Saddam and the cellphones
By now, millions of people have viewed the hanging of Saddam Hussein. Not just Al Iraqiya's pornographic tease of America's old pit bull just prior to his necktie party. No, I mean millions have watched Saddam actually hang. Take a look at the video up at this website Live Leak, a YouTube clone (Hat tip to No Quarter; you probably don't *really* want to follow this link). How many views? When I clicked it was 134,205 times it had been watched. Meanwhile, the people at Boing Boing found 4 more of these clips at Google Video, guaranteeing that millions more casual internet users will watch Iraq's dead president swing. And I'm sure it will be no time at all before these videos are pressed to a million VCD's sitting on the floor of marketplaces across the Middle East to be viewed as short films prior to one's at home screening of a pirated copy of Dreamgirls.
Clearly, the location of Saddam Hussein's execution was one of the most secure settings for an execution ever constructed. So, why are we finding on the move about this planet a bunch of viral, unrestricted and uncensored videos of what is probably the most controversial execution ever carried out?
Newsweek provided an interesting interview with Ali Al Massedy, the "official videographer" tasked with producing the official record of the execution. He usually does this job for Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Presumably, they brought him in to shoot the film so that there would only be one version of the execution, and the government would then be able to tightly control its distribution. Ali says as much:
Ali said the videotape lasts about 15 minutes. When NEWSWEEK asked to see a copy, Ali said he had already handed the tape over to Maliki's chief of staff. "It is top secret," he said. He would not give the names of officials in attendance, though he estimates there were around 20 observers....He also said that government officials had not decided whether or not to release the videotape.Well, I guess they decided. It was so top secret that they let multiple men out of that limited group of 20 bring in cellphones with video functions, and then allowed them to record the execution. I bet you couldn't smuggle a gun into that execution chamber. But apparently you could smuggle a cell phone with a video camera into those gallows, and stand out in plain sight 15 feet from the platform and shoot that video of this "top secret event" to your heart's desire.
And just as our fair president raced to wake up Saturday morning and issue a statement about what had been done in Iraq, several of those 20 attendees raced home or to their offices to upload videos of a hanged Saddam Hussein so everyone in the world could see this secretive execution carried out.
What a sham it has been. Pretending at the time of Saddam's capture that now was the time for a trial, and pretending at the time of his sentence that now was the time to order his execution, and pretending at the time of his execution that now was the moment he had to hang, and then pretending that it was a secret act carried out with discretion to avoid antagonizing any of Iraq's population.
Here we are seeing 21st century psychological operations. It's hard to know who is directing this internet traffic, but it can be concluded there were elements within America's government and/or military, working in concert with Iraq's current scarecrow power-holders, who wanted as many people as possible in the world to see Saddam hang. And from that rope hanged not just that bearded old man, but whatever was left of our culture that hasn't been degraded by the 7 years of 'leadership" we've been dragging around with us.
Did Usama get a copy? (ah.. hem...)
~OGD~
ps: Nice piece, Mike!
December 31, 2006 3:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Juan Cole's article on the death of Saddam can be found here.
Best,
Ticia
December 31, 2006 11:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
I"m not sure what you mean about degraded culture in the last 7 years. Can you explain that further?
December 31, 2006 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
The political forces controlling the White House have degraded our political culture.
December 31, 2006 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just to be specific , recall the 2000 South Carolina Republican primary re: McClain and the 2004 General Election re: Swift Boat .Politics ain't bean bag but those both gave added resonance to the term "slime".
December 31, 2006 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah okay, that makes sense. I wasn't certain if you were referring to that or pop culture generally.
Thanks.
January 3, 2007 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Revenge killings always give me the warm fuzzies...just under 3,000 Americans were killed, so roughly half a million Iraqis who had nothing to do with those killings need to die to avenge what happened, which will only lead to more killings.
I am against all premeditated murder, including those done by governments in the name of "justice". It is what it is and has been done...so be it. It solves nothing, time to move on...moving right along, nothing to see here.
December 31, 2006 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
actually, the number of people that we helped murder, in Iraq, was higher.
under bill clinton, the bodies of at least 500,000 "iraqi children" were added to the body heap via US led sanctions. madeline albright is now infamous for gloating that, "yes, these deaths were worth the price."
Initially, I thought that Bush's war might have been more humane, and better than clinton's "slow death policy," but I was wrong on all counts.
