...Hussein Blames Bush, Iran and Israel Supporters for Iraq’s Troubles

[ProSense]

July 21, 2006
The Trial

In a 5,000-Word Letter, Hussein Blames Bush, Iran and Israel Supporters for Iraq’s Troubles

By EDWARD WONG

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 20 — Saddam Hussein’s defense lawyers on Thursday released a letter Mr. Hussein recently wrote in prison that tries to convince the American people that the United States should leave Iraq because President Bush misled them into a deadly quagmire.

The 5,000-word letter is a rambling treatise outlining what Mr. Hussein asserts are the false reasons the Bush administration used to justify the war in Iraq, from illicit weapons to links with Al Qaeda. Mr. Hussein said he had written it at the behest of Ramsey Clark, the former United States attorney general who serves on his defense team.

Mr. Hussein blames Iran and pro-Israel interests for helping lead the Americans into war. He invokes the specter of the Vietnam War and the spirit of Mao, saying the Chinese revolutionary is “laughing in his grave because his prediction has been fulfilled and America is a paper tiger.”

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“People of America, the misfortunes that have afflicted you and afflicted our Arab nation and within it our heroic people — including the breakdown of America’s standing and reputation — were only caused by the reckless behavior of your government and by pressure from Zionism,” Mr. Hussein wrote, according to a translation of the letter e-mailed to reporters by both his defense team and an insurgent Web site.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/21/world/middleeast/21saddam.html