A temporary reinstatement of Saddam Hussein’s death penalty is also now probable
Posted in General on 30. Sep, 2010
A temporary reinstatement of Saddam Hussein’s death penalty is also now probable. Seventeen months after the Anglo-American invasion in which President George Bush promised to bring democracy to Iraq, the country’s American-approved Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, yesterday introduced legislation allowing the Iraqi authorities to impose martial law, curfews, a ban on demonstrations, the restriction of movement, phone-tapping, the opening of mail and the freezing of bank accounts. But things are bad.” He revved the old military engine and puttered back into the great, green, greasy Tigris river. He may be suspicious of the Americans but it is good to find a brave and decent Iraqi these days May the Salehs of this world survive
More from Robert Fisk. “Now I must tell you to be very careful and take care because you are a foreigner,” Saleh said “I hope this new government will work I like to be an optimist. Please don’t leave us alone with the Americans.”We said goodbye at a little jetty bathed in white heat that had bleached the colour of the grass.
Deliberately, I had asked my driver to meet me on the edge of Baghdad, miles from the slumland pontoon where I had boarded Saleh’s boat. First rule for foreigners in Baghdad: do not go back to the place you start your journey from.But Saleh was still contemplating the nightmare of Saddam. “When he was young, he had to borrow all his clothes from his cousin, Adnan Khairallah. We think he didn’t have a father because we’ve never known where his father is buried Saddam had psychological problems. He kept talking about protecting Iraqi women but then he killed so many of their husbands that they were left penniless.
Look what happened at Halabja.”When did he first hear about Halabja, I asked? “My brother was also in the Republican Guard He was fighting in Kurdistan He knew about the gassings He told us But there is something you should know America and Saddam were together America made Saddam. In this last war, their student was destroyed and his teachers took his place in my country. We buried him in the grounds of the British embassy close to us. When the British arrived after the invasion, they found the corpse in the garden and dug it up and sent it to the morgue. I never found out who it was.” We were moving through countryside now with trees and lawns coming down to the water’s edge. Sharp-eyed youths sat on the bank and pointed at our boat, shouting ajenab (foreigner) which I do not like to hear these days in Iraq. But the cement factories and the sewage make this river so dirty and it must be cleaned.”Saleh was in his boat when the American air raids started in 2003.