Word: iraqi
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Friday, "the business of second guessing our President" while overseas. It wasn't flawless - his campaign got itself into a minor but unnecessary disagreement with the Pentagon on Friday about why Obama scheduled then cancelled a visit to a military hospital in Germany. But most things broke his way: Iraqi leader Nouri al-Maliki all but mimicked his timetable for redeployment of troops; French President Sarkozy all but endorsed him; even the prayer he left in the Western Wall had leaked before week's end. For all that, though, it will be some time before we know whether independent voters...
Needless to say, torture didn't make the Iraqi soccer team play better. But once freed from Uday's depravity, the team flourished. At the Athens Olympics in 2004, they went all the way to the semi-finals, losing the bronze medal game by a single goal to the mighty Italians. They had been the Cinderella team of the Games, and like their proud countrymen, I celebrated the team's success. Three years later, as their country was being torn apart by a bloody sectarian war between Shi'ites and Sunnis, the team (comprising of players from both sects...
...more recently, as the team's form has dipped, some painful memories have returned. Iraqi sports officials no longer torture players for poor results, but they seem to have inherited Uday's penchant for dishing out summary, collective punishment. Last month, when the team failed to qualify for the Beijing Olympics, the Iraqi Football Federation disbanded the entire squad - players, coaches and support staff...
...turns out that even if the team had qualified, they might not have gone to Beijing anyway - because the International Olympic Committee has banned Iraq from the Games. The reason: in May, the Iraqi government disbanded the country's Olympics Committee and replaced it with new appointees. The government said the old committee has failed to hold proper organizational elections, but many in Baghdad suspect a sectarian motive. They point out that the sports minister is a a Shi'ite, whereas the country's sports administration had traditionally been in Sunni hands...
...deeming this as political interference in sporting matters, gave the Iraqi government a deadline in which to reinstate the old committee. Baghdad refused to back down, and now the seven Iraqis who had qualified for the Games - two rowers, an archer, a discus thrower, a sprinter, a weightlifter and a judoka - have been told to unpack their bags...