How appropriate that the monument 'honouring' the so-called journalist who threw his shoes at George Bush was erected, now dismantled, in Tikrit, birthplace of the psychopath-bully-dictator Saddam Hussein.

More than 4,000 brave American boys and girls gave their lives in Iraq, believing that they were helping the Iraqis gain their freedom.

Of the Iraqis who died, how many died as a result of sectarian hatreds?

Of the successful, peaceful regional elections that have just taken place in Iraq, Basra voter Abdul Hussein Nuri told Reuters: "How can we not vote? All of us here have always complained about being oppressed and not having a leader who represented us. Now is our chance."

Is this ingrate shoe-throwing journalist a Baathist, or a mindless minion say of Muqtada Al-Sadr, to whom democracy or people-power is anathema?

I expect that millions of ordinary Iraqis are grateful to George Bush, and to the US dead and wounded, whose sacrifice gives Iraqis a chance at freedom from despots and theocrats.

Maitland NSW, Australia.