While The Gee Oh Pee Snoozed

A chain of evidence that investigators believe will help convict Saddam Hussein begins at a windswept grave in the desert near Hatra, in northern Iraq.

The burial site - a series of deep trenches that held about 2,500 bodies, many of them women and children - is one of many mass graves that dot the country. But it was the first excavated by an American investigative team working with a special Iraqi tribunal to build cases against Mr. Hussein and others in his government…

But American legal advisers say the Hatra grave holds a key to what is likely to be one of the broadest charges against Mr. Hussein - that he is responsible for the killing of as many as 100,000 Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980's, some in chemical-weapons attacks…

In a June 1987 document, Ali Hassan al-Majid, one of Mr. Hussein's cousins and top deputies, commanded Iraqi troops "to carry out random bombardments using artillery, helicopters, and aircraft at all times of the day and night in order to kill the largest number of persons present" in areas linked to Kurdish fighters. On an audiotape, Mr. Majid, who became known as "Chemical Ali," can be heard shouting, at a Baath Party meeting about Kurdish villagers: "I will kill them all with chemical weapons."

Yeah, that's right.  The broadest charge against Saddam was while Reagan was in the White House.  And you know what the Gee Oh Pee said then?

Zzzzzzzzz.

The Gee Oh Pee was still too busy doing a booming bidness with the Butcher of Baghdad--building his chemical plants, and servicing his oil fields, and exporting biological agents and weapons to Iraq.  And then Bush, Senior came into office, and do you know what the Gee Oh Pee said then?

Zzzzzzzzz.

It was bidness as usual.  In fact, when Saddam approached Bush's ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, and inquired about the United States position on Iraq using force against Kuwait, do you know what the Gee Oh Pee said then?

Zzzzzzzz.

 

Eight days before his Aug. 2, 1990, invasion of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein met with April Glaspie, then America's ambassador to Iraq. It was the last high-level contact between the two countries before Iraq went to war...

 

"We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts," the transcript reports Glaspie saying, "such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary [of State James] Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction ... that Kuwait is not associated with America."

And after Bush, Senior's administration slept through ongoing killing of Saddam's own people, and slept through Saddam's inquiry of whether the United States objected to Iraq invading Kuwait, the Gee Oh Pee sat bolt upright!  They sprang into action!  Decrying the savage, tyranical rule of Saddam!

Once, ahem, of course, Saddam had seized the Kuwaiti oil fields.

And after Saddam was pushed out of Kuwait?  What was the Gee Oh Pee's position on the 150,000 Shiites killed after the first Gulf War?

Mr. Nivala said investigators believe they will be able to show that Mr. Hussein was aware not only of the retribution in Dujail but also of the harsh actions against the Kurds and Shiites. He said the forensics team had recently begun excavating a third grave, believed to hold some of the 150,000 Shiites killed in 1991.

Zzzzzzzz.

In fact, again, Bush's Secretary of Defense, Big Time Dick Cheney, left government service to become CEO of Halliburton, where Cheney lobbied the government to ease restrictions against Iraq so American companies could equally compete for bidness there!

There's a special place in hell for people like Saddam Hussein.  He was a brutal, sadistic prick.  But he couldn't have been half the brutal, sadistic, murderous prick that he was without the blessing, the aid, and the assistance of the Gee Oh Pee.

And as his trial approaches, I just don't want to hear any more from Republicans, who slept through and willfully ignored Saddam's reign of terror, about how this war was all about the Iraqi people, and democracy, and decency.

You people didn't care while it was happening.  The same way you didn't care about Marcos, or Pinochet, or Noriega.  The same way you don't care about Uzbekistan now.

In fact, you supported it, while it was happening.  Loudly.

Don't be more grotesque and pretend that moral outrage justified Bush bullshitting us into this meatgrinder.

There were plenty of other ways to get rid of Saddam--starting in the 1980's.  But the Gee Oh Pee wouldn't hear of it.

Comments

[jo]

Gah! It's so outrageous. I keep reading this stuff on your site and want to spit all over and blow things up, but it's gotten so that I can't think of anything to say because it is simply so abhorrent.

[cookie]

I agree with Jo, we need some comic relief. Maybe Ellen has a nice meme for us, or perhaps Ricky will post whatever gawd awful Bruce Springsteen tune he's listening to this week.