Arab Americans drop Support for Bush

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Politics - Reuters


Arab American Voters Drop Support for Bush

Wed Oct 13,11:02 AM ET Politics - Reuters


By Michael Ellis

DEARBORN, Mich. (Reuters) - Hundreds of Arab Americans danced and celebrated in the streets of this Detroit suburb after the fall of Baghdad last year, and enthusiastically shouted thanks to President Bush (news - web sites).


Now, even some of the most vocal supporters of the president blame him for failing to stop the disorder and death in Iraq (news - web sites). One opinion poll shows Bush trailing Democratic Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) among Arab Americans in four key battleground states including Michigan, where every vote could count in a close Nov. 2 election.


"The butcher (Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)) is gone, but the bloodshed is still there," said Imam Husham Al-Husainy, a Shi'ite cleric who in 1979 fled Iraq and moved to Dearborn, home to many of the estimated 235,000 Arab Americans in Michigan.


"President Bush did a good job to remove the cancer," said Husainy, who led a rally of more than 100 people in support of the invasion when Bush visited Dearborn two years ago. "But he did not do a good job of strengthening Iraq. Iraq is still like an infected patient in an emergency room," he said.