History Forum / General / British History / July 2006

Hilarious!

The New York Times keeps hoping for a humiliating cut and run from Iraq for
Bush and America -- and working steadily towards that goal.

Now they find themselves on the same side as Saddam in the War On Terror.

DSH
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July 20, 2006

"Hussein Writes to Americans, Urging Iraqi Pullout"

By EDWARD WONG
The New York Times

"BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 20 - Defense lawyers for Saddam Hussein released a
letter on Thursday that he recently wrote in prison that attempts to
persuade the American people to demand a troop pullout because President
Bush misled them into the Iraq war.

Saddam sounds just like the Left-Wing Democrats.  -- DSH

The 5,000-word letter is a rambling treatise outlining what Mr. Hussein
asserts are the false reasons that the Bush administration used to justify
the war in Iraq, from weapons of mass destruction to Iraqi links with Al
Qaeda.

Right out of the Left-Wing Democrat play book.  -- DSH

Mr. Hussein blames Iran and pro-Israel interests for helping lead the
Americans into war. He invokes the specter of Vietnam and the spirit of Mao
Zedong, saying the Chinese revolutionary is "laughing in his grave because
his prediction has been fulfilled and America is a paper tiger."

The letter is dated July 7. It was handed by Mr. Hussein to Ramsey Clark,
the former United States attorney general, who serves on Mr. Hussein's
defense team, said Rasha Oudeh, the office manager for Mr. Hussein's eldest
daughter. In the letter, Mr. Hussein said he wrote out his message to the
Americans by hand at the behest of Mr. Clark.

Ramsey Clark is, of course, a charter member of the loony Left-Wing
Democrats.  -- DSH

"People of America, the misfortunes that have afflicted you and afflicted
our Arab nation and within it our heroic people - including the breakdown of
America's standing and reputation - were only caused by the reckless
behavior of your government and by pressure from Zionism," Mr. Hussein
wrote, according to a translation of the letter sent by e-mail to reporters.

"The massacres and blood that now flows in the streets and countryside of
Iraq in torrents - the responsibility for that falls on America before all
others," he added.

The release of the letter came on the 14th day of a hunger strike by Mr.
Hussein and three of his co-defendants. Mr. Hussein and seven other men,
including his half-brother, have been on trial since last October for the
imprisonment and executions of 148 men and boys from the Shiite town of
Dujail. The victims were killed after what Mr. Hussein said was an
assassination attempt on him in 1982.

The trial is in its closing stages. Arguments are expected from the defense
lawyers. But the main lawyers and defendants have been boycotting the trial
for various reasons.

Lt. Col. Keir-Kevin Curry, a spokesman for the American-run detainee system,
said Thursday that Mr. Hussein was in "relatively good health" and was being
monitored every day by medical professionals. He said Mr. Hussein has
rejected all his meals but drinks coffee with sugar and water with
nutrients.

The American military had no immediate comment on the letter, he added.

In the letter, Mr. Hussein said an American general tried to use
intimidation and threats against him after his capture, and also "tried to
bargain with me, promising to let me live if I agreed to read in my own
voice and sign a prepared announcement that was shown to me."

"That stupid announcement called on the people of Iraq and the courageous
resistance to lay down arms," he said.

"They said that if I refused, my fate would be that I would be shot like
Mussolini," he added.

A week after that conversation, Mr. Hussein said, a group of Americans came
to speak to him, saying they were from an American university. "I confirmed
to them that Iraq didn't have any of the things the American officials
claimed," Mr. Hussein wrote.

Farther down in the letter, Mr. Hussein sought to portray himself as a
humanitarian, telling the American government to designate a neutral country
to whom insurgents can hand over American prisoners "rather than executing
them as currently is said to be taking place." That appeared to be a
reference to the abduction and mutilations of two American soldiers in the
town of Yusufiya last month.

The letter ends with a final bit of advice: "Save your country, esteemed
ladies and gentlemen, and leave Iraq.""
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DSH