Home » Who is killing Saddam’s defense lawyers?

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Who is killing Saddam’s defense lawyers? — 14 Comments

  1. “Their hope and expectation (Al-Qaeda) is that people in the US like Zunes, will continue to overreact to terroist publicity stunts, and create a disproportionate outcry in favor of terroists through misapplied logic, that will further contribute to the dramatic increase in anti-Americanism throughout the world, and thereby increase the chance of success for Jihad and recruitment”
    -Yiwei Sun

  2. “their hope and expectation (Al -Qaeda) is that the US will continue to overreact through disproportionate and missapplied military force that will further contribute to the dramatic increase in anti-Americanism throughout the Islamic world and thereby increase their ranks.” Prof. Stephan Zunes

  3. Maybe the French want Saadam off so he can come establish order in the Paris suburbs? Just a thought.

  4. Real terror campaigns would tend to cow the lawyers defending Saddam… yet we see that it does just the opposite, that it plays right into Saddam’s defense strategy, and the lawyers are so uppity that they are openly talking about attempts on their life yet they are not sufficiently worried to accept government help…

    A real terror compaign would have the lawyers pipping down, and giving us bows and prostrations to the Shia Deathsquads.

    I think it’s time tell one of the Special Police Brigades that they have a new “enemy” now, and see if the behaviors of the lawyers, especially the head lawyer, changes.

    Maybe not, they are fanatics after all.

  5. I would go along with the idea of revenge type killing – reaching out indirectly to ‘touch’ him, to show him he is not in control at all and that death is coming for him too. There would be satisfaction in killing someone close to him, connected with him, loyal to him, as previously pointed out. Anyone smart enough to plan and carry through with the hit is smart enough to know his trial can’t be stopped given the resources and attorneys he has at his disposal.

    What puzzles me too is why the lawyers weren’t covered with security. It sort of reminds me of domestic violence victims that won’t seek a court’s protection, or call the police or seek out a shelter. What a way to die, gurgling in your life’s blood, shed for saddam hussein, and probably wondering if your family will get hit too. They take their revenge seriously over there.

  6. I think it’s an inside job, something to derail the trial. Why on earth would the Iraqis kill his lawyers when Saddam is so dead bang guilty?

  7. If Saddam’s found “Not Guilty”, do you suppose he’ll announce that he’s going to look for the REAL atrocity-committing, Kurd-killing, environmental-disaster creating totalitarian dictator?
    – MK

  8. Anon at 1:54, Saddams lawyers would not move into the green zone because they wanted to protest US “occupation”.

  9. It could be the terrorists, not because they’re trying to hurt or help Saddam per se, but because their goal is to sabotage the Rule of Law in Iraq. The trial of Saddam is a defining moment of transition for Iraqi jurisprudence, from the old despotic system to THE trial that sets up as the cornerstone of Iraq’s future as a functional state.

    Don’t forget that the terrorists ultimate goal is to destroy the burgeoning Iraqi state – at all levels – that, when established, will threaten to fundamentally undermine the type of order they need in the region. If they can ruin this defining ‘moment’ for Iraq, they take make Iraq take a step back in history.

  10. NNC:

    Personally, I think you’ve answered your own question (in re why Saddam’s entourage are unguarded). There’s nobody left that’s fit for the job. Saddam won’t trust Americans, he won’t trust Iraqi police or army of the new government, he might trust UN guards except that there aren’t any in Iraq… and who’s left? The only ones Saddam might trust are his true loyalists, the ones who can fight — and they are mostly dead or on the run.

    Like Groucho Marx, unwilling to join a club that would have him as a member, Saddam is unwilling to be protected by anyone capable of protecting him.

    Personally, I don’t see the problem with this. Let the prosecution proceed; and if no defense attorney is available to defend Saddam (fat chance of that!), let Saddam defend himself. He’d probably prefer it that way anyhow.

    As to why people would want to murder Saddam’s lawyers — well, they’re closely associated with Saddam by virtue of defending him, and they’re not fighters or bodyguards. That makes them Saddam loyalists, despised by anyone who suffered under Saddam’s regime. It also makes them targets.

    I think that’s a reasonable first approximation, at least.

    respectfully,
    Daniel in Brookline

  11. Putting Saddam’s lawyers in house arrest, full restriction and surveillaince of actions, would solve the problem.

    The reason why it isn’t done is because the American leadership suffers from a decadent streak of frailty, lack of purpose, ruthlessness, and effectiveness.

    The Iraqis have plenty of excuses for why they can’t handle it alone.

    The Americans have even more excuses, except they are quite pathetic in caricature.

    The lawyers don’t need protection, they need to be controlled, threatened, and made to realize that American power can subtly hand them over to the Shias, with a demand that the Shias take care of our own dirty work.

    This isn’t Orange County, where gentleman’s rules of justice and what not, prevail in a kosher let’s all obey the rules environment.

    The enemies of the state of Iraq, and the enemies of the American Constitution, may only be brought down with an equal amount of ruthlessness, terror tactics, use of power, and efficiency.

    Or else Iraq won’t have a chance 200 years in the future to argue about what the Founding Fathers meant with this or that. They will already have fallen.

    The American leadership takes too much counsel from their fears. Fears of being called a bully, fears of being called stronghanded, or as bad as the enemies we fight against, or any number of things, descriptions, and/or accussations.

    America is still young, we still act like adolescents. With nowhere near the equanimity of the Roman Empire or any other aged polity.

    One still wonders whether this youthful vitality of American entrepreneurship and political and human rights vigor may offset the lack of wisdom that all young nations face.

    What will it take to make the United States stronger, better, more able to oversee our goals and the interests of the world?

    What will it take to destroy the lackaidaisical decadent rot in the philosophical imperatives of the American people, the military, and the political establishment?

    Obviously, 9/11 wasn’t it.

    It seems that while the US is powerful, it is both slow, dull-witted, and lacking in agility. Compared to the quick rapier trusts, shenanigans, and conspiracies cooked up by those with less power, but more cunning.

    America doesn’t seem to fit well in a world where the only underdogs are the bad guys, and the innocent victims without power or citizenship to defend themselves with.

    I wonder how future historians a thousand years into the future, will say about the early 21st century.

    Will they have matured? Will they be wiser and better in dealing with the problems humanity faces?

    It is without question that the lives in AMerica have gotten better, it is also without question that the lives many other people in the world have only gotten worse.

    How to change this inverse ratio… will probably be one of the greatest challenges the American people have faced since World War II.

    Not democracy, not free trade. But how to raise successors and allies, that would wield power successfully and wisely.

    Afghanistan is even younger than Iraq, and Iraq and Kuwaitt are really young in that respect.

    But their youth is one of recklessness, glory hounding, and utter contempt for death.

    Which could be interesting.

  12. Neo, your analysis that friends of Saddam might be picking off the lawyers makes more sense when I read the note that says he has thousands of lawyers on his legal team.

    Actually, something like 1500 advisors are included in the team.

    The problem suddenly takes on a different cast when I read that information.

    And why did they go forward without any kind of protection?

    I don’t know what the decision-making structure is on the ground in Iraq, but it could be said that American forces not going out of their way to protect a team of lawyers who haven’t asked for that protection.

    Or who have said that they don’t trust that protection.

  13. mideastanalysis.com has a post, he suggests “If moving a few lawyers and their families into the Green Zone and protecting them with western guards takes us even a millimeter further from the Iraq we have, and closer to the Iraq that Iraqis deserve then so be it. Let the American embassy pick up the bill as a sign of its commitment to justice and the rule of law.”

    Why aren’t we doing this?

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