Inhofe: Media invented WMD excuse for Iraq invasion

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) on Friday:

Inhofe, speaking to the press before Cheney’s arrival, lambasted Democrats for Thursday’s Senate vote to begin withdrawal from Iraq by Oct. 1 and the press for “mischaracterizing” the reasons for U.S. involvement.

“The whole idea of weapons of mass destruction was never the issue, yet they keep trying to bring this up,” Inhofe said. […]

Pressed for an explanation, Inhofe said weapons of mass destruction were “incidental” to the decision to invade Iraq.

“The media made that the issue because they knew Saddam Hussein had used weapons of mass destruction.”

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) in August 2002:

Our intelligence system has said that we know that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction — I believe including nuclear. There’s not one person on this panel who would tell you unequivocally that he doesn’t have the missile means now, or is nearly getting the missile means to deliver a weapon of mass destruction. And I for one am not willing to wait for that to happen.

April 30, 2007 9:11 pm | Comment (218)

Tell us another one, Mr. Vice President: Sen. Carl Levin

Dick Cheney is still trying to link Iraq with Al Qaeda and 9/11.

By Carl Levin

CARL LEVIN, a Democratic senator from Michigan, is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

April 12, 2007

TO PARAPHRASE President Reagan, there he goes again.

On Rush Limbaugh's radio program last week, Vice President Dick Cheney spoke about Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi and stated: "He went to Baghdad. He took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq, organized the Al Qaeda operations inside Iraq…. This is Al Qaeda operating in Iraq and, as I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq."

It is incredible that more than four years after the invasion, the vice president is still trying to convince the public that Saddam Hussein's regime was connected to Al Qaeda and that Zarqawi's presence in Iraq was evidence of a connection.

While the vice president doesn't say directly that there was a tie between the two, his clear purpose is to blur the line between Al Qaeda — the perpetrator of the 9/11 attacks — and the Iraqi dictator in order to justify the war in Iraq.

The problem is, that's simply not supported by the facts or by our intelligence community — and everyone except the vice president acknowledges it. In September, for example, the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in a bipartisan report that Hussein was "distrustful of Al Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from Al Qaeda to provide material or operational support." And the CIA reported a year earlier, in October 2005, that the Iraqi regime "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates." As the Intelligence Committee report noted, the Iraqi intelligence service was actually trying to capture Zarqawi, who was in Baghdad under an alias. Is the vice president willfully ignoring what the rest of the government has concluded? Or does he have access to information he hasn't shared with us? If so, he should produce it.

The vice president has a clear, documented pattern of overstating and misstating information with regard to Iraq. He also, for instance, continued to claim that 9/11 terrorist Mohamed Atta may have met with an Iraqi agent in Prague — long after the intelligence community believed otherwise. Again, his obvious purpose is to link Hussein's regime with Sept. 11, even though the rest of the world has concluded that no such link exists.

The vice president has made so many outlandish statements that the country barely raised an eyebrow at his false statement last week. The public has stopped believing the words of a man who promised, before we invaded Iraq, that we would be "greeted as liberators" and reassured us nearly two years ago that the insurgency was in its "last throes."

But his comments continue to erode our credibility with the international community, which has already been severely damaged by our rush to war with Iraq with little international support. If, in the months ahead, we face a crisis over Iran's weapons programs and need to rally the international community, we may find that the world has little interest in trusting an administration that misstates facts.

By all accounts, Dick Cheney is one of the most powerful vice presidents in our history, if you define power as influence over policy. We need to ask ourselves: What does it mean for our country when the vice president's words lack credibility, but he still wields great power?

The unresolved story of ABC News' false Saddam-anthrax reports

Monday April 9, 2007 10:53 EST

(updated below - updated again)

At the end of the post I wrote last week about ABC News and Brian Ross' new report that Iran could have nuclear weapons by 2009, I noted that ABC and Ross -- back in October and November 2001 -- were the driving force, really the exclusive force, behind news reports strongly suggesting that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were responsible for the anthrax attacks on the U.S. There are several very important issues arising from those events which I strongly believe merit real attention. This post is somewhat lengthy because it is vital to set forth the facts clearly.

Last week, I excerpted several of the Saddam-anthrax reports from ABC and Ross -- here and here -- but there are others. ABC aggressively promoted as its top story for days on end during that highly provocative period of time that -- and these are all quotes:

(a) "the anthrax in the tainted letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was laced with bentonite";

(b) bentonite is "a troubling chemical additive that authorities consider their first significant clue yet";

(c) "only one country, Iraq, has used bentonite to produce biological weapons";

(d) bentonite "is a trademark of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program"; and,

(e) "the anthrax found in a letter to Senator Daschle is nearly identical to samples they recovered in Iraq in 1994" and "the anthrax spores found in the letter to Senator Daschle are almost identical in appearance to those they recovered in Iraq in 1994 when viewed under an electron microscope."

At different times, Ross attributed these claims to "three well-placed but separate sources" and, alternatively, to "at least four well-placed sources."

All of those factual claims -- each and every one of them, separately -- were completely false, demonstrably and unquestionably so. There is now no question about that. Yet neither ABC nor Ross have ever retracted, corrected, clarified, or explained these fraudulent reports -- reports which, as documented below, had an extremely serious impact on the views formed by Americans in those early, critical days about the relationship between the 9/11 attacks, the anthrax attacks and Iraq. There are two vital questions that ABC News should answer:

(1) How can ABC News just let these Saddam-anthrax reports -- as false as they were consequential -- remain uncorrected and unexplained, even through today?

(2) More importantly, Ross claimed at the time, and there is no reason to doubt it, that these false reports -- clearly designed to blame Iraq for the anthrax attacks in the eyes of Americans -- were fed to him by "at least four well-placed sources." Who were the well-placed, multiple sources feeding ABC News completely fictitious claims linking Saddam Hussein to the anthrax attacks, including false claims about the results of government tests? What possible justification is there for concealing the identity of those who manipulated ABC to disseminate these fictitious claims?

ABC's linkage of Saddam and the anthrax attacks

As noted, many of the ABC/Ross reports were quoted in the links above, but it is hard to overstate how prominently ABC touted this story. Peter Jennings led off his October 26, 2001 World News Tonight program with this:

We're going to begin this evening with what we believe is a meaningful lead in the most sensitive anthrax case so far, despite a very recent denial by the White House.

ABC News has learned what made the anthrax so dangerous in the letter to Senator Tom Daschle was a particular additive which only one country, as far as we know, that's a very important caveat, only one country as far as we know, has used to produce biological weapons. We'll go to the White House in just a moment, but first with what we do know, ABC's Brian Ross. Brian.

Ross then said:

The discovery of bentonite came in an urgent series of tests conducted at Fort Detrick, Maryland, and elsewhere. This is what bentonite looks like under a microscope, a substance which helps keep the tiny anthrax particles floating in the air by preventing them from sticking together. It's possible other countries may be using it, too, but it is a trademark of Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program.

Jennings then added at the end of the story -- remember this is October, 2001:

This news about bentonite as the additive is being a trademark of the Iraqi biological weapons program is very significant. Partly because there's been a lot of pressure on the Bush administration inside and out to go after Saddam Hussein. And some are going to be quick to pick up on this as a smoking gun. There is a battle about Iraq that's been raging in the administration.

Although Ross noted in that original report with Jennings that the finding of bentonite was from an "initial test," that qualifier was quickly eliminated over the next several days on ABC, as Ross and various ABC anchors claimed definitively that the anthrax "was laced with bentonite"; that "the anthrax found in a letter to Senator Daschle is nearly identical to samples they recovered in Iraq in 1994"; that "ABC News has learned that the anthrax in the letter mailed to the Senate contained an additive called bentonite," and on and on.

The impact of ABC's Saddam-anthrax reports

It is vital to recall how significant the anthrax attacks were in this country, and what a paramount role it played in how Americans viewed the terrorist threat generally and Saddam Hussein specifically. As Atrios has noted many times, the anthrax attacks seem to have been flushed down our collective memory hole, but other than 9/11 itself, that event -- and the media's coverage of it -- did more to spawn the next several years of Bush worship and support for his mindless militarism than anything else.

As but one very illustrative example, The Washington Post's liberal columnist, Richard Cohen, supported the invasion of Iraq, came to regret that support, and then explained what led him to do so, in a 2004 column entitled Our Forgotten Panic:

I'm not sure if panic is quite the right word, but it is close enough. Anthrax played a role in my decision to support the Bush administration's desire to take out Saddam Hussein. I linked him to anthrax, which I linked to Sept. 11. I was not going to stand by and simply wait for another attack -- more attacks. I was going to go to the source, Hussein, and get him before he could get us. As time went on, I became more and more questioning, but I had a hard time backing down from my initial whoop and holler for war.

Really -- just contemplate that for a moment. One of the country's leading political pundits, writing in some of the most influential opinion-making space in this country, supported an invasion of Iraq because he believed that Saddam Hussein was connected to both the anthrax attacks and, by implication, the 9/11 attacks.

And why wouldn't Cohen -- along with millions and millions of Americans -- believe that, given that the venerable ABC News was leading off its Peter Jennings broadcast, in the aftermath of the attacks, claiming that they had strong evidence of a connection between Saddam and the anthrax attacks, and then repeating that claim, definitively, over the next several days, never to retract it?

