Saddam meets with lawyers, brothers

[Say_What]

<clips>

BAGHDAD, IRAQ — Saddam Hussein met with two of his half brothers and his lawyers Thursday at a U.S. detention facility to discuss the rejection of the appeal of his death sentence.

Saddam met with half brothers Sabawi and Watban Ibrahim Hassan Tikriti, both of whom are also in U.S. custody, in a prison cell at Camp Cropper, according to one of his attorneys, Bushra Khalil.

"He met with them, and he gave them some things. I'm not sure what," said Khalil, speaking by phone from Jordan, where she plans to meet today today with Saddam's daughter.

...A senior administration official told the New York Times late Thursday that Iraqi officials told the White House to expect an execution Saturday, Baghdad time.

Saddam seemed in high spirits Thursday as he shared untitled poems he wrote recently and well wishes for the Iraqi people with his visitors over lunch, said attorney Wadood Fawzi, one of those who met with Saddam.

During the two-hour meeting, Saddam asked about the welfare of the country and his family, but made no requests and asked no other questions, Fawzi said, even about his execution.

"He wasn't sad, he was very normal," Fawzi said.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/world/4432...

[Counciltucky]

1. He actually sounds like he's ready to die. n/t

[IndianaGreen]

4. Saddam will become a martyr and a patriot to the Sunnis

even to those that hated him, for they hate the foreign crusaders more and they disdain the puppet regime that Bush has installed in Iraq.

Bush can only kill Saddam once.

[liberalnurse]

6. I agree with you there.

*bush ultimately has created an everlasting martyr for the Middle East......which may just haunt him for the rest of his despicable life. Not at all what he expected. A lesson learned the hard way.

[PinkUnicorn]

5. To be expected though

For want of a better term, Saddam was an 'Old School' style Dictator.

He started at the bottom and fought his way to the top by any means available - assassination, killing, bribery, and controlled with an iron fist - with the full knowledge that others were willing to do exactly the same to him given half a chance. And part and parcel of this fight for the top is the knowledge that the odds of being killed or executed are very high so he has had a long time to prepare for the inevitable.

The current 'new wave' dictators of today are a very different type - they were 'appointed' or inherited the role. They didn't get their hands dirty in seizing power so even mention the possibility of them being executed or killed and they will fill their pants to overflowing.

Imagine if the roles were swapped with Chimp boy up for hanging - the stench of soiled pants and the incessant blubbering and whining would be palatable.

[Say_What]

15. Yeah, but Saddam

was our dictator and RayGun/Bush didn't care how many people he killed. They sold him the weapons to do it.

[rebel with a cause]

17. Like Roosevelt said about Trujillo,

long time dictator of Dominican Republic, "He may be a bastard, but he is our bastard." When many years later he stopped being our bastard, he was taken out also. Some things just don't change.

[Egnever]

2. Sigh

I don't know if I would be willing to say this guy doesn't have this coming to him... However the manner in which this has been carried out is beyond pathetic. The fact that our government not only condones this but is encouraging it embarrasses me.

[Erika]

3. How very sad.

We not only killed his two sons, now he is being killed by our actions.

I will repeat, not in my name.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

12. Oh yuck. Good riddance to this devil and his spawn.

They were murdering torturing bastards, the boys as bad as the father.

My disagreement is this: There was a large bloodsucking tick on the dog. But you don't bludgeon the dog with a baseball bat in order to kill the tick.

[Riddler]

13. Leave it to a Bush to turn the greatest democracy the world has ever known into a hated country, and

turn a murdering dictator into a hero and a martyr. I only hope the same determination to seek "justice" against Saddam is used against Bush for the war crimes he's committed and the innocent lives he's responsible for.

[Say_What]

18. I am always astounded at how

little 'muriKans know about their own country. The *greatest democracy*?? Here's a few examples of the *greatest democracy*:

Native American Genocide

Slavery of Blacks for more than 150 years (Blacks considered three-fifths of a whole person by the US Constitution)

No civil rights for Black until the 1960s

Abuses of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people (see AI 2006 Report)

Execution of mentally ill (see AI 2006 Report)

Execution of retarded until 2005

Next to China and Iran, US executes more people than any other country on the planet (Axis of Executioners)

World's biggest jailer

Life without parole for child offenders (see AI 2006 Report)

For examples of how the *greatest democracy* operates outside US borders, see the following link:

http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/fdtcards/Cards_Index.h...

*greatest democracy*??? I don't think so...

[rebel with a cause]

20. The privatization of prisons has made

it profitable to keep those cells filled. How they are filled does not seem to matter with many. Drug addicts, the mentally ill, and others who would be better treated elsewhere are warehoused in U.S. prisons. Out of sight, out of mind.

[AzDar]

21. Soooo, which democracy, exactly, would you say is best?

I'm quite proud to be an American; and while this country isn't perfect, it's mighty fine.
Or WAS, until the dumbest fuck in the annals of American politics usurped our highest office...

[Greg Helmsley]

23. Whats wrong with life without parole for child offenders?

nt

[rebel with a cause]

24. Had this same reaction,

because I thought at first they meant sex offenders of children, but on second thought I believe they mean children who are convicted of crimes. I'm not sure, but that is why I did not question it.

[Say_What]

25. Always helps to read the links to Amnesty International... Rights of a Child

...Death penalty

In 2005, 60 people were executed, bringing to 1,005 the total number of prisoners put to death since executions resumed in the USA in 1977 following a moratorium. Two people were released from death row on grounds of innocence, bringing to 122 the total number of such cases since 1973.

