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Saddam's reign of terror – where prisoners die in plastic shredders
yorkshire today ^ | 3/12/03

Posted on 03/12/2003 5:18:02 PM PST by knak

Chilling new details of Saddam Hussein's reign of terror in Iraq – including prisoners being killed by being fed through industrial shredders – were revealed to MPs yesterday.

Researchers preparing an indictment of Saddam for crimes against humanity detailed evidence of torture, murder and ethnic cleansing gathered from witnesses in northern Iraq over the past few weeks. Their horrific report included eyewitness testimony of children being gassed in jail.

And the MPs heard an impassioned plea for military intervention from Shanaz Rachid, the daughter of prominent Kurdish leader Ibrahim Ahmed, who accused the international community of standing by for more than two decades while the Iraqi people suffered under Saddam.

Iraqi Kurds and Shia Muslims would welcome war to unseat the dictator, but were fearful that chemical weapons would be used to massacre them if US and UK troops withdrew from the area without toppling him, she said.

Ms Rachid was scathing about the role of French President Jacques Chirac in leading opposition to war, which she said the Kurdish people would not "easily forget".

Presenting evidence to MPs at the House of Commons, researchers from Indict – the organisation gathering evidence to prosecute Saddam and his henchmen – said many of the stories were so horrific they were difficult to believe.

But there was a "remarkable consistency" in evidence from many different sources, which boosted its credibility.

Witnesses had told them about prisoners having nails torn out, being given electric shocks to the genitals, tortured with boiling water and beaten. Women were suspended by the hair or legs in front of their families and raped, while their husbands were forced to watch.

Saddam's son Qusay – the head of Iraq's security and intelligence agencies – had administered mustard gas on prisoners, including a 12-year-old boy, whose father heard his screams from a neighbouring cell, they were told.

And Saddam's special adviser, Barzan al-Tikriti – Iraq's former representative on the UN Commission on Human Rights – had personally tortured detainees before their execution.

One witness, who spent 15 years in jail after being accused of using a false surname, described a particularly horrific method of execution: "There was a machine designed for shredding plastic. Men were dropped into it and we were ... made to watch. "Sometimes they went in head first, and died quickly. Sometimes they went in feet first and died screaming. It was horrible. I saw 30 people die like this. "Their remains would be placed in plastic bags and we were told they would be used as fish food. On one occasion, I saw Qusay Saddam Hussein personally supervising these murders."

Kamaran Sabir, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, who has worked with Indict, told MPs: "The war between Saddam's regime and the Iraqi people is continuing. It started decades ago and has caused thousands of deaths each year.

"Military co-operation to end Saddam's regime would be welcomed by the Iraqi people. We want to be able to live like the rest of the world."

Ms Rachid said: "Everybody keeps talking about the United Nations, but, as far as we are concerned, the UN has not done anything for the people of Iraq, and they will not do so.

"We have heard for so many years that the UN inspectors have gone in and destroyed weapons. As far as we are concerned, the UN could spend another 20 years going backwards and forwards to Bagdad, and nothing would change."

If the current military build-up did not lead to Saddam's overthrow, he would wreak his revenge on the Kurds of northern Iraq and Shia Muslims in the south, she claimed.

"If Saddam punishes us for siding with Britain and the US, I think that Britain, the US and the UN would be responsible for the death of millions of people in Iraq."

Members of the UN Security Council were responsible for selling weapons of mass destruction to Saddam over many years, and France's opposition to war appeared to be motivated in part by the hope of securing commercial contracts with the regime, she said.

"These people are asking for war," said MP Ann Clwyd, chairman of the Parliamentary Human Rights Group and vice-chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party. "They think it is the only way to overthrow Saddam. I have to agree with them."

