What happened to Saddam?

[Victor]

Gents,

I read that US soldiers pulled Saddam out of a hole in the dirt 12 months ago today. Anyone got any clues as to what is being done with him at the moment? What progress has there been on his trial?

[cool_chick]

Last I heard, we were still guarding him, but he's basically under Iraqi control. Trial was supposed to start in January (Iraqi trial).

I heard this at least 2 months ago...not sure if there is more recent information.

[AFJuvat]

read today he is on a hunger strike due to "ill treatment"

AFJuvat

[turbo6bar]

Who cares? We have his oil. That's all that matters.

[Victor]

So it's safe to assume he'll be back in the throne sometime in the next 5 years?

[gr8fl4porsche]

Here is the lastest

Saddam lawyers 'not ready' for trial

By Andrew Gilligan, Evening Standard

Iraqi judges and prosecutors chosen to try Saddam Hussein are "nowhere near ready", according to western officials who saw them at a secret training session in London.

Amid growing recriminations, the advisers have claimed that the United Nations and Europe are refusing to provide the tribunal with desperately needed help.

Lt-Col Michael Newton, a US military lawyer from the West Point academy who took part in the training session in October, said: "The judges and prosecutors have much to learn about conducting complex trials in accordance with international law. But their calls for help are not being answered." The week-long session, kept secret for security reasons, brought together 42 Iraqis - almost the entire complement of the special tribunal - and a number of American advisers, including Col Newton, who are providing support.

The Iraqis were addressed by some prominent British figures, including human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson and the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf. But the UN ordered serving staff - including experienced lawyers from the Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal - not to take part because of concerns about the fairness of the proposed trial procedure and the tribunal's willingness to impose the death penalty.

Britain and other European countries are reluctant to help openly for the same reasons.

One official who attended the sessions said: "The Iraqis know very little about how to manage a trial like this and they would be the first to admit that they were nowhere near ready. But it is outrageous that they are not being provided with more help."

Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch, which recently released a scathing report on the tribunal, said there was "real panic" among US advisers, who had "mishandled" the preparation for the trial, leaving the tribunal with "neither forensic nor documentary evidence, nor many key witnesses". American forces failed to safeguard records and the sites of key massacres when they invaded, Mr Dicker said, and "real problems" about potential torture, lack of access to lawyers and other unfair treatment of defendants needed to be addressed before the tribunal could progress.

Speaking to Arab journalists this week, Qasim Dawud, the Iraqi national security minister, said no trials would start before the elections that are expected at the end of next month, and even then Saddam's would not be the first.

The toppled dictator, meanwhile, continues to be held in a small isolation cell at a base for "high-value" detainees at Baghdad airport. Visitors say he still refuses to accept he has done anything wrong and insists he remains president of Iraq.

[Victor]

So under who's law(s) is he being held? Something tells me he could get off with a new tailored suit and a half decent legal team.

[turbo6bar]

If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.

[cool_chick]

Well, evidence has been lost....

CAIRO, November 4 (IslamOnline.net) – US-led occupation forces failed in clear negligence to safeguard official documents that are crucial evidence against former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Thursday, November 4.

http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2004-11/04/article06.shtml

[928ram]

Gardening. That's what Saddam is doing these days. Story in the local came off the AP; probably find it there.

[red ufo]

What are they going to charge him with? Defending his country against people stealing his oil. Insurgents in the north? Its all theathre.

Saddam is the only guy who can run Iraq decently. 150,000 christians with high tech weapons don't compare to him. After he is re-elected he'll charge Bush with war crimes of murdering his boys and broadcasting their images all over Amerikan TV. Saddam will also sue for US doctors trying to get him to perform fellatio on a finger polisher.

Besides Saddam has a better plan for Iraq than the monkey that speaks to jesus.

Saddam 05!

[Z-man]

Um red, I suggest you go back and re-read some of Saddam's actions from the past years, such as:

- Invading Kuwait
- Using women and children as a safety fence
- Exploiting his people to build up his personal wealth
- Firing scud missles into Israel without reason
- Genocide of his own citizens

Oh, there are more, many more.
- Z.

[on-ramp]

red ufo, you make more and more sense each day.

our monkey president doesn't even have a clue, with his actions in Iraq, more innocent people have been killed than 9/11.. he's surpassed the terrorists in that department...and the terrorists thank him every day, now they dont have to come here and kill americans, their targets are plentiful in Baghdad and Falujah.

i feel sad that your sons and daughters are paying the ultimate price for a big mistake.

Z:

given your justification, which dictators on the planet are you going to remove next? and at what cost in human lives and money? that's where your argument falls apart.

if at all, the us is in the business of saving other countries from evil dictatorships, it would only be wise to choose the ones that are actually an imminent threat and danger to the us.

[red ufo]

Originally posted by Z-man
Um red, I suggest you go back and re-read some of Saddam's actions from the past years, such as:

- Invading Kuwait
- Using women and children as a safety fence
- Exploiting his people to build up his personal wealth
- Firing scud missles into Israel without reason
- Genocide of his own citizens

Oh, there are more, many more.
- Z.

- Invading Kuwait

Totally justified. Kuwait was slant dripping into Iraq's oil. Clearly an act of war stealing another nations resources. Then again Kuwait was once part of Iraq and annexed as needed. Just because the British Christians previous campaigns of divide & conquer had separated the land don't mean Saddam has to play by the British mapping system. Perhaps he wanted Iraq to go back the way it used to look before the English carved up the region.

