Here is the Washington Post's Sunday story on the recent protests in Iraq. Fortunately, other papers reported the protests so we have something for contrast.
The WaPo leads:
Tens of thousands of Shiite Muslims loyal to the militant cleric Moqtada Sadr on Saturday surged into the Baghdad square where the statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled two years ago, demanding a timetable for the U.S. military's withdrawal from Iraq, release of their leaders jailed by American forces and a speedy trial for Hussein.
They surged and demanded and to be fair the Post does acknowledge another important issue several paragraphs down:
Sadr's followers had predicted a million people would turn out, but the actual number, while substantial, fell short.
Poor guys, they fell short, but the number was substantial.
Now turn to the Kansas City Star to help better define substantial.
Police, bracing for a million protesters and attacks by terrorists, had closed roads throughout the center of the city. But the numbers that Sadr's spokesmen had predicted and had tried to drum up from their pulpits did not materialize.
By contrast, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani last year was able to get nearly 100,000 Iraqis into the streets to press U.S. authorities for elections.
Note there is a police force in place and prepared for these demonstrations, a fact the Post seems to omit.
And isn't it interesting that such a substantial number of people came out to call for elections, yet we don't even have a serious crowd estimate to support the latest substantial number of protesters. Is it 20,000 - which would be 1/5 of those that turned out for democracy, or is it 90,000? No, it's just tens of thousands.
And the KC Star has more:
Despite the anti-American rhetoric of the demonstrators, several acknowledged new freedoms since Hussein's statue fell. “Now the Sadr voice is heard,” said Umm Saif, a resident of Sadr City, the Baghdad slum once known as Saddam City. “This is the difference. You see me now standing in the streets, and we can say no to the American occupation. This is something big for us.”
Yes, some number of protesters came to be heard! Is that really such bad news in a fledgling democracy? It certainly isn't the picture the Post seems to present. The only attendees they managed to interview were a little more anti-US, though even they might not have given the Post reporter much with which to work. He took to reading banners.
"Force the occupiers out of our country," one banner read. "Yes for Islam, yes for Iraq. No to occupation, no to terrorism," said another. Some held effigies of Hussein, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. At times, spilling into side streets, the crowd broke into chants denouncing haddam, or destructive, the nickname Sadr's followers use for Hussein.
Now cut to the Houston Chronicle and a sub-heading:
Fewer than expected
A year ago, the square was sealed off by soldiers as al-Sadr's guerrillas rose up across the country.
Despite the symbolism of the day, the rest of Baghdad was mostly quiet. The demonstration was peaceful, and far fewer people took part than the 1 million al-Sadr's aides predicted.
And the Chronicle also tells us something that the Post didn't.
Still, the principal leaders in the Shiite alliance have publicly said that they want U.S. forces to stay. Al-Sadr's demonstration Saturday seemed calculated to show others in the Shiite alliance, not the Americans, how strong he was.
Al-Sadr, who is wanted in connection with the killing of a rival cleric in 2003, was not seen at the rally. Last week, 64 Sunni clerics issued a fatwa, or holy writ, encouraging Iraqi Sunnis to join the police and armed forces.
Then, of course we get all the way out west to the LA Times and read their lead.
BAGHDAD — Chanting "Death to America!" and burning effigies of President Bush and Saddam Hussein, tens of thousands of Iraqis flooded central Baghdad on Saturday in what police called the largest anti-American protest since the fall of Baghdad exactly two years ago.
Unfortunately, by then I'd read enough, thinking perhaps I understood the real story.
This post also available at Blogger News.
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