Before Hanging, a Push for Revenge and a Push Back (NYT)

[kurth]

Before Hanging, a Push for Revenge and a Push Back
By JOHN F. BURNS

BAGHDAD, Jan. 6 — When American soldiers woke Saddam Hussein in his cell near Baghdad airport at 3:55 a.m. last Saturday, they told him to dress for a journey to Baghdad. He had followed the routine dozens of times before, traveling by helicopter in the predawn darkness to the courtroom where he spent 14 months on trial for his life... After being told that he was being transferred to Iraqi custody, a task force statement e-mailed to The New York Times a week later revealed, “he immediately indicated that he knew the execution would soon follow.” “As he left the detention area, he thanked the guards and medics for the treatment he had received,” said Lt. Col. Keir-Kevin Curry, spokesman for the task force... The time as the helicopter took off was 5:05 a.m., and Mr. Hussein had 65 minutes to live. But as he flew over Baghdad’s darkened suburbs, he can have known little of the last-minute battle waged between top Iraqi and American officials — and among the Americans themselves — over whether the execution, fraught with legal ambiguities and Islamic religious sensitivities, should go ahead...

More at link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/world/middleeast/07ticktock.html
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[Canadian_NewDemocrat]

1. aye

very interesting article...

[rebel with a cause]

2. Reading the article, I came upon an interest item.

"In a speech on Saturday, a week after the hanging, Mr. Maliki showed that he remains as angry as the Americans. Hitting out at governments and human rights organizations around the world that have condemned the hanging, he said they were hypocritical. “We’re wondering where these organizations were during the crimes of Anfal and Halabja,” he said, referring to Mr. Hussein’s persecution of Iraqi Kurds. “Where were they during the mass graves and the executions and the massacres that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/world/middleeast/07ticktock.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

Perhaps a better question for Mr. Maliki to ask is where were cheney, rumsfield and bush the first when "the crimes of Anfal and Halabja" were taking place. “Where were they during the mass graves and the executions and the massacres that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis?”

[Kagemusha]

3. They were keeping their mouths shut until after Kuwait was invaded

That's where.

[spanone]

4. They were running our gov't. and supporting the evil one.