During trial, Hussein may try to implicate Western leaders

[Barrett808]

During trial, Hussein may try to implicate Western leaders
U.S. and other nations that supported him in past could be vulnerable
By Mark Matthews
Sun National Staff
Originally published December 17, 2003

WASHINGTON - The trials of Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi leaders could produce embarrassing reminders of past American support for his government and of the West's failure to punish him despite mounting evidence of Iraqi atrocities.

Lawyers familiar with war crimes trials say attorneys for Hussein and his aides might try to introduce damaging evidence against Western leaders as a pressure tactic against their accusers or to shift responsibility away from the dictator's actions.

The tactic is unlikely to work in his favor, they said, because Hussein's defense team would have a hard time persuading a tribunal that such evidence is relevant in judging whether he was responsible for war crimes, genocide or human rights abuses, the charges likely to be leveled against him.

Nevertheless, the prospect that he will try to implicate other nations presents a powerful reason for the United States not to appear to be orchestrating the trial, said Diane Orentlicher, an international justice specialist at American University's Washington College of Law.

"It underscores the importance that this not be seen as an American stage-managed process," Orentlicher said. "It's in the interests of both Iraqis and the United States to invite international participation."

The public record is replete with instances of high-ranking American policy-makers adopting a soft line toward Hussein, viewing him as the lesser of evils they were confronting at the time.

(more)

http://www.sunspot.net/news/printedition/bal-te.trial17dec17,0,4578574.story?coll=bal-pe-asection

[ret5hd]

1. that's why he will be "Ruby'ed" (nt)

[caledesi]

16. Exactly...there will never be a trial. eom

[Triana]

2. i hope he does...

...because Rummy, RayGun and Poppy were SH's biggest supporters and allies. Here's hoping that SH's "capture" (as it were) is a thorn in the side of the neo-cons...karma comes home, so to speak.

[monobrau]

6. I do, but...

You would think that the trial of Noriega would have shown a harsh light on past misdeeds, but it didn't register a blip on the cultural radar. Maybe apples and oranges, but "amuricans" are pretty blind to anything remotely introspective or critical of our actions.

[Triana]

9. true...they turn a blind eye to the faults of their own...(n/t)

[nolabels]

18. Somewhere in this link is how they covered up Noriega (I think)

The differance of now as opposed to then is much better access to sources and the internet.


The Constantine Report
The CIA Terrorist Organization
The webpage that Yahoo refuses to list

Italian version
http://alexconstantine.50megs.com/

[Hobarticus]

3. DO IT!!!

Run 'em up the flagpole!

Call Rummy, Gipper and George Sr. as material witnesses!

[underpants]

4. Halabja? Woosley ? (he is everywhere these days)

I certianly don't want to defend Saddam but Halabja (according to the liberal bastion that is the Army War College) was probably gassed by both sides but it was the Iranians gas that killed the people there.

There should be plenty of other sick crimes he committed or authorized anyway. I really don't think he is going anywhere.

Woosley is all over the place in the media. He must have been appointed the PNAC frontman.

[prolesunited]

5. Given this is the case

Why was he taken alive? I still haven't been able to figure out why they allowed that to happen. I'm sure he has lots of stories that will hurt them.

[David__77]

8. It might not have been planned that way.

They maybe wanted him dead, but a unit captured him alive, thwarting the game plan.

[Tims]

14. No resistance

I think if there had been any resistance at all they would have leveled the place and dropped grenades down the hole where Sadam was hiding. I think they expected resistance and I'm sure they informed the military to meet any resistance with overwhelming force, but I think it was too risky to simply say "kill him". There was absolutely no reason Sadam's son's couldn't have been taken alive, we could have laid siege and waited it out. How much information could have been gleaned from taking them alive? Would we have been able to find Sadam sooner? But they didn't want to be directed to where Sadam was. They either wanted him to slip away (and disappear from the public's conscience like Ben Laden) or to go down in blazing gunfire. By not putting up a fight, he presented them a real problem. Too many people would have been involved to have just gone ahead and killed him and then to have tried to create a successful cover up.

Now they are faced with the problem of how to keep him quite and keep him out of the international courts. Their best bet is to have their puppet Iraqi government in Bagdad bring him quickly to trial. They must do everything possible to make it look like the US is simply an impartial observer in the trial, but they must also do all they can to keep everyone else out and that includes Iran and the Saudi's who are anxious to bring charges against him.

What I see is a court being set up and orchestrated behind the scenes by the US. Sadam will not be allowed witnesses in his defence and there will simply be a parade of coached witnesses sighting every atrocity, real and imagined, ever brought up against him with enough photographs, sobbing women and maimed children to fill the nightly news. There will be much publicity in order to back up Bush's rationalizations to justify the war as a war against evil. Sadam will appear visibly broken during the proceedings and later simply be found dead of and apparent suicide in his cell before any defence can be mounted in court.

The big question is how to get this process going quickly, but not so quickly that it could loose impact on the November elections.

[hippiechick]

17. Same strategy he used when the Army bulldozed Baghdad

last spring .... no resistance means he has nothing to hide, he's defenseless, ergo possibly 'innocent' <wtf?> ... setting us up for the overstep & making us look like the aggressive bad guy in the eyes of the world.

And he probably really missed the comforts of the palace. :shrug:


:hippie:

[Gloria]

7. Here's a handy rundown of Rumsfeld's activities with Saddam...

Repeated on another thread on the same topic and in the WMW today...I think I'll break this out so more people have a chance to get the info...