While Andy Card infamously claimed that the "marketing product" for the Iraq invasion was not unveiled until September, 2002, the Bush White House and various war supporters had, in fact, been giving speeches and writing articles basically from the very first week after the 9/11 attacks which had, as their primary and clear purpose, convincing Americans of the need to invade Iraq. And anthrax was at the center of that campaign.

The Iraq/anthrax report from ABC was used by all sorts of warmongers throughout 2002 to suggest that Saddam was responsible for the anthrax attacks. The Weekly Standard (wherever there is a fraud on Americans designed to justify Middle East wars, Bill Kristol and friends are to be found somewhere nearby) published two lengthy articles attacking the FBI for focusing on a domestic culprit and -- relying almost exclusively on the ABC/Ross report -- insisted that Saddam was one of the most likely sources for those attacks.

In November, 2001, they published an article (via Lexis) which began:

On the critical issue of who sent the anthrax, it's time to give credit to the ABC website, ABCNews.com, for reporting rings around most other news organizations. Here's a bit from a comprehensive story filed late last week by Gary Matsumoto, lending further credence to the commonsensical theory (resisted by the White House) that al Qaeda or Iraq -- and not some domestic Ted Kaczynski type -- is behind the germ warfare.

The Weekly Standard published a much lengthier and more dogmatic article in April, 2002 again pushing the ABC "bentonite" claims and arguing: "There is purely circumstantial though highly suggestive evidence that might seem to link Iraq with last fall's anthrax terrorism." The American Enterprise Institute's Laurie Mylroie (who had an AEI article linking Saddam to 9/11 ready for publication at the AEI on September 13) expressly claimed in November, 2001 that "there is also tremendous evidence that subsequent anthrax attacks are connected to Iraq" and based that claim almost exclusively on the report from ABC and Ross.

And when President Bush named Iraq as a member of the "Axis of Evil" in his January, 2002 State of the Union speech -- just two months after ABC's report, when the anthrax attacks were still very vividly on the minds of Americans -- he specifically touted this claim: "The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade" -- the only reference in the State of the Union address to the unsolved anthrax attacks.

And even now -- because ABC has never retracted or corrected its false claims -- various war supporters from Michael Barone to The Wall St. Journal Editorial Page to Michelle Malkin and other generic war supporters continue to insist that the FBI is at fault for not focusing on a Middle East state sponsor, and, in the case of Malkin and others, that the FBI is ignoring "evidence" of Saddam's connection to those anthrax attacks -- the "evidence" being the still unretracted ABC/Ross reports.

The numerous false (and still uncorrected) claims from ABC and Ross

That the ABC/Ross reports are completely false is now beyond reasonable dispute. As Cernig noted several days ago, an FBI anthrax investigator, Douglas Beecher, published an August, 2006 article in Applied and Environmental Microbiology which expressly concluded that there were no additives found in the anthrax:

A widely circulated misconception is that the spores were produced using additives and sophisticated engineering supposedly akin to military weapon production. This idea is usually the basis for implying that the powders were inordinately dangerous compared to spores alone (3, 6, 12; J. Kelly, Washington Times, 21 October 2003; G. Gugliotta and G. Matsumoto, The Washington Post, 28 October 2002).

The persistent credence given to this impression fosters erroneous preconceptions, which may misguide research and preparedness efforts and generally detract from the magnitude of hazards posed by simple spore preparations.

That led The New York Times reporter covering the anthrax case, William Broad, to report as follows (full Times Select article here):

Seeking to clear up public confusion, an FBI official has reiterated the bureau's judgment that the anthrax in the letter attacks five years ago bore no special coatings to increase its deadliness and no hallmarks of a military weapon.

The claim that the anthrax was laced with bentonite, and that government tests detected the presence of bentonite, was simply false -- a complete invention from Ross's sources, eager to link Saddam and anthrax attacks. And separately, it was a complete fiction that "the anthrax spores found in the letter to Senator Daschle are almost identical in appearance to those they recovered in Iraq in 1994 when viewed under an electron microscope." That just never happened.

Equally false, really completely frivolous, was the conclusion Ross's sources fed to him from this false premise -- namely, that even if bentonite -- which ABC referred to as a "troubling chemical additive" -- had been found in the anthrax, that would be some sort of compelling proof linking Iraq to the anthrax attacks.

The very idea that bentonite is "a troubling chemical additive," let alone that it is some sort of unique Iraqi hallmark, is inane. Bentonite is merely a common clay that is produced all over the world, including from volcanic eruptions. Over the weekend, I spoke via e-mail with M.A. Holmes, a Geologist in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who wrote:

Bentonite is mined and used for drilling mud (getting the rock chips out of a drill hole when drilling for oil or deep water) and now is mined for the clumping-type kitty litter ("swells when wet"). It's also used to draw cactus spines put of the skin (sold as a product called "Denver Mud"). It has lots of other uses, like lining pits for waste disposal (because it "swells when wet" it forms a pretty good seal).

Bentonite is mined extensively in Wyoming and oh, yes, SOUTH DAKOTA. It is not "a chemical additive" and it is not unique to Iraq. It is widespread and common, and readily available wherever you can get "drilling mud."

One ironic fact that illustrates just how commonplace is bentonite is this 2004 Washington Post profile of Dick Cheney, in which his wife, Lynne, fondly recalled the early years of their relationship: "I knew when he was digging ditches out at the Central Wyoming Fair and Rodeo Grounds. And I knew him when he was loading bentonite, hundred-pound bags of bentonite, onto railroad cars."

The best publicly available investigative work by far on the anthrax attacks and subsequent investigations is, unsurprisingly, not from a "credentialed journalist," but from someone named Edward G. Lake -- an American citizen, a non-journalist, who is a retired computer systems analyst in Racine, Wisconsin. To his credit, the Times' Broad quoted Lake in his article on the FBI's recent anthax findings, because Lake knows more about the anthrax investigations than any national journalist, by far.

Lake began following the anthrax reporting and noticed the endless series of misstatements and misperceptions being reported. On a website he created (and subsequently in a self-published book he wrote in 2005) he began chronicling and meticulously documenting the actual known facts relating to the anthrax attacks, and continues to do so with an amazingly relentless allegiance only to credible, established facts (and with appropriate disdain for speculation, fact-free assertions and conspiracy theories alike).

As Lake has also documented at length (long before the FBI confirmed it in August), virtually all of the credible, available evidence proves conclusively how false the ABC/Ross "bentonite" report was (see point 4 on Lake's main page, with multiple links).

The unresolved, critical issues

At one of the most critical times in American history -- the weeks following the 9/11 and anthrax attacks -- ABC News and Brian Ross published multiple, highly inflammatory reports, aggressively linking Iraq to the anthrax attacks, which turned out to be completely false. Accompanying those false anthrax reports, ABC News frequently linked Saddam to the 9/11 attacks as well -- such as when Cokie Roberts, during an interview with Donald Rumsfeld immediately following one of Ross's Saddam-anthrax stories, referenced "the confirmation that Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence official."

While ABC, from the beginning, noted that even the White House publicly denied the bentonite story, they have never retracted, corrected or even explained their false reports. When I spoke with ABC News Senior Vice President Brian Schneider last week, he repeatedly emphasized that ABC News' credibility rests with the fact that when they are wrong, they quickly and clearly correct their errors.

Yet -- more than five years later -- why do they continue to allow these extremely damaging Saddam-anthrax reports to go uncorrected? The New York Times published a lengthy examination of its own culpability in publishing false reports about Iraq's WMD program long after those reports were published. Why hasn't ABC done that with these anthrax reports?

But the most important issue is this: Someone clearly invented false stories about the anthrax investigation and fed them to Brian Ross, knowing he would run all over ABC News programs heaping blame on Saddam for those attacks. In fact, Ross said that there were at least four highly-placed, separate sources who told him that.

How can ABC and Ross justify continuing to conceal the identity of these sources -- some of whom, presumably, were and still are in the Bush administration -- when those sources concocted lies with the intent to manipulate Ross and the American public into believing that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the anthrax attacks?

There is a widely accepted journalistic principle that reporters are not required to conceal the identity of anonymous sources who feed them false information with the intent to induce the journalist to disseminate the falsehoods. In fact, in such a situation, there is an obligation on the part of the reporter to reveal who the sources are who passed on those lies.

Multiple people, in key positions, made numerous false statements to Brian Ross suggesting that Saddam was responsible for the anthrax attacks and made false claims about the results of government tests on anthrax. They did so with the clear intent to mislead the whole country on the most critical issue we faced -- a fraud which resulted in damage that is impossible to quantify but unquestionably significant. How can ABC News and Brian Ross justify continuing to protect the people were who led them to perpetuate that fraud? Shouldn't we know who invented those false stories and fed them to ABC?

UPDATE: Jonathan Schwarz has a highly relevant excerpt from Hubris, the book by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, which reported:

In October 2001, [Bush terrorism official Gen. Wayne] Downing, [Paul] Wolfowitz, and other proponents of a war with Iraq thought they had yet more ammunition for the case against Saddam. A series of deadly anthrax-laced letters had been sent to the Capitol Hill offices of Senator Daschle and Senator Patrick Leahy and to several newsrooms. Mylroie asserted that Saddam was behind the mailings. An early forensic test of the anthrax letters (which was later disputed) appeared to show that the anthrax spores were highly refined and "weaponized."