12 March 2003


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: warlist
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To: Calpernia
Sorry about the other duplicate post. I guess we have different views on keeping cancer from spreading. I don't see how surgery will help in this case when it will unleash lots of unknown forces. Just one example: radical Islamic Kurds who blow themselves up.
81 posted on 03/12/2003 9:17:35 PM PST by palmer (receive this important and informative post - FREE)
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To: palmer
Of course Saddam's ruthlessness is a reason to attack. It is a reason for every human being on earth to kill him by any means available at any time available, as an act of the simplest justice.

Are there other reasons as well? Sure. That's gravy. Saddam should be removed from power because he uses power unjustly. He should be killed because he needs killing. All the rest of it is boilerplate around that fundamental, moral reality.

82 posted on 03/12/2003 9:22:15 PM PST by JasonC
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To: JasonC
He goes beyond the necessary brutality required by authoritarian Middle East dictators trying to suppress internal independence movements including Islamic radicalism. That's too bad, but not surprising. Do you seriously expect anybody less than a thug to pull that off?
83 posted on 03/12/2003 9:26:11 PM PST by palmer (receive this important and informative post - FREE)
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To: palmer
I seriously expect anybody who ruthlessly tortures and murders to be shot on sight by every decent human being. And I don't give a tuppenny damn where he lives or what he is trying to do. If you do, then your head is screwed on backwards. Toleration of such things is why some parts of the world suck and others do not.
84 posted on 03/12/2003 9:30:25 PM PST by JasonC
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To: JasonC
No, toleration of thugs acknowledges that some groups of people can't rule themselves and need to be supressed by thugs. A better alternative is a reformed military (e.g. in Turkey) but they can't always be trusted. As far as I am concerned, people who vote for Islamic law are voting for a thugocracy.
85 posted on 03/12/2003 9:39:51 PM PST by palmer (receive this important and informative post - FREE)
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To: Billthedrill; dighton; JasonC; Byron deVilliers
Thanks for so thoroughly and decisively cleaning up after our *friend* from the north. I follow these threads with interest, and it's good to see the arguments for characterizing Saddam as one of history's Hall of Famers for Evil so explicitedly made.

See ya around the forum.

86 posted on 03/12/2003 11:06:20 PM PST by happygrl
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To: palmer
But Saddam's ruthlessness is not a reason for us to attack and should not be part of any debate over war.

It should be and it is. Spreading the details of Saddam's torture to the soccer mom's will coalesce support for this war.

We have a moral duty to promote freedom. Inalienable rights, due process, and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment should be spread to every nation on Earth, starting with Iraq.

87 posted on 03/13/2003 5:15:53 AM PST by ez (Advise and Consent = Debate and VOTE!!)
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To: ez
Our country's moral duty is to protect its citizens. If you want to save people from torture that is your business, not mine. Spreading these details at this point is the substitute for debate over whether we should be involved in this type of nation building. Our experience in Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia and Afghanistan (so far) should tell us about the folly of trying to enforce human rights upon people who will vote for Islamic law or settle 1000 year-old scores with their neighbors.
88 posted on 03/13/2003 5:35:51 AM PST by palmer (receive this important and informative post - FREE)
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To: knak
BUMP
89 posted on 03/13/2003 5:53:31 AM PST by Dr. Scarpetta
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To: dighton; Byron deVilliers; BlueLancer; aculeus; general_re; Poohbah; Billthedrill
I smell varmint poont@ng.

A rare hybrid of the Randian Kool-Aid Drinker and the Take-Off Hoser(Eh) subspecies.
90 posted on 03/13/2003 6:00:12 AM PST by L,TOWM (Liberals, The Other White Meat)
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To: palmer
. Spreading these details at this point is the substitute for debate over whether we should be involved in this type of nation building.

I'm sorry, I thought I answered debate quite clearly.

IMHO, while we should not invade every tyranny on the globe, in such cases where there is an opportunity to protect national security AND remove a tyrant who represses people through barbaric violation of inalienable rights, we SHOULD remove him.

