Take a moment to examine this report on the incident from al-Jazeera-on-the-Thames. The leader for this piece asserts that "Iraq's successful Olympic football team has launched an outspoken attack on US President George W Bush." But the article provides no evidence that "the team" did any such thing. The piece quotes the coach and two of the Iraqi soccer players - Salih Sadir and Ahmed Manajid (the latter from Fallujah) - with anti-American comments. With a single cursory sentence it dismisses the Ba'ath regime's notorious abuse of Iraq's olympic team: "The team said they were glad Iraq's former Olympic committee head Uday Hussein - Saddam Hussein's notorious son killed by US forces after the invasion - was no longer in charge."
But did any of the other footballers express different sentiments? The Ba'athist Broadcasting Corporation is not interested in that question. But Omar wonders: "all the reporter could come up with were comments from 2 players and the coach out of 22 players and several trainers, medical staff...etc So if those were the 'best' comments he could get, I'm interested to know what were the comments of the others ..."
