BAGHDAD - Iraqis watching the stuttering start of proceedings before the US Congress on Monday which could influence whether US troops remain in their country, were unimpressed.
"It is like a theatre," said teacher Abdullah Kadhim, 58, who was watching the Congressional hearing live on Al-Hurra television at his friend's general store in an inner Baghdad neighbourhood.
"Each day they say there is a new report. They say they will bring a new change in Iraq. We can only hope there will finally be progress in security."
Saleh Adnan, 34, a car mechanic, also watching the broadcast, was dismissive.
"I don't think this will change anything in our country because the Americans will never leave Iraq. For us the main point is when the occupation will end," said Adnan.
"For me the main report will be the one which announces the American departure."
Student Abdelbaqi al-Shimmari scoffed when the microphones went dead just as the chief US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, was to testify.
Watching Petraeus's lips moving in front of dead microphones, he said derisively: "If the Americans can't make their own microphones work, how can they may things work in Iraq?"
Petraeus and US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, are testifying before the Congress on Monday on whether the US-led military "surge" in the war-ravaged country is working.
bur/bpz/jds/boc
09/10/2007 17:52 GMT