Afterwards, we should not "nation-build" except to the point where we leave the nation no worse than we found it. We should turn the government of that nation over to THE PEOPLE to institute whatever form of govenment seems most likely to secure their futre happiness.

If they blow it and install Islamfascism, so be it.

I think we have an opportunity here In the interests of our national security, I feel we have a real opportunity to bring, at least, due process and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment to Iraq, Iran, Syria, and North Korea.

Then step aside and let the people of those countires govern themselves as they see fit.

91 posted on 03/13/2003 6:31:47 AM PST by ez (Advise and Consent = Debate and VOTE!!)
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To: palmer
PS The working title of my theory on foreign policy would be Non-Invasive Democratization.
92 posted on 03/13/2003 6:33:22 AM PST by ez (Advise and Consent = Debate and VOTE!!)
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To: dighton; Byron deVilliers; BlueLancer; aculeus; general_re; Poohbah; L,TOWM; Billthedrill
These horror stories are not US-fabricated "let's go to war" lies. Years ago another Saddam technique was described in print: bury the dissident alive but with a pipe in his mouth, the other end above ground so that he could breath. Leave the pipe in for few days, then yank it out.

I do wish these Bush-hating Saddam defenders posing as "gee, I'm just trying to get at the truth" skeptics would all go on record, in writing, with signed statements.

The statements could then be translated into Arabic and published in Iraqi media after Saddam's defeat and replacement.

93 posted on 03/13/2003 6:35:11 AM PST by aculeus
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To: Rudder
Yeah no doubt.

Jews in ovens. Give me a break, everyone knows that's just ridiculous. (/satire)

94 posted on 03/13/2003 7:26:32 AM PST by Damocles (sword of..)
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To: Byron deVilliers; dighton; aculeus; BlueLancer; L,TOWM
Without a certain framing they aren't parallels at all, but, alternatively, random events in unrelated narratives and causality spheres......

Cute. Taking a cue from Chomsky, are we? He was rather loathe to condemn the genocide in Cambodia, as I recall - must be something about mass-murder that brings out the worst in your typical garden-variety moral relativist. It's all a language game, now step lively and please pay no attention to the piles of bodies over there....

95 posted on 03/13/2003 7:34:10 AM PST by general_re (Non serviam.)
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To: palmer
IraqWatch didn't create the documents. It is only a virtual file cabinet. Those documents are from the UN, IAEA, Congress and what ever other sources they pull from.

The documents, visits to the areas, testimonies from people that lived there and the blatant history, you still doubt the information. We are done. I have nothing else to say to you.
96 posted on 03/13/2003 7:41:14 AM PST by Calpernia
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To: general_re; aculeus
Yep, rattus chomskyi.
97 posted on 03/13/2003 7:45:06 AM PST by dighton
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To: ex-Texan
Want to contemplate what kind of monsters are in the world ?

Think about how many horror movies have been made featuring grisly death ,and how those movies are wildy popular. Think about the murder mystery books which are likewise popular. The mobster fiction with incessant depiction of crazed killers.

Or how about the babies dismembered in the womb by the millions ?

The "civilized" world is awash in cold- and hot-blooded murderers !

Perhaps Lot has spoken with God and he has found there are still enough good people to stay His Vengeance as wreaked on Sodom and Gomorrah.

98 posted on 03/13/2003 3:49:50 PM PST by hoosierham
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To: hoosierham
Verification of shredder story. UPI source.
99 posted on 03/21/2003 6:31:01 PM PST by =Intervention= (so freaking sick of the lies...)
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To: palmer
I think that's hilarious that you take that for a given. Imagine the leaders of terror cells for a moment, as they watch "shock and awe." They now know that the U.S will take the war to their soil and to their homes before giving in. They're watching all of the lies of U.S weakness unravel and all hope of Islamic conquest go up, literally, in smoke.
100 posted on 03/21/2003 6:37:58 PM PST by =Intervention= (so freaking sick of the lies...)
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