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U.S. Wants Saddam, But Dead - Not Alive
In 1987, Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy led me by the
hand through the ruins of his Tripoli residence, showing me the
bedroom where American 2,000-lb bombs, launched in an attempt to
assassinate him, had killed his 2-year-old daughter. The bombing of a
Pan Am airliner filled with Americans two years later may have been
revenge for this attack. Murder breeds murder.
Now, the latest irksome Arab leader is in Washington's gun sights.
Time seems to be running out for Iraq's fugitive former president,
Saddam Hussein.
Chances are Saddam, like his sons, will be killed in a Bonnie and
Clyde-style shootout. He is unlikely to be captured, unless
incapacitated.
The Bush administration will be delighted not to put Saddam on public
trial. Dead dictators tell no tales.
The White House would much prefer to display a bullet-riddled Saddam
as a trophy to divert mounting criticism over U.S. casualties in Iraq
and the litany of falsehoods it used to drive America to war.
If put on public trial, Saddam would have a field day revealing the
embarrassing alliance between his brutal regime and Washington:
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The CIA's role in bringing the Ba'ath Party to
power in a 1958 coup, opening the way for Saddam to take control.
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U.S., Israeli, and Iranian destabilization of Iraq
during the 1970s by fueling Kurdish rebellion.
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Washington's egging on the aggressive shah of Iran
in the Shatt al-Arab waterway dispute, a primary cause of the
Iran-Iraq War.
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The U.S. secretly urging Iraq to invade Iran in
1980 to overthrow that nation's revolutionary Islamic government.
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Covert supply of Saddam's war machine by the U.S.
and Britain during the eight-year Iran-Iraq conflict, plus
biological warfare programs and germ feeder stocks, poison gas
manufacturing plants and raw materials.
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Billions in aid, routed through the U.S. Department
of Agriculture, Italy's Banco del Lavoro and the shadowy BCCI.
Heavy artillery, munitions, spare parts, trucks, field hospitals
and electronics.
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Equally important, the U.S. Defence Intelligence
Agency and CIA operated offices in Baghdad that provided Iraq with
satellite intelligence data on Iranian troop deployments that
proved decisive in the war's titanic battles at Basra, Majnoon and
Faw.
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The murky role played by Washington just before
Iraq's 1991 invasion of Kuwait. The U.S. ambassador told Saddam
"The U.S. takes no position in Arab border disputes."
Was this a trap to lure Saddam to invade Kuwait, then crush his
army, or simple diplomatic bungling? Saddam could supply the
awkward answers.
Military and Financial Aid
In short, Saddam was one of America's closet Mideast allies during
the 1980s, a major recipient of U.S. military and financial aid.
Saddam's killing of large numbers of Kurds and Shia rebels
occurred while he was a key U.S. ally. Washington remained mute at
the time. After George Bush Sr. called on the Kurds and Shia
Muslims to revolt in 1991, the U.S. watched impassively as Saddam
slaughtered the poorly armed rebels.
Better a bullet-riddled Saddam, or one executed by a military
kangaroo court in Guantanamo, or hanged by the new,
American-installed Iraqi regime in Baghdad.
Saddam should be handed over by the U.S. to the UN War Crimes
Tribunal in The Hague that is trying Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic
and other accused Balkan war criminals. After all, it was
Washington that engineered Milosevic's delivery to The Hague, an
act for which the U.S. deserves high praise. What applies to
Milosevic applies equally to Saddam Hussein.
In fact, it would be better for the Iraqi leader to stand trial at
the newly constituted International War Crimes Tribunal in The
Hague. But the Bush administration, in one of its most shameful
acts, has refused to join this tribunal or co-operate with it.
Should Saddam be gunned down, like his two sons, there will be
glee among many Americans and rejoicing in the White House. But
Saddam Hussein is not John Dillinger or a prize elk. However
odious, he was the leader of a sovereign nation and a government
recognized by the U.S.
Killing foreign heads of state violates international law and the
directives made by three American presidents. Dropping 2,000-lb
bombs on sites where Saddam was believed to be is called attacking
"leadership targets" in the new Orwellian Pentagonspeak,
but it's still old-fashioned murder from the air. Gunning down
Saddam will also be murder, or, to use a more polite term,
assassination.
America, the world's greatest democracy, has no business murdering
foreign leaders. Such behaviour is criminal, immoral, undemocratic
and reeks of the law of the jungle. Past U.S. attempts to murder
foreign leaders have proved self-defeating.
Last week, Task Force 20, a trigger-happy U.S. military hit squad
hunting Saddam, killed as many as 11 innocent Iraqi civilians in a
botched Baghdad raid. This is an outrage worthy of Saddam's former
secret police.
George Bush may yearn to drape the body of Saddam over his Jeep
and show it off to the folks around Crawford, Texas, but he should
be forcefully reminded that the president represents the laws of
the land.
Bad enough the White House waged a totally unnecessary,
unprovoked, undeclared war on Iraq based on spurious charges.
This egregious offence should not be compounded by cold-blooded
murder, no matter how odious the intended victim.
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