Some tweeted: “Rot in Hell”. Others described Rumsfeld as a war criminal.
Al-Tamimi said he holds Rumsfeld personally responsible for his own detention in 2006, on suspicion of undertaking in anti-US activities, including, he said, allegations of inciting against the US presence in Iraq. Speaking to the AP over the phone on Thursday, he would not elaborate.
He was held in Camp Bucca prison in southern Iraq for two years without a conviction. His son was just over a month old when he was detained. “He killed me while I was alive,” al-Tamimi said of Rumsfeld.
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Al-Tamimi’s son was growing up for those two years “not knowing he had a father or where he was,” he said. Al-Tamimi was later found innocent by an Iraqi court and freed in 2008.
On social media, Iraqis shared stories of what Americans called a war of liberation gone horribly wrong for their country.
Muntader al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist known for throwing his shoes at Bush during a 2008 news conference to vent his outrage at the U.S.-led invasion, tweeted: “He is gone and Baghdad remains.”
In Washington, Rumsfeld’s former colleagues remembered him as simultaneously smart and combative, patriotic and politically cunning, with a career under four presidents that was tainted by the disastrous invasion of Iraq, for which Rumsfeld served as one of the most visible and vocal supporters.
Muntader al-Zaidi spent nine years in jail for throwing his shoe at George W Bush during a press conference, but has no regrets.
Bush on Wednesday hailed Rumsfeld’s “steady service as a wartime secretary of defence — a duty he carried out with strength, skill, and honour.”
But the memories of those whose lives and nation were changed by the US administration’s actions could not have been more different.
“Rumsfeld was a black mark on the history of Iraq. He brought the corrupt politicians that now control Iraq,” said Ihsan Alshamary, an Iraqi researcher in political affairs. He said Rumsfeld is responsible not just for the US occupation of Iraq, but for decisions that had calamitous effects on Iraq’s future.
Donald Rumsfeld, second from left, arrives at Baghdad International Airport in April 2006.Credit:Getty
“As an Iraqi, I am relieved that one of the people responsible for the deaths of thousands, if not tens of thousands of Iraqis, is now dead. He will face his maker and have to answer for his transgressions in this life,” said Jawad al-Tai, a 45-year-old living in Baghdad.
“He didn’t liberate us. This is a myth. He killed us and told us to thank him for it,” al-Tai said.
In the wake of the invasion, many Iraqis were grateful to have Saddam removed by the Americans, and initially hopeful for their country’s future.
But that changed as it became clear that the Americans were unsure how to proceed after gutting the Iraqi government and security forces — or how to deal with the violent Sunni extremist groups, militants and and Shiite militias, some backed by neighbouring Iran, that sprang up in the resulting security vacuum.
Sajad al-Rikabi, a 38-year-old Iraqi activist who participated in mass protests against government corruption in 2019, said he holds the US responsible for the broken country that is Iraq today, and the post-war political class that now rules the land.
“The only way I will say “Rest in Peace” for him, is if the U.S. comes in and dismantles the system he created,” al-Rikabi said of Rumsfeld. “All that we are protesting now came because of his policies.”