Musings from the Merse
Saturday, December 30, 2006
THUS PERISH TYRANTS
All Huttonian's working life in the Diplomatic Service he lived in the shadow of the Iraqi tryant: the late and unregretted Saddam Hussein Al Takrit.
My first day in the FCO,27 January 1969, on the 'Iraqi desk' I was confronted with the news that a number of 'Israeli spies' had been publicly hanged in Baghdad on the orders of the Iraqi regime then as until 2003, dominated by the butcher of Takrit. They were members of the small Iraqi Jewish community put to death on a series of trumped up charges at a time that the Ba'athist regime was under domestic pressure and a small diversion of popular sentiment was thought necessary.
Thereafter Saddam loomed large in my life-delegations of Iraqi Kurds told me of the regime's brutality against these people-a policy which culminated in the killing of many thousand Kurds in the Anfal campaign of 1989 as a revenge for their alleged support for Iran in the Iraq/Iran war in the 1980s I had a close view of this war-four years in Dubai and three in Kuwait-then there was no doubt about Saddam's possession of WMD and his use of it-against Iran and the Kurds. I missed his invasion of Kuwait by the good fortune of being posted away from there 6 monthsz before I was due to leave.And after the liberation of the Emirate I was soon back in the area, in Jordan, 1993-97 when acounts of Saddams brutalties reached us on a daily basis as hundreds of his citizens fled to safety in neighbouring Jordan often leaving relatives to be rounded up and murdered for the 'disloyalty' of other family members. His two son in laws also fled Iraq in 1995 and confirmed that stories of his crurel practices were no western propaganda-as indeed King Hussein, for one, used to believe and who subseqently told me that nothing he had dismissed as western spin measured up to the realities of life in 'the Republic of Fear'
I rejoiced in the overthrow of this brute. I never believed that the man whose actions caused me to burn the midnight oil in the chilly rooms of Near Eastern Department in Downing Street West would ever be called to book and face a court of his former,citizen I used to long for this as I heard what his troops were doing in Kuwait including the torture and murder of an old friend whose battered body was dumped out side her house 'pour encourager les autres'Our day will come claim the IRA-Saddam's certainly has. Al Hamdillah(Praise be to God), I suppose I should say.
But I don't. I believe, despite his blood stained hands, his almost unchallenged record of callous calculating cruelty, that it was a mistake to execute him. Even he,feared tyrant that he was, will now be a martyr-another rallying point for disaffected Sunnis. Much better to have left him to rot in prison and to have stood further trials for those crimes against humanity which are yet to be held. Many people, especialy the Kurds, will have desperately wanted to have had their day in court to confront their oppressor face to face.But the urge for revenge amongst so many other Iraqis, espsecially Shia was so strong that it must have been hard to resist.
A little voice whispers : 'Revenge is mine. I will repay said the Lord'
Indeed. And then another even smaller whisper:
'Perhaps he has'
All Huttonian's working life in the Diplomatic Service he lived in the shadow of the Iraqi tryant: the late and unregretted Saddam Hussein Al Takrit.
My first day in the FCO,27 January 1969, on the 'Iraqi desk' I was confronted with the news that a number of 'Israeli spies' had been publicly hanged in Baghdad on the orders of the Iraqi regime then as until 2003, dominated by the butcher of Takrit. They were members of the small Iraqi Jewish community put to death on a series of trumped up charges at a time that the Ba'athist regime was under domestic pressure and a small diversion of popular sentiment was thought necessary.
Thereafter Saddam loomed large in my life-delegations of Iraqi Kurds told me of the regime's brutality against these people-a policy which culminated in the killing of many thousand Kurds in the Anfal campaign of 1989 as a revenge for their alleged support for Iran in the Iraq/Iran war in the 1980s I had a close view of this war-four years in Dubai and three in Kuwait-then there was no doubt about Saddam's possession of WMD and his use of it-against Iran and the Kurds. I missed his invasion of Kuwait by the good fortune of being posted away from there 6 monthsz before I was due to leave.And after the liberation of the Emirate I was soon back in the area, in Jordan, 1993-97 when acounts of Saddams brutalties reached us on a daily basis as hundreds of his citizens fled to safety in neighbouring Jordan often leaving relatives to be rounded up and murdered for the 'disloyalty' of other family members. His two son in laws also fled Iraq in 1995 and confirmed that stories of his crurel practices were no western propaganda-as indeed King Hussein, for one, used to believe and who subseqently told me that nothing he had dismissed as western spin measured up to the realities of life in 'the Republic of Fear'
I rejoiced in the overthrow of this brute. I never believed that the man whose actions caused me to burn the midnight oil in the chilly rooms of Near Eastern Department in Downing Street West would ever be called to book and face a court of his former,citizen I used to long for this as I heard what his troops were doing in Kuwait including the torture and murder of an old friend whose battered body was dumped out side her house 'pour encourager les autres'Our day will come claim the IRA-Saddam's certainly has. Al Hamdillah(Praise be to God), I suppose I should say.