To the Iraq hawks, the news was electric. "This is definitely Saddam!" Downing shouted to several White House aides. One of these aides later recalled overhearing Downing excitedly sharing the news over the phone with Wolfowitz and Feith. "I had the feeling they were high-five-ing each other," the White House official said.

The attempt to link Saddam to the anthrax attacks was just as fraudulent -- and just as significant -- as the attempt to link Saddam to 9/11, Al Qaeda and nuclear weapons. Brian Ross and ABC played a key role in that part of the fraud, yet have never accounted for their conduct.

UPDATE II: In Comments, Science Guy voices a couple of insightful objections to two of the points I made in this post. My response is here.

-- Glenn Greenwald

No Saddam 'al-Qaeda'Link: Full Pentagon report

PDF

Iraqi court sentences former Saddam VP to death

By Ahmed Rasheed 18 minutes ago

The Iraqi High Court ruled on Monday that Saddam Hussein's former vice president should follow him to the gallows, despite appeals from UN officials and international human rights groups for his life to be spared.

"I swear by God almighty that I am innocent and he will take revenge on everyone who oppressed me," Taha Yassin Ramadan said after he was sentenced to death by hanging for his role in the killing of 148 Shi'ites in the town of Dujail in the 1980s.

Ramadan was sentenced in November to life in jail for the killings, for which Saddam and two former aides have already been hanged. But an appeals court recommended that he receive the death penalty and referred the case back to the trial court.

"In the name of the people the court decided ... to sentence the convicted, Taha Yassin Ramadan, to death by hanging for committing the crime of willful killing as a crime against humanity," judge Ali al-Kahachi said.

Ramadan, in his 60s and wearing thick-rimmed black spectacles and traditional Arab robes and red-checkered headdress, showed no emotion as the ruling, which can be appealed, was read out.

New York-based Human Rights Watch, which raised concerns about the fairness of the original trial, urged the court on Sunday not to impose the death penalty, saying there had been a lack of evidence tying Ramadan to the Dujail killings.

The trial court in November found Ramadan guilty of issuing orders for the systematic killing, detention and torture of men, women and children from Dujail following an attempt on Saddam's life there in 1982.

"God knows I didn't do anything wrong. All the witnesses confirmed they did not see me in Dujail," Ramadan told the court on Monday when asked if he had any final remarks before the ruling was delivered.

United Nations human rights chief Louise Arbour last week urged the court to spare Ramadan's life, saying a death sentence would break international law.

Saddam's execution in December sparked anger among fellow Sunnis, who were outraged by an illicit video showing the ousted leader being hanged to sectarian taunts from official observers. His half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti was executed two weeks later in a botched hanging in which he was decapitated.

Ramadan and Saddam's former deputy Izzat Ibrahim, now believed by Iraqi officials to be in Syria or Yemen, are the sole survivors of the plotters of the 1968 coup that returned the Baath party to power.

Ramadan, a hawkish member of Saddam's inner circle, was trusted by the Iraqi leader to carry out his orders to crush dissent and put down revolts.

When made industry minister in the 1970s, he reportedly told colleagues: "I don't know anything about industry. All I know is that anyone who doesn't work hard will be executed."

Saddam Hussein: The trial the world will never see

A clip from a startling documentary for European television showing how the leaders in the west (and especially the US) were complicit in many of the atrocities Saddam committed over the course of his reign.

The movie is called: SADDAM HUSSEIN: The Trial The World Will Never See.

And indeed, as of yet, no one has seen this film in North America.

Lando's book, WEB OF DECEIT is a riveting and horrifying history of Western intervention in Iraq.

Shocking clip from an amazing French documentary exposing how governments and corporations in the west knowingly aided and abetted Saddam's most ruthless crimes.

The movie, by ex-60 Minutes producer Barry Lando for French TV is called "Saddam Hussein: The trial the world will never see."

Lando's book, WEB OF DECEIT is a riveting and horrifying history of Western intervention in Iraq.

A classic imperial predicament

H.D.S. GREENWAY

By H.D.S. Greenway | January 9, 2007

WERE SADDAM HUSSEIN'S flawed trial and disgusting death just further examples of incompetence, or were they symptoms of a deeper dilemma? What did the incident tell us about America in Iraq and the problems of trying to impose democracy by force?

One has to wonder how even a star-crossed administration such as George W. Bush's and his Iraqi allies could have turned one of the world's most cruel and despicable dictators into a stoic martyr-hero, facing death calmly in the face of an officially sanctioned lynching by Shi'ite militiamen?

After all, the Americans had had physical custody of Saddam for nearly three years. Was it just another bumble that led them to hand him over so quickly to such an undignified death? As Saudi sociologist Khalid al-Dakhil put it: "It looks like they just wanted to take revenge in a vulgar way; that was their gift to the Shia . . ."

Rather than incompetence, the way Saddam died represents the classic imperial predicament. You can occupy a country, even hold elections. But unless you want to rule by yourself forever, what do you do if the locals you put in power won't take your direction -- won't follow your script? What happens when the puppets want to pull their own strings?

--MORE--

SADDAM’S GOODBYE CURSE

January 08, 2007

Eric S. Margolis

The Bush/Cheney Administration has never concealed its sneering contempt for international law or world public opinion. Even so, the lynching of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq established a new nadir for America and shocked the entire globe.

This sordid act, which grossly violated international law, the Geneva Conventions, and basic human decency, provoked a well-deserved storm of criticism around the globe against the Bush/Cheney Administration. It also rekindled demands for an international abolition of the death penalty.

Washington professed surprise and denied blame for this disgusting spectacle. More lies. Saddam had been under US guard in a US-run prison in Baghdad’s US-run Green Zone. He was transferred under US guard to a US-run execution prison. What did US officials think would happen when they turned him over to a raging lynch mob of vengeful Shias? A parade?

The United States has already been heavily criticized for stage-managing the Soviet-style show trial and rigged kangaroo court that condemned Saddam and two of his closest henchmen.

It’s clear Iraq’s deposed leader was hurriedly executed to prevent him from revealing embarrassing details about his long collusion with the US, Britain, and Arab states.

Saddam’s principal crime was launching an unprovoked war against Iran that cost over one million casualties. This crime was never mentioned in President Hussein’s trial because, at the time, his principal accomplices were the United States, Britain and the Arab oil monarchs. Dead men tell no tales.

Ironically, Saddam’s courage and dignity on the gallows will reinforce his claim to martyrdom and make him the hero in death that he certainly was not in life. This process has already begun.

By contrast, the UN’s new South Korean secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, who was maneuvered into office by Washington, shamefully supported Saddam’s execution even though the UN has long opposed the death penalty, and its human rights chief, Louise Arbour, had condemned the brutal execution . This was an inauspicious start for a timid yes-man.

This week, the Bush/Cheney Administration is widely expected to announce plans to deploy another 20,000 or more troops to Iraq and allocate billions more for the war effort and economic reconstruction. This will be George Bush’s petulant reply to the bipartisan Iraq Study Group’s wise proposal that all US combat forces withdraw from Iraq within a year.

Senior American generals charged with Iraq, including Gen. John Abazaid and Gen. George Casey, openly disagreed with Bush’s plans for a `surge’ in US troop deployment. These able officers told media they didn’t need more troops. They warned additional US troops would deter Iraq’s Shia regime from developing its own security forces and keep it dependant on the US and death squads.

These statements were a shocker. American generals are not supposed to publicly disagree with the president. Both officers have just been replaced in command. Gen. Abazaid, who speaks Arabic and understands Iraq, is retiring early, in disgust, say friends.

Casey and Abazaid follow another fine officer, former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki, who choose duty to America over career. He was forced to retire by the White House after publicly stating a minimum of 300,000 US troops would be needed to pacify Iraq. The 140,000 US troops currently in Iraq, and the 80,000 or so mercenaries(`civilian contractors’ in Pentagon and media doublespeak) supporting them, are stretched to the breaking point and hard pressed to defend their own bases and vulnerable supply lines.

Iraq’s western Anbar Province has become a Ft Apache for the US Marines, who are barely able to defend their own besieged bases. Iraq’s Sunni resistance forces have almost defeated American forces there in spite of massed US air, artillery, and armor support.

Many US senior military officers privately say it is small wonder Bush, who styles himself the `war president,’ is so deficient in military experience and knowledge. A few months in the Texas Air National Guard evading wartime military service during Vietnam certainly did not prepare him to wage two wars. The real power behind the throne, VP Dick Cheney, also avoided military service, claiming he was `too busy.’

Responsible presidents know when to listen to their generals, and when to retreat from stalemated or lost wars. If Bush does send thousands more troops to Iraq, he will be risking more American lives in a desperate, 11th-hour political gamble to show voters he has a new plan to resolve the horrible mess in Iraq that he created.

The White House’s last gamble may call for stationing the new troops in and around Baghdad to end the anarchy in Iraq’s capitol and reinforcing embattled US units in Anbar Province.

But most of the new troops will come from US units currently in Iraq that were due to be withdrawn, or are US-based troops slated for deployment to Iraq. Morale among US occupation forces is already rock bottom. This news about delayed departures and accelerated deployments could ignite the same kind of malaise and indiscipline experienced by US troops in the later part of the lost Vietnam War. It could also get yet more US troops stuck in the Iraqi quagmire.

