November Surprise

[Back]

Judgment day looms for Saddam (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061103/ts_nm/iraq_saddam_dc_1)
By Ibon Villelabeitia and Ahmed Rasheed Fri Nov 3, 7:59 AM ET


As President Bush faces mounting criticism over the war, a guilty verdict announced two days ahead of tight U.S. congressional elections on November 7 could reflect positively on him as a vindication of his policy to overthrow Saddam.

U.S. officials deny Washington had any say over the timing of the verdict or the court's decisions, saying the American role was limited to logistics and security.

Throughout the Dujail case, Iraqi court officials have been consulting closely with -- and, sources close to the court say, firmly guided by -- American lawyers from a U.S. Embassy department known as the Regime Crimes Liaison Office.

The unit has been the conduit for $140 million in U.S. funding for the court, and the driving force in the sifting of tons of documents and advising prosecutors.

In a recent briefing, a U.S. official close to the court said the Saddam trial had more historical significance than past trials against former strongmen, including Liberia's Charles Taylor and Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic.

"Saddam is being tried by his own people and in his land," the official said. "That is what this trial is about."

----------------------------------------------------------------

Please, don’t insult our intelligence with bold-faced lies. If the insurgents are supposedly killing more of our soldiers to influence the outcome of this election why the hell wouldn’t the party in power do everything they could to do the same? Its all fucking shenanigans these days and its fucking stupid.

[Sean of the Thread]

Damn dude you really should seek council and/or medication.

[radamanthys]

Lets just hope he doesn't find out about our monthly "vast right wing conspiracy" meetings.

[Back]

Sorry, I just don’t believe an administration that has been lying since before they took office.

[Ilvane]

It's good timing for sure. Can't you guys even see that?

Angela

[radamanthys]

It's politics.

[ElanthianSiren]

Iraq on alert ahead of Saddam verdict by Sabah Jerges
1 hour, 52 minutes ago



BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraq's beleaguered armed forces were ordered on high alert ahead of the verdict in the trial of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, while a US spy chief made an unannounced visit to Baghdad.

As Iraq stepped up security, the US military said that eight more of its troops had been killed around the country and that the bodies of 23 murdered Iraqis had been found in Baghdad over the previous 24 hours.

The Iraqi High Tribunal trying Saddam for crimes against humanity will deliver its verdict on Sunday, and Iraq has cancelled all military leave to thwart any outbreak of violence before or after the ruling.

"All military personnel are on alert. Leave has been cancelled and we are on alert for any possible emergency. Those on leave should report to their units," said defence ministry spokesman Major General Ibrahim Shaker.

Saddam and seven of his former regime officials are accused of ordering the deaths of 148 Shiites in the village of Dujail, north of Baghdad, where the deposed president escaped an assassination attempt in 1982.

The tribunal is expected to deliver a death sentence on the former Iraqi military strongman, a judgment that could further escalate violence in the war-ravaged country.

The US military on Friday said eight troops were killed in Iraq since Wednesday, of which seven died on Thursday.

Four US marines died from wounds sustained due to enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province of western Iraq, military statement.

Three other soldiers were killed Thursday in a Baghdad bomb attack and one soldier died due to non-combat causes on Wednesday.

The deaths bring to 2,825 the number of US troops to have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures.

US military spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Josslyn Aberle said 23 corpses had been found in Baghdad over the past 24 hours, the latest apparent victims of a savage campaign of sectarian cleansing by rival death squads.

Meanwhile, US National Intelligence Director John Negroponte met Maliki and "renewed the support of the US administration and President George W. Bush for the Iraqi government," the Iraqi leader's office said.

They also "discussed the need for the Iraqi armed forces to have enough numbers and equipment to take charge of the security portfolio," it said.

Maliki has been pushing the United States to grant him more control over his own armed forces and to pay for more equipment and recruits, promising that he could be ready to take charge of security within six months.

US commanders, however, believe the process will take more than a year.

Negroponte's trip came three days after US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley visited Baghdad, and six days after Bush talked with Maliki through a video link from Washington.

Last week Maliki bridled at pressure to accept the US timetable for disarming Iraq's powerful illegal Shiite militias, declaring: "I am a friend of the United States, not America's man in Iraq."

The Iraqi leader has also ordered US forces hunting for a captured comrade to abandon a cordon they had set up around the flashpoint Baghdad district of Sadr City, a stronghold of the Mahdi Army militia.

These apparent disagreements between Washington and Maliki's coalition government have played into the hands of critics of Bush's war plan.

The UN refugee agency warned donors Friday that it is "distressed" at the lack of an international response to a growing humanitarian crisis in Iraq caused by alarming levels of violence, a spokesman said Friday.

"UNHCR officials who just returned from the region warned that we are now facing an even larger humanitarian crisis than we had initially prepared for in 2002 to 2003," said Ron Redmond for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

At least 1.6 million Iraqis are displaced internally, including 425,000 who fled their homes this year largely due to sectarian violence, the UNHCR said.

Against such a backdrop, Bush's Republican party is facing a tough poll challenge from its Democratic opposition in Tuesday's vote.

The Democrats need to win 15 seats to capture the 435-seat House of Representatives and six seats to take the 100-seat Senate.

If they do so, Bush faces the prospect of finishing the last two years of his mandate as a lame duck president, hobbled by congressional inquiries into the conduct of the war and legislative obstruction.

A New York Times/CBS poll released Thursday showed only 29 percent of US voters approve of the way Bush is managing the war.

Also on Friday, US forces killed 13 suspected Al-Qaeda militants near Mahmudiyah, a short distance south of Baghdad, the military said, while unidentified gunmen killed three Iraqis.

US marines also arrested eight Iraqis, including three bodyguards of the mayor of the former rebel town of Fallujah, after coming under attack from a mosque and government offices Friday, the military said.

__________________________________________________ ______________
So the verdict is coming Sunday? I've often wondered what consists of a jury of hussein's peers.

Of course, if it's politics, there's monday for the violence to escalate in response (we vote on tuesday here). It seems like that'd be a risky political maneuver, unless Iraq imposes even stricter curfews until Tuesday. Further, I'm not sure who it'd rally. The dissatisfaction with Iraq for many is the civil warfare (sorry -- "sectarian strife") present in the country and the US deathtoll there. I guess if it is political, it's a rally to the base?

-M

[Back]

So the verdict is coming Sunday? I've often wondered what consists of a verdict of hussein's peers.

Of course, if it's politics, there's monday for the violence to escalate in response (we vote on tuesday here). It seems like that'd be a risky political maneuver, unless Iraq imposes even stricter curfews until Tuesday. Further, I'm not sure who it'd rally. The dissatisfaction with Iraq for many is the civil warfare (sorry -- "sectarian strife") present in the country and the US deathtoll there. I guess if it is political, it's a rally to the base?

-M

Its playing politics with people’s lives for personal gain.

[ElanthianSiren]

Its playing politics with people’s lives for personal gain.

You can't prove that, and we don't know that, unless you have secret tapes of Bush saying so. I agree the timing is fortuitous for the Republican party with regard to their base, but I'm not sure how much it's going to rally people to vote Republican, when if you have two schools of thought: 1. Saddam is clearly not what's driving the sectarian violence, and it will continue. 2. Saddam is what's driving the sectarian violence, and it'll still continue either in memory or with him appealing until he dies of old age.

-M

[Sean]

I can't say I see the Dem's doing anything different if they had won in 04.