Gangsta'
Movie In Iraq
By
David Walsh
World
Socialist Web
24 July 2003
There is little
doubt that Uday and Qusay Hussein, the two sons of former Iraqi president
Saddam Hussein killed by US forces in a house on the outskirts of Mosul
July 22, were morally and politically reprehensible figures. By all
accounts, Uday Hussein, the elder, was a sexual predator and murderer,
while Qusay, as chief of Iraqs notorious security apparatus, had
even more blood on his hands. Given the reactionary nature of the regime,
there is no reason to doubt the extent and depth of their crimes.
Having said that,
both the means by which Husseins sons were liquidated and the
manner in which the killings were greeted by the American government
and media speak volumes about the nature of the US intervention in Iraq
and the character of the American political establishment.
On the plane of
morality, there exist no fundamental differences between the personnel
of the Hussein regime and the Bush administration. The latter operates
in every sphere with unashamed lawlessness and violence. If there is
a difference in the degree of brutality against its own citizens, the
restraint exercised by the Bush forces is a matter of circumstance
rather than moral superiority over the killers and torturers of the
ousted Iraqi regime.
In the operation
against the Hussein brothers the US military mobilized hundreds of troops
and dozens of vehicles and aircraft. The American forces used automatic
weapons, rockets, rocket-propelled grenades and tow missiles against
four individuals armed with AK-47 automatic rifles.
The assault had
the character of a gangland slaying, the vengeful wiping out of the
cornered leadership of one gang by a more powerful and better-armed
outfit. An unnamed senior US military official in Iraq spoke like a
Mafia don, telling the UPI: This is a very beneficial hit. They
cannot feel anything other than doom, since if we can take down these
guys, we can take down anybody.
The exultation of
US and British officials and the media over the killings in Mosulwhich
included the death of the 14-year-old son of Qusay Hussein, Mustaphacan
only arouse revulsion. The pleasure that these circles take in bloodletting
and violence has a pathological character.
President George
W. Bush boasted, Now more than ever Iraqis can know the former
regime is gone and is not coming back. Senator Ted Kennedy, the
dean of Democratic liberals, expressed satisfaction over
the killings. Its progress, he said.
Britains Prime
Minister Tony Blair was less restrained, declaring, This is a
great day for the new Iraq.
The American media
was both jubilant and bloodthirsty. The New York Daily News carried
photos of Saddam Hussein and his two sons, with red crosses placed over
Uday and Qusay, and the words, One to go. Rupert Murdochs
New York Post, headlined its editorial E-RAT-ICATED!
The New York Times
also celebrated the hit in Mosul, calling the assassination
of the Hussein brothers the most encouraging news out of Iraq
in weeks. The editors of the Washington Post called the deaths
very good news indeed and went on to claim that the killings
meant a serious blow to the diehard resistance that has plagued
the postwar administration.
The notion that
the murders in Mosul will halt Iraqi resistance to the US colonial occupation
of that country is wishful thinking of the most politically blinkered
variety. The American government and media establishment apparently
believes its own propaganda that the only opposition to the US presence
is being offered by holdouts of the old regime, terrorists
and criminals.
These people are
so blind to social and political reality and so distant from the Iraqi
people that they cannot conceive of popular resistance that rejects
both the Baathist regime and foreign imperialist tyranny. Attacks
on US forces continued unabated July 23, as two more American soldiers
died and nine were wounded in attacks.
Why were they not taken alive?
Why was no effort
made to capture Uday and Qusay Hussein alive? When asked about this,
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was in charge of the operation, answered
blandly, Our mission is to find, kill or capture.
A number of factors
come into play. After weeks of US deaths and sagging troop morale, American
officials no doubt concluded that a murderous assault would boost the
spirits of the war constituency in the US and the psychotic element
in the military. In any event, they share the outlook of this constituency
and were in need of a bloodletting themselves. The pent-up rage and
vindictiveness, in the face of growing Iraqi resistance, expressed itself
in the extermination of Husseins sons.
More fundamentally,
the capture of Uday and Qusay Hussein presented politically troublesome
problems. Putting the two former officials on trial would have inevitably
raised the issue of the entirely lawless character of the war and occupation.
The Hussein brothers would not have found it a great challenge to turn
the tables on their prosecutors and expose the hypocrisy and criminality
of the Anglo-American operation in Iraq.
We have the example
of the ongoing Slobodan Milosevic war crimes trial in The Hague, which
has turned into a fiasco for the US and NATO. The former Yugoslav president
has already succeededduring the prosecution phase of the casein
using the tribunal to expose the machinations of the great powers. Milosevic
is expected to develop his arguments during the two years he will now
have to present his defense.
Beyond the immediate
situation in Iraq, there is the equally vexing question of the long-standing
relationship between the US government, including some of its current
leading officials, and the former Hussein regime.
In February 2003
the National Security Archive released 60 documents detailing the extent
of the relations between the Reagan administration and the Iraqi government
during the 1980s. At the time of the Iran-Iraq war the US, while claiming
to be neutral in the conflict, supported Hussein against the Islamic
regime in Teheran. The Archive notes that Washington, through direct
and indirect means, provided financing, weaponry, intelligence and military
support to Baghdad in accordance with policy directives from President
Ronald Reagan, several years before the US restored formal relations
with Iraq in November 1984.
