Next step: What to do with Saddam?

[Shaffer]

One option is for new Iraqi tribunal to try ex-leader

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. officials said they still haven’t decided what to do with Saddam Hussein now that he’s been captured, but one option is putting him before a special tribunal established just days ago. A member of Iraq’s Governing Council said Saddam would face public trial.

Iraq’s interim government established a special tribunal Wednesday to try top members of Saddam’s government for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. At the time, they said Saddam could be tried in absentia.

Lt. Gen. Richardo Sanchez said at a news conference Sunday that the U.S.-led coalition was still deciding what to do with Saddam.

“At this point, that has not been determined, we continue to process Saddam at this point in time and those issues will be resolved in the near future,” Sanchez said.

Ahmad Chalabi, a member of Iraq’s Governing Council, said Saddam would be tried.

“Saddam will stand a public trial so that the Iraqi people will know his crimes,” Chalabi said on Al-Iraqiya, a Pentagon-funded TV station. “Saddam will be punished for those crimes.”

Chalabi is a leading member of the U.S.-appointed council who has close links to the Bush administration.

Crimes since 1968
The tribunal will cover crimes committed from July 17, 1968 — the day Saddam’s Baath Party came to power — until May 1, 2003 — the day President Bush declared major hostilities over, said Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, the current president of the Iraqi Governing Council. Saddam became president in 1979 but wielded vast influence starting from the early 1970s.

The tribunal will try cases stemming from mass executions of Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s, as well as the suppression of uprisings by Kurds and Shiite Muslims soon after the 1991 Gulf War.

Al-Hakim said it would also try cases committed against Iran — with which Iraq fought a bloody 1980-88 war — and against Kuwait, which Iraq invaded in 1990, sparking the Gulf War.

The first suspects brought to trial could include top officials of Saddam’s government who appeared on the U.S. 55 most-wanted list.

Some of those are already in coalition custody, including former foreign minister Tariq Aziz, former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan and Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as “Chemical Ali” for his role in chemical attacks on Kurds in the 1980s.

The coalition authority now holds at least 5,500 people in detention centers, but it isn’t known how many of those are war crimes suspects.

The U.S. occupation authority suspended using the death penalty, and Iraqi officials have said they will decide whether to reinstate it when a transitional government assumes sovereignty as scheduled on July 1.

The trials would be open to the public, human rights groups and news media, suggesting they could be televised. Their work is not expected to begin for months.

The legal framework also draws on international law, including Rwanda’s genocide tribunal and the legal code used to create the United Nations’ International Criminal Court, a body the Bush administration opposes. Al-Hakim said it would also use the Geneva Conventions as a point of reference.

Prosecutors will use a growing cache of documents seized from the former regime. Evidence also will come from the excavation of some of the 270 mass graves in Iraq that are believed to hold at least 300,000 sets of remains.

[greensideout]

Just tie him to a post in Bagdad and let his "peers" express their feelings toward him. Of course invite the Kurds to join in.

[mrbsox]

If memory serves, we debated this issue several months ago. The question at that time was 'Dead or Alive'.

Now that that question (Alive :() has been answered, I think it should be up to the Iraqis to do with as they see fit, THEN the world court (if any pieces are left). I'm not sure WE have any evidence (at this time) that would hold up in a court for us to put him on trial for crimes against the US.

Terry

[G.L.B.]

I think that if we give him back to the people, that there will be too much room for error. there are too many sadam loyalests that would atempt a recapture, and the people would be too afraid to show there anger infront him, for the fear of what could happen to them if there was a bust. Unless we had Marine snipers to watch over the beating ceramony. Then again we are putting Americans in harms way when it would be so eazy to just put a bullet in his head. (after torturing him first) But maby I am wrong?Should we just killed him when he was discovered?

[G.L.B.]

And if you were the person who voted to have the United Nations decide.....I feel sorry for you. Those @ss clowns shouln't be allowed to raise a goldfish, let alone have a say in our hard work, and the sacrifaices we made with out them having our back!

[mrbsox]

G.L.B. may have an idea .....

Hummmmmm .....

Visions of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby come to mind.

A local 'patriot' could take matters into his own hands, and a$$inate 'So-Damn', and then someone would have to shoot the a$$inator.

[Super Dave]

Drawn and quartered would be a good start....