But 20,000-30,000 more US troops thrown into the cauldron of Iraq will make little military difference. One hundred fifty thousand or more might, but the US has run out of soldiers. Even massive reinforcements will not resolve the basic problem of Iraq’s post-Saddam political instability and the inability of its component groups to forge national consensus.

If Bush pours more troops into this a lost war, he will fall into the trap of many bad gamblers who double up their bets in a reckless effort to recoup previous losses.

Bush continues ignoring his generals while still heeding the siren song of the pro-Israel neoconservatives around him. Their goal is not a stable Mideast, but total destruction of Iraq, then Iran.

Current Republican presidential front-runner Sen. John McCain has joined Bush and Cheney in urging more troop be sent to Iraq. All three have clearly lost touch with reality and America’s basic values.

Call it Saddam’s curse.

copyright Eric S. Margolis 2007

CoverUp : Iraqi Court Drops Charges Against Saddam

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN
Associated Press Writer

Monday, January 08, 2007

11:19 a.m. BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Saddam Hussein's trial for the killing of 180,000 Kurds in the 1980s resumed Monday with the late dictator's seat empty, nine days after he went to the gallows. The court's first order of business was to drop all charges against Saddam.

Six co-defendants - including Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali" - still face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from a military campaign code-named Operation Anfal during the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war.

Shortly after the court reconvened Monday, a bailiff called out the names of the accused and the six men walked silently into the courtroom one after another.

Chief Judge Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa said the court decided to stop all legal action against the former president, since "the death of defendant Saddam was confirmed."

All seven defendants in the Anfal case, including Saddam, had pleaded innocent to charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Saddam and one other man also pleaded innocent to the additional charge of genocide.

Prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon aired graphic video Monday of scores of bodies in trucks and in piles on the street, overlayed with a voice purported to be al-Majid saying "I will hit them with chemical weapons." But al-Majid testified that the bodies were killed by Iranian troops, not Iraqis.

Another audiotape had the alleged voice of Saddam warning, "These weapons are only used at my orders." He also reassures colleagues that the weapons "kill by the thousands."

"It will force them out of their homes without water or food. It makes them evacuate their homes naked," the voice said.

Saddam was sentenced to death for the killing of 148 Shiites and hanged on Dec. 30 in a chaotic execution that has drawn global criticism for the Shiite-dominated government. An illicit video from inside the former leader's execution chamber showed him being taunted on the gallows.

Saddam's half brother and former intelligence chief, Barzan Ibrahim, and former head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, Awad Hamed al-Bandar, were sentenced to death after being found guilty along with Saddam of involvement in the killings in the town of Dujail after a 1982 assassination attempt there against Saddam.

Their executions were postponed, however, until after the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which ended six days ago. They were expected in the coming days, though Jaafar al-Mousawi, the chief prosecutor in the separate Dujail case, said the timing would "be determined by the government."

Sami al-Askari, an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, declined to give reasons for the delay and said only that "no date has been made yet" for al-Bandar and Ibrahim's hangings.

As al-Majid took his seat in court Monday, he tried to turn on his microphone to speak publicly. The judge quickly shut it off, preventing him from being heard.

Legal experts said the Anfal trial would proceed more smoothly without Saddam.

"The trial will be more elastic and easy. It will clarify and expose more facts because Saddam Hussein's disappearance from dock will encourage other defendants to mention some facts that they were afraid to divulge when he was with them," said Tariq Harb, an Iraqi lawyer and legal expert.

In Monday's session, al-Faroon presented a document allegedly signed by Taher Tawfiq al-Ani, former governor of Mosul and head of the Northern Affairs Committee, who is among those on trial, calling for the execution of 10 members of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party headed by current Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. Al-Ani denied the handwriting was his.

"This is not my signature and I'm sure of that," he told the court.

The other defendants are former Defense Minister Sultan Hashim al-Tai, who was the commander of Task Force Anfal and head of the Iraqi army 1st Corps; Sabir al-Douri, Saddam's military intelligence chief; Hussein Rashid Mohammed, former deputy director of operations for the Iraqi Armed Forces and Farhan Mutlaq Saleh, former head of military intelligence's eastern regional office.

Violence continued Monday, with nine workers - primarily Shiite - killed in an ambush near Baghdad's airport, and six bodies found in a largely Sunni neighbhorhood in southern Baghded.

The U.S. military also reported the deaths of two American soldiers north of Baghdad a day earlier. The deaths came after al-Maliki announced a new Iraqi drive to clear Baghdad of militants - with U.S. help.

Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the American commander in charge of daily operations in Iraq, contrasted the latest effort with a largely ineffective one in 2006, which was abandoned after the Iraqi army failed to send much of the promised troop strength, making it impossible to secure neighborhoods after American forces cleared them of insurgent and militia fighters.

This time, Odierno said, U.S. forces would remain in the cleared areas.

Still, the U.S. commander said he expected it to take years for U.S. and Iraqi forces to fully claim victory.

"I believe the American people, if they feel we are making progress, they will have the patience," he told reporters Sunday. "I think the frustration is that they think we are not making progress."

Associated Press Writer Muhieddin Rashad contributed to this report.

SADDAM HUSSEIN; VICTIM OF OLD WEST JUSTICE & VENDETTA

After illegal invasion, barbaric occupation, now Kangaroo court execution.

K Gajendra Singh
Indian ambassador (retired)

January 7, 2006


"The world seeks America's leadership, looks for leadership for a country whose values are freedom and justice and equality." Texas Governor George W. Bush in 2000.


President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, overthrown after the US led illegal invasion of Iraq in March, 2003 , against UN Charter and world opinion , became an other victim of 'Old West Justice' exercised by European colonizers and Americans ( against Red Indians and Blacks ) during the last few centuries . He was hanged on 30 December morning in Baghdad under US occupation by Washington controlled government of exiles, quislings, embezzlers and war lords.

In spite of the Ku Klux Klan like atmosphere created by elements from Shia militia let in like jackals, a calm and dignified Saddam prayed and refused to have his head covered with a hood at the gallows. Before the rope was put around his neck, Saddam proclaimed, 'God is great. The nation will be victorious and Palestine is Arab.' The constitutionally elected President of Iraq thus became a martyr.

This is how Ghada Karmi , a research fellow at the University of Exeter described the hanging in the Guardian of 2 January ;



" The spectacle of Saddam Hussein's execution, shown in pornographic detail to the whole world, was deeply shocking to those of us who respect propriety and human dignity. The vengeful Shia mob that was allowed to taunt the man's last moments, and the vicious executioners who released the trapdoor while he was saying his prayers, turned this scene of so-called Iraqi justice into a public lynching. One does not have to be any kind of Saddam sympathiser to be horrified that he should have been executed - and, so obscenely, on the dawn of Islam's holy feast of Eid al-Adha, which flagrantly defies religious practice and was an affront to the Islamic world."

" For the Arab world, this has been a shameful, humiliating event that underlines its total surrender to western diktat. The execution was carried out under the auspices of a foreign occupying power, and with a clear western message: we give ourselves the right to invade a sovereign Arab state and remove its leader because he offends us; we think you Arabs are incapable of sorting out your own affairs in accordance with our interests, so we will do it for you."

The hurried execution was carried out to stop him from revealing secrets about the West's past enthusiasm in supporting and arming his regime with chemical weapons. Hence he was tried on the relatively minor charge of killing 148 people in the village of Dujail, following a plot to assassinate him. "Far better to put him away safely for that rather than risk his exposing western hypocrisy, treachery and double dealing."


US appointed first Iraqi trial judge says execution illegal under Iraqi law ;

Even the US appointed trial's first chief judge Rizkar Mohammed Amin, a Kurd , who later resigned, declared the execution was illegal in Iraqi law:

" The implementation of Saddam's execution during Eid al-adha is illegal according to chapter 9 of the tribunal law. Article 27 states that nobody, even the president (Jalal Talabani), may change rulings by the tribunal and the implementation of the sentence should not happen until 30 days after publication that the appeals court has upheld the tribunal verdict. The hanging during the Eid al-Adha period (also) contradicts Iraqi and Islamic custom. "Article 290 of the criminal code of 1971 (which was largely used in the Saddam trial) states that no verdict should implemented during the official holidays or religious festivals," he added.

Justice Amin rightly claimed that Iraqi law stipulates an execution must be carried out 30 days after the appeal court's decision on the sentencing, which in this case upheld the death sentence of Saddam. But in ratifying the death sentence on December 26, the appeals chamber insisted that the law stipulated the sentence be implemented within 30 days.

Iraq is under US occupation and control. Saddam was arrested by US troops and detained in Camp Cropper, a US air base. US lawyers wrote the Special Iraqi Tribunal's statute, with Washington spending more than 100 million dollars on the tribunal and intervening directly in the course of the trial. The conviction was announced just in time to influence the November US elections, but the electorate wiser to the deepening quagmire in Iraq decisively defeated President George Bush's Republican party in the Congress.

Is US afraid of terrorists?