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EL17Ak01.html

Rumsfeld and his 'old friend' Saddam
By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - At last in United States military captivity, ousted former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein will soon mark an important 20th anniversary, the kind of anniversary that brings with it an appreciation of the ironies of life, and politics.

His captor, Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, might also recall long-forgotten memories - or memories best forgotten - of what he was doing exactly 20 years ago.

If so, he will remember that he was in Baghdad, as a special envoy from then-president Ronald Reagan, assuring his host that, to quote the secret National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) that served as his talking points: the US would regard "any major reversal of Iraq's fortunes as a strategic defeat for the West".

So began the effective resumption of close relations between Baghdad and Washington that had been cut off by Iraq during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Within a year, Washington would fully normalize ties with Saddam, and even suggest that the dictator had become a full-fledged "Arab moderate", ready to make peace with Israel.

MORE


A very handy scorecard to keep around

[Barrett808]

24. Good, but barely scratches the surface. Woolsey is disingenuous...

...when he says:

"Was it inconsistent to have worked with Stalin during World War II and then to oppose him during the Cold War? So what? That's statecraft."

"Consistency" is not the issue; criminal complicity with war crimes and crimes against humanity is the issue. That is not "statecraft" -- or it shouldn't be.

In a massive covert undertaking, the West violated its own arms export laws to proliferate weapons of mass destruction to one of its most brutal client states. In doing so, Western nations aided and abetted unthinkably vicious crimes. Now, the very same political players condemn those crimes that they formerly condoned, in a transparent ploy to divert attention from the fact that they, too, should be in the dock with Saddam.

[Drifter]

10. You can expect ...

Reagan to keel over the minute SH starts talking about how he got involved in the WMD business. Not saying he had WMD, but you know that Reagan, and his thugs certainly made it much more possible.

Cheers
Drifter

[nolabels]

11. Doesn't Saddam have diplomatic immunity from the CIA

http://www.ddh.nl/pipermail/wereldcrisis/2002-October/003148.html

Regime Change: How the CIA put Saddam's Party in Power, 1963
(snip)
During Helms' tenure as director of the CIA under President Johnson, he
also oversaw the "secret war" against Laos. But, it was no secret for the
people of Laos. Over two million tons of bombs were dropped on this small
country. The word "Laos" is not mentioned in any of the 98 recent
corporate media articles found by google in a search for Richard
Helms. Tio much of the world, it's still a "secret war."

Another very good example of a CIA-organized "regime change" was a coup in
1963 that employed political assassination, mass imprisonment, torture and
murder. This was the military coup that first brought Saddam Hussein's
beloved Ba'ath Party to power in Iraq. At the time, Richard Helms was
Director for Plans at the CIA. That is the top CIA position responsible for
covert actions, like organizing coups. Helms served in that capacity until
1966, when he was made Director.

In the quotations collected below, the name of the leader who was
assassinated is spelled variously as Qasim, Qassim and Kassem. But,
however you spell his name, when he took power in a popularly-backed coup
in 1958, he certainly got recognized in Washington. He carried out such
anti-American and anti-corporatist policies as starting the process of
nationalizing foreign oil companies in Iraq, withdrawing Iraq from the
US-initiated right-wing Baghdad Pact (which included another military-run,
US-puppet state, i.e., Pakistan) and decriminalizing the Iraqi Communist
Party. Despite these actions, and more likely because of them, he was
Iraq's most popular leader. He had to go!

In 1959, there was a failed assassination attempt on Qasim. The failed
assassin was none other than a young Saddam Hussein. In 1963, a
CIA-organized coup did successfully assassinate Qasim and Saddam's Ba'ath
Party came to power for the first time. Saddam returned from exile in
Egypt and took up the key post as head of Iraq's secret service. The CIA
then provided the new pliant, Iraqi regime with the names of thousands of
communists, and other leftist activists and organizers. Thousands of these
supporters of Qasim and his policies were soon dead in a rampage of mass
murder carried out by the CIA's close friends in Iraq.
(snip)

[NNN0LHI]

12. :..

Gaff: "You've done a man's job, sir! I guess you are through?"

Deckard: "Finished."

Gaff: "It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?"

- Blade Runner -

Saddam won't live to tell no tales. Take that to the bank. Don't get your hopes up.

Don

[ProfessorGAC]

19. Yeah. They'll Find A Terminal Illness During His Checkup

What a coincidence!
The Professor

[banana republican]

13. BRING EM ON!!!!

[LizW]

15. Won't they just make the trial secret,

like Milosevic's?

I don't expect the world to ever hear anything incriminating about Bushco from Saddam Hussein.

[grannylib]

20. You're right, I think they will keep it behind closed doors to protect

Shrubbie; just as they did with Milosevic to keep Clark from making gains...

[PATRICK]

21. A powerful incentive to delay the trial

Since they claimn publicly to want a quick trail they in fact will probably drag their feet and let jurisdictions squabble until George II is safely enthroned again. Same modus operandi as ever.

Maybe they will drag Hussein to NYC for a ticker tape triumph campaign with a pundit holding the laurel over W's head whispering "Remember, George, you weren't elected."

[tom_paine]

22. The trial will not be public

"National Security" you know.

"'National Security'...the age old cry of the oppressor."
--Captain Jean-Luc Picard, "Star Trek: TNG

[Undemcided]

23. Good

I hope he spills his guts (so to speak).