Odai, Qusai Deaths Go Against U.S. Ban

[thedrifter]

Odai, Qusai Deaths Go Against U.S. Ban

By GEORGE GEDDA, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - In theory, pursuing with intent to kill violates a long-standing policy banning political assassination. It was the misfortune of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s sons, Odai and Qusai, that the Bush administration has not bothered to enforce the prohibition.


The brothers were killed during a six-hour raid Tuesday at a palatial villa in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul by U.S. forces acting on a tip from an informant. They ranked just below their father in the deposed regime. Odai, in particular, had a reputation for brutality.


Officials said people inside the villa opened fire first — but left little doubt what the U.S. troops hoped to accomplish.


"We remain focused on finding, fixing, killing or capturing all members of the high-value target list," Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of coalition troops in Iraq (news - web sites), announcing the deaths of Odai and Qusai.


The ban has been overlooked so often in recent years that some wonder why the administration doesn't simply declare the measure null and void.


Earlier this week, the U.S. administrator for Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, stated in unusually candid terms the administration's disregard for the assassination ban. Appearing on NBC TV's "Meet the Press," Bremer said U.S. officials presumed that Saddam was still alive and that American forces were trying to kill him.


"The sooner we can either kill him or capture him, the better," Bremer said. Often in the past, officials resorted to winks and nods or other circumlocutions when asked about U.S. actions that gave the appearance of homicidal intent.


Consider President Reagan's response when he was asked whether the bombing of Moammar Gadhafi's residence in 1986 constituted an effort to kill the Libyan leader.


"I don't think any of us would have shed tears if that had happened," Reagan said. Over the past five years, U.S.-sponsored assassination attempts have been on the increase. Targets have included Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites) among others.


Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) said before the start of the Iraq war that the assassination ban would not apply once hostilities broke out.


"People who are in charge of fighting the war to kill United States troops cannot assume that they will be safe," Fleischer said, making clear that Saddam would not be exempt.


Bremer says the rationale for going after Saddam now even though he is no longer in power is that he remains a rallying point for supporters.


The ban on assassinations, spelled out in an executive order signed by President Ford in 1976 and reinforced by Presidents Carter and Reagan, made no distinction between wartime and peacetime. There are no loop holes; no matter how awful the leader, he could not be a U.S. target either directly or by a hired hand.


The advantages of using assassination as a political tool seemed less obvious a generation ago than they are today.


Ford's executive order was in response to the general revulsion over disclosures by a Senate committee about a series of overseas U.S. assassination attempts — some successful, some not — over many years.


The committee found eight attempts on the life of Cuban President Fidel Castro (news - web sites). Other targets included Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic and Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, both in 1961; and Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam in 1963. Lumumba and Diem were both assassinated, although the degree of U.S. involvement has never been clear.


One rationale for the ban was that an attempt on the life of a foreign leader could produce retaliation — a concern borne out in U.S.-Libyan tit-for-tat attacks during the late 1980's. Libyan agents killed two U.S. soldiers at a German disco in early April 1986. Days later, Reagan authorized the bombing of Libya; Gadhafi was spared but his 15-month old daughter was killed. Libyan agents were behind the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988, killing 270, most of them Americans.





Support for the assassination ban appears to have eroded considerably after Sept. 11, 2001. The events of that day demonstrated that a small but determined group, no matter how far away, could pose a greater threat to ordinary Americans than the German Luftwaffe could in 1940.

Abraham Sofaer, a former State Department legal adviser, makes the case for pre-emption against terrorists: "If a leader ... is responsible for killing Americans, and is planning to kill more Americans ... it would be perfectly proper to kill him rather than to wait until more Americans were killed."

The Bush administration seems to agree, but the old assassination taboo lives on, at least on paper.

"There's an executive order that prohibits the assassination of foreign leaders, and that remains in place," a White House spokesman said just as the Iraq hostilities were about to begin.

____

EDITOR'S NOTE: George Gedda has covered foreign affairs for The Associated Press since 1968.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...sination_ban_5


Sempers,

Roger



AN ASSASSINATION?.....

Firefight for 4 to 6 hours...

[GunnerMike]

Find 'em, Fix 'em, Eliminate 'em.

God Forgives and it is up to us to arrange the meeting.

Alpha Mike Foxtrot.

[mardet65]

[

AN ASSASSINATION?.....

Firefight for 4 to 6 hours... [/B][/QUOTE]



Our troops were there to take them into custody...they decided to resist with force and were taken out. I agree, no assiination here!

[Super Dave]

I was thinking the same thing when I read that..Kennedy was assinated, they were killed in a firefight..BIG difference!! Just Democrats showing that the have their heads up their a**.

[mardet65]

Originally posted by Super Dave
I was thinking the same thing when I read that..Kennedy was assinated, they were killed in a firefight..BIG difference!! Just Democrats showing that the have their heads up their a**.

You're right Dave and you can add the people killed on 9-11 as an assination also.

[thedrifter]

Well I think this article can fit in here......