Wrote B. Raman , former Indian Chief of counter terrorism ;


" People are asking themselves—it is more than three years since the US captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, who orchestrated on behalf of Osama bin Laden, the massacre of nearly 3,000 innocent civilians in the US on 9/11. He has not been tried so far, not to talk of being executed. Why the hurry in the case of Saddam? Abu Zubaidah, Ramzi Binalshibh, Hambali, Abu Faraj al-Libbi and many others involved in the most cruel acts of terrorism killing hundreds of civilians have not even been tried so far. Why the hurry in the case of Saddam?

"Rightly or wrongly, they will come to the conclusion that in the US analysis if they try and execute these terrorist leaders, there could be more acts of mass casualty terrorism directed against the US and its nationals.

" Saddam was not a terrorist. He was just a dictator like many other dictators spawned and fattened by the US in other parts of the world. He was hated by Al Qaeda when he was alive because he was one of the very few secular leaders in the Ummah and because he was a socialist. In the US calculation, the death of Saddam could provoke reprisals, but manageable ones.

"I weep for Saddam. He was a good friend of India and its people. He always stood by us in the best of times and in the worst of times. I remember the days after the Mumbai blasts of March, 1993, in which nearly 300 innocent Indian civilians were killed by terrorists trained by the ISI. We went from one intelligence agency to another asking for help in investigating the role of Pakistan. The Americans rebuffed us. Protecting Pakistan and its ISI was more important for them than grieving for the Indians killed and helping India to bring to book those responsible. Saddam rushed to our assistance and helped us in whatever little way he could."


US led West, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and many such countries have contributed to the creation of the monster called international terrorism beginning with Afghanistan. Invading Iraq will only make it bigger and dangerous.

World condemns US controlled trial and execution ;

The wide negative reaction to the universally decried illegal trial and conviction and the barbaric execution polarized the world , with Anglo-Saxons, USA, UK and Australia sticking together exposing their total disregard for Rule of law, Justice and Christian morality, with European Christians showing mild opprobrium against the process and opposition to the death penalty and the gory hanging .

Arab and Muslim world , with many leaders cowed down and in fear of USA and Ummah preoccupied with the Hajj pilgrimage seethed with utmost disgust ,bitter anger and resentment.

But even the indebted US ally Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who had requested that Saddam be not hanged at the time described on 5 January the video footage of Saddam's execution as "shocking pictures, primitive pictures," "It was disgraceful and very painful", he added.

"I'm not going to say whether Saddam deserved the death penalty or not," Mubarak said. "I'm also not going to go into the question of whether that court is legal under the occupation.? "When all's said and done, nobody will ever forget the circumstances and the manner in which Saddam was executed. They have made him into a martyr, while the problems within Iraq remain."

Apart from elsewhere in the world vociferous protest demonstrations were held all over democratic India , a country of 1.1 billion, which surprised Canada's 'Toronto Star'. International Herald Tribune noted that the protests continued for days in Kashmir. Not only Muslims , who number over 140 million ,but major political parties and the general public joined in condemning the trial and the execution .In many large cities US President George Bush's effigies were burnt.

Saddam Hussein was regarded a true friend of India and was very popular for standing up to US led western hegemony.

Demonization and injustice by the West has been the pattern since the days of the Roman empire , which demonized Asia Minor leader Mithradates IV , who staunchly opposed Rome. After his son's quick defeat at Zile , 250 Kms east of Ankara , Julius Caesar declared ;"Veni, vidi, vici. " Others who opposed British and European colonial exploitation in Asia and Africa down to Serbian nationalist leader and hero Slobodan Milosevic were treated similarly. In spite of all obstacles Milosevic made mince meat of western accusations and lies in a biased court while defending himself. So he was denied medical attention and died in western detention –another martyr. Yasser Arafat was poisoned as media leaks now further confirm. An open and fair trial of Saddam by an international court in the Hague, would have exposed most western governments beginning with USA, UK, Germany and others as full accomplices in the accusations leveled against him of using poison gas and others crimes. The West was just afraid that its hypocrisy, blatant lies , war and other crimes like Al Gharaib, destruction of Fallija, Haditha and elsewhere would have been exposed.

With most of the world condemning the execution, Bush was forced to concede , but after a week . "I wish - obviously - that the proceedings had gone in a more dignified way," said Bush at a White House press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

But US selected Shia Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki threatened to cut off diplomatic relations with countries that criticized the execution of Saddam Hussein. He defended the decision to execute him on the Sunni feast of sacrifice, saying that Saddam had profaned religious holidays.

Day of the Jackals;

Prof John Collins of St. Lawrence University New York called the coverage by CNN and New York Times as denial of history.


" the execution provided an opportunity for viewers to think about the long story of the Iraqi leader's brutal reign. Yet when it came to informing the audience about one key aspect of that history - the role of the United States in helping to create and maintain the "butcher of Baghdad" - CNN offered only amnesia." viewers were treated to a highly selective loop of stock images of the condemned: Saddam brandishing a tribal sword -- Saddam firing a gun, Saddam laughing his cartoonish dictator laugh, Saddam defiantly reading a statement at the start of the U.S. invasion in 2003, Saddam smoking a cigar, Saddam being checked for lice by U.S. military doctors, Saddam wildly gesturing during his recent trial.
"

What West wants to hide;

What was missing was "the photo of Saddam shaking hands with U.S. envoy Donald Rumsfeld back in December 1983?" Rumsfeld told Saddam that the U.S "would regard any major reversal of Iraq's fortunes as a strategic defeat for the West." Secretary of State George Schultz knew that Iraq was using chemical weapons against Iranian forces on an "almost daily basis." CIA personnel visited Iraq on a regular basis to provide surveillance intelligence. Both the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency directly assisted an Iraqi offensive in February 1988 by electronically "blinding" Iranian radar for three days.

Evidence shows that companies of 5 permanent UN Security Council members , several East European states , Syria, and Germany and others supported the Iraqi chemical and biological weapons program through the sale of chemicals and technology. British firms sold thousands of kilos of the basic ingredients of nerve and mustard gas to Iraq ( and Iran too).Many thousands kilograms of methyl phosphonyl difluoride and other chemicals were exported to Iraq, the basic ingredient of the nerve gas Sarin.The list is endless.

The New York Times was no better in its obituary and 'rather than offering readers a responsible assessment of their own government's role in the life and crimes of the Iraqi leader, author Neil MacFarquhar elected to repeat the kind of sensational details Americans have come to expect when the country's designated enemies are profiled: Saddam as megalomaniac (he believed "he was destined by God to rule Iraq forever" and possessed "boundless egotism and self-delusion"), Saddam as Mafioso (the "Corleone-like feuds" of his family "became the stuff of gory public soap operas"), Saddam as traumatized child ("persistent stories suggest that Mr. Hussein's stepfather delighted in humiliating the boy --"), Saddam as sadistic murderer (while reading the names of Baath party officials allegedly involved in a supposed coup plot, -- Saddam as narcissist ("He dyed his hair black and refused to wear his reading glasses in public "), Saddam as paranoid ("Delicacies like imported lobster were first dispatched to nuclear scientists to be tested for radiation and poison"), and on and on."

Prof Collins concludes ;


"In this light, it seems that the initial coverage of Saddam's execution has served as a collective ritual hand washing designed to reassure Americans that they really are the blameless leaders of a cosmic struggle against "evil." And so the answer to the existential question comes into view. Today's mainstream journalism, even "live" TV, is a far cry from the first draft of history. Instead, it functions largely as a transmission of selective history that has been drafted--and airbrushed, and sanitized, and rearranged, and distorted--long before it ever reaches our eyes and ears."


Bush Family vendetta against Saddam Hussein;

Texas based Bush family ,in oil business ,developed a strong dislike and grudge against Saddam Hussein for standing up to US hegemony. The day after the first Gulf War in 1991, the then President George H.W. Bush (Papa Bush) felt uneasy about the mess he was leaving . "Still no feeling of euphoria," he dictated to his diary Feb. 28, 1991. Saddam, he felt remained a threat. "He's got to go," Bush concluded.

Apart from implementing the Neo-Con designed 'New American Century' agenda in the Middle East, removing Saddam Hussein , whom Papa Bush could not , became a major motivation if not an obsession with the son.

"The sacrifice ( 3000 GIs dead and $360 billion dollars) has been worth it," President Bush said at a 2006 end news conference before the execution. "I haven't questioned whether or not it was right to take Saddam Hussein out," he stopped himself and added, "I mean, I've questioned it - I've come to the conclusion that it was the right decision."

Peter Baker gives an account of the vendetta story in the Washington Post, "The relationship actually began as one of pragmatic friendship in the 1980s, when Saddam Hussein was at war with the main U.S. enemy in the region, Iran, and George H.W. Bush was vice president in an administration that offered him help. A 1992 New Yorker article suggested that Bush, through Arab intermediaries, advised Saddam to intensify bombing of Iran. "

But Saddam's decision to invade Kuwait in August 1990 changed every thing. leading to the 1991 Iraq war under Papa Bush led coalition with UNSC approval, unlike the 2003 invasion. Kuwait was liberated .Never mind Papa Bush encouraged Iraq's Shias and Kurds to revolt against the regime and then did nothing when Saddam suppressed it brutally.