[EDNA TRIMBLE]

let the people of iraq, backed by the united states try him and have the jurors be iraqi people that were under his rule determine his fate. which i am sure will be fair.

[G.L.B.]

fate is inevitable.....death, and not a 20million dollar electric chair. Death with a 30cent bullet, or a $10 rope. And be sine with it. Send him to a reunion with his sons in Hell.

[GySgtRet]

I think that the people that he ruled if given a chance will give the justice that is fair. If not somebody get me a plane ticket, a rifle, and maybe a mag or two, cause I like to shoot, and I'll take care of it if nobody else wants to.

Semper Fidelis

[quakerboy74]

Hey, Let the Iraqis take care of it all. You know, all the legal sh*t.
But put a stipulation in that we have the say in final punishment. Then take that torture room or machine right out into the square, and put "So Damn" right in that sucker and let him feel the pain that he put the rest of those people through. Ya know, kinda like if you get caught stealin' you get yer d$@n fingers chopped off. And so on and so forth. I'm pretty sure you can follow where I am going with this. "The punishment should fit the crime."

Don't let him rot in jail. It's just a waste of good air.

Ooh-rah and Semper Fi!

Nuff said.

[RoboRobinson17]

Isn't it interesting that his daughter is now demanding that he be given an international trial, that "So Damn's" family be able to provide counsel, criticized and ridiculed the US for not behaving "justly in our handling of a Diplomat, and not providing diplomatic immunity to a President, which every person has the right to", and in our violation of the Geneva Convention for touting his raggedy @$$ picture over television airwaves.

I say we round up the families of the victims he tortured and killed, and have each one give a suggestion. Perform that suggestion, and just before he dies, give him medical aid and treatment to keep him alive until EVERY ONE OF THE SUGGESTIONS has been carried out. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Semper Fi,

Joe

[firstsgtmike]

Saddam's daughter wants
to visit father: report
Posted: 5:50 PM (Manila Time) | Dec. 17, 2003
Agence France-Presse

DUBAI - Saddam Hussein's eldest daughter, Raghad, said in remarks published Wednesday that she was looking into the legalities of being able to visit her father, who was captured over the weekend by US forces in Iraq.

"The legal measures are being studied to enable me to visit my father," she told the Saudi-owned pan-Arab Al-Hayat newspaper.

===================================

I don't know what is stopping her. If parents of American soldiers can visit their children in Iraq, why is she, an Iraqi citizen, so reluctant to return "home" to see her father?

[BRIAN J]

HANG HIM BY THE BA*#@ UNTILL DEAD!

[benny rutledge]

Simple....Shave his Skull,Dress him in a one piece Orange Jump suit with paper slippers,Chain and Shackle him,and Televise his Ass beating on "Al Jazerah"

[arzach]

All really good ideas, prefer the rope myself. The Iraqi people should hold the trial, if the U.S did, the aclu would hamstring the whole process...International court? what a joke! Iraqi punishment will be harsher than any punishment the U.S. would mete out.

If his daughter wants to visit, fine...long as it's non-contact, with a glass partion between them and phones for conversation. Don't need any cynaide passed to him ala Hermann Goering.

On obtaining intel from him, I'd suggest a Corpsman to do the job, they can save your life or make it miserable...gotta love those guys!

S/F
Rick

[CPLRapoza]

Screw paying for anything, have the bloody b@$tard dig his own hole till he can stand in to where his head is sticking out of the ground, fill it in. Gather many of the rocks in that contry into a pile (if they run short have him sledge some boulders before getting into the hole) and have the family of every family member get one rock each adn just through it at his head. You couod turn it into a carnival. Bring all his buddies down as the side show freaks, some rides cotton candy and stop over at the "Hit Saddam with a rock booth" charge an Iraqi dollar per rock and who ever gives him the killing blow wins the money. I think that's a good idea.
What do yous guys think?

[firstsgtmike]

Bill O'Reilly

According to a recent Gallup poll, most Americans want Saddam Hussein tried in an International Court, but 24 percent say a U.S. military court should decide his fate. This, of course, would be a disaster, because America's legal system is so screwed up, Saddam might wind up a winner. Here's what could possibly happen:

The Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals in San Francisco, a legal body modeled on the philosophy of Che Guevara and the most overturned federal court in U.S. history, might well rule the military court unconstitutional because, as we all know, military people have strict rules of behavior and make judgments. The Ninth would never abide that.

