Iraqi Goodfellas

I had dinner last night with an Iraqi woman, half Shi3i, half Sunni, and really cute. She lived in Baghdad in the 80s, not far from Izzét al-Douri's house. She said she saw Uday drive to Douri's house several times, and said that her sister met Uday and thought he was handsome! This surprised me. She and her sisters hung out with their kids. She went on to describe them as a normal family, and she told me it was kind of hard seeing photos of Uday's and Qusay's bodies. She knows about Saddam's crimes and agreed that he deserved to be overthrown, but I was somewhat surprised by the way she described the families. It reminded me of the Sopranos and a scene in Goodfellas in which wiseguys were making spaghetti, handling family affairs and doing the business that pays the bills. In many ways they are just normal people.

PS: My friend told me that Saddam did some good things for the Iraqi people. She said he made education free. I told her that education has always been free in Iraq. She said yes, but Saddam kept it that way:) It seems that some Iraqis respect Saddam, despite his crimes.