Is Iraq in a Civil War?

[Galactus]

We're power hungry. Sellin' soldiers in a human grocery store.

[Mary]

frag said:

No tea for you.

I wouldn't be able to drink it anyway because my hands are tied.

(wow, who knew i could spend an entire morning quoting bad GNR lyrics)

[frag]

as opposed to...good GNR lyrics?

[phil]

Plus ca change, plus c'est pareil ...


Troops fear reprisals will follow Basra raid

Ned Parker


British soldiers in Basra were poised for retaliatory attacks after they raided a police station on Christmas Day, freeing an estimated 127 Iraqis who were allegedly tortured and waiting execution.

Seven gunmen were killed during the British raid and the station, also a symbol of terror in Saddam Hussein’s time, was then blown up.

Major Charlie Burbridge, a military spokesman, said: “We fully expect more attacks on our bases and on Basra stations but that’s nothing out of the ordinary. But this is part of a long-term rehabilitation of the Iraqi police service, to make it more effective and more accountable, and ultimately provide better security for the people of Basra.”

The Iraqi Defence Ministry backed the raid on the serious crimes unit (SCU). A spokesman said that the Interior and Defence ministries had been notified in advance. Major Burbridge also said that Mohammed al-Waeli, the Governor of Basra, had given his approval.

Mr al-Waeli, who once had close ties with the SCU, has backed British troops in recent months. However, Basra’s provincial council criticised the raid. Haider al-Mansouri, a council member who belonged to Iraqi Hezbollah, said: “We are suspending our relations with the British troops in all fields because what happened violates our national sovereignty.” It could not be confirmed whether the council had carried out its threat.

Many Basra citizens were delighted by Britain’s flexing of muscle against the Shia militias that terrorise the city. “My cousin was in that prison and he told me when he got out that the torture there is worse than what it was under Saddam’s time,” said a man who identified himself as Abu Hadi.

Raouf Tuma, another Basra resident, agreed that the SCU was up to no good: “All those who work in that place belonged to main political parties . . . they are biased and serving their parties, not as real police.”

The demolition may signal a strengthening in the position of British forces, who have appeared powerless to tackle rogue commanders.

[Kensterberg]

I just got this in an email, originally from CNN.com, I believe. The shit could be about to really hit the fan in the entire Middle East. We should be extremely wary, and exercise caution and prudence rather than haste and recklessness in our actions in the near future. (i.e. Why be in a hurry to execute Saddam? Keep him in prison instead. It's a worse punishment, and takes away one of the big rallying points for the Baathists within Iraq).

Baathists: 'Grave consequences' if Hussein's hanged
www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/12/27/saddam.baath/index.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The Baath Party, the political movement that
ruled Iraq during the Saddam Hussein era, is warning there will
be "grave consequences" if former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is
executed.

Saying it would hold the United States responsible, a message
appeared on al-basrah.net Tuesday that read: "The Baath and the
resistance are determined to retaliate in all ways and all places
that hurt America and its interests if it commits this crime."

If the execution is carried out, the largely Sunni-Arab Baathists
said they also will retaliate against members of the Iraqi High
Tribunal. (Watch what could happen after Saddam's execution )

And they vowed a complete shut-down of peace negotiations between the
Baathists and coalition forces.

The Baathists have been operating as part of the insurgency against
the U.S. and its allies since Hussein's regime fell in 2003.

Hussein was convicted November 5 in an Iraqi court of crimes against
humanity.

He was sentenced to death by hanging for ordering the killings of 148
people in the predominantly Shiite Muslim city of Dujail in 1982.

The former dictator's execution, upheld by an appellate chamber of
the Iraqi High Tribunal, could be carried out any time over the next
few weeks. (Watch Saddam's sentence be upheld )

The Baathist message went on to call Hussein's execution a "most
dangerous red line" that the Bush administration shouldn't cross.

"The entire world knows that the final decision is in the hands of
the American administration and not the agent government in Baghdad,"
the message said.

The execution "will make later negotiations between the resistance
and the Baathists" and the U.S. "impossible." It would further
embolden and strengthen the resistance, the message warned.

The Baathists also issued a warning to Iran, which is regarded as a
key supporter of Iraq's Shiite-led government.

The Baathists believe that the government and Iran are behind
sectarian killings of Sunni Arabs.

The Baathists are asking Iran's "real leader" -- a reference to
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -- "to be rational and study
this matter and not to spill more Iraqi blood, because our
retaliation will be in the heart of Iran and impact its leadership."

