Tommy Peltier of Houston stands next to debris from the space shuttle Columbia that fell near San Augustine, Texas, Sunday, Feb. 2, 2003. After the shuttle broke up Saturday over eastern Texas, fragments of the shuttle were sent showering to the ground. (
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Immediate popular reaction in Baghdad on Saturday to the loss of the U.S. space shuttle Columbia and its seven-member crew -- including the first Israeli in space -- was that it was God's retribution.
"We are happy that it broke up," government employee Abdul Jabbar al-Quraishi said.
"God wants to show that his might is greater than the Americans. They have encroached on our country. God is avenging us," he said.
Iraqis are braced for a possible U.S.-led war to rid their country of any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons it may possess. Iraq denies it has such weapons.
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