Saddam On Trial
Marsh Arabs. He could make the same argument for reclaiming the marshland that countries around the world do for hydroelectric dams. All in the name of progress. And he did have a rebellion to put down. Insurgents were attacking government troops during the night and hiding in the marshes during the day.
If that were happening today, what do you think the US would do? The first major marsh-draining scheme was proposed in the 1951 Haigh Report, "Control of the Rivers of Iraq," drafted by British engineers working for the Iraqi government. "The report describes an array of sluices, embankments and canals on the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates that would be needed to 'reclaim' the marshes." The study's senior engineer, Frank Haigh, felt that the standing marsh water was being wasted, so he "proposed concentrating the flow of the Tigris into a few embanked channels that would not overflow into the marshes. He proposed one large canal through the main `Amara marsh." In this way, Iraq would be able to "capture the marsh water for irrigation" purposes to aid in feeding the newly created State of Iraq. Construction of the large canal, called the Third River, began in 1953. Further construction took place in the 1960's. It was not until the 1980's, however, during the Iran-Iraq War, that major work was resumed. Today, many of the water projects in the marsh area bear a striking resemblance to the Haigh Plan -- the only problem is that the projects are not being used for agricultural improvement!
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http://gurukul.ucc.american.edu/ted/marsh.htm> Mass graves
Group 1: Shiites and Kurds killed by the Iraqi govt before Gulf war (when he was an ally of the US. The US provided WMD and the means to deliver them to Saddam during that period. They were allies, and the US continued to supply arms and assisitance knowing that Iraq was doing this. How can the US say then it was ok, but now 20 years later it's bad. Aren't the countries who supplied the means for this murder just as guilty?)
Group 2: Iranians and Iraqis killed during the Iran Iraq war (Again, the US supported Iraq with WMD, helicopters and critical battle planning assistance, so it looks pretty foolish coming to him 20 years later and saying, but you shouldn't have helped us fight our enemy Iran)
Group 3: Masses of Iraqi soldiers and buldozed into mass graves by US troops during the Gulf War. If you think that is a crime against humanity, you know who to blame)
Group 4: Sunnis and Shites massacred by Shiites and Kurds in the pose Desert Storm uprisings encouraged by the US. You can't blame Saddam for this, and when you read about the situation, what choice did he have but to put the rebellion down, just as the US is doing in Iraq today.
As put forth by regional analyst Sandra Mackay: "The rebels utilized their guns and numbers to seize the civilian operatives of the Baath government while former Shia conscripts turned on officers of the army. They hung their captives from rafters of an Islamic school, shot them in the head before walls turned into execution chambers, or simply slit their throats at the point of capture.' (The Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein, page 24) Dilip Hiro, another Iraqi historian, documents atrocities in the holy city of Kerbala: "Insurgents had attacked the army headquarters and seized weapons? They decapitated or hanged 75 military officials, some of them Shia, and tortured many more." (Desert Shield To Desert Storm: The Second Gulf War, page 402)
All said, several thousand policemen, clerks, military personnel and employees of the government were slain, according to Omar Ali, another regional authority. (See Crisis in the Arabian Gulf, page 147) Meanwhile in northern Iraq, Kurdish separatists were gearing up for their own shot at the regime. As far back as 1961 ? seven years before Saddam Hussein came to power - they had been staging violent attacks on Iraq's central government, trying to leverage off a piece of the country to form their own fledgling state.
Accepting Washington's pronouncements about a vanquished Iraqi military, up to 400,000 Kurds undertook a ferocious spree of mayhem that rivaled that of the Shia. According to Mackay, in Kirkuk "no one bothered to count how many servants of Baghdad were shot, beheaded, or cut to shreds with the traditional dagger stuck in the cummerbund of every Kurdish man. By the time Kurdish rage had exhausted itself, piles of corpses lay in the streets awaiting removal by bulldozers." (The Reckoning, page 26)
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Group 5: Rebels killed by the Baathist regime when putting down the Shiite and Kurdish rebellions (Saddam would merely argue that he did exactly what the US is doing now in Iraq -- using all necessary means to restore stability. How do you convict him for that?)
Group 6: Victims of the current invasion, estimated to be between 35,000 and 100,000 Iraqis. The US and UK killed these people.
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