESPN.com, Latif alleges he was struck with a cable and made to crawl on hot asphalt after being accused -- falsely he says -- of insulting Uday Hussein.
Indict also submitted photos showing scars on the athlete's back and arms, which allegedly are the result of being tortured.
The IOC ethics commission has said Uday will be given an opportunity to respond to the charges. Haydar doubts his former Olympic chief is taking the IOC probe seriously -- and not just because the U.S. is gearing up for war against the Hussein regime.
"Uday laughs at the IOC because he knows they can't do anything to him," he said.
Tom Farrey is a senior writer with ESPN.com. He can be reached at tom.farrey@espn3.com.
Indict, a human rights group, submitted this photo of Karzan Muhammed Latif, a Iraqi table tennis player who claims he was tortured under orders of Uday Hussein, in its report to the International Olympic Committee
Report: Iraq's Olympic chief turned on top aide
http://espn.go.com/oly/news/2003/0308/1520173.html
As the longtime deputy chairman of the Iraqi National Olympic Committee, Aseel Tabra was known by former athletes as the trusted lieutenant to whom Uday Hussein turned to carry out many of his orders, even when those directives involved the imprisonment and torture of athletes and coaches.
To Uday, apparently, loyalty only counts for so much.
Tabra, whom the International Olympic Committee will likely want to speak to in its ethics probe, has been sent recently to one of Iraq's toughest prisons, according to the Iraq Press, a publication run by exiles from the Middle East nation and funded by the U.S. government.
Uday, president of the Olympic committee since 1984 and the eldest son of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, placed Tabra and several other senior aides in the notorious al-Radwaniya detention center on the outskirts of Baghdad following "revelations of large-scale embezzlement and fraud" in the Olympic committee, the Iraq Press reported.
The IOC Executive Board, headed by president Jacques Rogge, endorsed Feb. 21 a formal investigation of the Iraqi Olympic committee, which former athletes and associates say is a front for Uday's wide-ranging criminal business operation.
"Let (Tabra) go to hell," said Issam Thamer al-Diwan, a former national team volleyball player and coach who alleges he was twice tortured on orders of Uday. "Sooner or later, Tabra would have been killed anyway by the Iraqi people. He is Uday's protector."
The exact reasons for Tabra's apparent punishment remain unclear, although former national team athletes familiar with the Iraqi Olympic committee suspect Tabra in some in way angered Uday, whose mood swings and reputation for violence are legendary. They doubt Uday had blamed Tabra for the charges of torture that the IOC Ethics Commission is now starting to look into, as Tabra only acts on behalf of Uday, they say.
"As a person, he was a nice guy to me," said Sharar Haydar, a former national team soccer player. "But if you work with Uday, you have to be evil."
The former players say Tabra is from a wealthy family in Iraq and was recruited by Uday to the Olympic committee for his polished manner. As a top Olympic official, he has often been used to greet and meet foreign delegations interested in lifting the United Nations embargo that has been in place since Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
In May 1998, the Hussein family sent Tabra to the United Arab Emirates "for discussions on bilateral relations, issues of mutual concern and conditions of the Iraqi handicapped and ways of helping them," according to a press release by the UAE Ministry of Information and Culture.
In October 2000, Tabra was the Iraqi official selected to welcome a plane from Tunisia carrying doctors, soccer players and humanitarian aid to Baghdad, The Associated Press reported. The next month, Tabra, again ostensibly in his role with the Olympic committee, greeted a plane from Syria that arrived at Saddam International Airport.
Former athletes and associates of Uday told ESPN.com in a December report that the real purpose of the Iraqi Olympic committee is not to serve athletes, but to steer black-market business to Uday, who allegedly has made money off cigarettes, oil, stolen cars and other goods, some of which have been stored at the Olympic headquarters in Baghdad.
"Tabra is very important," Thamer said. "He's one of the criminals."
Amid concerns about the logistics of investigating allegations of torture at a time when the U.S. is preparing for a war with Iraq, the IOC last month began seeking the contact numbers and addresses of former Iraqi athletes and associates of Uday. Some of them filed affadavits with Indict, a London-based human rights group funded by the U.S. government, while others had shared their stories with ESPN.com in its report.
The ethics commission appears to be moving cautiously with its probe, to the disappointment of former athletes who have offered their testimony.
