Trump’s false claim that Saddam Hussein was ‘so good’ at ‘killing terrorists’

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

Trump’s false claim that Saddam Hussein was ‘so good’ at ‘killing terrorists’

By Michelle Ye Hee Lee July 7 at 3:00 AM

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“The implication in (Trump’s) statements is that Saddam routinely rounded up and killed large numbers of international terrorists intending to do mayhem in western countries, and there’s no evidence of that kind,” Biddle said.

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Hussein effectively suppressed dissent but at the cost of brutal deaths of civilians, widely condemned as a violation of human rights. Notably, in the early 1990s, tens of thousands of people died during Hussein’s crackdown following the uprising by the Kurds and Shiites.

The AP wrote that in the uprisings, “groups carried out attacks that could fall under a broad definition of terrorism, and Saddam had many of the opponents killed. Some were linked to groups supported by the U.S., others to groups that Washington considered terrorist organizations.” But the international security experts we consulted noted these were popular uprisings, not actions by “terrorists.”

The Pinocchio Test

Hussein was no opponent of terrorists, certainly in the eyes of the West. Perhaps Trump is referring to Hussein’s fight against internal religious extremist movements that he viewed as a threat to his regime — a part of his overall suppression of dissent. But Trump’s description — that Hussein “killed terrorists,” and did it “so well” or was “so good” at it — is just not credible, especially given the overwhelming evidence of Hussein’s long-standing record of supporting (financially and operationally) international terrorist groups. We award Four Pinocchios.

Four Pinocchios



Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/07/07/trumps-false-claim-that-saddam-hussein-was-so-good-at-killing-terrorists/

[merrily]

1. Saddam and his sons were good at killing people who had no way of getting to them.

Despite the charade our government put on, Saddam's hatred of Ben Laden was well-known (and vice versa), but Hussein would never have attempted to take out Ben Laden--at least not in a way that could be traced back to Hussein. Hussein was too much of a coward. Everyone knew that, too. The shet flowed down from Hussein, not up. That's why he checked with us before attacking Kuwait.

[Dawgs]

2. Yep. That part of his speech was absolutely wrong and stupid. nt