We Got Him...Now What?

[Tiger Al 0]

We Got Him...Now What?

by Robert Scheer

The capture of Saddam Hussein is being treated as a celebratory occasion, but it is one that the Bush Administration might come to regret.

The onus is on the United States to accord this former ally and head of state all the rights due a high-level prisoner of war, as established at Nuremberg and The Hague. His testimony in open court could prove fascinating if he is allowed to detail his past relationships with top US officials--including the President's father and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who worked out terms of cooperation with Hussein in 1983.

And now that the "fear factor" of Hussein's ghostly presence has been removed, there is no longer any valid explanation for why former members of Hussein's regime and key scientists cannot show us where all those infamous weapons of mass destruction went. After all, this invasion--based on a new doctrine of preemptive war that bypassed United Nations inspectors--was not pitched to the American people as a mercy mission.

We were told that Hussein posed an imminent threat to the world and was close to building nuclear weapons that he might give to Al Qaeda. Occupying Iraq, it was stated over and over again by the White House, was a legitimate response to the horror of September 11 and a way to prevent, as Condoleezza Rice once put it, "a mushroom cloud" from appearing over an American city.

Of course, President Bush was finally forced to concede that there was no evidence that linked Hussein to 9/11. Yet, in his brief statement after the capture of Hussein, he again connected the secular dictator to the threat of fundamentalist terrorism. He did this while continuing silence on the Bush family's old business buddies in Saudi Arabia, backers of Al Qaeda and other religious fanatics, who numbered Hussein among their enemies.

We have lost valuable time and resources in the struggle to quell Al Qaeda and similar groups while creating a morass in Iraq. Hussein's removal was a politically motivated exploitation of our nation's anger and fear over the 9/11 attacks. With the historical footnote of his arrest now in the books, the White House needs to stop its daily lies of commissionand omission regarding the war on terror. For example, the Administration must stop its stonewalling of the panel Bush reluctantly formed to examine the origins of 9/11.

This official obstruction would seem to be a clear indication that Bush is worried about embarrassing details emerging that could threaten his reelection. Yet Congress and the public must know the truth about 9/11 so that we may make our judgments about what happened and about how similar tragedies can be prevented.

The capture of Hussein, while providing the President with fantastic propaganda footage, does nothing to make us safer from international terrorism. It could, however, shine a harsh light on Washington's decade-long military and economic support of the barbaric Hussein in his war against Iran's religious fanatics, who were making inroads with their brethren in Iraq.

For example, Bush has made frequent reference to Hussein's gassing of his own people, yet those incidents occurred when Bush's father and President Ronald Reagan were using the Sunni Baathists as a foil against Shiite Iran in a war that Hussein launched. Reagan removed the designation of Iraq as a terrorist nation and established diplomatic relations with Hussein's regime. The first President Bush extended $1.2 billion in credits to Hussein after the dictator used poison gas against Kurdish civilians.

This is a dirty history that calls into question our current motives in Iraq.

The threat of Hussein's return to power has been a key reason given by the United States for its hesitation to turn over any significant authority to Iraqis. Surely internationally supervised fair elections are now in order, and decisions about the rebuilding of Iraq and the disposition of its oil resources should be made by an Iraqi--not an American--government.

To linger in power over Iraq now is to suggest that our motives are imperial, rather than an affirmation of self-determination for the Iraqi people.

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[SouthLink02 8]

Shoot him.....in the head if he cracks another joke

[DKW 86 7,447]

I work for an appliance mfgr but we never built a washing machine with a spin cycle that strong in the last 100 years.

[AUloggerhead 2,255]

Dang! After reading all that, I'm starting to believe that capturing the most notorious homicidal maniac since Pol Pot is an international blunder from which this sitting President will never recover. Is it too late to to let Saddam "escape" under cover of darkness and away from the prying eyes of our centrist US media cameras?

[War Eagle 96 10]

Put him in the human shredder....feet first

[CarolinaTiger 0]

i knew we must've messed up royally when i saw all those iraqi's celebrating after saddam's capture.

why can't we have someone like howard dean as president; he would've just left all those nice dictators alone.

[CCTAU 3,350]

Slowly rip his scrotum off. Then sew it back on, let it heal. Then do it again. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over ........

[War Eagle 96 10]

Slowly rip his scrotum off. Then sew it back on, let it heal. Then do it again. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over ........

[DKW 86 7,447]

I hurt reading this.

[Ranger12 46]

Ouch.

[CCTAU 3,350]

Calm down guys. Its just a little "Frick and Frack."

[AUBoggs 0]

Slowly rip his scrotum off. Then sew it back on, let it heal. Then do it again. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over ........

Damn...