" Bush wrongly assumed that Iraqis would overthrow Hussein, and his decision not to march to Baghdad after freeing Kuwait would haunt him and his son. An unbowed Hussein defied the international community, and in April 1993, when Bush went to Kuwait for a hero's welcome, a group of Iraqis crossed the border in what was called a thwarted attempt to kill him. President Bill Clinton launched 23 Tomahawk missiles against Iraqi targets in retaliation." { Yes, US is entitled to retribution for assassination attempt but not Saddam in Dujail .US had all the time and freedom soon after March 2003 invasion to get hold of the accused in the Kuwait assassination plot and convict Saddam! Was it another lie like so many others ]

Coming back to Bush junior ," In a memo in March 2002, Peter Ricketts, a top British official, sounded skeptical of U.S. motivations: "For Iraq, 'regime change' does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam."

Papa Bush told CNN in late 2002 "I hate Saddam Hussein, and I don't hate a lot of people." "I don't hate easily, but I think he is - as I say, his word is no good, and he is a brute. He has used poison gas on his own people. So, there's nothing redeeming about this man, and I have nothing but hatred in my heart for him." A few days later son Bush mused about Hussein at a Texas fundraiser. "There's no doubt his hatred is mainly directed at us," he said. "There's no doubt he can't stand us. After all, this is the guy that tried to kill my dad at one time."

Bush also discussed with Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.) assassinating Saddam and was ready to repeal the executive order banning assassination of foreign leaders if intelligence gave him a clear shot. "The fact that he tried to kill my father and my wife shows the nature of the man," Bush told interviewers in March 2003. "And he not only tried to kill my father and wife, he's killed thousands of his own citizens."

But he denied a vendetta. "Nah, no," he said. "I'm doing my job as the president, based upon the threats that face this country." But Bush ordered the invasion before planned time with a missile strike targeting Saddam Hussein. , but the latter had escaped ,

In return Saddam Hussein had a mosaic of the elder Bush's face over the slogan "Bush Is Criminal," in the lobby entrance of the Al Rashid Hotel so that every guest would step on it. The first thing U.S. troops did after entering Baghdad was to go to destroy the mosaic.

In his White House study, President Bush now keeps a memento - the pistol taken from Saddam Hussein when he was captured. A duel between them would have been interesting .No guesses who would have won.

While son slept through the gory execution on 30 January , 2006 morning ,papa Bush has remained silent . But Saddam Hussein family including his two sons and a grand son have been brutally assassinated .But the carrying out of the family vendetta has unleashed forces as powerful as any tribal vendetta, now between peoples.

Gloating and sanctimonious Anglo-Saxons;

Like a military commander having issued the battle order, President Bush was asleep when the execution was carried out .A statement issued on his behalf stated;


"Today Saddam Hussein was executed after receiving a fair trial - the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime. Saddam Hussein's execution comes at the end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops. Bringing [him] to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror. Many difficult choices and further sacrifices lie ahead. Yet the safety and security of the American people require that we not relent in ensuring that Iraq's young democracy continues to progress."


Since the invasion, events in Iraq described by Bush and Tony Blair as milestones have turned out to be millstones. A quagmire can not be cured by sleeping over it. Yes, if he is thinking of a 'surge 'of US troops in Iraq , last time it only increased the attacks on US troops .The number went up from October and reached a record 108 in December and the year end totaled 3000 dead GIs . It can only be described as the alcoholics' solution to avoid hangovers –stay perpetually drunk ; stay the course.

In a statement on behalf of the British Government Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett welcomed "the fact that Saddam Hussein has been tried by an Iraqi court for at least some of the appalling crimes he committed against the Iraqi people. He has now been held to account. The British government does not support the use of the death penalty -- our position very clear to the Iraqi authorities, but we respect their decision as that of a sovereign nation."

With Tony Blair on vacation, his deputy John Prescott described the circumstances of the execution "deplorable" with mobile phone footage showing Saddam being told to "go to hell" by people attending the hanging, while the ex-leader mocks their "bravery". Prescott added those responsible for the scenes should be "ashamed". But a spokeswoman for Blair said that she would not endorse Prescott's assessment as "he was expressing his own view."

Gordon Brown, heir apparent to Blair condemned the manner of the hanging as 'completely unacceptable' and 'deplorable', leaving the Prime Minister isolated .Brown told BBC : 'Now that we know the full picture of what happened we can sum this up as a deplorable set of events. It has done nothing to lessen tensions between the Shia and Sunni communities. Even those people, unlike me, who are in favour of capital punishment found this completely unacceptable.' He hoped lessons would be learnt 'as we learn other lessons about Iraq', The British who do piggy riding with the US for crumbs of war spoils , once things go wrong have been leaking like a sieve to earn Brownie points ( no pun intended)

But Scotland's 'Sunday Herald' decries 'Old West Justice' and stench of hypocrisy;


Writing in Scotland's award-winning 'Sunday Herald ", Iain Macwhirter said that Saddam " went to the gallows in dignity, holding the Koran, urging reconciliation, his head uncovered amid his captors' balaclavas. He was executed under the auspices of an Anglo-American occupation that has brought little but death and destruction to Iraq. Even members of the Iraq Study Group in the US Senate accept that the people of Iraq are probably worse off now than under Saddam. So, who is going to hold the executioners to account?

" Who will try Bush and Blair, the authors of an invasion which was almost certainly illegal under international law and which has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians? Shouldn't they be in the dock?

"They ordered the invasion of Iraq on the dubious pretext of disarming weapons of mass destruction which weren't there. They deceived the international community and their own people in order to justify the invasion of a country which posed no military threat. That is perilously close to prima facie evidence of a war crime. To execute Saddam while accepting no responsibility or guilt for what we have done to Iraq is shameful, and history will condemn us for it.

" And let's not maintain the fiction that the US had nothing to do with this judicial killing. If the occupying powers had wanted to, they could, of course, have prevented Saddam's hanging. But Bush decided that the US public would rather warm to this exercise in Old West justice. And perhaps they will.

"And the stench of hypocrisy will linger for years in the West as we slowly come to terms with the enormity of what has been done to Iraq in our name."


Australian Reaction;

Prime Minister John Howard of Australia (land of Kangaroos) said "The real significance is that this man has been given a proper trial, due process was followed. It was an appeal that's been dismissed and he has been dealt with in accordance with the law of Iraq.

"And I believe that there is something quite heroic about a country that is going through the pain and the suffering that Iraq is going through, it still extends due process to somebody who was a tyrant and brutal suppressor and murderer of his people. That's the mark of a country that's trying against fearful odds to embrace democracy and it's a country that deserves sympathy and support - not to be abandoned."

Mahathir- Execution a barbaric lynching;

An old sparring partner of Howard , Mohamad Mahathir ,former Prime Minister of Malaysia, in a statement described the execution, barbaric lynching. "This public murder was sanctioned by the War Criminals, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair."

"This sadistic act broadcasted to the whole world is a travesty of justice, and was meant to demonstrate the imperial power of the United States and serves as a warning to peace loving peoples that we must either bow to the dictates of the Bush regime or face the consequences of a public lynching.

"The lynching was also an insult to all Muslims-- that the war criminal Bush has no sensitivities whatsoever for Muslims on their pilgrimage to Mecca. This barbaric act is a sacrilege! --The entire trial process was a mockery of justice, no less a Kangaroo Court. Defence counsels were brutally murdered, witnesses threatened and judges removed for being impartial and replaced by puppet judges. Yet, we are told that Iraq was invaded to promote democracy, freedom and justice."

"Over 500,000 children died as a result of the criminal economic sanctions, and the latest findings by the medical journal, Lancet reveals that over 650,000 Iraqis have died since the illegal invasion of 2003.

"The inaction ( to prosecute for war crimes ) thus far by the International Criminal Court against Bush, Blair and Howard exposes the double standard of the said Court, when it does not hesitate to prosecute war crimes committed in Darfur, Rwanda and Kosovo."

Reaction in Israel;

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres , always sticking to a ministerial chair said that the execution of Saddam Hussein was "justice for history." He told the weekly cabinet meeting that Saddam, who had invited his own death, was a threat to life in the Middle East and the rest of the world. Peres's remarks were Israel's first official response to the hanging as both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Office and Foreign Ministry kept a low profile and did not issue formal statements on the execution. Olmert's spokeswoman Miri Eisin, responding to a question said "Iraqis have made their choice, and we hope for the Iraqi people that they establish a stable country for Iraq and the Middle East."

"Retroactive justice was done," Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh told Israel Radio. "Saddam sent 39 missiles to Israel [during the 1991 Gulf War], paid $20,000 to the family of each suicide bomber at the height of the Intifada and tried to prepare nuclear weapons to be used against us."

An Arab member of Israeli parliament Ahmad Tibi described the hanging a "sadistic act and a mark of Cain on the American occupation [in Iraq]" and added that "even dictators deserve humanitarian treatment."

Iran and USA agree;

Only Washington and Tehran, both 'controlling' the Shia dominated regime in Baghdad , were in a rare moment of accord and welcomed the execution. Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Hamid Reza Asefi said the hanging of the man who led Iraq into a costly war with the Islamic Republic in the 1980s was a victory for Iraqis. Iran fought an 8-year war with Saddam's Iraq in which 1.7 million were killed. "With the execution of Saddam, the life dossier of one of the world's most criminal dictators was closed," began the report of his death on Iran's state-run TV

But Yousef Molaee, an Iranian international law expert, took the view that the dawn execution was a failure for justice.