Immediately after the Ninth ruled, Saddam would find himself in civilian criminal court and would hire Mark Geragos and Johnnie Cochran to represent him. Geragos would book himself on the Larry King program and declare that Saddam was not responsible for the mass murderers in Iraq, devil worshipers were. Geragos would convince Larry that the devil people infiltrated Saddam's inner circle without his knowledge. Only Saddam's sons knew about the insidious activities. Too bad they're dead.


At the same time, Cochran would be asserting that U.S. forces actually planted the tens of thousands of bodies that were dug up in mass graves. Yes, that would have been difficult, Cochran would tell the E! Entertainment Network, but if the Los Angeles police department could plant evidence on every single criminal case it had ever investigated, then surely the American Armed Forces could transport 100,000 dead bodies into Iraq. E! would also report that Cochran had evidence Colombian drug dealers actually held Saddam hostage and ordered him to invade Kuwait.

In the preliminary hearing, Geragos would demand Saddam be let out of prison and housed at the Neverland ranch so he, Geragos, could do the needed leg work on the Michael Jackson case and Saddam's situation at the same time. Geragos would also file a motion to suppress everything Saddam has ever said in his entire life.

Meantime, Cochran would raise the race issue. He'd produce an American corporal who had uttered anti-Arab remarks while taking machine gun fire in a foxhole. Using that evidence, Cochran could then weave a brilliant line of logic: If Americans were so hateful toward Saddam's forces, why wouldn't they develop hideous weapons and violate international law? Anyone would, it was absolutely a matter of self-defense. Cochran would then have Saddam try on all his old uniforms and they would not fit. Obviously, then, this man isn't really Saddam after all. He's Scott Peterson.

Geragos would then jump in quickly. If Scott Peterson were in Baghdad all these years, he couldn't possibly have killed his wife Lacy and their unborn child. Different devil worshipers did that. And Geragos would convince Larry King that those people worked at Fox News. Al Franken would back him up.

In the end, Saddam Hussein would be acquitted by a jury, which would find reasonable doubt indeed. No weapons of mass destruction. Planted bodies all over the place. Devil people running wild. No wonder things went wrong in Iraq. But you can't blame Saddam.

The delighted dictator would then move to Florida and buy a nifty home near O.J., because the Sunshine State will let you keep your assets no matter how many people you kill and torture. A few months later, Saddam would appear on "Dateline" and proclaim that he would spend the rest of his days trying to track down the real culprits in Iraq. He would also file suit for millions claiming Michael Jackson had molested him at Neverland.

American justice. There's none better.

[Cement03]

i think that if we could all get in on the beating of that a$$ clown or pull a little bit of apache torture on him that it might make up for some of the stuff he has done......or not .....but it would be fun though!!

[greensideout]

firstsgtmike---That was pure gold!!! ROTFLMAO!!!!!

[reddog4950]

No greater hate can come the people he terrorized for years, let them have at his @ss, as it should be. I am sure they will be less compasionate to him then we would be force to be.
Reddog4950

[wayne553]

Let the Iraqi people try Him first--out come DEATH
then UN out come DEATH
then U.S. out come DEATH
Should he escape any or all out come One round,one Marine

wc

[Pennington]

Army shoulda just popped a cap in his ass while he was in that spider hole and said they found him that way!!

[namgrunt]

The people of Iraq should get him, since they were his longest suffering victims. We could, as an unbiased third party, strongly suggest he be given a period of intense punishment. Cleaning all the toilets in Bagdad with a baby's toothbrush, until they sparkle, seems like a good choice to me. The whole time he cleaned, he would have to recite the words "I'm a bad boy."

Once the cleaning party is accomplished, there would follow a state sponsored public going away party. The festivities would be topped off by strapping him to the outside of one of his own missiles, and shooting him to a height of 40,000 feet before setting off the firework pyrotechnic payload. As a final act of mercy, his bigmouthed daughter could be attached facing him, so she could scream in his face as they ascend the open heights over Iraq.

Big Boom in Sky! ...Bye Bye Saddam!!

This would work for me.

[yellowwing]

Strap him to a rocket? That would be cruel, unusual, and inhumane. We are not that kind of society! Perhaps if Jane Fonda and Sean Penn was strapped to him, he could be consoled on his way. That would be better ;)