Saddam Found Guilty

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced Sunday to hang for crimes against humanity in the 1982 killings of 148 people in a single Shiite town, as the ousted leader, trembling and defiant, shouted "God is great!"

I for one am not surprised so I hope that this wasn't Rove's election surprise. Ho-hum.

I hope his death will be worth it for the thousands of people who have been killed or maimed since the US invaded and occupied Iraq. From what I'm reading this morning, violence is escalating in Iraq among sectarian groups. It sure took a long time to bring justice to Saddam. What was the hold up? This happened in 1982!

Anyway, I was blondely reminiscing - The Reagan Administration sent good old Rummy to Iraq to make nice with Saddam in December of 1983 even though they were fully aware of the chemical weapons issue. Rummy didn't bring it up at the time.

On January 1, 1984 the US made it clear that they were on Iraq's side in the Iran-Iraq war. So they didn't bring up the chemical weapons issue again.

Then in March of 1984, Rummy was back in Iraq during the time that the UN reported that Iraq had used chemical weapons against Iran- "bis-(2-chlorethyl)-sulfide, also known as mustard gas, and ethyl N, N-dimethylphosphoroamidocyanidate, a nerve agent known as Tabun.” The US State Department had the evidence too and sort of acted like they were sort of concerned. Rummy didn't talk about that part while he was there because he was working on keeping diplomatic ties open... plus Iraq was buying lots of hardware and stuff like helicopters from US companies. (business before politics you know) Then Rummy resigned and about 6 months later in November, it was declared that Iraq/US diplomatic ties were fully restored. Rummy was credited with the wonderful achievement. They still left out the part that Iraq was using chemical weapons.

In 2002, Robert Novak reported that there's a senate report from the mid nineties that says the US exported deadly chemical compounds to Iraq from 1985-1988 (including anthrax) and the microorganisms that were destroyed by the UN inspectors after the first Gulf War were identical to the ones the US sold them. Naturally, when asked, Rummy had no knowledge of anything.

Next up in Saddam's trial are charges that he used chemical weapons on Kurds in 1988. I am not sure that it will be brought up in the trial (or if it is brought up, that the Pentagon will allow that testimony to be reported in the US), but Iraq used those US made helicopters to drop the chemical bombs. That darned Democratic Senate at that time in 1988 tried to impose sanctions on Iraq, but the WH wouldn't hear of it.

Crazy, isn't it?