LONDON, May 31 (UPI) -- A London-based Arab daily said Tuesday the brief U.S. detention of Mohsen Abdul Hamid humiliated him and was a "politically costly American mistake."
The independent al-Quds al-Arabi asked what the fate of common Iraqis opposing the U.S. occupation would be if a well-known moderate who assumed the Iraqi presidency for one month is facing such treatment.
Quoting Abdul Hamid as saying a soldier had stepped on his neck for 20 minutes while searching his home in Baghdad, the paper insisted he was arrested because his party boycotted January's legislative elections.
The Palestinian-owned daily said though he was released later in the day, the Iraqi man's arrest was a "crime that proves the American occupier has the final say and all the Iraqi political frameworks now are just a cosmetic cover."
It added that while it did not know the reaction of Iraq's ruling elite over "this humiliation; nevertheless, those who collaborate with the invading forces of their country cannot object to the American boot if they stepped on the heads of Iraqis."
