Former Iraqi minister says US forced testimony against Saddam

[Judi Lynn]

Former Iraqi minister says US forced testimony against Saddam
May 29, 2006, 15:49 GMT

Baghdad - The Iraqi High Court reconvened Monday to hear the testimonies of defence witnesses in the trial against ousted dictator Saddam Hussein as a former Iraqi interior minister claimed the invading US army forced people to testify against Saddam.

'US forces had applied pressure on us to testify against President Saddam Hussein,' Mohammad Zaman Abdel Razeq Saadoun told the court.

Saddam and seven of his associates are accused of killing 148 people in the village of Dujail as revenge for an assassination attempt on Saddam by Dujail residents in the summer of 1982.

Saadoun said that compensation was provided to all of Dujail's residents who had also had their agricultural lands dug up and destroyed in the revenge attack.
(snip/...)

© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/article_1167903.php/Former_Iraqi_minister_says_US_forced_testimony_against_Saddam

[Drum]

1. Funny how

of all of the Iraq factors to get up and running---utilities, security, political---the two things the US pushed right along were the building of their mega-embassy and the trial of Saddam.
Bush wrings his hands about the Iraqi military ("Gosh darnit, they don't even have a Minister of Defense yet") but obviously they've been attending to the most pressing issues first. Are we to think that the Iraqi legal system as just hummed along intact and ready to go?

It's never been more obvious to me how this is the neo-con's chessboard, and they are almost saying out loud that pawns are expendable.
Sick!

[noel adamson]

2. Actually the first priority was securing the....

....oil fields, interior ministry and anything else to do with the oil. Oh, and photo ops.

[MadMaddie]

3. They can't even run a trial right...

For crying out loud...Saddam should be at the Hague for crimes against humanity....but no the * cabal had to go it alone and they fucked it up as usual...Saddam is looking good in the Middle East eyes....and when they compare him to the * cabal.....

This is what it has come to....it doesn't matter if they find him guilty because the case is tainted....and the world and the Iraqi people won't beleive the results...

[pooja]

4. What is right?

Do Iraqi's know how to run a fair trial. If Bush hadn't rammed himself into Iraq without approval from the world, Sadaam would be having a real trial in front of the world as a war/ human rights criminal. This whole trial is such a sham. They would have been better off shipping him to gitmo and letting him sweat it out over there.

[MadMaddie]

5. This is true...

The trial is a sham...and the world knows it....

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