saddam to be handed over

[crosspatrick]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1035597.htm

[marksimons]

"The Governing Council has started setting up the special court and we have spent some funds on that and he (Saddam) will be tried publicly after bringing charges of mass killing and invading neighbouring countries against him."

this will be interesting.

I have my worries that the US appointed council will want a show trial and not investigate those who helped saddam.

I have a feeling that Iraqi's have a sense of justice, they all know who helped saddam, they all know the hypocracy of western politicians, so hopefully in a trial in their country they will let the real story of their nation be told.

I wonder, does bush actually know about all the links to saddam in the past, from people in his administration, how much is he in the dark, and how much is he complicit...

this is a good move, but we'll have to wait for the trail to see if it really is a fair one.

[mr mahs]

Originally posted by marksimons

"The Governing Council has started setting up the special court and we have spent some funds on that and he (Saddam) will be tried publicly after bringing charges of mass killing and invading neighbouring countries against him."

this will be interesting.

I have my worries that the US appointed council will want a show trial and not investigate those who helped saddam.

I have a feeling that Iraqi's have a sense of justice, they all know who helped saddam, they all know the hypocracy of western politicians, so hopefully in a trial in their country they will let the real story of their nation be told.

I wonder, does bush actually know about all the links to saddam in the past, from people in his administration, how much is he in the dark, and how much is he complicit...

this is a good move, but we'll have to wait for the trail to see if it really is a fair one.

Do you think we knew he was going to gas his own people?

[marksimons]

perhaps.

not you.

but people very high up in government.

I would make the same argument with hitler

Exxon (then standard oil) worked very closely with IG Farben, who were the major key industrial chemical player, who built Auswitzch and other concentration camps.

American business links with this pillar of Nazi germany continued right up to and into the second world war, remember America didn't enter the war, with full senate approval, until December 8th 1941.

did american businesses who worked with IG Farben and other business in the Nazi regime, should they have been tried as at least part way responsible or culpable for the holocaust?

by the end of the 1950s less than 200 people had been tried and convicted for the murder of the jews and general war crimes and nazism in germany.

no member of the board of IG Farben got more than 10 years, looking at the names no non-germans appeared to be on trial.

I don't believe justice was done after the first world war, not by a long shot, for the war crimes of britain as well.

when it comes to saddam...

I believe that the US govt helped saddam use his gas militarily against iran, perhaps with satellite photographs.

this article is a very interesting one on the matter.

Five years before Saddam Hussein?s now infamous 1988 gassing of the Kurds, a key meeting took place in Baghdad that would play a significant role in forging close ties between Saddam Hussein and Washington. It happened at a time when Saddam was first alleged to have used chemical weapons. The meeting in late December 1983 paved the way for an official restoration of relations between Iraq and the US, which had been severed since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

With the Iran-Iraq war escalating, President Ronald Reagan dispatched his Middle East envoy, a former secretary of defense, to Baghdad with a hand-written letter to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and a message that Washington was willing at any moment to resume diplomatic relations.

That envoy was Donald Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld?s December 19-20, 1983 visit to Baghdad made him the highest-ranking US official to visit Iraq in 6 years. He met Saddam and the two discussed ?topics of mutual interest,? according to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. ?[saddam] made it clear that Iraq was not interested in making mischief in the world,? Rumsfeld later told The New York Times. ?It struck us as useful to have a relationship, given that we were interested in solving the Mideast problems.?

Just 12 days after the meeting, on January 1, 1984, The Washington Post reported that the United States ?in a shift in policy, has informed friendly Persian Gulf nations that the defeat of Iraq in the 3-year-old war with Iran would be ?contrary to U.S. interests? and has made several moves to prevent that result.?

In March of 1984, with the Iran-Iraq war growing more brutal by the day, Rumsfeld was back in Baghdad for meetings with then-Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. On the day of his visit, March 24th, UPI reported from the United Nations: ?Mustard gas laced with a nerve agent has been used on Iranian soldiers in the 43-month Persian Gulf War between Iran and Iraq, a team of U.N. experts has concluded... Meanwhile, in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, U.S. presidential envoy Donald Rumsfeld held talks with Foreign Minister Tarek Aziz (sic) on the Gulf war before leaving for an unspecified destination.?

The day before, the Iranian news agency alleged that Iraq launched another chemical weapons assault on the southern battlefront, injuring 600 Iranian soldiers. ?Chemical weapons in the form of aerial bombs have been used in the areas inspected in Iran by the specialists,? the U.N. report said. ?The types of chemical agents used were bis-(2-chlorethyl)-sulfide, also known as mustard gas, and ethyl N, N-dimethylphosphoroamidocyanidate, a nerve agent known as Tabun.?

Prior to the release of the UN report, the US State Department on March 5th had issued a statement saying ?available evidence indicates that Iraq has used lethal chemical weapons.?

Commenting on the UN report, US Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick was quoted by The New York Times as saying, ?We think that the use of chemical weapons is a very serious matter. We've made that clear in general and particular.?

Compared with the rhetoric emanating from the current administration, based on speculations about what Saddam might have, Kirkpatrick?s reaction was hardly a call to action.

Most glaring is that Donald Rumsfeld was in Iraq as the 1984 UN report was issued and said nothing about the allegations of chemical weapons use, despite State Department ?evidence.? On the contrary, The New York Times reported from Baghdad on March 29, 1984, ?American diplomats pronounce themselves satisfied with relations between Iraq and the United States and suggest that normal diplomatic ties have been restored in all but name.?

A month and a half later, in May 1984, Donald Rumsfeld resigned. In November of that year, full diplomatic relations between Iraq and the US were fully restored. Two years later, in an article about Rumsfeld?s aspirations to run for the 1988 Republican Presidential nomination, the Chicago Tribune Magazine listed among Rumsfeld?s achievements helping to ?reopen U.S. relations with Iraq.? The Tribune failed to mention that this help came at a time when, according to the US State Department, Iraq was actively using chemical weapons.

Throughout the period that Rumsfeld was Reagan?s Middle East envoy, Iraq was frantically purchasing hardware from American firms, empowered by the White House to sell. The buying frenzy began immediately after Iraq was removed from the list of alleged sponsors of terrorism in 1982. According to a February 13, 1991 Los Angeles Times article:

?First on Hussein's shopping list was helicopters -- he bought 60 Hughes helicopters and trainers with little notice. However, a second order of 10 twin-engine Bell "Huey" helicopters, like those used to carry combat troops in Vietnam, prompted congressional opposition in August, 1983... Nonetheless, the sale was approved.?

In 1984, according to The LA Times, the State Department?in the name of ?increased American penetration of the extremely competitive civilian aircraft market??pushed through the sale of 45 Bell 214ST helicopters to Iraq. The helicopters, worth some $200 million, were originally designed for military purposes. The New York Times later reported that Saddam ?transferred many, if not all [of these helicopters] to his military.?

In 1988, Saddam?s forces attacked Kurdish civilians with poisonous gas from Iraqi helicopters and planes. U.S. intelligence sources told The LA Times in 1991, they ?believe that the American-built helicopters were among those dropping the deadly bombs.?

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0802-01.htm