Why were Saddams executioners shouting "Moqtada!, Moqtada!"

[HardDrive]

Wow. That sucks.

Strange how we can really have good aims, but be so incapable of understanding the subtle issues, and thus our message is lost in a sea of anger.

In a time when sectarian violence is raging, Saddams executioners taunt him with *****e taughts. Saddam responds to them, admonishing them that sectarianism is tearing Iraq apart.

The average American (not knowing arabic) sees in the news that Saddams excutioners 'taughted' him. The press says that he was 'defiant until the end."

Well, yeah, but they did not shout "To avenge your victims!". They shouted *****e taughts. The arab world sees this, and it causes outrage. They see the entire execution, and see an old man being snuffed by masked *****e thugs. It makes the entire trial seem like a kangaroo court. And because the entire process has the US stamp of approval all over it, Sunni's are inflamed even further.

We can do 90% of the things right, but its that 10% where we just fail to understand the problem that kills us.

[svandamme]

Originally posted by HardDrive
Wow. That sucks.

Strange how we can really have good aims, but be so incapable of understanding the subtle issues, and thus our message is lost in a sea of anger.

In a time when sectarian violence is raging, Saddams executioners taunt him with *****e taughts. Saddam responds to them, admonishing them that sectarianism is tearing Iraq apart.

The average American (not knowing arabic) sees in the news that Saddams excutioners 'taughted' him. The press says that he was 'defiant until the end."

Well, yeah, but they did not shout "To avenge your victims!". They shouted *****e taughts. The arab world sees this, and it causes outrage. They see the entire execution, and see an old man being snuffed by masked *****e thugs. It makes the entire trial seem like a kangaroo court. And because the entire process has the US stamp of approval all over it, Sunni's are inflamed even further.

We can do 90% of the things right, but its that 10% where we just fail to understand the problem that kills us.

this is one reason why in the other thread i mentioned he should have been tried outside Iraq instead of by his own...
and he shouldn't have been executed, but left to rot in a prison, so he wouldn't get any martyrdom (which he will now have in the eyes of Sunni's)

and all in all, everybody was happy and celebrating yesterday , what? a barbaric execution , even as executions go, this was a very poor one, it just shows how low civilized countries can go ( and let's not excuse the US over this one, you guys handed him over to the executioners.)

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Excellent analysis. I was wondering what all the shouting was in the background (the only videos I've seen have terrible quality, both in terms of audio and video).

Then again, the way I see it the Sunnis and Shiites both are exceedingly violent and self-righteous groups. They've been in a virtual war with one another for centuries and to think that they're going to just be all hugs & kisses now that we're involved is pretty silly.

The other thing to consider is the more they kill one another the less they go after the U.S. and our interests. If they want to inflame and slaughter one another, I say let 'em. Nothing seems to make these people happier than killing and violence anyway so you can call it part of giving them what they want.

Hussein was right - sectarian violence IS tearing Iraq apart. The only thing that held these groups together was (under him) the iron fist of a despot and (under us) a common enemy. Once that vanishes in whole or part, the thing explodes. Exactly what's happening now. IMHO Iraq SHOULDN'T be a united country. What's gained (other than some VERY limited influence over foreign oil prices) by forcing these groups to live under the same banner? Really, who cares? They're going to fight & kill one another anyway, so let's all cut the crap and stop pretending. The idea that we could go marching in there and all of a sudden all these poor oppressed people would just embrace one another and us as their saviors was a delusional wet-dream fantasy on the part of Bush and his neocon goose-stepping brainwashed buffoon followers. We've paid for it by having our international credibility shattered and we WILL pay for it by having the Arab world look at us as oppressors, imperialists, aggressors and idiots - all at the same time for decades to come.

"Mission Accomplished".

[fintstone]

Originally posted by Porsche-O-Phile
Excellent analysis. I was wondering what all the shouting was in the background (the only videos I've seen have terrible quality, both in terms of audio and video).