"I haven't received a letter or a call," Haydar said. "They must not be serious people."
Meanwhile, other former Iraqi athletes are coming forward for the first time to share their accounts. Najem Alekabi, a former heavyweight wrestler, said he was shot in the torso in 1988, a year after winning the national championship. A Shiite Muslim, he said he was attacked by one of Saddam's commando units for praying too often (the Hussein family is Sunni Muslim, a rival sect in Iraq considered more moderate in its religious beliefs).
Alekabi, who now lives in the San Diego area, said he was not tortured as an athlete but knows of others who were. One fellow wrestler on his club team was executed, he said. He also claims Uday abused sports facilities such as the lone Olympic swimming pool in the nation, where he filled the water with emptied liquor bottles from personal parties.
"Where was the IOC on that?" he said.
On the Iraq Press Web site, Saad Qeis, a top Iraqi soccer player in the 1990s, wrote an extended first-person account of his experience of being tortured in 1997 after a 4-0 defeat against Turkmenistan. Uday was "furious" with him for getting ejected from the game, he wrote.
"Upon arrival in Iraq, I was immediately driven to the headquarters of the Olympic commission and after warnings, threats and censure I was sent to Radwaniya," he wrote, of the same prison Tabra allegedly was placed in. "There they put me in a room with an array of canes mounted on the shelves on the wall. They ordered me to strip to the waist and lie on the ground. They flogged me. I bled profusely and fainted."
Confirming what Haydar told ESPN.com in December, Qeis said a two-day probe into the rumors of torture by the world governing body for soccer was flawed by the players' inability to speak honestly with investigators. FIFA, the governing body, later announced it had found no evidence of torture.
"I was there when the FIFA investigators came to Baghdad," Qeis wrote. "They asked athletes questions about whether they were tortured or not. No one (sic) of us could have admitted to torture and stayed alive. Nobody dares to tell the truth of what happens while he is in Iraq."
That veil of silence has slowly been lifting in recent years, and particularly in the past three months. Among the personal accounts Indict says it has shared with the IOC is an affidavit signed Sept. 2 of last year by Karzan Muhammed Latif, a national team table tennis player whose identity Indict had not disclosed originally to the media. In his affidavit, acquired by ESPN.com, Latif alleges he was struck with a cable and made to crawl on hot asphalt after being accused -- falsely he says -- of insulting Uday Hussein.
Indict also submitted photos showing scars on the athlete's back and arms, which allegedly are the result of being tortured.
The IOC ethics commission has said Uday will be given an opportunity to respond to the charges. Haydar doubts his former Olympic chief is taking the IOC probe seriously -- and not just because the U.S. is gearing up for war against the Hussein regime.
"Uday laughs at the IOC because he knows they can't do anything to him," he said.
Tom Farrey is a senior writer with ESPN.com. He can be reached at tom.farrey@espn3.com.
'Being a well-known athlete can get you killed'
By Issam Thamer al-Diwan
as told to Tom Farrey
Tales of torture
Issam Thamer al-Diwan was an Iraqi national team volleyball player from 1974-87, and coached al-Rashid, Uday's personal club team in the Iraqi league, from 1989-90. He also coached the Iraqi national team for two months in 1989. He defected from Iraq after participating in the 1991 uprising, and now lives in the San Diego area. He is head of the Iraqi Olympic Council, a nascent group of exiles whose goal is to improve the treatment of Iraqi athletes.
Al-Diwan is among several former Iraqi athletes who say they were tortured under orders by Iraqi National Olympic Committee chief Uday Hussein. Three, including al-Diwan, agreed to tell their own tales of abuse for ESPN.com:
I doubt there's any Olympic facility like it in the world.
The building that houses the Iraqi National Olympic Committee is on Palestine Avenue in Baghdad, protected by a wall and bulletproof glass at each entrance. When I walked its marble hallways a decade ago, the Olympic flag flew out front, displaying the logo that represents the noble, humanitarian mission of the Games. But those famed rings merely were there to cover up crime, to lend credibility where there is none.
In reality, the building is nothing more than the personal and business headquarters for my old boss, Uday Hussein, son of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. As former coach of his club volleyball team, Al-Rashid, and briefly the Iraqi national team, I can assure you that little in the way of sports actually happened on those premises.