The Baathists also warned that there will be "no safe place" for
Iraqi High Tribunal jurists and those who protect them, calling
them "traitors" and "tools for the occupation."

[rockysigman]

kenholzman said:

(i.e. Why be in a hurry to execute Saddam? Keep him in prison instead. It's a worse punishment, and takes away one of the big rallying points for the Baathists within Iraq).

The problem, though, is that Iraqi law dictates that an execution has to be carried out within 30 days of the final verdict.

Probably an unwise law, but the fact of the matter is, it's on the books. And to the Iraqi government, the most important thing in trying Saddam wasn't necessarily bringing him to justice per se; the most important thing was to show that they had a stable and binding legal system. They can't really just ignore that law and hope that the Iraqi people will recognize the court as legitimate.

[phil]

Qui sème le vent récolte la tempête ...
(you reap what you sow)


Intervention and Exploitation:
US and UK Government International Actions Since 1945

Iraq

www.us-uk-interventions.org/Iraq.html

[phil]

Yes, I saw that Ken...AND I saw Phil's C&P about the Baathist threat/promise to raise 'Holy Hell' if he were executed.
My first thought definitely was that it certainly wouldn't be a bad idea to string Sodom's existence out just a bit longer....

Doc ~ As you can see in Ken's previous post,
it wasn't me who "C&P about the Baathist threat/promise" ...

[Kensterberg]

Apparently Saddam's conviction was not entirely free from controversy in Iraq, and there were still legal questions regarding his trial, conviction, and sentencing. This whole affair stinks, methinks, and does not bode well for the near future stability of Iraq.

From the New York Times at nytimes.com:

January 2, 2007
Iraq Plans Inquiry Into Hussein Execution

By JOHN F. BURNS
BAGHDAD, Jan. 2 — With angry demonstrations spreading across Iraq’s Sunni Arab heartland, the country’s Shiite-led government said today that it had ordered an investigation into the disorderly scenes at the execution of Saddam Hussein, who was mocked and taunted by Shiite witnesses and guards as he stood on the gallows.

Iraqi officials said a three-member committee of the Interior Ministry would investigate scenes that have raised outrage among Mr. Hussein’s Sunni Arab loyalists and widespread consternation elsewhere as video recordings of the execution have been broadcast around the world.

The officials said the government wanted to know how some of those present at the hanging had been allowed to use cellphone cameras to record grainy images of Mr. Hussein as he endured the mockery from a group standing in front of the gallows. But the investigation would also ask why the hanging had been allowed to descend into scenes that some Sunni critics have described as a sectarian lynching, the officials said.

Sami al-Askari, a Shiite member of the Iraqi Parliament who was among those who attended the hanging, said in a telephone interview that the investigation would be thorough and would involve questioning of all those present at the hanging. At the time, officials said the group included about 25 people, including an official party of about 14 nominated by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and others who included five executioners in black balaclavas and bomber jackets and execution block guards.

“The committee will question everyone who was present at the execution to ask what they saw there,” Mr. Askari said. He said the role of those who used their cellphones to record the event would be one focus of the inquiry and the identification of those responsible for the taunts another. He said the worst sectarian taunts appeared to have come from one of the guards, whom he described as a poorly educated man with a thick Arabic accent, and not from the officials who attended the execution.

Controversy over the execution has escalated since it was carried out at dawn on Saturday in an execution chamber in the northern Baghdad district of Khadamiya that was previously used for hundreds of hangings by Mr. Hussein’s military intelligence agency. Anger has centered on the role of Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, in short-circuiting constitutional and legal processes to hasten Mr. Hussein to the gallows on the day when Iraq’s Sunnis were beginning the annual, four-day religious festival known as Id al-Adha.

But consternation at the government’s haste to carry out the death sentence passed on Mr. Hussein in November for crimes against humanity has been compounded among critics of the execution by the manner in which it was carried out. Video images recorded by cellphones have shown Mr. Hussein, with the noose around his neck, facing shouts of “Go to hell!” and taunts of “Moktada! Moktada! Moktada!” — in reference to the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, who has become a populist hero among many Shiites or to the death squads acting in his name that have killed thousands of Iraqi Sunnis.

Mr. Askari, the parliamentarian, said the guard he identified as the worst verbal abuser of Mr. Hussein had shouted Mr. Sadr’s name.

