Channel praising Hussein hits airwaves

November 30, 2009|Associated Press

BAGHDAD - Turning on their televisions during the long holiday weekend, Iraqis were greeted by a familiar if unexpected face from their brutal past: Saddam Hussein.

The late Iraqi dictator is lauded on a mysterious satellite channel that began broadcasting on the Islamic calendar’s anniversary of his 2006 execution.

No one seems to know who is bankrolling the so-called Saddam Channel, although the Iraqi government suspects it is Ba’athists whose political party Hussein once led. The Associated Press tracked down a man in Damascus named Mohammed Jarboua, who claimed to be its chairman.

The Saddam Channel, he said, “didn’t receive a penny from the Ba’athists’’ and is for Iraqis and other Arabs who “long for his rule.’’

Jarboua has clearly made considerable efforts to hide where it is aired from and refuses to say who is funding it besides “people who love us.’’

Iraqis surprised to find Hussein on their televisions responded with the kind of divided emotions that marked his reign.

“Iraqis don’t need such a satellite channel because it has hostile intentions,’’ said Hassan Subhi, 28, a Shi’ite who owns an Internet cafe in eastern Baghdad.

Others said they felt a nostalgic sorrow at the sight of their late leader, a Sunni Arab.

The channel, broadcast across the Arab world, dredges up the sectarian divisions that Hussein inspired among Shi’ites and Sunnis at a time when Iraq gears up for national elections. Iraqi politicians have been arguing over parliamentary seat distribution in a dispute that has inflamed the splits. The wrangling could delay the vote beyond its Jan. 30 deadline.

The Saddam Channel debuted Friday, the first day of this year’s Eid for Sunnis. The holiday started Saturday for Shi’ites.