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Published: Apr 12, 2003 - 10:43:10 PM EDT
Iraqi-born man in Delaware troubled by war
By Cathianne Werner, Staff writer
DOVER - Sadiq H. Wasfi isn't sleeping at night.
"I don't know who is dead and who is alive," he said.
The Iraqi-born Delaware State University chemistry professor is concerned about the welfare of his family in Basra. He has had no contact with them since the war began and is anxious about their safety in the midst of a war he calls unjust.
It makes him homesick to speak of his relatives and describe the landscape of a city his family has called home for two centuries.
Mr. Wasfi was raised in Basra as one of 10 children. Two of his siblings have died but his seven remaining brothers and sisters still make their homes in Basra, as do their children and grandchildren. In all, Mr. Wasfi said he has close to 50 family members in the southern Iraq city. He does not know if any of them are safe.
While Mr. Wasfi admitted that Saddam Hussein is an unfavorable dictator, he said his family is not political and does not live in constant fear of the regime. After all, he said, "politics are not a pleasant thing" in Iraq.
They go about their daily life, waking up, going to work and raising their children, he said. Most of his relatives work in the field of education. Among them are a retired high-school principal, a lawyer and a former Iraqi national soccer team member.
He said that although Basra is a large city with a population of 1.25 million, it is the kind of place where everybody knows everybody.
And although the population represents both Shiite and Sunni sects of Islam, there are few problems among the differing religious groups.
"The people there are educated," he said. "Only the uneducated hold on to these little differences."
The Tuesday before the war broke out, Mr. Wasfi spoke with his brother in Basra.
He said his family knew war was imminent and that they were preparing by stocking up on food and water.
"I can imagine it was like living in hell and waiting for the bombs to fall," he said.
"They are attached to the land. They are middle-class people who own farms."
Mr. Wasfi said fleeing their homes in anticipation of war was not an option, and while they wanted to see the regime fall, they did not want to see it fall by attacks from coalition forces.
"I am for the removal of Saddam," Mr. Wasfi said.
"But not this way. By the Iraqi people - it has to be done by the Iraqi people. The people of a country decide who their government is going to be and when they are terminated.
"You (coalition forces) don't act as if you are God. It should have been left for the Iraqi people to change their government. I am against Saddam, but at the same time, I am against the slaughter by the so-called coalition - the new oil thieves."
He said the result of military action has left his family without water, electricity and telephone service.
His family suffered a similar plight in 1991 during the first Gulf War, he said.
"There are thousands of people killed and thousands of people maimed, hungry and thirsty," he said. "This is the second time. In 1991, when I contacted my family after the war, they were going to the river to get water and boiling it. That's what the coalition forces do. They destroy water towers and electricity and telephones."
Mr. Wasfi came to America as a student in 1963 and is now a U.S. citizen.
He graduated with a doctorate in chemistry from Georgetown University in 1971 under a scholarship from the Iraqi government. As a condition of the scholarship, he returned to teach chemistry at the university in Basra for five years.
Since then, he has lived "off and on" between Iraq and the United States.
But as a citizen of America, he has the right to disagree with his government.
And he does.
"This war is not for the freedom of the Iraqi people," he said. "This is nonsense. This is an action of the war merchants."
It is his opinion that the coalition forces of the Americans, British and Australians are only serving their own economic interests.
"There are two purposes for this war," he said. "One is to serve the Israelis against the Palestinians, and the second is to steal the Iraqi oil and the wealth of the Iraqi people. This is the new colonial power. They are not a liberator."
He added that this war is only another example of American military cowardice.
"They did this because they are too much of a coward to do it to North Korea," he said. "So, they do it to a small, defenseless country. You lob cruise missiles at them from 500 miles away to kill people. And unfortunately, the American people are cheering them. This is not a fair fight."
Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are merely coalition partners in crime, according to Mr. Wasfi.
He questioned the motives behind the U.S. government's diplomatic relationships with other countries that wield more military power than Iraq.
"They (American officials) know how to behave with the Chinese, and they know how to kiss asses with the Russians and the North Koreans," he said. "But they make themselves heroes on defenseless people."
Remembering the speech of a U.S. military officer during the Vietnam War, Mr. Wasfi said it was an indication to him that U.S. military strategy has not changed much since the 1960s.
"The officer said, 'You have to burn the village in order to save it,' " he said. "This is their thinking. If you murder people, you are not a liberator. You are a murderer. By doing so, the so-called coalition forces are Saddam's partners in murdering the Iraqi people."
Mr. Wasfi wants the American people to know that economic sanctions against Iraq from 1991 until coalition forces attacked three weeks ago caused the deaths of an estimated 6 million Iraqi children.
He said the sanctions only strengthened Saddam's grip on the Iraqi people.
"Saddam and his family became multimillionaires," he said. "He controlled food and oil by smuggling it, and he and his son sold it. Those sanctions killed 6 million Iraqi children. Who is responsible for that? Do the American people know that we have been victims for a long time?"
Does Mr. Wasfi think the media coverage of Iraqi citizens cheering in the streets as statues of Saddam are toppled is an accurate portrayal of the country's emotional and political climate?
"It's propaganda," he said. "They are not liberators. They are murderers. Now, they are encouraging looting. Watch the television and see what's happening. They are stealing computers from the universities and merchandise from the stores. These are hoodlums you see on television cheering the U.S. This is a Kurdish minority dancing and happy. The Arab majority are not."
And it is what Mr. Wasfi said is around the corner for the Iraqi people that frightens him most.
"Ahmed Chalabi, who is going to be the next prime minister of Iraq, is supported by the CIA," he said. "He lobbied for this war with Iraq and has been indicted in Iraq and Jordan for embezzling $70 million from Jordan. This is the new hero of the U.S. You want me to cooperate with this trash?"
According to Mr. Wasfi, the placement of Chalabi in this position of power is to the benefit of the United States and to the detriment of the Iraqi people.
"There is more disaster coming," he said. "The American companies will steal the Iraqi oil, and the Iraqi people will be ruled by American officers. If the Iraqis thought Saddam was bad, they will see worse."
Cathianne Werner can be reached at 741-8247 or catwerner@newszap.com.
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