The basement was reserved for Uday's cars -- hundreds of expensive, European cars that he loved to drive at high speeds around Baghdad. On the first floor, behind a 300-seat meeting room, was a secret jail where he placed athletes, journalists, even friends, and others he wanted to punish. It was Uday's private prison, with 10 to 15 small, individual cells.
The second floor consisted of offices for what Iraqis call al-Fidaiyyin, "Saddam's Revolutionary Fighters," a government security apparatus under Uday's supervision that was created to protect his father. Uday's bodyguards stayed on the second floor, as well.
The third floor was for Uday's public relations, financial and computer staff. The fourth floor was for Uday's office and secretary. The fifth floor was home to staff of the al-Ba'ath sports newspaper that he controls. The sixth floor once belonged to the sport federations -- until he moved them and all other Olympic functions to another building. The seventh floor was for Uday's leisure. His parties. His women.
This is the Iraqi Olympic Committee!
I didn't feel like a sports person or coach, to be honest with you. As a former member of the Iraqi national team and briefly its coach, I made sure to do my work correctly to serve my country. But Uday filled the executive board with the bodyguards whose job it was to protect him and Saddam, and they directly managed the Olympic committee. You felt like you were in a military institution. We were afraid of everybody there.
While Uday is accused of torturing athletes as a form of motivation, some who become too successful can be looked upon as a threat.
With good reason.
Being a well-known athlete can get you killed. Dozens of athletes and leaders in the Iraqi sports movement have been executed, in part because they were popular with the public. Many of them were framed under the pretext of political reasons -- you need only to criticize the government -- but the fact is Uday cannot stand to think that someone in Iraq could be smarter or more famous than him.
Gen. Faleh Akram Fahmi, may he rest in peace, was the son of Akram Fahmi -- the man who established the Iraqi Olympic Committee. Once a track and field champion and captain of the Iraqi national basketball team, Faleh was well known throughout Asia and the Arab world. Uday had him executed in 1987 or '88 for supposedly cursing Saddam in front of a number of officers. This is how athletes are honored by Saddam and Uday.
Many of the executed athletes lost their lives following the 1991 uprising, when Iraqi citizens in the southern part of the country failed to oust Saddam after U.S.-led forces defeated his army in Kuwait. I also know of a popular weight lifter, Saleh Mahdi, who was driven to take his own life. He heard that security forces were coming to arrest him. He was afraid they were going to rape his wife in front of him to make him confess -- a normal practice in these situations. So he killed his wife, his children and himself, and left a taped message that many athletes know about in Iraq. He said, "You bunch of dogs will not take my honor!"
Perhaps death is better than being treated with no dignity.
I was imprisoned twice. The first time was in 1986 when I was still playing, after our Iraqi national team placed third in the Arab championships. Uday's bodyguards picked all 21 of us up at the airport in vehicles that looked like school buses, except they were green with tinted glass, and took us to a special prison at the old Presidential Palace, in the Karradat Maryam district. We were held together for about 10 to 14 days, in a room so small that all of us could not lie down at the same time. We slept in shifts.
Issam Thamer al-Diwan, with his wife and two daughters, fled Iraq after participating in the failed uprising against Saddam Hussein in 1991.
The second time was in the fall of 1990 after the Iraqi military had invaded and quickly seized control of Kuwait. The government formed special committees to take, or rather steal, equipment that belonged to different establishments in Kuwait. The Iraqi Olympic Committee created a delegation from all the clubs and federations with instructions to go to Kuwait and gather all the sports equipment, plus any cars parked at the Kuwait sports federations and Olympic committee. I, like other athletes who had good relations with our Kuwaiti peers, was opposed to this idea. I refused to go.
After the delegation came back from Kuwait with its loot, a young man named Hilal al-Rawi met me outside Uday's office at the Iraqi Olympic Committee. He handed me a piece of paper the size of a cigarette pack and told me it was from Uday. The only thing written on it was my name, under which I could read, "Must be jailed."
I was sent back to the old Presidential Palace prison, where I was forced to stand in a cell in a painful position. My ankles were shackled to the wall, and my arms were tied together behind my back and raised high by a rope connected to the ceiling. I stood in this hunched position, with my head angled forward and leaning against the wall, for three days. I begged the guard to let me sit down, for my left knee was weak from an old volleyball injury. Instead, he just kicked me there.
