Here are a couple of interesting articles quoting actual Iraqis, outside of Iraq, without secret police or Saddam's minders, expressing their views on the prospective war.

The first, from the Village Voice (via Andrew Sullivan), quotes Iraqis in Jordan.

"But the people who are protesting the war don't know what the regime is like." The young man pulls away his thin jacket and paisley shirt to show off a scar on his neck, and another two lashes on his breast, caused by a power-cable whipping. "You tell Bush my people are waiting for him."

But this is surely pro-Bush propaganda, no? The Village Voice is just a shill for the Bushies, after all.

Read the whole thing. Then click on this for a disturbing overview of the anti-war refusal to listen to the views of Iraqis exiled in England (via Instapundit).

We managed to reach some of the stars of the show, including Reverend Jesse Jackson, the self-styled champion of American civil rights. One of our group, Salima Kazim, an Iraqi grandmother, managed to attract the reverend's attention and told him how Saddam Hussein had murdered her three sons because they had been dissidents in the Baath Party; and how one of her grandsons had died in the war Saddam had launched against Kuwait in 1990.

"Could I have the microphone for one minute to tell the people about my life?" 78-year-old Salima demanded.

The reverend was not pleased.

"Today is not about Saddam Hussein," he snapped. "Today is about Bush and Blair and the massacre they plan in Iraq."

and...

"Are these people ignorant, or are they blinded by hatred of the United States?" Nasser the poet demanded.

The Iraqis would had much to tell the "antiwar" marchers, had they had a chance to speak. Fadel Sultani, president of the National Association of Iraqi authors, would have told the marchers that their action would encourage Saddam to intensify his repression.

"I had a few questions for the marchers," Sultani said. "Did they not realize that oppression, torture and massacre of innocent civilians are also forms of war? Are the antiwar marchers only against a war that would liberate Iraq, or do they also oppose the war Saddam has been waging against our people for a generation?"

Well?