Bush's nightmare may be only just beginning says Guardian of UK

The Guardian commented, "But the manner of Saddam's death, ridden with chaos and malice, has made the act much more divisive and dangerous. It was justice delivered in its crudest form, by hooded men taunting Saddam with Shia slogans, the distillation of a fractured and lawless country. The possibility that the pictures were recorded by a senior Iraqi official, as Saddam's prosecutor Munkith al-Faroon suggested yesterday, underlines the decayed state of what passes for central authority in the country.'


" "For all the talk of Iraqi sovereignty, the former leader was tried by a special tribunal shaped by western forces, and was kept by the US until the final hours before his hanging. His body was flown to Tikrit on a US helicopter and US embarrassment over the bungling of his death has put pressure on the Iraqi government to investigate. The mayhem revealed in the new film, like the wider mayhem across most of Iraq, is in part mayhem that we have created. Like the image of Saddam's statue being toppled in 2003, and pictures of torture from Abu Ghraib prison, the illicit pictures of his death will come to define the conflict, evidence of just how disastrous the whole project has Bush slept through hanging, but his nightmare may be only just beginning."
"

Adverse Reaction of legal organizations ;

Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch said that "Saddam Hussein was responsible for massive human rights violations, but that can't justify giving him the death penalty, which is a cruel and inhuman punishment..."The test of a government's commitment to human rights is measured by the way it treats its worst offenders..."

"It defies imagination that the Appeals Chamber could have thoroughly reviewed the 300-page judgment and the defense's written arguments in less than three weeks' time... The appeals process appears even more flawed than the trial... "History will judge the deeply flawed Dujail trial and this execution harshly."

Malcolm Smart, regional Director for Amnesty International said: "Amnesty opposes the death penalty in all circumstances and we deplore the death penalty in this case. It is because we consider that the trial was flawed in serious ways that it is more concerning that the death penalty should be imposed. The independence and impartiality of the court was impugned. There was political interference. Three defence lawyers were murdered. Saddam himself had no access to legal advice for a year." (BBC World, 30 December)

Bertrand Russell's Tribunal said that: "The Iraqi Higher Criminal Court that passed a death sentence on President Saddam Hussein is grounded on illegality. Occupying powers under international law are expressly prohibited from changing the judicial structures of occupied states. Created by Paul Bremer, the Iraqi Higher Criminal Court was never anything but a US-orchestrated puppet court."

Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights stated "All sections of Iraqi society, as well as the wider international community, have an interest in ensuring that a death sentence provided for in Iraqi law is only imposed following a trial and appeal process that is, and is legitimately seen as, fair, credible and impartial. "That is especially so in a case as exceptional as this one."

The International Action Center ( USA) declared that "This punishment has nothing to do with the alleged crimes of the Iraqi leader nor is it part of an historical judgment of his role. It is the act of a conquering power against a nation that is occupied against the will of the vast majority of its people."

Anti US Protests all over India;

While the Arab street was relatively quiet , there were wide spread anti-US protests , demonstrations and marches across the length and breadth of India , including major cities like Delhi, Lucknow, Bhubaneswar , Guwahati, Bangalore , Kozikhode , Srinagar , Junagarh ,Jaipur , Coimbatore and others.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said: "We had already expressed the hope that the execution would not be carried out. We are disappointed that it has been." "We hope that this unfortunate event will not affect the process of reconciliation, restoration of peace and normalcy in Iraq," he added.

But the Congress party's General Secretary Janardhan Dwivedi said that there were palpable "procedural deficiencies" in the way the trial process has been executed. "The undue haste in execution does not carry any credibility." "They validate our previously expressed apprehensions regarding ad-hoc victors' justice and therefore, we condemn it," he said. "Nevertheless, we hope that this unfortunate event will not stand in the way of the process of restoring normalcy and reconciliation in Iraq," he said.

But Jyoti Basu , the veteran communist party leader , who was Chief Minister of West Bengal for three decades and whose party supports the coalition in New Delhi said , "they (the government) should have more strongly denounced the hanging. But the fact remains that they are sacred of America," "They (USA) have kept the country (Iraq) under their occupation and installed a puppet regime there. And they have no right to hold the trial of Saddam and hang him," added Basu

In Delhi . Muslims gathered at Jama Masjid early on Saturday morning as they heard of the execution and raised slogans against the US and President Bush. A large and angry crowd remained there till noon to register their protest against the execution of .The protest, though, was peaceful. The protesters also expressed anguish at the lukewarm attitude of the Indian government. "Saddam Hussein was a friend of India and supported it whenever there was a need. The Indian government failed to make a strong protest with the US"

In Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow's old city area as news of the execution spread ,Muslims turned out in large numbers to protest against the execution. The secular Samajwadi Party, which rules the state of 170 million said the execution was "barbaric" and decided to observe January 4 as a "black day" with demonstrations against President Bush.

Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan said: "They (Americans) showed scant respect to world opinion which was in favour of Saddam. This (execution) should not have happened." Angry supporters of Saddam Hussein took to the streets in many parts of Kerala. The demonstrators gathered at Saddam Beach in Kozhikode district and shouted slogans denouncing the US President and describing the hanging as "cruel". It was so named after Saddam's defiance of USA in 1991. He was regarded as an icon in the hamlet and there are at least 60 boys named Saddam in the area. The villagers don't buy or use American products . Coca-Cola and Pepsi are all taboo.

Angry protesters in Jaipur in Rajasthan burnt President Bush's effigy and shouted slogans. Padur Subramania Sasthrigal, a Vedic scholar and astrologer in Tamil Nadu's major industrial centre , Coimbatore. predicted that under Hindu shastras, Saddam will go to heaven ."Dying on Ekadasi day itself is very auspicious," he said

In Gujarat, Junagarh's Muslims said they would not celebrate Id-ul-Zuha. A group of 17 Muslim organisations have condemned the execution of Saddam Hussein. The winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir witnessed demonstrations with slogans denouncing the US and Bush by several groups, especially in the Muslim-majority areas. Jammu Kashmir National Panthers Party Chairman Bhim Singh, described the execution as the "darkest step in history ever taken on Id-ul-Zuha".

Yes, The All India Shia Personal Law Board (AISPLB) said that Saddam's execution as "justified", as he was tried by a court of justice and punished for his heinous crimes. "Saddam should not be seen as a Muslim as he was not following true Islam."

Most experts said that the execution will sharpen the Shia-Sunni divide in Iraq with a potential to destabilise the region. It will also inflame further anti-Americanism in the region and lead to an unstable Middle East which supplies over 70 per cent of India's oil and where nearly 5 million Indians work and live.

"More violence will follow. Shia-Sunni divide, which is already prominent, will become sharper. It will certainly not promote reconciliation in Iraq," said Chinmaya R. Gharekhan, Prime Minister's Special Envoy on West Asia.

"If it is intended to convey a sense of revenge, it does no good to the image of the Iraqi government. No government should be seen to be vindictive," said Hamid Ansari, a former Indian envoy to Saudi Arabia and Iran and UN , now Chairman, Minorities Commission , New Delhi ."It was a kangaroo court trial. It's not going to calm the situation in Iraq," Ansari stressed.

An academic expert Girijesh Pant said that "It is part of the pressure the Americans want to bring on the region as a whole." It will destablise the entire region. "This is going to be seen as anti-Islamic by the Muslim community all over the world, including in India. --It's more a message to Iran to behave, to tell them how far the Americans can go to achieve their aim in the region," Pant stressed. "This move will shrink space for moderate Islam and will strengthen terrorist and jihadi outfits like Hezbollah and Hamas that feed on anti-American sentiments."

K. Subrahmanyam, a former civil servant , who heads the government's task force on global strategic developments, said that the trial was "by and large fair." "It was by an Iraqi court for an Iraqi crime - for killing Iraqi Shias," he underlined." It is revenge and retribution by the Shia majority which was under oppression and tyranny for the last 23 years. Now, majority Shias will feel vindicated. The Iraqi government did it to gain more legitimacy for the regime," he added.

Subrahmanyam was puzzled at the Indian government's official reaction, and attributed it to "short-sighted vote bank politics." He also criticised the Left parties in India for lionising Saddam Hussein and protesting his execution. He had earlier stated that he did not want another Muslim ( Iran) nuclear power , just the policy US wants India to follow .What kind of report he will make to the government, which has many supporters of Washington consensus in key positions. These so called experts, supported and looked after by Western missions in Delhi, are resident non-Indians.

Western official and other comments;

France's Foreign Ministry taking note of the execution reiterated the government's opposition to capital punishment, abolished in France in 1981. It urged all Iraqis to look towards the future and work towards reconciliation and national unity'.

But the two frontrunners in the coming presidential election condemned the execution. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, described it as a "mistake" and said it would not help efforts to build a democratic Iraq. "The execution of Saddam Hussein, the worst of men, is a mistake," he wrote in Le Monde while stressing his opposition to the death penalty. Socialist Ségolène Royal who expressed her "disgust" at the execution said, "I am opposed to the death penalty even for an abominable dictator."

In Berlin, Chancellor Merkel said that her country "respects" Saddam's conviction, but added her voice to the protest against the use of the death penalty. "On a day like this, my thoughts are above all with Saddam Hussein's many innocent victims and my wish for the Iraqi people is that they can follow a path in peace and without violence," Merkel added.

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said that "Italy is against the death penalty and so even in such a dramatic case as Saddam Hussein, we still think that the death penalty must not be put into action."

Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman said, "A capital punishment is always tragic news, a reason for sadness, even if it deals with a person who was guilty of grave crimes." "The killing of the guilty party is not the way to reconstruct justice and reconcile society. On the contrary, there is a risk that it will feed a spirit of vendetta and sow new violence. In these dark times for the Iraqi people, one can only hope that all responsible parties truly make every effort so that glimmers of reconciliation and peace can be found in such a dramatic situation," he added.

Execution "barbaric" - Dutch Deputy Prime Minister

Dutch Deputy Prime Minister Gerrit Zalm called the execution "barbaric" and said in a radio interview that he would have preferred to see Saddam imprisoned for life.

Rev. Jesse Jackson said that the US was complicit in the trial and execution of Saddam by the Iraqis ``because we held him in our custody, and the government in Iraq today is a government subsidized by the U.S.'' ``We encouraged his being hung,'' Jackson said. "He is now a trophy of a war that had nothing to do with 9/11. The number of deaths are increasing. The violence is expanding. Our moral authority is eroding.'' ``Killing him intensifies the violence, reduces our moral authority in the world,'' said Jackson, who has traveled to the Middle East on peace missions. ``Today we are not more secure. We're less secure. We've missed a moment to appeal to those in Iraq to break the cycle of violence.''

Democrat Senator John Kerry, who lost to President Bush in 2004 elections , said that executing Hussein was hardly worth the cost. "To go to war to kill one guy ? Please," said Kerry. He added that the execution was "almost a sideshow to the fundamental dilemma and quandary of Iraq." "What will not be resolved by his death is the political resolution that is critical to changing the direction and dynamic of the country," he added. "Those stakes remain fundamentally the same."

George Galloway, anti-war British MP said that "He has been killed, but I believe he will be more dangerous to the forces of the occupiers and their allies after his death than when he was alive. I believe a wave of attacks will be carried out against those allied with the occupation."

Russian reaction;

Russia's President Vladimir Putin, regretted that international concerns about the execution were ignored. Mikhail Kamynin Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said that "Regrettably, the numerous appeals to the Iraqi authorities by representatives of various states and international organizations to refrain from capital punishment have been left unheeded. "We are convinced that in this situation, the political consequences of this step also have to be taken into account, all the more so because the issue of the former president's fate is a very sensitive one for Iraqi society."

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said that he didn't believe Saddam's execution would solve Iraq's problems, saying that the country needed to shape its own destiny: "I don't know whether the sentence of Saddam Hussein was a sentence or whether it was vengeance."

South Africa called for U.N. intervention in Iraq. "South Africa remains convinced that his execution is not the panacea to the current political problems in Iraq but could fuel violence in an already volatile situation," said Foreign Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa.

Arab and Muslim Reaction and Comments;

For Sunnis across Iraq and the Middle East Saddam Hussein , who stood up to American hegemony and saved the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia from the rising Iran's Shia menace after 1979 has become great martyr. "Saddam Hussein is the greatest martyr of the century," said a student in Amman .A 50 year-old man in Baghdad said "the Americans and Iranians meant to insult all Arabs by this execution."

Iraq's main Sunni clerics' group the Muslim Scholars' Association , blamed USA and issued a statement that "The execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in the manner it took place was carried out at the behest of the occupier and some of its allies in and outside" Saddam's hanging was "a purely political act," and the fact that it happened while Iraq's Sunnis were marking the first day of Eid al-Adha, or feast of sacrifice, shows "the grudges (they harbour) and their quest to provoke".

The execution was also denounced in neighbouring Jordan , with a pro-US regime .Around 800,000 Iraqis , mostly Sunnis have taken shelter there. Jordan's majority population is of Palestine origin , who regard Saddam as hero for supporting their cause .

Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood joined several political parties and professional unions at a protest rally in Amman where Raghad, Saddam Hussein's daughter, made a brief appearance. She thanked the people for remembering her father, "the martyr." The Minister of Political Development attended this rally, but the government disowned his presence. Many speakers at the rally vehemently condemned Iran, blaming "the Safavid magi" for the "assassination of Saddam." They shouted slogans condemning Iran, Israel and the United States.

Al-Hayat says that the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood, a major opposition party and once allied with Iran, has demanded that the Iranian embassy in Amman be closed. The Brotherhood blamed Iran and the US for the execution .This demand is "an index of the depth of the political changes in the Arab world." In 1990 when Iran reopened its mission in Amman, its diplomats spent so much time with the Brotherhood deputies in the Parliament that the Crown Prince joked that Tehran thought it was accredited to the Assembly and not to the Hashemite Palace.

Raghad was granted political asylum in Amman after the invasion, from where she organized legal defence of her father. Saddam's lawyers in Amman complained that no member of the defence team was allowed to attend the execution. "We denounce the climate of hatred and political vengeance that surrounded the execution," said a statement from the Amman-based team. "The execution ... on the first day of Al-Adha shows contempt for Arab and Muslim feelings."

"No defence representative was informed of the time of execution or invited to attend despite the fact a member of our committee was in the Green Zone," in Baghdad, where the Iraqi government and the US embassy are housed.

Libyan state media described Saddam Hussein as a "prisoner of war" and declared three days of national mourning over his execution. Qaddafi had said that constitutionally elected Saddam Hussein was still the President of Iraq.

Lawmakers and members of the militant Palestinian group, Hamas, condemned the execution .One member called it "a political assassination" that "violated international laws".

Saudi Arabia , home of Islam with Mecca and Medina was critical of the execution. Its official al-Ikhbariya television station declared: "There is a feeling of surprise and disapproval that the verdict has been applied during the holy months and the first days of Eid al-Adha. Leaders of Islamic countries should show respect for this blessed occasion ... not demean it."

Egypt's Foreign Ministry stated that Iraqi authorities hung Saddam "without considering the Muslims' feelings or respecting the sanctity of this day that represents an occasion for forgiveness and absolution," according to the official news agency, MENA.

Afghanistan;

In Kabul President Hamid Karzai criticized the timing of the execution, but said that it was "the work of the Iraqi government." "We wish to say that Eid is a day for happiness and reconciliation. It is not a day for revenge," Karzai told reporters after offering Eid prayers .

Pakistan;

US ally Pakistan in a brief statement from the Foreign Ministry said "The execution ... which can only be described as a sad event, is another poignant reminder of the violence that continues to grip Iraq," the statement said. "We hope that this event would not further exacerbate the security situation." There were protests against the execution in Pakistan.

Liaquat Baluch off MMA religious alliance in Pakistan said "We have no sympathy with Saddam Hussein, but we will also say that he did not get justice. The execution of Saddam Hussein will further destabilize Iraq. There will be more sectarian violence in Iraq, and we believe that the execution of Saddam Hussein is part of the American plan to disintegrate Iraq."

Indonesia;

In Jakarta , the government of the world's largest Muslim nation, Indonesia, hoped that Saddam's execution "will not further separate conflicting parties in the effort toward a national reconciliation, which is a precondition in recovering Iraqi sovereignty."

But Fauzan Al Anshori, from the militant group of Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia, said Bush, too, should stand trial. "Given the crime blamed on Saddam, it is unfair if George Bush is not also put on an international tribunal," he said. "Saddam was executed for killings 148 people, Shiite Muslims, while Bush is responsible for the killing of about 600,000 Iraqis since the March 2003 invasion."

Malaysia ;

Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said that "The international community is not in favor of the hanging and questions the due process that took place." "We are surprised that they went ahead notwithstanding. I think there will be repercussions. "The only thing is we hope they will be able to contain this. Because the conflict is not going to end. This is not the answer." He added.

Conclusion;

Given the momentous nature of the execution, the ugly event itself was almost an anticlimax. It was not Saddam Hussein who was diminished but the architects of his demise.

Beyond the spectre of Saddam's hanging lies the flawed evangelism of the invaders who sought to remove him. They have succeeded, but few tombstones have been more dearly bought. Over 3000 GIs have been killed .As one more bloody dawn broke over Baghdad, Saddam's last post and requiem were the echo of bullets and the laments of the bereaved.

As for ' Operation Iraqi Freedom' said Riverbend; blogs from Baghdad , "There's no way to describe the loss we've experienced with this war and occupation. There is no compensation for the dense, black cloud of fear that hangs over the head of every Iraqi. Fear of the Americans in their tanks, fear of the police patrols in the black bandanas, fear of the Iraqi soldiers wearing their black masks at the checkpoints ."

The hanging has not only further ignited the Shia-Sunni violence , but it will also spread into and suck in neighbouring states in the region .All have mixed ethnic and sectional populations including Iran. The fire will engulf the region , perhaps the objective of Bush regime ,wittingly or otherwise.

No wonder Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), incoming Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the Bush administration was trying to postpone disaster so the next president will "be the guy landing helicopters inside the Green Zone, taking people off the roof," in a chaotic withdrawal reminiscent of Vietnam.

"I have reached the tentative conclusion that a significant portion of this administration, maybe even including the vice president, believes Iraq is lost," Biden said. "They have no answer to deal with how badly they have screwed it up. I am not being facetious now. Therefore, the best thing to do is keep it from totally collapsing on your watch and hand it off to the next guy - literally, not figuratively."


K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies. Copy right with the author. E-mail at Gajendrak@hotmail.com