Reasons For The Hasty Execution of Saddam Hussein
Peter Dyer has a fascinating article in today's Consortium News. He argues that the accelerated execution of Saddam Hussein was intended to prevent his further trial for the gas attacks on Kurdish Iraqi's. The White House was nervous about American invovlement in the 'making' of Saddam Hussein and further court enquiries were getting too close to home for senior American politicos:
"Now that Saddam Hussein has been executed for the 1982 massacre at Dujail, the trial for a larger-scale slaughter involving poison gas in 1988 has all but disappeared from public view.
With Saddam’s death the opportunity for a full account of the tens of thousands of deaths in the so-called Anfal case appears to be lost, along with the opportunity for a frank public discussion of its historical context.
Such a discussion inevitably would have led to how Saddam Hussein’s development of dangerous weapons was enabled by Western powers, including the United States. Between 1985 and 1990, the Reagan and Bush I administrations facilitated Saddam Hussein’s massive and ambitious military industrialization effort.
Billions of dollars of financial assistance and sophisticated technology flowed from the United States to Iraq. The Reagan and Bush I administrations were aware that Saddam Hussein was using this aid to research, develop and/or manufacture chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Consortium News
"Now that Saddam Hussein has been executed for the 1982 massacre at Dujail, the trial for a larger-scale slaughter involving poison gas in 1988 has all but disappeared from public view.
With Saddam’s death the opportunity for a full account of the tens of thousands of deaths in the so-called Anfal case appears to be lost, along with the opportunity for a frank public discussion of its historical context.
Such a discussion inevitably would have led to how Saddam Hussein’s development of dangerous weapons was enabled by Western powers, including the United States. Between 1985 and 1990, the Reagan and Bush I administrations facilitated Saddam Hussein’s massive and ambitious military industrialization effort.
Billions of dollars of financial assistance and sophisticated technology flowed from the United States to Iraq. The Reagan and Bush I administrations were aware that Saddam Hussein was using this aid to research, develop and/or manufacture chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Consortium News
Dawg, when Saddam was first captured I predicted that he would be executed for something comparatively minor, before he could stand trial for anything relating to his acquisition of chemical weapons technology in a deal brokered by Donald Rumsfeld when he worked in the Reagan administration.
Posted by
TomCat |
12:33 pm, February 28, 2007
And let's not even discuss the fact that he was trained by the CIA... I'm sure we wouldn't want that fact slipping out...
E
Posted by
Women on the Verge |
4:41 pm, February 28, 2007
...nor that what they got in return for that training was the data on the effects of the chemical weapons on the Iranian troops upon whom they were used.
Posted by
TomCat |
1:05 pm, March 01, 2007