But I don't. I believe, despite his blood stained hands, his almost unchallenged record of callous calculating cruelty, that it was a mistake to execute him. Even he,feared tyrant that he was, will now be a martyr-another rallying point for disaffected Sunnis. Much better to have left him to rot in prison and to have stood further trials for those crimes against humanity which are yet to be held. Many people, especialy the Kurds, will have desperately wanted to have had their day in court to confront their oppressor face to face.But the urge for revenge amongst so many other Iraqis, espsecially Shia was so strong that it must have been hard to resist.
A little voice whispers : 'Revenge is mine. I will repay said the Lord'
Indeed. And then another even smaller whisper:
'Perhaps he has'
Comments:
A bloggee has commented:
you certainly let off some steam about SH (a misguided soul) clearly acquired through personal experiences and local (middle Eastern) knowledge. Quite a political rant, unusual from Huttonion!
Am I naive or simply a pinko pacifist in believing that he was a poodle of the West and supported by their leaders until he threatened their supply of black gold?
I think we should be told
Naive? Pinko? No. Just plain wrong.And eschew conspiracy theories Saddam was many nasty things but never a poodle. Just a very dirty dog. And as for threatening oil supplies that is one thing he never did-if you have oil you have to sell it otherwise it is a futile commodity and Saddam (a pinko at times)was not naive .
you certainly let off some steam about SH (a misguided soul) clearly acquired through personal experiences and local (middle Eastern) knowledge. Quite a political rant, unusual from Huttonion!
Am I naive or simply a pinko pacifist in believing that he was a poodle of the West and supported by their leaders until he threatened their supply of black gold?
I think we should be told
Naive? Pinko? No. Just plain wrong.And eschew conspiracy theories Saddam was many nasty things but never a poodle. Just a very dirty dog. And as for threatening oil supplies that is one thing he never did-if you have oil you have to sell it otherwise it is a futile commodity and Saddam (a pinko at times)was not naive .
well, I do think the West used him when they felt the need. I well remember all the British Aerospace officials queuing up in Jordan for visas to Iraq when they were trying to sell the Hawk aircraft. Plus many other weapons. And they used him as a bulwark against Iran. An extremely nasty dictator, but what have the poor Iraqis got now???? Freedom and democracy???!!! What a farce. T
Of course they did if not to the sam extent as Jordan. If Iraq had not been able to use Aqaba from 1979 on it would have been in dead trouble and Jordan had Iraq as its most important trading partner throughout the period of sanctions!
THe UK tried to sell them Hawk (a training aircraft)well before the first Kuwait crisis. And given Irans attempts to export its revolution to the Gulf states after 1979 it made good sense to ensure that Iraq's confrontation with Teheran was exploited to maintain the security of Kuwait, Bahrain etc.
Iraq has its freedom from a Takrit Sunni dictatorship. It has a democratic structure which it never had before. It also has anarchy and chaos for the moment. But ask the surviving victims of Saddam's murderous regime if they regret his passing?
THe UK tried to sell them Hawk (a training aircraft)well before the first Kuwait crisis. And given Irans attempts to export its revolution to the Gulf states after 1979 it made good sense to ensure that Iraq's confrontation with Teheran was exploited to maintain the security of Kuwait, Bahrain etc.
Iraq has its freedom from a Takrit Sunni dictatorship. It has a democratic structure which it never had before. It also has anarchy and chaos for the moment. But ask the surviving victims of Saddam's murderous regime if they regret his passing?
well, I think Iraq used Jordan and that some Jordanians were quite happy to be used and compensated for it! Don't forget that Aqaba was closely watched by the US Navy, Lloyds etc during the time of the sanctions. But yes Jordan did benefit during those years of trading with Iraq. But Iraq has a democratic structure? Ha ha!
Have you read the latest riverbend blog? T
Have you read the latest riverbend blog? T
On paper ([ike Jordan, but more so) Iraq has a democratic structure in a constitutional sense-witness the large turn out at the elections despite the intimidation of voters by radical groups. It is not the structure that is at fault but the inability and unwillingness of a divided society to make it work
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