Saddam's Execution: Another View
Anwar Hussain, my favorite op-ed writer in the Middle East, has written a very intelligent piece on why Saddam Hussein was executed when he was. The piece appeared in the January 9, 2007 Pak Tribune. Here is a rather extensive excerpt from that column.
Left behind also were his jubilant executioners … the incumbent U.S. President, the British Prime minister and, to varying degrees, a host of other Western leaders. The poetic irony is that Saddam's executioners were once his bosom buddies.
Here is why he was killed.
Saddam Hussein's execution on Dec. 30 not only prevents him from standing trial for his most serious crimes - genocide against the Kurds and the use of poison gas in the Iran-Iraq War - but more importantly, silences him forever. His accomplices in crime can now breathe easy.
Had the trial been held under international auspices, the world would have known who supplied Saddam Hussein with materials of mass destruction and where his regime, so notorious for atrocities against Iraqis, Iranians and Kurds, acquired weapons, germs and lethal chemicals.
The world would have known that on March 21st, 1986, when the U.N. wanted to show its concern over Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons and U.N. Security Council members were, "profoundly concerned by the unanimous conclusion of the specialists that chemical weapons on many occasions have been used by Iraqi forces against Iranian troops ... [and] that the members of the Council strongly condemn this continued use of chemical weapons in clear violation of the Geneva Protocol of 1925 which prohibits the use in war of chemical weapons," that the only country to vote AGAINST the issuance of this statement was the United States of America.
From arranging to supply Iraq with chemicals for poison gas to kill his countrymen to providing Baghdad with satellite and AWAC intelligence on Iranian targets to sending USAF photo interpreters to Baghdad to draw Saddam maps of the Iranian trenches so that he could douse them with poison gas, the world would have known that America was implicated up to its gills in Saddam's genocide of the Kurds and its war against Iran.
The world would have known the long list of Western and U.S. companies that supplied Saddam with deadly and dual-use material. Union Carbide, Honeywell, Dupont, SpectraPhysics and Bechtel are just a few of those on the list.
The world would have known that the Reagan-Bush Administration, in complete violation of the Geneva Protocol of 1925 that outlawed chemical warfare, had sanctioned the sale of poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, from anthrax to bubonic plague, throughout the '80s. Not only that, in 1982, while Saddam Hussein built up his war machinery, Reagan and Bush removed Iraq from the State Department's list of terrorist states.
The world would have known that when Donald Rumsfeld met with Saddam Hussein in 1983, signaling a bonding of the U.S.-Iraq military alliance, Iraq was already using chemical weapons on an "almost daily basis." The world would have known that that following that visit, the Pentagon supplied logistical and military support, U.S. banks provided billions of dollars in credits, and the CIA, using a Chilean conduit, increased Saddam's supply of cluster bombs.
The world would have known that only six months after the heinous massacre of the Kurds in March 1988, U.S. companies sent eleven strains of germs and four types of anthrax to Iraq, including a strain of microbe called 11966 developed at Fort Detrick in the 1950s for germ warfare. Judith Miller provides a brief account of this disgusting traffic in U.S. chemicals and germs in her book, "Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War Watch ."
The world would have known that as late as 1990, according to a report from U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (Democrat, Ohio), American companies under permit from the first Bush Administration, sent mustard gas materials and live cultures for bacteriological research to Iraq. U.S. companies not only helped Iraq build a chemical weapons factory, they also shipped Saddam West Nile virus, hydrogen cyanide precursors and parts for a new nuclear plant.
The world would have known that Dow Chemical of Agent Orange fame sold large amounts of pesticides and toxins that cause death by asphyxiation; that 24 U.S. firms exported weapons and material to Baghdad and that France sent Saddam 200 AMX medium tanks, Mirage bombers and Gazelle helicopter gunships.
The world would have known that executives of Alcoliac International of Maryland transported mustard gas precursors to Saddam; that Tennessee manufacturers provided sarin-based chemicals; that the heads of Dow Chemical sold him toxins that cause death by asphyxiation; that the heads of Bechtel produced chemicals for Saddam in their Iraqi plant; that CIA agents made covert arms deals and transported cluster bombs to a proven tyrant. The world would have known the names of a whole lot of other international accessories to Saddam Hussein's crimes.
The world would have known that it's not just the buyers but the suppliers of death who are answerable under the Nuremberg Conventions, which say, "Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity, is a crime under international law." [Emphasis added]
That Saddam Hussein was a monstrous leader who killed hundreds of thousands of his own citizens is indisputable, yet the crime for which he was prosecuted and executed involved 184 of those citizens and was the first trial on the docket. The crime didn't involve the use chemical weapons which caused the lives of so many Iraqi Kurds or Iranians, weapons which formed the first causus belli for the current Bush administration. How convenient for the United States.