A decade later, I am reminded daily of the abuse I endured. Two of the vertebrae in my neck are permanently damaged from my body staying in that position so long -- as you can tell from my hunched posture. Doctors say I need an artificial knee, but that, at age 45, I'm still 10 years too young to qualify. My ankles are bloated and scarred from the iron shackles, so I try not to stand for more than 15 minutes at a time. I take pills to relieve my aches and see psychiatrists to heal my mind, even today.
This is painful. This is painful and it hurts one's dignity.
We are people with feelings. And athletes who serve our country.
This is a humiliation.
This article was written with the help of ESPN.com senior writer Tom Farrey, who interviewed Thamer in November 2002.
By Issam Thamer al-Diwan
as told to Tom Farrey
Tales of torture
Issam Thamer al-Diwan was an Iraqi national team volleyball player from 1974-87, and coached al-Rashid, Uday's personal club team in the Iraqi league, from 1989-90. He also coached the Iraqi national team for two months in 1989. He defected from Iraq after participating in the 1991 uprising, and now lives in the San Diego area. He is head of the Iraqi Olympic Council, a nascent group of exiles whose goal is to improve the treatment of Iraqi athletes.
Al-Diwan is among several former Iraqi athletes who say they were tortured under orders by Iraqi National Olympic Committee chief Uday Hussein. Three, including al-Diwan, agreed to tell their own tales of abuse for ESPN.com:
I doubt there's any Olympic facility like it in the world.
The building that houses the Iraqi National Olympic Committee is on Palestine Avenue in Baghdad, protected by a wall and bulletproof glass at each entrance. When I walked its marble hallways a decade ago, the Olympic flag flew out front, displaying the logo that represents the noble, humanitarian mission of the Games. But those famed rings merely were there to cover up crime, to lend credibility where there is none.
In reality, the building is nothing more than the personal and business headquarters for my old boss, Uday Hussein, son of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. As former coach of his club volleyball team, Al-Rashid, and briefly the Iraqi national team, I can assure you that little in the way of sports actually happened on those premises.
The basement was reserved for Uday's cars -- hundreds of expensive, European cars that he loved to drive at high speeds around Baghdad. On the first floor, behind a 300-seat meeting room, was a secret jail where he placed athletes, journalists, even friends, and others he wanted to punish. It was Uday's private prison, with 10 to 15 small, individual cells.
The second floor consisted of offices for what Iraqis call al-Fidaiyyin, "Saddam's Revolutionary Fighters," a government security apparatus under Uday's supervision that was created to protect his father. Uday's bodyguards stayed on the second floor, as well.
The third floor was for Uday's public relations, financial and computer staff. The fourth floor was for Uday's office and secretary. The fifth floor was home to staff of the al-Ba'ath sports newspaper that he controls. The sixth floor once belonged to the sport federations -- until he moved them and all other Olympic functions to another building. The seventh floor was for Uday's leisure. His parties. His women.
This is the Iraqi Olympic Committee!
I didn't feel like a sports person or coach, to be honest with you. As a former member of the Iraqi national team and briefly its coach, I made sure to do my work correctly to serve my country. But Uday filled the executive board with the bodyguards whose job it was to protect him and Saddam, and they directly managed the Olympic committee. You felt like you were in a military institution. We were afraid of everybody there.
While Uday is accused of torturing athletes as a form of motivation, some who become too successful can be looked upon as a threat.
With good reason.
Being a well-known athlete can get you killed. Dozens of athletes and leaders in the Iraqi sports movement have been executed, in part because they were popular with the public. Many of them were framed under the pretext of political reasons -- you need only to criticize the government -- but the fact is Uday cannot stand to think that someone in Iraq could be smarter or more famous than him.
Gen. Faleh Akram Fahmi, may he rest in peace, was the son of Akram Fahmi -- the man who established the Iraqi Olympic Committee. Once a track and field champion and captain of the Iraqi national basketball team, Faleh was well known throughout Asia and the Arab world. Uday had him executed in 1987 or '88 for supposedly cursing Saddam in front of a number of officers. This is how athletes are honored by Saddam and Uday.
