The return of Saddam...?

When that famed statue fell in Baghdad, a nutty friend of mine offered a startling prediction -- a prediction derived from a unique and unfathomable reading of Revelation, an evocative fortune cookie text, old issues of Dr. Strange, and a garbled answering machine message left by either an angry creditor or Jehovah. My illuminated friend insisted that, one day, Saddam Hussein would come back to power in Iraq.

Being, on occasion, a gentleman, I tried not to guffaw too loudly at this mad prophecy.

And then I read the following. As you might imagine, my jaw hit the ground with a enough force to crack the pavement. This comes from a blog called Cytations:

But after watching the Kurds recently lower the Iraqi flag as a sign of secession, the Southern Shiite clans of Iraq have decided to bear arms and join the resistance. They also demanded the return of Saddam to power.

The flag lowering also alienated many Kurds.

The Northern Iraqi clans and the clans of Baghdad had recently made a similar decision to join the resistance.

(Emphasis added) Can you buh-LEEEVE this? The Iraqi Shi'ite community, which Saddam Hussein (who is Sunni) treated like crap, has now become so thoroughly angered by the American occupation that a number of Shi'ites have decided that they would prefer to have the old bastard back in power?

Here is the actual statement of the Sh'ite clans, in English. An excerpt:

We learned from the Occupation the lesson that Iraq will never ever enjoy stability and will never ever be prosperous and that the dignity of its women and men will never ever be safeguarded without the existence of a strong and central leadership which asserts the law of justice and strikes with an iron hand the evildoers, the destroyers and the plotters. His Excellency the President Saddam Hussein was, and still is, the only one capable of providing all of those things for every Iraqi man and every Iraqi woman. The return of his Excellency will mean the return of security and stability and the end of the murders, rapes, plunder, humiliation, state disrespect, wide spread corruption and daylight robberies, in order to regain sovereignty and independence.

(Emphasis added.) I cannot believe that this statement reflects the sentiment of all or even most Shi'ites in Iraq. Is this text a forgery? Disinformation?

If it isn't -- and if the U.S. news media draws attention to it -- even the most doltish Americans will finally understand just how thoroughly we've failed in Iraq.

(Many thanks to Ga...er, "Zontar" for bringing this matter to my attention.)