Will Texas allow Mexico to slant drill into their oil? F' No and we'd invade and kick there ass if they tried it.

- Using women and children as a safety fence

Not sure about that at all. I know he has cyclone chain link fences and no longer needs women and children for marking property lines.

- Exploiting his people to build up his personal wealth

Sort of like the Texian monkey exploiting all of us after 911 for his crony wars and war profiteering buddies? Halliburton anyone? Enron? Gas pipe thru Afghanistan, Patriot Act I & II, Pat Robertson a person buddy of GW, WMD, list goes on and on and on and on.

- Firing scud missles into Israel without reason
Ok that was ****ed up and uncalled for. Probably made him look good to Saudi, Syrian, Iran, Egypt, no know the whole region.

That is sort of like Clinton firing cruise missiles after he got impeached? Should the US be invaded for such a rogue act?

- Genocide of his own citizens

Thats debatible. Depends on who you talk to. Ask a neocon and they'll say 1 million, trillion mass graves. Ask a human being and they'll say most of the mass graves were from the Iran/Iraq war.

Saddam was a thug, much like if 50 cent ran the country. He had some people killed, but so did clinton, neither had a system in place to do genocide, ie rape and torture rooms of their own people on a massive scale.

Maybe Soddam is time traveling.

[Z-man]

Originally posted by red ufo
- Genocide of his own citizens

Thats debatible. Depends on who you talk to. Ask a neocon and they'll say 1 million, trillion mass graves. Ask a human being and they'll say most of the mass graves were from the Iran/Iraq war.

Hey, we "neocons" are human beings too, ya know!
Regarding mass graves, Click here. Many of the bodies found at the site near al-Hatra are believed to be the bodies of Kurdish women and children thought slaughtered by the Saddam Hussein regime.
Maybe he didn't kill as many people as Hitler did, but there is evidence of his hand in killing a people group.

The Slant drilling for oil: don't you think there would be more hype about that from the 'flaming liberal crowd?" (you say tomoto, I say tomato - you say neocon, I say flaming liberal. Fair enough?)

Women / children as safety fence - during the first Iraq war, Saddam was known to hide behind foreign people, including women and children to be safe from capture & being killed.

Firing scuds into Israel just shows how much of a loose cannon (literally - scuds couldn't be aimed too well!) Saddam was!






-Z.

[red ufo]

At the very least Saddam should get his own reality show. At best the country back or head the UN.

[dd74]

Originally posted by red ufo
At the very least Saddam should get his own reality show.

Good idea! Here are some working titles:

1) "Who Wants to be a Fallen Dictator?"

2) "Who Wants to be Invaded?"

3) "Who Wants to be Reinstalled as Dictator Once All Hope is Lost?"

More pending...

[bryanthompson]

I read that he's getting fat eating muffins and writing poetry.

here 'tis: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/07/26/iraq.saddam.report/

Red ufo, i think your tin foil hat is cutting of the circulation to your brain. Might want to have that looked at.

[red ufo]

Originally posted by Z-man
Hey, we "neocons" are human beings too, ya know!
Regarding mass graves, Click here. Many of the bodies found at the site near al-Hatra are believed to be the bodies of Kurdish women and children thought slaughtered by the Saddam Hussein regime.
Maybe he didn't kill as many people as Hitler did, but there is evidence of his hand in killing a people group.

The Slant drilling for oil: don't you think there would be more hype about that from the 'flaming liberal crowd?" (you say tomoto, I say tomato - you say neocon, I say flaming liberal. Fair enough?)

Women / children as safety fence - during the first Iraq war, Saddam was known to hide behind foreign people, including women and children to be safe from capture & being killed.

Firing scuds into Israel just shows how much of a loose cannon (literally - scuds couldn't be aimed too well!) Saddam was!


-Z.

That dude is uncovering bodys in many places of hundreds of dead people. Not to minimize his work but hundreds? Where are the thousands, millions as some neocons would lead you to believe. You can't bury thousands let alone a million people and not leave a trace. These different spots being uncovered probably represent the majority of crimes committed.

"It is my personal opinion that this is a killing field," Kehoe told reporters during a visit to the site south of Mosul.

Personal opinion? Not a fact of how these bodies ended up there. Perhaps they were slaughtered during the highway of death scene in 1991? When it was Ok for us to murder Iraqis.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/10/13/in_iraq_grave_evidence_of_regimes_horrors?mode=PF

Kehoe said Iraqi informants told investigators that thousands were executed here. Oh, no its those all ways reliable Iraqi informants who brought more hoaxes upon the US government to make local bigfoot filmer red with envy.

Thousands? Where did the dead bodies go? Are they on those mobile WMD trucks that Saddam had drive to Syria?

Its very ironic the US is exhuming these graves in such Discovery Channel CSI painstaking detail. Yet the US is killing 200-300 insurgents a day in Fallujah. Doing the exact samething Saddam did to quell and uprising of people to take over the Iraqi government.

There is no difference between what Saddam did back then to what we do today. The reasons are the same only the uniform of the troops killing the insurgents has changed.

That and Saddam was able to keep the country together for decades under sanctions and constant bombardment from a superpower. No car bombs from locals and all this done on his foodstamp level of operations.

Yet all the kings horses and all the kings men can't put Iraq back together again.

Saddam 05!