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Tom Yossarian Joad Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-06-04 05:35 PM
Original message
U.S. Team Assembling Case Against Saddam
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&e=1&u=/ap/20040306/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/justice_war_crimes

WASHINGTON - A team of 50 Justice Department (news - web sites) prosecutors, investigators and support staff is going to Iraq (news - web sites) beginning this weekend to assemble war crimes cases against former President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and others in his former regime, a senior official said Saturday.


The goal of the effort is to sift through thousands of pages of evidence and provide a roadmap for Iraqis to use when they eventually bring Saddam and others in his administration before war crimes tribunals. U.S. officials want the world to view the trials as an Iraqi process, not one run by Americans or other foreigners.


The U.S. team includes main Justice lawyers, FBI (news - web sites) agents, U.S. Marshals Service members and others involved in the federal criminal justice system, said a senior Justice Department official.


"It's one piece of the international effort to assist the Iraqis in putting together these proceedings," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "They are learning how to put together a legitimate legal system."

Okay.... When are they going to do Bush?
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pinto Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-06-04 05:42 PM
Response to Original message
1. what a paternalistic piece of crap cover statement, "they are learning to
put together a legitimate legal system".

Iraq had a system of well established court system, even under Saddam, based on the French judicial model.

Saddam ran a shadow system for political "trials", retribution actions and other repressions.

But basic civil and criminal courts in Iraq had a long history of independence.

Did the official pat an Iraqi on the head benevelontly as he ran this line out?

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Tom Yossarian Joad Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-06-04 05:43 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Yes, but we have the best legal system money can buy. n/t
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seemslikeadream Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-06-04 05:46 PM
Response to Original message
3. Proof of Trillions in Bu$h Family Business With Saddam
Proof of Trillions in Bu$h Family Business With Saddam 1989-1991
author: Gordon Thomas
The Bush family were doing business with Saddam Hussein from 1989 up to months before the outbreak of the first Gulf War.

In a document obtained by the respected London-based International Currency Review, it was claimed that after a year long investigation, it had uncovered evidence “of the mobilisation of trillions of dollars in 1989-91”. The document names a number of banks it alleges were “supervised by the Bush Sr White House” in the transactions


Business links – involving “the mobilisation of trillions of dollars” – by President Bush’s father and his brother Neil, were under investigation by America’s top spy catcher, Paul Redmond, when he resigned.

A well-placed Washington intelligence source said that Redmond quit after a White House meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

They are known as “The Enforcers” – ensuring there is no taint on the reputation of the increasingly embattled President with the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Already, said the Washington source, the two men have ensured Bush distances himself from Tony Blair’s claims that the weapons will be found.

But equally Downing Street will want to stay clear of the allegation that the President’s family were doing business with Saddam from 1989 up to months before the outbreak of the first Gulf War.

In a document obtained by the respected London-based International Currency Review, it was claimed that after a year long investigation, it had uncovered evidence “of the mobilisation of trillions of dollars in 1989-91”.

The document names a number of banks it alleges were “supervised by the Bush Sr White House” in the alleged transactions.

The banks identified in the document include the British Royal Family bankers, Coutts; Morgan Guaranty Trust and Chase Manhattan, New York; Banco Exterior de Espana, Spain; First International Bank of Denver in the United States.

“What will cause astonishment is the provenance of some of these compromising documents. For many months we considered carefully whether they could be forgeries, and whether it could be credible that an intelligence organisation or a private gang of blackmailers and counterfeiters could replicate the precise behaviour of an obsolescent IBM computer to produce output identical to those images shown with this analysis. We checked these possibilities repeatedly with experts and also consulted banking sources to see whether these documents could possibly be fraudulent. The outcome of these investigations was unequivocally that the documentation is genuine.”

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/07/268817.shtml
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Malva Zebrina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-06-04 05:47 PM
Response to Original message
4. These are the things that will legitimize Bush's invasion
It will make no difference whatsoever, in the long run that he lied to his own people to kill and murder ten thousand innocent people]


Saddam is the demon--portray him as that in the eyes of stupid and naive Americans and George Bush will get away with murder--and we, who know better have paid for it, even though we are in dire straights ourselves to even buy food and medicine.

He has the power to send fifty people in the Justice department to schill for his serial killings. Who would dare not write a paper that is not in tune with the Bush talking points?

I am fed up with this whole system.
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rogerashton Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-06-04 05:54 PM
Response to Original message
5. This will be interesting.
It could be difficult to prove (to the standards of American criminal justice) that Saddam broke any laws. If what he did was not illegal, at the time, under Iraqi law, then he could only be convicted of breaking an ex post facto law -- not legitimate by American standards, although common in revolutionary tribunals. Take gassing the Shiite insurrectionists after Gulf War I, frexample -- nasty, but almost certainly not illegal to take effective military action against rebels who rise against the government, in favor of the enemy in wartime. Next: Britain is called to the bar to answer for its bombardment of Dublin during WWI -- and the United States for Sherman's march through Georgia.


I don't doubt that he did break some Iraqi laws (e.g. conspiracy to commit murder, which I assume is illegal pretty much everywhere) but that can be very difficult to prove. "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?" Conspiracy or innocent verbiage?
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pinto Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-06-04 05:58 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. hope we catch those supporters of terror that sold gas to Iraq and Iran...
the war on terror will not stop until those that support terror are brought to justice.
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Tom Yossarian Joad Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-06-04 06:11 PM
Response to Reply #6
7. Well said, Pinto...
But I doubt that we should hold our collective breath. History is written by the winner and even if we take back the WH, America does not like to admit being wrong.

It's amazing to me that while the preponderance of the population claims to ascribe to the teachings of The Christ, war lust and vengeance ride higher than true peacekeeping, forgiveness and humility.

We live in a nation driven by greed and today's Religious leaders not only endorse it but embrace it.
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pinto Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-06-04 06:26 PM
Response to Reply #7
9. yeah, I already sense an "Iraq fatigue", people seem to want it to just go
away unless there's some "3rd and long" drama we can watch on the news..

(oddly, I think the advent of football and TV as the national pastime, replacing baseball, signaled some kind of cultural shift.....)
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Tom Yossarian Joad Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-06-04 06:32 PM
Response to Reply #9
10. I have a feeling that in a thousand years, we'll rank right up there
with the Huns, Mongols and the worst of the Romans.
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Manix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-06-04 06:16 PM
Response to Original message
8. A show trial solely for the benefit of BushCo. Expect this in September.
nt
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Chicago Democrat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-06-04 07:41 PM
Response to Reply #8
12. Yes, 9/11, Saddam Show Trial and the Convention.
These Republicans are shameless!
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daleo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-06-04 06:38 PM
Response to Original message
11. I don't believe Hussein will live long enough for any kind of trial
He knows too much about Bushco. The real reason for this visit is to paw through all Iraqi documentation and shred everything that makes the U.S. look bad.
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Disturbed Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-06-04 08:20 PM
Response to Reply #11
13. Shredders
I wonder what company got the no bid contract or all the shredders?

The Iraqis have already found Saddam guilty so this "trial" will be a farce as is our "democracy" run by Bushco Fascist Inc.
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missile_bender Donating Member (193 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-06-04 08:26 PM
Response to Original message
14. What war crimes? Not having WMDs? Obeying UN sanctions?
Defending his nation against an imperialist invader? Not turning himself over to illegal occupiers? WTF are they talking about?
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