Then again, the way I see it the Sunnis and Shiites both are exceedingly violent and self-righteous groups. They've been in a virtual war with one another for centuries and to think that they're going to just be all hugs & kisses now that we're involved is pretty silly.

The other thing to consider is the more they kill one another the less they go after the U.S. and our interests. If they want to inflame and slaughter one another, I say let 'em. Nothing seems to make these people happier than killing and violence anyway so you can call it part of giving them what they want.

Hussein was right - sectarian violence IS tearing Iraq apart. The only thing that held these groups together was (under him) the iron fist of a despot and (under us) a common enemy. Once that vanishes in whole or part, the thing explodes. Exactly what's happening now. IMHO Iraq SHOULDN'T be a united country. What's gained (other than some VERY limited influence over foreign oil prices) by forcing these groups to live under the same banner? Really, who cares? They're going to fight & kill one another anyway, so let's all cut the crap and stop pretending. The idea that we could go marching in there and all of a sudden all these poor oppressed people would just embrace one another and us as their saviors was a delusional wet-dream fantasy on the part of Bush and his neocon goose-stepping brainwashed buffoon followers. We've paid for it by having our international credibility shattered and we WILL pay for it by having the Arab world look at us as oppressors, imperialists, aggressors and idiots - all at the same time for decades to come.

"Mission Accomplished".

Wow...another Saddam love fest. I feel your pain, man...not. Let me interrupt your wake with a couple of actual facts. Muhammad Bakr al-Sadr founded the Dawa Party. It is the party of the current prime minister of Iraq. Muhammad Bakr al-Sadr was Muqtada's uncle, was one of the most revered Shia ayatollahs. He was executed by Saddam in 1980. The insult to Saddam to be executed the same way and the blood line/party inheriting much of Saddam's power is obvious. Or to simplify things for the "its all Bush's fault" crowd...payback is a *****...or better...
"Mission Accomplished."

[fintstone]

Originally posted by HardDrive
Wow. That sucks.

Strange how we can really have good aims, but be so incapable of understanding the subtle issues, and thus our message is lost in a sea of anger.

In a time when sectarian violence is raging, Saddams executioners taunt him with *****e taughts. Saddam responds to them, admonishing them that sectarianism is tearing Iraq apart.

The average American (not knowing arabic) sees in the news that Saddams excutioners 'taughted' him. The press says that he was 'defiant until the end."

Well, yeah, but they did not shout "To avenge your victims!". They shouted *****e taughts. The arab world sees this, and it causes outrage. They see the entire execution, and see an old man being snuffed by masked *****e thugs. It makes the entire trial seem like a kangaroo court. And because the entire process has the US stamp of approval all over it, Sunni's are inflamed even further.

We can do 90% of the things right, but its that 10% where we just fail to understand the problem that kills us.

If you really want to cease being "incapable of understanding the subtle issues"...and understand why the taunts were overwhelming Shiite...you must realize that the Shiites were the main victims of Saddam...at least in recent years. The Sunnis were a wealthy and protected class under his reign of terror. What did you expect from the Sunnis? Perhaps..."we are really pissed for all the years you treated us so much better than the Shiites and Kurds?"
Any words by Saddam about being Sectarian ring pretty hollow as he was the ultimate sectarian. And treated other sects like dirt...stealing from them and murdering them at will. Funny how some folks will take the words of someone like Saddam at face value...but try to convey some sort of false motive behind everything their own leaders say or do.
You are right, it is "that 10% where we just fail to understand the problem that kills us."

[svandamme]

Fint , do you feel comfortable at the level of those executioners?
i mean, it sounds like you do, just want to make sure if that's really the case...

is it really satisfying to defend these barbarians while they hang another barbarian? let's not kid ourselves, the executioners differ only from condemned man in terms of scalability, take out scale, and you just have barbarian brutes , one not much different from the other...hell, they probably worked as executioners under Sadam back when he was still "tha man"...