Many of the executed athletes lost their lives following the 1991 uprising, when Iraqi citizens in the southern part of the country failed to oust Saddam after U.S.-led forces defeated his army in Kuwait. I also know of a popular weight lifter, Saleh Mahdi, who was driven to take his own life. He heard that security forces were coming to arrest him. He was afraid they were going to rape his wife in front of him to make him confess -- a normal practice in these situations. So he killed his wife, his children and himself, and left a taped message that many athletes know about in Iraq. He said, "You bunch of dogs will not take my honor!"
Perhaps death is better than being treated with no dignity.
I was imprisoned twice. The first time was in 1986 when I was still playing, after our Iraqi national team placed third in the Arab championships. Uday's bodyguards picked all 21 of us up at the airport in vehicles that looked like school buses, except they were green with tinted glass, and took us to a special prison at the old Presidential Palace, in the Karradat Maryam district. We were held together for about 10 to 14 days, in a room so small that all of us could not lie down at the same time. We slept in shifts.
Issam Thamer al-Diwan, with his wife and two daughters, fled Iraq after participating in the failed uprising against Saddam Hussein in 1991.
The second time was in the fall of 1990 after the Iraqi military had invaded and quickly seized control of Kuwait. The government formed special committees to take, or rather steal, equipment that belonged to different establishments in Kuwait. The Iraqi Olympic Committee created a delegation from all the clubs and federations with instructions to go to Kuwait and gather all the sports equipment, plus any cars parked at the Kuwait sports federations and Olympic committee. I, like other athletes who had good relations with our Kuwaiti peers, was opposed to this idea. I refused to go.
After the delegation came back from Kuwait with its loot, a young man named Hilal al-Rawi met me outside Uday's office at the Iraqi Olympic Committee. He handed me a piece of paper the size of a cigarette pack and told me it was from Uday. The only thing written on it was my name, under which I could read, "Must be jailed."
I was sent back to the old Presidential Palace prison, where I was forced to stand in a cell in a painful position. My ankles were shackled to the wall, and my arms were tied together behind my back and raised high by a rope connected to the ceiling. I stood in this hunched position, with my head angled forward and leaning against the wall, for three days. I begged the guard to let me sit down, for my left knee was weak from an old volleyball injury. Instead, he just kicked me there.
A decade later, I am reminded daily of the abuse I endured. Two of the vertebrae in my neck are permanently damaged from my body staying in that position so long -- as you can tell from my hunched posture. Doctors say I need an artificial knee, but that, at age 45, I'm still 10 years too young to qualify. My ankles are bloated and scarred from the iron shackles, so I try not to stand for more than 15 minutes at a time. I take pills to relieve my aches and see psychiatrists to heal my mind, even today.
This is painful. This is painful and it hurts one's dignity.
We are people with feelings. And athletes who serve our country.
This is a humiliation.
This article was written with the help of ESPN.com senior writer Tom Farrey, who interviewed Thamer in November 2002.
Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.
Hermann Goering, Hitler's Reich-Marshall
at the Nuremberg Trails after WWII
Hermann Goering, Hitler's Reich-Marshall
at the Nuremberg Trails after WWII
radio......you are a smart guy...i know you aren`t disputing the fact that saddam is crazy, a tyrant and a murderer....you are just against the military action....right?.....you don`t condone udai`s(yes,i said udai`s)actions either,i would guess...
jazz
" i doubt mickey did this..."
i laughed for about five minutes
thanks.
don't even try to have a meaningful conversation with voodoo boy, like his idealology, it's pointless.
i mean for God's sake voodoo boy, you keep aligning yourself with the hussein's. it's obvious you have no respect for this country, but at least try to have respect for yourself!
first Iraq, then France
" i doubt mickey did this..."
i laughed for about five minutes
thanks.
don't even try to have a meaningful conversation with voodoo boy, like his idealology, it's pointless.
i mean for God's sake voodoo boy, you keep aligning yourself with the hussein's. it's obvious you have no respect for this country, but at least try to have respect for yourself!
first Iraq, then France
sphincter
over statement of the year:
"radio...you are a smart guy...."
LOL
first Iraq, then France
over statement of the year:
"radio...you are a smart guy...."
LOL
first Iraq, then France
