The UN siege

Hi all,

I'm forward in this for Felicity Arbuthnot as her e-mail facility is playing up.

I don't know how anyone feels about this - none of us have ever involved in Iraq internal political affairs. However, whilst, as John Donne put so eloquently' any man's death diminishes me ... do not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee ...' I find the action of the perpetrator, 38 yr old Fuad Hussein Haider, a car mechanic, utterly tragic and poignant. He is quoted as saying he knows he'll be sentenced to death, but there is no life in Iraq, he did it to ask that sanctions be lifted, draw world's attention to ... when I recounted a tragic incident, perpetrated by a man who 'had lost his mind' to a friend on my last visit, she simply replied: 'all Iraq is losing its mind.'

Point: should we, others etc. consider writing a very carefully worded

note to Tariq Aziz asking for clemency given the unique circumstances of Iraq?
How many children died during the period of the siege, I wonder? Is the idea worth circulating? I wld sign and cld find others ....
Hugs, Felicity. (Aware of the Iraq/UN political football of course this

man will be ...)