[fastpat]

Originally posted by fintstone
Wow...another Saddam love fest. I feel your pain, man...not. Let me interrupt your wake with a couple of actual facts. Muhammad Bakr al-Sadr founded the Dawa Party. It is the party of the current prime minister of Iraq. Muhammad Bakr al-Sadr was Muqtada's uncle, was one of the most revered Shia ayatollahs. He was executed by Saddam in 1980. The insult to Saddam to be executed the same way and the blood line/party inheriting much of Saddam's power is obvious. Or to simplify things for the "its all Bush's fault" crowd...payback is a *****...or better...
"Mission Accomplished."

Here's is the problem in one paragraph by one of the alleged little players, who nevertheless echos the big players. Culturally blind and deaf, but armed with dangerous weapons, they roam the earth. The "Bull in a China Shop" analogy isn't adequate to describe what they do, but the initiator of this thread gets it pretty well.

[Aurel]

Originally posted by fintstone
[B]
Any words by Saddam about being Sectarian ring pretty hollow as he was the ultimate sectarian...

You meant secular, not sectarian. Sectarian would not ring hollow if that is what he was.

Funny how some folks will take the words of someone like Saddam at face value...but try to convey some sort of false motive behind everything their own leaders say or do.

I`ve heard it was to find WMDs, but they were never found.
I`ve heard it was to give them democracy, but they got a civil war caused by a totally half-assed post war strategy.
I`ve heard it was to prevent nuclear proliferation, but I see noting being done against Iran and North Korea.
I`ve heard it was to prevent mass murders, but I have seen nothing done to prevent them in Sudan.

So, I do not trust Saddams word any more than those of our own leaders. I equally mistrust both.

Aurel

[fastpat]

Robert Fisk: He takes his secrets to the grave. Our complicity dies with him

How the West armed Saddam, fed him intelligence on his 'enemies', equipped him for atrocities - and then made sure he wouldn't squeal


We've shut him up. The moment Saddam's hooded executioner pulled the lever of the trapdoor in Baghdad yesterday morning, Washington's secrets were safe. The shameless, outrageous, covert military support which the United States - and Britain - gave to Saddam for more than a decade remains the one terrible story which our presidents and prime ministers do not want the world to remember. And now Saddam, who knew the full extent of that Western support - given to him while he was perpetrating some of the worst atrocities since the Second World War - is dead.

Gone is the man who personally received the CIA's help in destroying the Iraqi communist party. After Saddam seized power, US intelligence gave his minions the home addresses of communists in Baghdad and other cities in an effort to destroy the Soviet Union's influence in Iraq. Saddam's mukhabarat visited every home, arrested the occupants and their families, and butchered the lot. Public hanging was for plotters; the communists, their wives and children, were given special treatment - extreme torture before execution at Abu Ghraib.

There is growing evidence across the Arab world that Saddam held a series of meetings with senior American officials prior to his invasion of Iran in 1980 - both he and the US administration believed that the Islamic Republic would collapse if Saddam sent his legions across the border - and the Pentagon was instructed to assist Iraq's military machine by providing intelligence on the Iranian order of battle. One frosty day in 1987, not far from Cologne, I met the German arms dealer who initiated those first direct contacts between Washington and Baghdad - at America's request.

"Mr Fisk... at the very beginning of the war, in September of 1980, I was invited to go to the Pentagon," he said. "There I was handed the very latest US satellite photographs of the Iranian front lines. You could see everything on the pictures. There were the Iranian gun emplacements in Abadan and behind Khorramshahr, the lines of trenches on the eastern side of the Karun river, the tank revetments - thousands of them - all the way up the Iranian side of the border towards Kurdistan. No army could want more than this. And I travelled with these maps from Washington by air to Frankfurt and from Frankfurt on Iraqi Airways straight to Baghdad. The Iraqis were very, very grateful!"

