Smeagol-Gollum
26-11-2004, 02:14
Fallujah bid for Tidy Town Award falters
An assault by the US and Iraqi armies on Fallujah has dashed town-proud residents’ hopes of winning at the 2004 Iraq Tidy Town Awards. “We didn’t really factor a major offensive by 10,000 American troops into our Keep Fallujah Beautiful campaign”, admitted local councillor Barzan Al-Aziz.
Al-Aziz says he now seriously doubts whether Fallujah will win the title, and whether he will live to see it awarded.
Local Tidy Town campaigners agree Fallujah’s bid may now be in trouble. “There’s not much of the town left, actually,” said one resident. “And what there is – well, it’s not exactly tidy.”
But others don’t accept that the US assault means Fallujans should give up. “Just because you’re in the middle of a warzone doesn’t mean that littering is okay,” said resident and civic-neatness activist Hussein al-Irmani.
The start of Operation Phantom Fury is especially disappointing, locals say, because Fallujans had fancied their chances of Tidy Town glory in 2004. “It doesn’t take much to win a Tidy Town award in Iraq these days,” said Ramzi bin Elawi, organiser of the Fallujah’s 2004 bid. “All you’ve really got to do is get the rubble and body parts off the streets before the inspectors arrive. And we’re pretty good at hiding things from inspectors.”
“Even if we didn’t win the national prize,” said Elawi, “we thought we had a good chance of winning in the new Tidiest Town (Rebel Controlled Territory) category. Now it looks we’ll be disqualified from that too.”
An assault by the US and Iraqi armies on Fallujah has dashed town-proud residents’ hopes of winning at the 2004 Iraq Tidy Town Awards. “We didn’t really factor a major offensive by 10,000 American troops into our Keep Fallujah Beautiful campaign”, admitted local councillor Barzan Al-Aziz.
Al-Aziz says he now seriously doubts whether Fallujah will win the title, and whether he will live to see it awarded.
Local Tidy Town campaigners agree Fallujah’s bid may now be in trouble. “There’s not much of the town left, actually,” said one resident. “And what there is – well, it’s not exactly tidy.”
But others don’t accept that the US assault means Fallujans should give up. “Just because you’re in the middle of a warzone doesn’t mean that littering is okay,” said resident and civic-neatness activist Hussein al-Irmani.
The start of Operation Phantom Fury is especially disappointing, locals say, because Fallujans had fancied their chances of Tidy Town glory in 2004. “It doesn’t take much to win a Tidy Town award in Iraq these days,” said Ramzi bin Elawi, organiser of the Fallujah’s 2004 bid. “All you’ve really got to do is get the rubble and body parts off the streets before the inspectors arrive. And we’re pretty good at hiding things from inspectors.”
“Even if we didn’t win the national prize,” said Elawi, “we thought we had a good chance of winning in the new Tidiest Town (Rebel Controlled Territory) category. Now it looks we’ll be disqualified from that too.”