While there was much else on the videos that lent a degrading atmosphere to the hanging, including mocking interruptions of Mr. Hussein’s last prayers as he waited for the trapdoor to open, it was the invocation of Mr. Sadr’s name, more than anything, that caused fury among Sunnis, and among Iraqis of other faiths and sects, who saw it as emblematic of what they believe are the Maliki government’s profoundly sectarian instincts.

On the videos, which have been posted on numerous Web sites and relayed across Iraq via the country’s new cellphone network, Mr. Hussein is shown standing solemn-faced on the gallows with his hands manacled behind his back. The volley of taunts that continued right up to the moment of the hanging itself, and afterwards, as Mr. Hussein lay suspended from the rope.

Along with their fury at the treatment of Mr. Hussein, many Iraqi Sunni Arabs viewing the videos were pleased that the 69-year-old former ruler managed a sequence of terse ripostes to his tormentors. He told a senior government official who demanded that he express his remorse for the suffering he had inflicted that he had nothing to apologize for, having lived his life, as he put it, in the service of “jihad,” the Muslim tradition of struggle against evil. To the chants of “Moktada,” he replied, moments before he dropped through the trapdoor, “Is this how real men behave?”

Among those most incensed by what happened to Mr. Hussein in his final moments are American officials in Baghdad and Washington, who had hoped that the execution would bring Iraqis to a point of closure over Mr. Hussein’s role in Iraq’s turbulent history. One report circulating among senior Iraqi officials today, which no American official would confirm, was that the American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, had appealed in the last hours before the execution for a delay of 14 days to provide time for all the constitutional and legal questions surrounding the hanging to be resolved, and for detailed planning of the execution to take place.

The American concerns about the hanging have a sharply political edge, since the hanging has come to be seen, among Iraqis and others, as a metaphor for all that bedevils the United States enterprise in Iraq. For the past three years, the United States has attempted to lay the foundations in Iraq for a civil society and a nation under law. American officials say privately that the Maliki government, by allowing the Hussein execution to be conducted as it did, signaled more powerfully than ever before that it was unwilling or incapable of surmounting the deep sectarian divisions here.

The Americans have said in recent days that they feared that matters might get out of hand when Mr. Maliki, at midnight on Friday, chose to rush the hanging within hours rather than wait until after the Id holiday. In the end, these Americans have said, they decided that the American role, once Mr. Maliki signed the execution order, should be limited to making sure Mr. Hussein was delivered securely to the execution site from the American detention center where he had been held since his capture in December 2003, and not to mounting a rearguard effort to halt the hanging that would have involved riding roughshod over the Iraqi leaders’ insistence on their sovereignty in the execution.

According to the account given by the United States military command, the American role ended when Mr. Hussein stepped off the Black Hawk helicopter that carried him to the Khadamiyah prison at about 5.30 a.m. local time on Saturday and was handed over, at the doors to the execution block, to Iraqi officials. There were no Americans present at the execution itself.

The Maliki government’s representatives at the hanging included a judge and a prosecutor from the special tribunal that condemned Mr. Hussein to death for his role in the killing of 148 men and boys from the Shiite town of Dujail, north of Baghdad, after Mr. Hussein survived what he said was an assassination attempt there in 1982.

Also attending was Mr. Maliki’s national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, and he was identified today by another of those who was present as one of two people — both Maliki government officials — who had held up cellphones towards the gallows to record the hanging. Munqith al-Faroun, who was the deputy prosecutor in the Dujail case, said in a telephone interview that he had recognized Mr. Rubaie, a physician who spent years in exile in London under Mr. Hussein, but that he knew the other official only by sight and could not name him.

Mr. Faroun said he was not personally affronted by the use of the cellphones, since the government was making its own official video recording of the hanging, which was released without sound shortly after the hanging. But he said he was puzzled as to how the two officials managed to get their cellphones into the execution block, since the American who flew the official party to Khadamiyah and maintained outer security at the execution block had demanded that all those attending the execution surrender their phones before entering.

Releasing the cellphone images for posting on the Internet was another matter, Mr. Faroun said, and one that should be investigated, along with the verbal abuse of Mr. Hussein. “I deeply resented that,” he said, “and I think you will have heard my voice on the cellphone recording making that clear.” Moments before the hanging, a voice on one of the recordings, responding to the cries of “Moktada!” and “Go to hell!” can be heard appealing for respect for the occasion. “Please no!” the voice says. “The man is about to be executed.”