I was with Saddam's forward commandos at the time, under Iranian shellfire, noting how the Iraqi forces aligned their artillery positions far back from the battle front with detailed maps of the Iranian lines. Their shelling against Iran outside Basra allowed the first Iraqi tanks to cross the Karun within a week. The commander of that tank unit cheerfully refused to tell me how he had managed to choose the one river crossing undefended by Iranian armour. Two years ago, we met again, in Amman and his junior officers called him "General" - the rank awarded him by Saddam after that tank attack east of Basra, courtesy of Washington's intelligence information.

Iran's official history of the eight-year war with Iraq states that Saddam first used chemical weapons against it on 13 January 1981. AP's correspondent in Baghdad, Mohamed Salaam, was taken to see the scene of an Iraqi military victory east of Basra. "We started counting - we walked miles and miles in this ****ing desert, just counting," he said. "We got to 700 and got muddled and had to start counting again ... The Iraqis had used, for the first time, a combination - the nerve gas would paralyse their bodies ... the mustard gas would drown them in their own lungs. That's why they spat blood."

At the time, the Iranians claimed that this terrible cocktail had been given to Saddam by the US. Washington denied this. But the Iranians were right. The lengthy negotiations which led to America's complicity in this atrocity remain secret - Donald Rumsfeld was one of President Ronald Reagan's point-men at this period - although Saddam undoubtedly knew every detail. But a largely unreported document, "United States Chemical and Biological Warfare-related Dual-use exports to Iraq and their possible impact on the Health Consequences of the Persian Gulf War", stated that prior to 1985 and afterwards, US companies had sent government-approved shipments of biological agents to Iraq. These included Bacillus anthracis, which produces anthrax, andEscherichia coli (E. coli). That Senate report concluded that: "The United States provided the Government of Iraq with 'dual use' licensed materials which assisted in the development of Iraqi chemical, biological and missile-systems programs, including ... chemical warfare agent production facility plant and technical drawings, chemical warfare filling equipment."

Nor was the Pentagon unaware of the extent of Iraqi use of chemical weapons. In 1988, for example, Saddam gave his personal permission for Lt-Col Rick Francona, a US defence intelligence officer - one of 60 American officers who were secretly providing members of the Iraqi general staff with detailed information on Iranian deployments, tactical planning and bomb damage assessments - to visit the Fao peninsula after Iraqi forces had recaptured the town from the Iranians. He reported back to Washington that the Iraqis had used chemical weapons to achieve their victory. The senior defence intelligence officer at the time, Col Walter Lang, later said that the use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis "was not a matter of deep strategic concern".

I saw the results, however. On a long military hospital train back to Tehran from the battle front, I found hundreds of Iranian soldiers coughing blood and mucus from their lungs - the very carriages stank so much of gas that I had to open the windows - and their arms and faces were covered with boils. Later, new bubbles of skin appeared on top of their original boils. Many were fearfully burnt. These same gases were later used on the Kurds of Halabja. No wonder that Saddam was primarily tried in Baghdad for the slaughter of Shia villagers, not for his war crimes against Iran.

We still don't know - and with Saddam's execution we will probably never know - the extent of US credits to Iraq, which began in 1982. The initial tranche, the sum of which was spent on the purchase of American weapons from Jordan and Kuwait, came to $300m. By 1987, Saddam was being promised $1bn in credit. By 1990, just before Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, annual trade between Iraq and the US had grown to $3.5bn a year. Pressed by Saddam's foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, to continue US credits, James Baker then Secretary of State, but the same James Baker who has just produced a report intended to drag George Bush from the catastrophe of present- day Iraq - pushed for new guarantees worth $1bn from the US.

In 1989, Britain, which had been giving its own covert military assistance to Saddam guaranteed £250m to Iraq shortly after the arrest of Observer journalist Farzad Bazoft in Baghdad. Bazoft, who had been investigating an explosion at a factory at Hilla which was using the very chemical components sent by the US, was later hanged. Within a month of Bazoft's arrest William Waldegrave, then a Foreign Office minister, said: "I doubt if there is any future market of such a scale anywhere where the UK is potentially so well-placed if we play our diplomatic hand correctly... A few more Bazofts or another bout of internal oppression would make it more difficult."

