Discontent Grows in Iraq Over New National Flag

`It`s shameful. Thousands of Iraqis lost their lives so this flag could fly ... Changing the flag ignores their sacrifice.`

The Iraqi parliament's move to adopt a new, temporary national flag has provoked an outcry, with one major province refusing to fly it and ordinary Iraqis attaching the old flag to their cars in a silent protest.

Iraqis have flooded chat rooms on the Internet with criticism of this week's decision, which had long been demanded by the Kurdish minority who say the Saddam Hussein-era banner was a reminder of his brutality.

Many Iraqi Arabs disagree. They see the old flag as having little to do with Saddam, a Sunni Arab, but as one under which countless soldiers died fighting for in various wars.

"It's shameful. Thousands of Iraqis lost their lives so this flag could fly ... Changing the flag ignores their sacrifice," said one Iraqi in a comment posted on an Arab chat room.

In fact, the new flag is very similar to the old one.

It is still red, white and black, but three green stars in the centre representing unity, freedom and socialism, the motto of Saddam's now outlawed Baath party, have been removed.

The phrase Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest), added in green Arabic script on Saddam's orders during the 1991 Gulf War, remains, but no longer in his handwriting.

The provincial council in western Anbar province and leaders of a council of tribal sheikhs that have allied with U.S. forces in the vast region have decided not to fly the new flag, the U.S.-backed al-Hurra television station reported on Saturday.

Officials from Anbar's provincial council could not be reached for comment, but officials in Falluja, one of the key cities in the province and once a Sunni Arab insurgent stronghold, expressed hostility to the new flag.

"This is a disaster ... I am using the old flag in my office and at home," the mayor of Falluja, Saad Rasheed, told Reuters, adding he would fly the new one only if the Anbar provincial council decided to do so.

A long-running debate over whether to change the flag had been given urgency by a planned pan-Arab meeting of politicians in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan on March 10. Kurdish officials had refused to fly the old flag, which is banned in Kurdistan.

The new flag will last for only one year, while debate will continue on what the final banner should look like.

SYMBOLICALLY IMPORTANT

Some MPs have said Tuesday's parliamentary vote was symbolically important, changing a flag first flown after a coup by the Baath party in 1963. Saddam formally took power in 1979.

Sheikh Efan al-Issawi, a tribal leader in Falluja, said U.S. soldiers had asked him if he would fly the new flag.

"I told them we will use the old Iraqi flag because it represents the unity of Iraq. We do not believe it represents a certain ruler," he said, referring to Saddam.

Kurds associate the old flag with Saddam's genocidal Anfal campaign against them in the late 1980s in which tens of thousands of people were bombed, shot and gassed.

Many Iraqis have objected to the Kurds forcing the change. In Baghdad, some motorists have fixed the old flag to their car antennas.

"They (the Kurds) say Saddam made it, but he did not. We refuse to change the flag because it represents us all," said Amir Saadoun, a resident of Baghdad.