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Six Year Anniversary of Saddam Hussein's Capture

By Jeralyn, Section War In Iraq
Posted on Sun Dec 13, 2009 at 01:02:20 PM EST
Tags: Saddam Hussein (all tags)
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It was six years ago today that Saddam Hussein was found hiding in a spider hole. Mark Green, an Army physician assigned the duty of sitting him, provides his recollections. More from Dr. Green in an interview here.

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    Six Year Anniversary of Saddam Hussein's Capture | 13 comments (13 topical)

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    I'm reminded not of his capture, but (5.00 / 1) (#2)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Sun Dec 13, 2009 at 02:20:46 PM EST
    ... rather of his abrupt handover by his American captors to our Iraqi lackeys, and then grotesque summary execution, in which - sorry to say - he showed more courage while facing his doom than his jeering masked executioners.

    Dead men tell no tales.

    "Summary execution"?? (none / 0) (#3)
    by gyrfalcon on Sun Dec 13, 2009 at 02:50:33 PM EST
    C'mon, Donald.  There was a many-months-long publicly-aired trial.

    He wasn't "abruptly" handed over to the Iraqis, either.  The wrangling about whether he would be or not went on for months.  He was finally turned over legally around six months after he was captured.  But the U.S. retained physical custody of him until just before he was to be executed.

    It wasn't until more than TWO YEARS after he was turned over that he was actually convicted and then executed.

    What, Iraqis shouldn't get to decide what to do with their own murderous ex-dictator?

    If Saddam had any great incriminating information about -- about what, U.S. something? -- he had more than ample time to come out with it, as did his many top people who were also captured.

    His execution wasn't pretty, but can you really blame them?  He got better than Mussolini or Ceaucescu at least.

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    Saddam (none / 0) (#4)
    by Watermark on Sun Dec 13, 2009 at 03:50:06 PM EST
    should have been turned over to the court in Copenhagen and given a life sentence.  Victims are not supposed to choose the punishment, and no one in the world has any right to take anothers life for any reason.

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    I think you may mean (none / 0) (#5)
    by Zorba on Sun Dec 13, 2009 at 04:09:33 PM EST
    the International Court of Justice?  It's in The Hague, Netherlands.

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    We didn't have to turn him over ... (none / 0) (#8)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Sun Dec 13, 2009 at 07:02:59 PM EST
    ... to the same Iraqi government we installed in Saddam's wake. He was our prisoner, not theirs. The Bush administration just wanted to shut him up, because their sainted Ronald Reagan did business with the man back in the 1980s, and that sordid story of his dealings with Rummy, Halliburton, etc., would soil the official GOP narrative.

    I'm not saying that Saddam wasn't guilty of crimes against humanity, because he most certainly was a manster, but please don't kid yourself. We handed Saddam over summarily, and he was dead within hours. As I said, dead men tell no tales.

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    There is no concievable Iraqi government (none / 0) (#11)
    by Socraticsilence on Sun Dec 13, 2009 at 07:26:21 PM EST
    that is constituted Democraticly that wouldn't have executed Saddam. -Imagine Deklerk in South Africa if instead of turning over to Mandela, the White Government had gassed the townships and forced a foriegn intervention- somehow I doubt he gets out alive-- its true throughout history- reign through bloody terror, genocide and mass killings and guess what when you fall you don't get to kick back on the beach-- (Amin in Saudi Arabia is the only real counter example-- Milosevic doesn't work because the portions of the Serbian people he exterminated had formed independent nations by the time of his fall from power.

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    Wait, wait, wait (none / 0) (#7)
    by Socraticsilence on Sun Dec 13, 2009 at 06:37:27 PM EST
    summary execution- look you might think the trials conclusion was pre-ordained, but if we we're going to make any pretense of Iraq being a soverign state we had to let them decide whether to try him.

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    Saddam was our prisoner, not theirs. (none / 0) (#9)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Sun Dec 13, 2009 at 07:10:07 PM EST
    We turned him over for trial to an Iraqi government that we installed in the wake of his overthrow. The outcome was pre-ordained. Far better that the Army had shot him in the spider hole, and claimed he resisted capture.

    I'm of mind that his trial was not legitimate, because it was our puppets who tried him. He should have been bound over to The Hague, like former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

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    Our prisoner, but (none / 0) (#12)
    by Inspector Gadget on Mon Dec 14, 2009 at 08:39:05 AM EST
    why? What did he do to us that caused our gov't to charge into his country uninvited, unprovoked, and without a clear mission? What were we going to put him on trial for? What war crimes would The Hague be putting him on trial for? Our mission was so incredibly unclear that once the Iraq army disbanded, and it was clear the Iraqi's weren't capable of defending their land we saw our troops going door to door looking for anyone they could find.

    This was a game to GWB. He proved that with the deck of cards he had created and distributed to every person in the military.

    Would we like it if the Chinese, the Russian's, the Korean's, or the Iranian's were to send more troops than we could fight, lobbing bombs aimlessly at our cities, and scattering the members of our gov't because they were here to get GWB for his war crimes? They'd need a canasta deck to identify who they were after.


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    Now if we could only get (none / 0) (#1)
    by Radiowalla on Sun Dec 13, 2009 at 01:48:32 PM EST
    Bin Laden.

    And go home.

    Was it the original Sad dam or a look-alike? (none / 0) (#6)
    by Yes2Truth on Sun Dec 13, 2009 at 04:37:53 PM EST

    When Mrs. Saddam was taken to visit her husband, she
    was very vocal in saying that the man she saw was NOT her husband.

    Photos of the real Saddam show a man with white, straight teeth.  Photos of the man who was hanged show crooked teeth that were yellowed.  He also had a bad over-bite, which the real Saddam didn't have.

    I'm not going to go there. (none / 0) (#10)
    by Donald from Hawaii on Sun Dec 13, 2009 at 07:13:36 PM EST
    If I did, then I'd have to claim that the real Saddam is being kept in the same undisclose location as JFK's multiple assassins.

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    In other words, you're flummoxed & don't... (none / 0) (#13)
    by Yes2Truth on Mon Dec 14, 2009 at 02:45:41 PM EST

    have a clue.  You really should get yourself informed before making such silly comments.

    Parent
    Six Year Anniversary of Saddam Hussein's Capture | 13 comments (13 topical)

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