Even more repulsive were the remarks of the then Deputy Prime Minister, Geoffrey Howe, on relaxing controls on British arms sales to Iraq. He kept this secret, he wrote, because "it would look very cynical if, so soon after expressing outrage about the treatment of the Kurds, we adopt a more flexible approach to arms sales".

Saddam knew, too, the secrets of the attack on the USS Stark when, on 17 May 1987, an Iraqi jet launched a missile attack on the American frigate, killing more than a sixth of the crew and almost sinking the vessel. The US accepted Saddam's excuse that the ship was mistaken for an Iranian vessel and allowed Saddam to refuse their request to interview the Iraqi pilot.

The whole truth died with Saddam Hussein in the Baghdad execution chamber yesterday. Many in Washington and London must have sighed with relief that the old man had been silenced for ever.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2114403.ece

'The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East' by Robert Fisk is now available in paperback

[fintstone]

Originally posted by svandamme
Fint , do you feel comfortable at the level of those executioners?
i mean, it sounds like you do, just want to make sure if that's really the case...

is it really satisfying to defend these barbarians while they hang another barbarian? let's not kid ourselves, the executioners differ only from condemned man in terms of scalability, take out scale, and you just have barbarian brutes , one not much different from the other...hell, they probably worked as executioners under Sadam back when he was still "tha man"...

I think the man received a fair trial. I believe in the death penalty. Particularly for someone who committed the atrocities he did. Hanging is traditional. I really do not care who actually strung him up, but I imagine it is difficult to find Harvard Professors looking for that type work. In Saudi, it is sort of like union work...handed down to your son or a relative when you retire. I imagine it is the same in Iraq. Personally, I wish they had not released video or audio tapes...but it was their trial and their government's decision...not mine.
The problem is not so much what the executioners said...but the misinformation posted here about the significance of it and casting false blame (as usual).
Then Pat will make a post attempting to show some sort of parallel between Saddam and posters here (he continually cuts and pastes the words of others and it makes him appear educated...but on the rare occasion that he uses his own words...he comes across as a dullard)....Then Aurel posts to change the subject to the typical...everything wrong in the world is Bush's fault mantra (how original).

[fintstone]

Originally posted by Aurel
[B]...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by fintstone

Any words by Saddam about being Sectarian ring pretty hollow as he was the ultimate sectarian...

You meant secular, not sectarian. Sectarian would not ring hollow if that is what he was.

Funny how some folks will take the words of someone like Saddam at face value...but try to convey some sort of false motive behind everything their own leaders say or do.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aurel

You have misquoted me by putting your words among those you attribute to me.
And no, I did not meant secular. I meant sectarian. The words I was responding to were:
"In a time when sectarian violence is raging, Saddam's executioners taunt him with *****e taughts. Saddam responds to them, admonishing them that sectarianism is tearing Iraq apart." which appears an attempt by the poster to make Saddam more statesmanlike and reasonable than he was. He was never concerned with being sectarian...and, in fact, was the ultimate sectarian. he was also never concerned with violence...except when directed at his sect or himself. Clearly I could have worded the sentence more clearly (I seem to have deleted a couple of words), but sectarian was indeed correct..and his concern over sectarian strife did indeed ring hollow.

[Aurel]

Originally posted by fintstone
You have misquoted me by putting your words among those you attribute to me.

It was unitentional, an html mistake. I was trying to leave your words in bold and mine not. Just did not work out the way I intended too. I have been experimenting with html lately...

Happy New year !

Aurel

[Rick Lee]

I thought Saddam had the elder al Sadr killed by setting his beard on fire. That's how they should have done Saddam. Also, the scene in Hannibal with the pigs - that would have been a great way for such a phony Muslim like Saddam to go too.