On 1 March the US Supreme Court banned the execution of child offenders – those aged under 18 at the time of the crime – bringing the USA into line with international standards prohibiting such executions. Twenty-two child offenders had been executed in the USA since 1977.

Executions continued of people with mental illness and disorders, of prisoners who had been denied adequate legal representation at trial, and in cases where the reliability of evidence had been questioned.

..Other concerns

A joint study published in October by AI and Human Rights Watch, The Rest of Their Lives: Life without Parole for Child Offenders in the United States, reported that at least 2,225 child offenders under 18 at the time of the crime were serving sentences of life without parole. Such a sentence for child offenders is prohibited under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, signed but not ratified by the USA. Of the cases examined, 16 per cent of the offenders were aged between 13 and 15 at the time of the crime and 59 per cent received the sentence for their first conviction. Many were convicted of “felony murder” based on evidence of their participation in a crime during which a murder took place, but without direct evidence of their involvement in the killing. The report called on the US authorities to stop sentencing children to life without parole and to grant child offenders serving such sentences immediate access to parole procedures.


http://web.amnesty.org/report2006/usa-summary-eng#11

[Greg Helmsley]

22. Please explain, Erika

I don't get that.

[ngant17]

7. the expected 'surge' will last a long time

and the US isn't very good at protracted warfare. The US troops are slowing being picked off and blow up helter-skelter now, and this will simply continue at more or less the same pace.

Sooner or later the politicians will have to realize the futility of occupying Iraq, like they failed to see what happened when we continued to occupy SE Asia, then the fall of S. Vietnam which it hit them in the face like a freight train. They will blame the liberal leftwing for all their blatant failures.

[leftchick]

8. Officials: Saddam Still in U.S. Custody

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=275850...

BAGHDAD, Iraq Dec 29, 2006 (AP)— Saddam Hussein's half brothers visited him in his jail cell and he gave them his will, Iraqi officials said Friday, indicating his execution may be approaching. But they said he had yet to be transferred to Iraqi custody.

The former president is being held at Camp Cropper, an American military prison where he is expected to remain until the day of his execution, at which point he is to be transferred to Iraqi authorities.

<snip>

The White House was preparing for Saddam's execution as early as this weekend, based on information that U.S. officials in Baghdad were receiving from the Iraqi government, a senior administration official said in Washington.

U.S. and Iraqi authorities have said he will be handed over to Iraqi officials prior to his execution.

An official close to al-Maliki has said Saddam would remain in U.S. custody until he is delivered to Iraqi authorities on the day of his execution. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[no_hypocrisy]

10. One factor that stands out is the whole Saddam imprisonment-execution

project has not been 100 percent Iraqi controlled. It's all been orchestrated by the White House using Iraqi surrogates. Handing over Saddam from U.S. custody is reminiscent of Pontius Pilate handing over Jesus to the mobs and then writing off the action as "no blood on my hands".

The debate has never been whether Saddam was a "bad guy". He was. But he was denied international, traditional, and conventional standards of due process and his impending execution is a mockery.

No doubt the only thing he takes with him to the gallows is his pride and dignity and the knowledge that he can only be killed once.

God help our troops and the innocent Iraqi civilians when the backlash of Saddam's execution makes its way throughout and beyond Iraq.

[leftchick]

11. here is a paragraph for our consumption....

<snip>

The White House was preparing for Saddam's execution as early as this weekend, based on information that U.S. officials in Baghdad were receiving from the Iraqi government, a senior administration official said in Washington.

who in their right mind would believe that BS?

[Red1]

14. From US Hands To Iraq Hands

Just so shrub can say democracy is working.

"The Iraq Government carried out the execution of a war criminal today."

This will be our "presidents" words. Reality is the Iraq "government" is so
corrupt it would have lost/kidnapped saddam within a few weeks.

The world will be a better place without the ex Iraqi leader.

[rebel with a cause]

16. Just in from Fox news

Don't watch it, but in surfing channels this morning the headline scroll caught my eye. SADDAM TO HANG TODAY! CNN confirms that the hanging will probably take place today, quickly following the U.S. handover of Saddam to Iraqi forces.

What the hey. Yesterday we had forty-eight, then thirty-six hours for it to happen. Last night I heard it would take place on Sunday, and then today this. I am beginning to believe the conspiracy people. Is there some reason for them to be pushing this through so quickly? I don't know, but I don't like the feeling I have about it.

[Say_What]

19. Blood thirsty MFs --just another confirmation that Uncle Sam's hands drip with blood..

they can't wait to watch it on their HDTV.



If we thought it was bad over there before, just wait and see what happens if they execute him.


Uncle Sam holds the world in his hands getting oil for blood.

[cal04]

26. Saddam daughter asking body be buried in Yemen

Saddam Hussein's daughter has asked that his body be buried in Yemen, a source close to the family told Reuters on Saturday.

Iraqi officials have said Saddam will be executed at dawn in Baghdad, after being convicted on Nov. 5 of crimes against humanity in the killings of 148 Shi'ite men in the town of Dujail in 1982.

His daughter Raghd, who is exiled in Jordan, "is asking that his body be buried in Yemen temporarily until Iraq is liberated and it can be reburied in Iraq," a source close to the family said by telephone.

Defence lawyer Issam Jhazzawi told Reuters earlier Saddam's daughters were bracing for his imminent death. "The family are praying for him every minute and are calling on God that He let his soul rest in peace among the martyrs," he said.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L30825677.htm