BBC: Saddam aides 'to die this week'

[Eugene]

Last Updated: Sunday, 7 January 2007, 16:05 GMT

Saddam aides 'to die this week'

The Iraqi government has said that the executions of two senior associates
of former leader Saddam Hussein, will take place some time during the week.

This is despite an appeal from the new UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon,
that they should not go ahead.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the execution orders for Barzan
al-Tikriti and Awad al-Bandar had been signed, and there was no way back.

Saddam Hussein's execution has led to a chorus of international criticism.

-snip-

Full article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6239199.stm

[rodeodance]

1. '2nd verse same as the 1st"-----do it again Sam.

[MADem]

3. Sam??? More like SADR....

Sam is in "appease the ugly thug in the black turban" mode. Sam isn't running this show. The unelected Sadr is. This is a revenge game, plain and simple. You have to wonder if these hangings will make them feel the score is evened, or if they'll want more al-Tikriti blood to settle things.

[Say_What]

4. Some say he was the executioner...

got mail from a journalist friend who was looking at an Arabic website that showed photos purporting that the Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr was one of the hooded men (based on the ring on the executioner's hand) on the gallows and put the noose around Saddam's neck. He sent the link to a friend whose wife is Egyptian and reads Arabic and the friend replied:
----------------------
M..... said the story with the Moqtada picture says
there was a deal done to allow him to attend the
execution in exchange for his political cooperation in
the government and for the disbanding of his militia.
It mentions this in connection with the U.S. plans to
add troops. None of this is sourced.

BTW, evidently Al Jazeera Arabic was reporting that
the guards at the execution were infiltrated by
Moqtada's militia -- that's the first time I've heard
anyone name the group involved.

[MADem]

7. Jesus Christ on a bike--at least one of those short, fat bastards in the masks DID

resemble the little thug in shape, weight and height, that's for sure. If that turns out to have any validity, that would really throw a HUGE monkeywrench into Shi'a plans to expand their crescent across Iraq and a chunk of Syria to Lebanon. It would galvanize every Sunni from Egypt to the Iranian border, AND those on the other side of Iran in southwest Asia. DAMN....!

Of course, even if he, personally was not there, there were elements of his Mahdi bunch attending--I rather doubt that the crowd just started bellowing Muqtada repeatedly by accident. They were doing it to try to psych Saddam out in the last moments of his life. I will say one thing for the sumbitch Sadda,, he may have been a dastardly bastard and a cruel dictator in his life, but he went to his death with more dignity than all the people in the room seemed able to muster.

[VegasWolf]

2. Bush likey those Iraqi snuff videos for jacking off! Gimme more! nt

[54anickel]

5. Is Maliki making some sort of veiled threat? What's he mean by "review relations"?

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has reacted angrily to the international outcry over the execution.

He said his government could review relations with any country that criticised the action.

[MADem]

9. Well, he'd be threatening the entire Sunni Arab, and Southwest Asian, worlds

...to say nothing of us. al-Maliki though, in that quote, sounds rather like he's al-Sadr's puppet. But that's not really surprising, I guess...

[LynnTheDem]

6. The irony is astounding; Saddam executed...for signing execution orders.

The new Iraqi puppet government should bear in mind what happened to the last Iraqi puppet government who signed death penalty warrants ordered by the Iraqi court...

[MADem]

8. Lynn, there is a bit in the Koran that says something like this

Any Muslim who intentionally kills another Muslim shall be put to death....

When the Revolutionary Guard in Iran were hanging and shooting members of the Shah's regime, and those who they THOUGHT were members of the Shah's regime,left and right, they'd slap up a banner with that little saying on it.

I always was amazed that they'd be hanging and gunning, with that on plain display, and not see the irony of it all.

[struggle4progress]

10. Well,that's just what Iraq needs: more dead bodies.

People who have become depressed -- at the number of deaths from water-borne diseases and lack of medical care, from inadequate diets or foods spoiled by lack of refrigeration due to erratic electric supplies, from crime, from exposure on the road as refugees, from American bomb injuries and suicide bomb injuries, from misunderstandings at checkpoints, from stray bullets that flew while others fought, from death squads thugs who first drilled out eyes, from abuse in prison, or from any of a hundred other causes -- can now sigh brightly and happily as the new Iraq brings -- corpses dangling from gallows.