[fastpat]

Bush Silences a Dangerous Witness

By Robert Parry
December 30, 2006

Like a blue-blood version of a Mob family with global reach, the Bushes have eliminated one more key witness to the important historical events that led the U.S. military into a bloody stalemate in Iraq and pushed the Middle East to the brink of calamity.

The hanging of Saddam Hussein was supposed to be – as the New York Times observed – the “triumphal bookend” to George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. If all had gone as planned, Bush might have staged another celebration as he did after the end of “major combat,” posing under the “Mission Accomplished” banner on May 1, 2003.

But now with nearly 3,000 American soldiers killed and the Iraqi death toll exceeding 600,000 by some estimates, Bush may be forced to savor the image of Hussein dangling at the end of a rope a little more privately.

Still, Bush has done his family’s legacy a great service while also protecting secrets that could have embarrassed other senior U.S. government officials.

He has silenced a unique witness to crucial chapters of the secret history that stretched from Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979 to the alleged American-Saudi “green light” for Hussein to attack Iran in 1980, through the eight years of the Iran-Iraq War during which high-ranking U.S. intermediaries, such as Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates, allegedly helped broker supplies of war materiel for Hussein.

Hussein now won’t be around to give troublesome testimony about how he obtained the chemical and biological agents that his scientists used to produce the unconventional weapons that were deployed against Iranian forces and Iraqi civilians. He can’t give his perspective on who got the money and who facilitated the deals.

Nor will Hussein be available to give his account of the mixed messages delivered by George H.W. Bush’s ambassador April Glaspie before Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Was there another American “green light” or did Hussein just hear what he wanted to hear?

Like the climactic scene from the Mafia movie “Casino” in which nervous Mob bosses eliminate everyone who knows too much, George W. Bush has now guaranteed that there will be no public tribunal where Hussein gives testimony on these potentially devastating historical scandals, which could threaten the Bush Family legacy.

That could have happened if Hussein had been turned over to an international tribunal at the Hague as was done with other tyrants, such as Yugoslavia’s late dictator Slobodan Milosevic. Instead Bush insisted that Hussein be tried in Iraq despite the obvious fact that the Iraqi dictator would receive nothing close to a fair trial before being put to death.

Hussein's hanging followed his trial for executing 148 men and boys from the town of Dujail in 1982 after a foiled assassination attempt on Hussein and his entourage. Hussein's death effectively moots other cases that were supposed to deal with his alleged use of chemical weapons to kill Iraqi civilians and other crimes that might have exposed the U.S. role.

[For details on what Hussein might have revealed, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege or Consortiumnews.com’s “Missing U.S.-Iraq History” or “The Secret World of Robert Gates.”]

Thrill of the Kill

Some observers think that Bush simply wanted the personal satisfaction of seeing Hussein hanged, which would not have happened if he had been sent to the Hague. As Texas governor, Bush sometimes took what appeared to be perverse pleasure at his power to execute prisoners.

In a 1999 interview with conservative writer Tucker Carlson for Talk magazine, Bush ridiculed convicted murderer Karla Faye Tucker and her unsuccessful plea to Bush to spare her life.

Asked about Karla Faye Tucker’s clemency appeal, Bush mimicked what he claimed was the condemned woman’s message to him. “With pursed lips in mock desperation, [Bush said]: ‘Please don’t kill me.’”

But a more powerful motive was always Hussein’s potential threat to the Bush Family legacy if he ever had a forum where he could offer detailed testimony about the historic events of the past several decades.

Since stepping into the White House on Jan. 20, 2001, George W. Bush has made it a top priority to conceal the history of his father’s 12 years as Vice President and President and to wrap his own presidency in a thick cloak of secrecy.

One of Bush’s first acts as President was to sign an executive order that blocked the scheduled release of historic records from his father’s years. After the 9/11 attacks, Bush expanded his secrecy mandate to grant his family the power to withhold those documents from the American public in perpetuity, passing down the authority to keep the secrets to future Bush generations.