[RocDoc]

<sub>THE EXECUTION OF SADDAM HUSSEIN

Tyrant dies with a curse on his lips

By Marc Santora
New York Times News Service
Published December 31, 2006


BAGHDAD -- Saddam Hussein never bowed his head, until his neck snapped.

His last words were equally defiant. "Down with the traitors, the Americans, the spies and the Persians."

The final hour of Iraq's former ruler began about 5 a.m. local time, when American troops escorted him from Camp Cropper, near the Baghdad airport, to another American base at the heart of the city, Camp Justice.

There he was handed over to a newly trained unit of the Iraqi National Police, with whom he later would exchange curses. Iraq took full custody of Hussein at 5:30 a.m.

Two American helicopters flew 14 witnesses from the Green Zone to the execution site--a former headquarters of the deposed government's feared military intelligence outfit, the Estikhbarat.

Hussein was escorted into the room where the gallows stood, met at the door by three masked executioners. Several witnesses--including Munkith al-Faroun, the deputy prosecutor for the court; Munir Haddad, the deputy chief judge for the Iraqi High Tribunal; and Sami al-Askari, a member of parliament--described how the execution unfolded and independently recounted what was said.

His executioners wore black ski masks, but Hussein still could see their deep brown skin and hear their dialects, distinct to the Shiite southern part of the country, an area brutally repressed by his regime.

The small room had a foul odor. It was cold, and the lighting was bad. With the witnesses and 11 other people--including guards and the video crew--it was cramped.

Hussein's eyes darted about, trying to take in just who was going to put an end to him.

The executioners took his hat and his scarf.

Hussein, whose hands were bound in front of him, was taken to the judge's room next door. He sat down, and the verdict, finding him guilty of crimes against humanity, was read aloud.

"Long live the nation!" Hussein shouted. "Long live the people! Long live the Palestinians!"

He continued shouting until the verdict was read in full, and then composed himself again.

When he rose to return to the execution room at 6 a.m., he looked strong, confident and calm.

The general prosecutor asked Hussein to whom he wanted to give his Koran. He said Bandar, the son of Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court who also was to be executed soon.

The room was quiet as everyone began to pray, including Hussein. "Peace be upon Muhammad and his holy family."

Two guards added, "Supporting his son Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada." They were talking about Moqtada Sadr, the firebrand cleric whose militia is committing some of the worst violence in the sectarian fighting; he is the son of a revered Shiite cleric, Mohammed Sadiq Sadr, who many believe Hussein had murdered.

"Moqtada?" the former despot spat out.

The Iraqi national security adviser, Mouwafak al-Rubaie, asked him whether he had any remorse or fear.

"No," he said. "I am a militant and I have no fear for myself. I have spent my life in jihad and fighting aggression. Anyone who takes this route should not be afraid."

One of the guards became angry. "You have destroyed us," the masked man yelled. "You have killed us. You have made us live in destitution."

Hussein was scornful. "I have saved you from destitution and misery and destroyed your enemies, the Persians and Americans."

The guard cursed him, and Hussein responded with a curse of his own.

Hussein was led up to the gallows without a struggle. His hands were unbound, put behind his back, then fastened again. He showed no remorse.

The executioners offered him a hood. He refused. They explained that the thick rope could cut his neck and offered to use his scarf to keep that from happening. Hussein accepted.

The platform he stood on was very high, with a deep hole beneath it.

He said a last prayer. And then, his eyes wide open, no stutter or choke in his throat, he said his final words cursing the Americans and the Persians.

At 6:10 a.m., the trapdoor swung open. He seemed to fall a good distance, but he died swiftly.

His body stayed hanging for another nine minutes as those in attendance broke out in prayer, praising the Prophet, at the death of a dictator.

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune</sub>

[shin]

Thank you for that snuff film transcript.

[strat-0]

Which one?

Yes, it seems some things get a bit garbled in translation.

[Kensterberg]

I'm not a big fan of Christopher Hitchens, but this piece for Slate.com is exceptional, IMO. Especially the last four or so paragraphs (on the second page of the article).

www.slate.com/id/2156776/

Phil, RocDoc, anyone else following the death of Saddam and this whole mess in Iraq, this is a must-read.

[phil]

Amen !

One thing's for sure though ...

No one in the West is interested in seeing the Kurds massacres truly investigated.

Too many "helping" hands got bloodied helping Saddam Hussein
gas old people, women and child in those kurdish villages

[rockysigman]

And once again the Kurds get screwed.