Killings of Saddam's Sons Boosts Morale of U.S. ... but Not Democrats
NewsMax.com Wires and NewsMax.com
Wednesday, July 23, 2003
KUWAIT CITY – The killing of Saddam Hussein's two sons by U.S. forces in Mosul will go a long way toward undermining Iraq's Iraqi Baathist resisters because it will chip away at their will to fight, a senior U.S. military official in Iraq told United Press International.
"This is a very beneficial hit," the official said today. "They cannot feel anything other than doom, since if we can take down these guys, we can take down anybody.

"It's a just a matter of time and good police work before we kill or arrest them, too."

Uday and Qusay Hussein, Saddam's sons, were ruthless and known to have personally carried out and ordered killings and mass executions of dissidents. Their elusiveness gave hope to those who wanted them restored to power.

"Yesterday was a landmark day for the people and for the future of Iraq," Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez told reporters in Baghdad.

For Uday, dental records matched 90 percent; a 100 percent match could not be made because of injuries sustained Tuesday. The dental match for Qusay was 100 percent, Sanchez said.

"Autopsies will follow, but we have no doubt we have the bodies of Uday and Qusay," he said. "The Saddam Hussein regime will never come back to power."

He announced that the coalition had nabbed No. 11 on the U.S. military's most-wanted list, Barzan Abd Al-Chafur Sulayman Majud Al-Tikiriti, a commander of Saddam's Republican Guard.

The Bush administration stated, "Over the period of many years, these two individuals were responsible for countless atrocities committed against the Iraqi people and they can no longer cast a shadow of hate on Iraq."

The senior U.S. military official said a few hours after the deaths were announced: "War is primarily a matter of will. The psychological blow is right into the vitals of those who pine for the old days, of those who have not recognized that the war for them is lost and that the Iraqi people continue to ... welcome us."

War's description as a matter of will is especially true in an insurgency, where sum totals of casualties matter less than public perception and popular support, and guerilla fighters rely either on the support or fear of local people.

"The momentum was only with the thugs in the public affairs arena, not the real arena for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people," the official said. "Right now with our press announcing a resurgent Baath threat ... [the enemy] could draw hope ... that if they just kill a couple more Americans, if it just gets a little hotter ... then the Americans will go away."

The Americans won't go away, the official insisted, adding the media's focus on the daily attacks on U.S. forces created an impression that U.S troop morale was waning while Baathist fighters were getting more powerful and effective. Neither is true, he said, but it shows the gulf between what U.S. forces are experiencing and what the media are reporting.

The killing of the Hussein brothers after a four-hour firefight in the northern town of Mosul provided the U.S. military in Iraq, which had been facing almost daily casualties since the major combat operation ended, a much-need fillip, although Saddam, the head of the Baath Party, is still believed to be alive.

"For our guys it's a morale boost," the official acknowledged, "but also a vindication that as we stay the course the doubters will eventually stop wringing their hands and harmony will be restored in Iraq, someday sooner than later."

News of the deaths prompted celebrations in the streets of Baghdad and boosted U.S. stock prices.

U.S. Success Angers Democrats

Though the successful strike has boosted the morale of U.S. troops, Iraqi citizens and U.S. businesses, it has had an opposite effect on Democrat politicians. Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., came to the defense of Saddam's psychopathic, genocidal sons. "We have a law on the books that the United States should not be assassinating anybody," he grumbled.

Former Vermont governor Howard Dean, who is seeking the Democrats' presidential nomination, complained, "I think in general the ends do not justify the means."

On the very day that Uday and Qusay were being taken out, another would-be president, Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., condemned President Bush's foreign policy as "machismo" and "arrogant unilateralism."

"Foreign policy isn't a John Wayne movie, where we catch the bad guys, hoist a few cold ones, and then everything fades to black," Gephardt, who supported the war in Iraq, said Tuesday in remarks prepared for delivery to San Francisco Bar Association.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., another White House wannabe, complained, "The question is whether our diplomacy will be equally up to the task in assembling a coalition to create a real and lasting peace."

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said that getting rid of Qusay and Uday was nothing compared to getting rid of Saddam. "Until we see him dead, know that he's dead - more importantly, until the Iraqi people know that he's dead - he is still the looming presence," he groused. "We have to get him."

More GIs Killed

The Baathists haven't been defeated yet. In the hours following the firefight that claimed not just Uday and Qusay but possibly Qusay's 14-year-old son and a bodyguard, at least one soldier from the 101st Airborne Division was killed in Mosul and seven were injured by a roadside bomb.

Another soldier from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment was killed, and a soldier and a contractor wounded by a bomb west of Baghdad. Also Tuesday, a Red Cross convoy was attacked on the road between Baghdad and relatively peaceful Basrah.

We're "not certain why our media seems to so quickly find depressing the enemy's attacks," the official told UPI.

Copyright 2003 by United Press International.

All rights reserved.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/arti...3/102222.shtml


Sempers,

Roger