So, even after George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush are dead, those noted historians Jenna and Barbara Bush will control key government documents covering a 20-year swath of U.S. history.

Already, every document at the George H.W. Bush presidential library must not only be cleared for release by specialists at the National Archives and – if classified – by the affected agencies, but also by the personal representatives of both the senior and junior George Bush.

With their backgrounds in secret societies like Skull and Bones – and with George H.W. Bush’s work at the CIA – the Bushes are keenly aware of the power that comes from controlling information. By keeping crucial facts from the American people, the Bushes feel they can turn the voters into easily manipulated children.

When there is a potential rupture of valuable information, the Bushes intervene, turning to influential friends to discredit some witness or relying on the U.S. military to make the threat go away. The Bushes have been helped immeasurably, too, by the credulity and cowardice of the modern U.S. news media and the Democratic Party.

What Can Be Done

Still, even with Hussein’s execution, there are actions that the American people can take to finally recover the lost history of the 1980s.

The U.S. military is now sitting on a treasure trove of documents seized during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Bush administration exploited these documents to discredit the United Nations over the “oil for food” scandal of the 1990s, ironically when Hussein wasn’t building weapons of mass destruction. But the Bush administration has withheld the records from the 1980s when Hussein was producing chemical and biological weapons.

In 2004, for instance the CIA released the so-called Duelfer report, which acknowledged that the administration’s pre-invasion assertions about Hussein hiding WMD stockpiles were “almost all wrong.” But a curious feature of the report was that it included a long section about Hussein’s abuse of the U.N.’s “oil for food” program, although the report acknowledged that the diverted funds had not gone to build illegal weapons.

Meanwhile, the report noted the existence of a robust WMD program in the 1980s but offered no documentary perspective on how that operation had occurred and who was responsible for the delivery of crucial equipment and precursor chemicals. In other words, the CIA’s WMD report didn’t identify the non-Iraqis who made Iraq’s WMD arsenal possible.

One source who has seen the evidence told me that it contains information about the role of Chilean arms dealer Carlos Cardoen, who has been identified as a key link between the CIA and Iraq for the procurement of dangerous weapons in the 1980s. But that evidence has remained locked away.

With the Democrats taking control of Congress on Jan. 4, 2007, there could finally be an opportunity to force out more of the full story, assuming the Democrats don’t opt for their usual course of putting “bipartisanship” ahead of oversight and truth.

The American people also could demand that the surviving members of Hussein’s regime be fully debriefed on their historical knowledge before their voices also fall silent either from natural causes or additional executions.

But the singular figure who could have put the era in its fullest perspective – and provided the most damning evidence about the Bush Family’s role – has been silenced for good, dropped through a trap door of a gallows and made to twitch at the end of a noose fashioned from hemp.

The White House announced that George W. Bush didn’t wait up for the happy news of Hussein’s hanging. After the U.S. military turned Hussein over to his Iraqi executioners, Bush went to bed at his Crawford, Texas, ranch and slept through the night.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

[ben parrish]

I can not, will not understand how any rational human can feel sorry for that SOB. He "lived by the sword and died by the sword", so to speak. I believe he should have been turned over to the citizens for his punishment. Nothing like street justice.
Too bad you whiners were not as troubled or outraged for the countless victims he had put to death over the years. If you want to cry, cry for the families of his victims.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by ben parrish
I can not, will not understand how any rational human can feel sorry for that SOB. He "lived by the sword and died by the sword", so to speak. I believe he should have been turned over to the citizens for his punishment. Nothing like street justice.
Too bad you whiners were not as troubled or outraged for the countless victims he had put to death over the years. If you want to cry, cry for the families of his victims.

You mean the families of the 650,000 victims of George W. Bush, or the families of the more than 750,000 Iranians killed in a proxy war for Reagan/Bush I?

Tell us which set of victims you feel the most sympathy for.

[rcecale]

Originally posted by fastpat
You mean the families of the 650,000 victims of George W. Bush, or the families of the more than 750,000 Iranians killed in a proxy war for Reagan/Bush I?