A highlight of the
process of normalizing American-Iraqi relations was the visit by then
presidential envoy (and current Secretary of Defense) Donald Rumsfeld
to Baghdad in December 1983, where he held a 90-minute conversation
with Saddam Hussein. The US was well aware that the Iraqis were using
chemical weapons against Iranian forces and Kurdish insurgents. Rumsfeld
made no mention of the issue in this discussion. A secret memo sent
to the State Department reported that Saddam Hussein showed obvious
pleasure with [the] Presidents letter and Rumsfelds visit
and in his remarks.
As the New York
Times reported in March 2003, the US and France were the sources of
Iraqs biological weapons programs.
Iraqi officials
have learned to their cost that whether a foreign leader is feted by
Washington or assassinated depends entirely on the circumstances.
The assassination
of the Hussein brothers has further undermined the claim that the US
went to war to prevent the Iraqi regime from developing or using weapons
of mass destruction (WMD). According to Judith Miller in the July 23
New York Times, Qusay Hussein was also responsible for overseeing
Iraqs unconventional weapons. ... Stephen Black, a former inspector
and chemical weapons expert, said that by virtue of his control of the
security services, Qusay would have known, for instance, whether
they had chemical weapons, how many they had, and where they were deployed.
... Finally, he said, Qusay would have known not the exact hiding places
but the broad brushes of the concealment policy and practiceswhether
Saddam had destroyed or hidden weapons or the capability for just-in-time
production, and what the goals of this concealment were.
Obviously, by taking
the decision to murder Qusay, the US government and military expressed
their total lack of interest in the existence of WMD and, in effect,
acknowledged that such deadly and dangerous weapons do not exist.
US role at Nuremberg
The bloodlust and
lawlessness of the present-day political establishment is placed in
sharp relief by comparing its campaign of political assassination in
Iraq with the attitude of the US to the treatment of fascist mass murderers
captured at the end of World War II.
Less than sixty
years ago, Washington opposed the summary execution of the leaders of
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japanwho had committed crimes on a far
more massive scale than any carried out by the regime of Saddam Husseinand
insisted they be placed on public trial and accorded all of the legal
privileges of due process. The vast contrast between then and now underscores
the break with any conception of democratic principles that has occurred
within the American ruling elite.
The surviving Nazi
leaders were responsible for the deaths, by genocide and war, of tens
of millions, yet American officials were scrupulous in demanding that
they be captured alive and placed on trial, as they eventually were,
at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal in 1945-46. Considerable pains
were taken to ensure that the defendants not take their own lives. The
US was insistent that the defendants be provided with counsel and access
to evidence and that they be accorded the right to cross-examine witnesses.
Dennis Hutchinson
of the University of Chicago in a November 18, 2001 Chicago Tribune
article cited the comments of Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson,
chosen to represent the US in any post-war proceeding, explaining the
options he presented to President Harry Truman: We could execute
or otherwise punish them [the Nazi officials] without a hearing. But
undiscriminating executions or punishments without definite findings
of guilt, fairly arrived at, would ... not set easily on the American
conscience or be remembered by our children with pride. Jackson
insisted that the only appropriate course is to determine the
innocence or guilt of the accused after a hearing as dispassionate as
the times and horrors we deal with will permit, and upon a record that
will leave our reasons and motives clear.
Jackson feared that
summary executions would erode the moral high ground that the victorious
powers enjoyed, according to Hutchinson, and that it was necessary as
well to document the precise nature of the Nazi crimes for posterity.
Jackson commented: Unless we write the record of this movement
with clarity and precision, we cannot blame the future if in days of
peace it finds incredible accusatory generalities uttered during the
war. We must establish incredible events by credible evidence.
In a comment directly
relevant to the current international situation, both in Iraq and Afghanistan,
Jackson noted that the Allied triumph by itself did not provide the
victors with the legal sanction to punish German officials, nor did
Allied claims and proclamations. The guilt of the Nazi leaders had to
be proven in a court of law.
Jackson declared,
The president of the United States has no power to convict anyone.
He can only accuse. He cannot arrest in most cases without judicial
authority. Therefore, the accusation made carries no weight in an American
trial whatsoever. These declarations are an accusation and not a conviction.
That requires a judicial finding. Now we could not be parties to setting
up a formal judicial body to ratify a political decision to convict.
Then judges will have to inquire into the evidence and give an independent
decision.
In his opening statement
to the Nuremberg tribunal, Jackson said, That four great nations,
flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance
and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of law
is one of the most significant tributes that power has ever paid to
reason.
Jacksons comments
and actions were bound up with a certain fidelity to democratic principles
that still held sway within the American ruling elite. They expressed
as well a certain confidence in the prospects for US capitalism and
the post-war world. They came from a position of relative political
and economic strength.
The prevailing atmosphere
in present-day Washington, which venerates repression and murder, represents
the collapse of any adherence to democracy, at home and abroad. The
Bush administration, which came to power through fraud and thuggery,
serves the interests of a crisis-ridden ruling elite that can only hope
to exercise power through the unrestrained use of violence on a global
scale.
The campaign of
political assassinations in Iraq is a further demonstration of the criminalization
of the American ruling elite.