Saddam's Hometown Gets Unrestricted Web:
TIKRIT, Iraq - The first words Ahmed Abdullah typed in the Google search engine were "George Bush."He may know more about the local situation than I do, but I'd say this guy is going to be a prime target for the Saddamites and nutjob Islamists. And cutting off Internet access is just about their speed - after they check out all the camel photos.
The 19-year-old wanted to access the president's Web site, something he couldn't do under restricted and tightly controlled Internet service during Saddam Hussein's rule.
On Saturday, Saddam's hometown of Tikrit got its first postwar Internet cafe, where residents could browse any site without fear of being monitored or blocked.
"I like it. It's beautiful. There is so much information I can get," Abdullah said, surrounded by U.S. soldiers and commanders who crammed the one-room Internet cafe they had helped set up with $24,000 from the 4th Infantry Division's budget.
The owner, Hashim Hassan, 33, ran a similar cafe for two years before the war. But in those times, "any political sites, opposition or sex pages, were blocked. Now there are no restrictions."
Still, the risks of cooperating with American troops in a region that is a hotbed of Saddam loyalists and resistance to U.S. occupation are high. Last week, in the main street where Hassan's cafe sits, just around the corner from the 4th Infantry's sprawling headquarters, Iraqi guerrillas killed a U.S. interpreter and wounded two soldiers in an ambush.
The blast and shooting shattered the windows and destroyed some of the computers on the first floor of the glass-and-marble building. The opening had to be delayed for a few days.
Hassan said he wasn't afraid working with the Americans would make him a target. But his co-worker, Naeb Hassan, said Tikrit, 120 miles north of Baghdad, remains a dangerous and unsafe place where "some people love Saddam."