I'm curious what you're using as your source for that "650,000" total. According to this site, that number is greatly exagerated.



Granted, the numbers in the image above, as stated by the source, are estimates. The source is actually an organization who's sole mission is the accounting of lives lost during this war.

"THE IRAQ BODY COUNT PROJECT

This is an ongoing human security project which maintains and updates the world’s only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq that have resulted from the 2003 military intervention by the USA and its allies. The count includes civilian deaths caused by coalition military action and by military or paramilitary responses to the coalition presence (e.g. insurgent and terrorist attacks).

It also includes excess civilian deaths caused by criminal action resulting from the breakdown in law and order which followed the coalition invasion. Results and totals are continually updated and made immediately available here and on various IBC web counters which may be freely displayed on any website or homepage, where they are automatically updated without further intervention.

Casualty figures are derived from a comprehensive survey of online media reports from recognized sources. Where these sources report differing figures, the range (a minimum and a maximum) are given. This method is also used to deal with any residual uncertainty about the civilian or non-combatant status of the dead. All results are independently reviewed and error-checked by at least three members of the Iraq Body Count project team before publication."

I've seen the reports on CNN's site where they state their 655,000, but these reports have been disputed by not only GWB, whom I'm sure you'll roll your eyes over, but by Gen. Casey, along with several other entities.

Randy

[svandamme]

Originally posted by ben parrish
I can not, will not understand how any rational human can feel sorry for that SOB. He "lived by the sword and died by the sword", so to speak. I believe he should have been turned over to the citizens for his punishment. Nothing like street justice.
Too bad you whiners were not as troubled or outraged for the countless victims he had put to death over the years. If you want to cry, cry for the families of his victims.

i'm not feeling sorry for Sadam
i'm feeling sorry for those who sink to his level, those who have been barking at the moon the last few days , out of sheer joy over his rather less then elegant execution...

[fastpat]

Originally posted by rcecale
I'm curious what you're using as your source for that "650,000" total. According to this site, that number is greatly exagerated.

Granted, the numbers in the image above, as stated by the source, are estimates. The source is actually an organization who's sole mission is the accounting of lives lost during this war.

"THE IRAQ BODY COUNT PROJECT

This is an ongoing human security project which maintains and updates the world’s only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq that have resulted from the 2003 military intervention by the USA and its allies. The count includes civilian deaths caused by coalition military action and by military or paramilitary responses to the coalition presence (e.g. insurgent and terrorist attacks).

It also includes excess civilian deaths caused by criminal action resulting from the breakdown in law and order which followed the coalition invasion. Results and totals are continually updated and made immediately available here and on various IBC web counters which may be freely displayed on any website or homepage, where they are automatically updated without further intervention.

Casualty figures are derived from a comprehensive survey of online media reports from recognized sources. Where these sources report differing figures, the range (a minimum and a maximum) are given. This method is also used to deal with any residual uncertainty about the civilian or non-combatant status of the dead. All results are independently reviewed and error-checked by at least three members of the Iraq Body Count project team before publication."

I've seen the reports on CNN's site where they state their 655,000, but these reports have been disputed by not only GWB, whom I'm sure you'll roll your eyes over, but by Gen. Casey, along with several other entities.

Randy

The numbers used by the US government don't include anyone not killed by ground fire. So called "collateral damage", those killed by uncontrolled violence between Iraqi clans (unleashed by the invasion), and other causes.

The 650,000 plus figure comes from well researched work, using modern statistical methods routinely used by government itself, and industry and the private sector, to determine program and policy effectiveness.

In short, they are as reliable as possible in a dangerous war zone.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

So what number of injured/killed WOULD be acceptable? How many brothers/sisters/fathers/mothers would you put on the Altar of Bush for. . . whatever our purpose is in being there? What's another billion in oil revenues for your buddies worth? 5,000 dead bodies? 10,000? What is it exactly? I want to know what a human life is worth these days.