Left behind also were his jubilant executioners … the incumbent U.S. President, the British Prime minister and, to varying degrees, a host of other Western leaders. The poetic irony is that Saddam's executioners were once his bosom buddies.
Here is why he was killed.
Saddam Hussein's execution on Dec. 30 not only prevents him from standing trial for his most serious crimes - genocide against the Kurds and the use of poison gas in the Iran-Iraq War - but more importantly, silences him forever. His accomplices in crime can now breathe easy.
Had the trial been held under international auspices, the world would have known who supplied Saddam Hussein with materials of mass destruction and where his regime, so notorious for atrocities against Iraqis, Iranians and Kurds, acquired weapons, germs and lethal chemicals.
The world would have known that on March 21st, 1986, when the U.N. wanted to show its concern over Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons and U.N. Security Council members were, "profoundly concerned by the unanimous conclusion of the specialists that chemical weapons on many occasions have been used by Iraqi forces against Iranian troops ... [and] that the members of the Council strongly condemn this continued use of chemical weapons in clear violation of the Geneva Protocol of 1925 which prohibits the use in war of chemical weapons," that the only country to vote AGAINST the issuance of this statement was the United States of America.
From arranging to supply Iraq with chemicals for poison gas to kill his countrymen to providing Baghdad with satellite and AWAC intelligence on Iranian targets to sending USAF photo interpreters to Baghdad to draw Saddam maps of the Iranian trenches so that he could douse them with poison gas, the world would have known that America was implicated up to its gills in Saddam's genocide of the Kurds and its war against Iran.
The world would have known the long list of Western and U.S. companies that supplied Saddam with deadly and dual-use material. Union Carbide, Honeywell, Dupont, SpectraPhysics and Bechtel are just a few of those on the list.
The world would have known that the Reagan-Bush Administration, in complete violation of the Geneva Protocol of 1925 that outlawed chemical warfare, had sanctioned the sale of poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, from anthrax to bubonic plague, throughout the '80s. Not only that, in 1982, while Saddam Hussein built up his war machinery, Reagan and Bush removed Iraq from the State Department's list of terrorist states.
The world would have known that when Donald Rumsfeld met with Saddam Hussein in 1983, signaling a bonding of the U.S.-Iraq military alliance, Iraq was already using chemical weapons on an "almost daily basis." The world would have known that that following that visit, the Pentagon supplied logistical and military support, U.S. banks provided billions of dollars in credits, and the CIA, using a Chilean conduit, increased Saddam's supply of cluster bombs.
The world would have known that only six months after the heinous massacre of the Kurds in March 1988, U.S. companies sent eleven strains of germs and four types of anthrax to Iraq, including a strain of microbe called 11966 developed at Fort Detrick in the 1950s for germ warfare. Judith Miller provides a brief account of this disgusting traffic in U.S. chemicals and germs in her book, "Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War Watch ."
The world would have known that as late as 1990, according to a report from U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (Democrat, Ohio), American companies under permit from the first Bush Administration, sent mustard gas materials and live cultures for bacteriological research to Iraq. U.S. companies not only helped Iraq build a chemical weapons factory, they also shipped Saddam West Nile virus, hydrogen cyanide precursors and parts for a new nuclear plant.
The world would have known that Dow Chemical of Agent Orange fame sold large amounts of pesticides and toxins that cause death by asphyxiation; that 24 U.S. firms exported weapons and material to Baghdad and that France sent Saddam 200 AMX medium tanks, Mirage bombers and Gazelle helicopter gunships.
The world would have known that executives of Alcoliac International of Maryland transported mustard gas precursors to Saddam; that Tennessee manufacturers provided sarin-based chemicals; that the heads of Dow Chemical sold him toxins that cause death by asphyxiation; that the heads of Bechtel produced chemicals for Saddam in their Iraqi plant; that CIA agents made covert arms deals and transported cluster bombs to a proven tyrant. The world would have known the names of a whole lot of other international accessories to Saddam Hussein's crimes.
The world would have known that it's not just the buyers but the suppliers of death who are answerable under the Nuremberg Conventions, which say, "Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity, is a crime under international law." [Emphasis added]
That Saddam Hussein was a monstrous leader who killed hundreds of thousands of his own citizens is indisputable, yet the crime for which he was prosecuted and executed involved 184 of those citizens and was the first trial on the docket. The crime didn't involve the use chemical weapons which caused the lives of so many Iraqi Kurds or Iranians, weapons which formed the first causus belli for the current Bush administration. How convenient for the United States.
Labels: Iraq
posted by Diane at 3:44 AM
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