Trial could give Saddam powerful platform (so it will not start soon)

[papau]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3730368/ Trial could give Saddam powerful platform
By Alan Elsner

Updated: 3:23 p.m. ET Dec. 16, 2003
December 16, 2003 - Saddam Hussein could use a war crimes trial as an opportunity to send an anti-American message to the Arab world and to embarrass the United States by bringing up its past support for his government, legal experts said on Tuesday.<snip>

Rumsfeld, now U.S. defense secretary, visited Iraq and met with Saddam 20 years ago as a special envoy from then-President Ronald Reagan, promoting a close military and commercial relationship that only ended when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.

Washington helped Saddam obtain intelligence and military equipment and, according to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control Document placed in the Senate record last year, Iraq also obtained from the United States biological agents that could have been turned into weapons. The United States at the time was supporting Iraq in its war against the old U.S. nemesis Iran, and Washington stood mutely by when Saddam used chemical weapons both against Iranian forces and against Kurdish people inside Iraq.<snip>

Bennis suggested that any trial of Saddam should go beyond just the issue of Saddam's behavior and "ask who were the enablers, who funded those weapons of mass destruction, who provided the support and the intelligence?" That's precisely the kind of process that Bush, facing an election campaign next year, would be anxious to avoid, and Bennis said she expected Washington to maintain tight control over the process and lay down procedures that minimize Saddam's opportunities to grandstand.<snip>

[kalian]

1. This is why....

they will be "interrogating" him for the foreseeable future. Then,
they'll drop "the bomb" and say that Saddam states that the "WMDs"
are in Syria...
Then, the media will start concentrating on that...Saddam will be
forgotten (and enjoying his Club Med membership sponsored by the
CIA) and the US will be preparing to invade Syria.

What do you want to bet...? ;)

[ClintonTyree]

2. It certainly fits.............

the PNAC blueprint. Only time will tell I guess.

[Abe Linkman]

3. He'll also remind the world that Poppy instigated the move into Kuwait

It's surprising how few people know that Poppy Bush WANTED SH to "invade" Kuwait. More surprising is how few people know that Poppy
"encouraged" SH. Then U.S. Ambassador April Glasbie was instructed to have a meeting with SH and give him the green light. The transcript of that meeting clearly shows all this.

Our liberal media has failed in its duty to inform Americans about that minor incident which led to so much death, destruction, and devastation.

[demodewd]

4. But...

But the "trial" will be centered on the thousands that were executed during his rule.

[Abe Linkman]

6. SH will be able to bring up his long relationship as a U.S. ally

If SH gets any semblance of a fair trial, he'll be able to let the court know how he did the bidding of the U.S., and how anything that he is charged with was done either at the bidding of the U.S., or with the encouragement of the U.S. - who helped him gain power in 1968 and worked closely with him thereafter until betraying him in 1990 by tricking him into believing the U.S. gave him the green light to take action against Kuwait for stealing Iraqi oil.

[demodewd]

7. No fair trial

He won't get a fair trial. It will be centered on what the US can make stick ...mass graves. That way Bush & Co can display righteous indignation at this horrible beast.

[Bolo Boffin]

5. PS: On timing

I'd posted before that I didn't see anything noteworthy about the timing of the capture - but then someone mentioned somewhere, I forget where, that the trial will be running next year. Saddam's trial will get plenty of US press, instead of substantive discussion of the issues. The timing couldn't be better for that.