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Iraqi Athletes Pray for Country's Liberation
(Orlando Sentinel) - David Whitley Not that long ago, Issam Thamer al-Diwan was one of the best athletes in Iraq. Now, he is hunched over, his ankles scarred from shackles, and he is unable to walk to the end of the street. Al-Diwan is the head of the Iraqi Olympian Council, a group of exiled athletes who fled the country they once represented, and they want the world to know why. Saddam Hussein's son Uday is the head of the Iraqi Olympic Committee, which critics say is merely a front for torture, theft, and murder. Uday runs the world's only Olympic headquarters with its own prison. The country sent 43 athletes to the 1980 Olympics; it sent four to the 2000 Games. Al-Diwan hands a visitor a piece of paper with the names of 52 athletes he said the regime has executed. "The Iraqi people are praying for the first bomb to drop. They want to be free," al-Diwan said.