December 31, 2006 8:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
And from that rope hanged not just that bearded old man, but whatever was left of our culture that hasn't been degraded by the 7 years of 'leadership" we've been dragging around with us.
I had the very same feelings upon watching the video. This administration managed to turn a ruthless murderer into a sad old man, by mimicking him. Is there nothing these neo-chickenhawk-limp-dic old guyz don't phuck up!?
I am not about to suggest that Saddam didn't deserve what he handed out, and I understand the kind of terror Iraqis lived under and which produced joy at his death. However, in carrying the execution out, I felt we demeaned ourselves as humans.
Good piece.
Snerd
December 31, 2006 10:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
We not only demeaned ourselves, but we demeaned an entire country, by humiliating their leader. While we acknowledge the massive atrocities that were committed by Saddam, the hands of our government are equally dirty with his acts. Who aided and supported him when he was conducting these massacres. Who provided him with weapons, biological and chemical weapons when he invaded Iran. A war where not only 1.5 million Iranian soldiers and civilians were killed; and mind you still suffering from cancer, and radiation but also 1 million Iraqi's. Our policy then was containment of both Iraq and Iran. So we provided assistance to allow them to destroy each other and gave Saddam the most cruelest methods to do so. Are we not guilty. Who gave Saddam the green light to invade Kuwait? Our government did and then we turned on him and invaded his country? Who asked the Shiites and the Kurds to rise up against Saddam only to abandon them and have them massacred by their leader? We did?
Shame on our government, shame for what it does to other countries under the pretext of "WMDs" and when that does not work, we say we want to liberate you from your dictator and bring about democracy to an oppressed people. What democracy have we brought to the Iraqi people? The purple finger as a demonstration that they went to the polls!! These people are suffering from no food, no water, no electricity, no security, no safety, a civil war. All of which was created by our government. Then we show the humiliating handing of their leader. This was done in the green zone, under U.S. supervision. And like a soap opera we pass around a video of this hiddeous act of murder as we gloat that a dictator that we created and brought to power finally faced justice!! Shame on our government. And we are fools to believe that justice was done. We established a Kangaroo court, we picked the judges who placed Saddam on trial and then we stopped the trial when it no longer served our interest. We did not want him to discuss the rest of his criminal acts as it would incriminate our government. The gassing of the Kurds and the 1.5 million Iranians killed by our military assistance, including chemical and biological weapons which we provided to Saddam, went unanswered.
January 1, 2007 8:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's Mr Bush's turn to face justice because he helped get rid of the main actor/witness in the key issues that motivated the war on Iraq: WMD and Al Qaeda. Everybody still remembers General Powell's famous High Tech demonstration before the SC's members how Irak was handling its secret WMD program.
January 1, 2007 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'am writing from an Arab country. The very few people I know who are anti-Saddam feel shocked and offended, not by the execution itself because they think he deserves to be put to death, but by the timing(coincides with Aid Al Idha which is the second most important religious festivity in Islam )and by the very quick release of the hanging images. They don't understand why Americans are in a hurry to carry out the sentence while many other crimes have to be judged. They regret that they won't learn more about the reasons of the invasion of Iran and Kuwait.
Some witnesses shouted:"Moqtada, Moqtada,Moqtada,.." proves that the sentence was executed by an indictive shiite militia.That of course deeply undermines the Iraqi Government's credibility and fans the flames.
January 1, 2007 9:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dear Arab writer:
I heard the same thing you did, Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada but I just can't believe that the government of Iraq would be so illogical to conduct an execution of this type when it would surely know that it would infuriate an entire segment of the Muslim population and its own people against itself. Just the day that this order of execution was given seems conspicious to me. We know that Eid-al-Adha is celebrated by all Muslims (Shiites as well as Sunnis). There is something more behind this, and a simplistic concept of Shiite revenge is what they want us to believe. Who knows who were the masked men and why they would say such a thing in the last minute of Saddam's death!! Doesn't this make you wonder that those individuals who said such a thing wanted to create exactly this divide and portray this as an act of revenge!! The execution took place in the Green Zone under U.S. inspection.
Anyway, this execution was conducted too hastily, before Saddam was able to respond and expose the other co-conspirators in his crimes against not only the people in Iraq but also the Iranians whom he used chemical and biological weapons to kill - now the 1.5 million Iranians were Shiites. They never got a chance to hear the truth about how the U.S. supported Saddam in that great genocide.
January 1, 2007 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
"...conducted too hastily, before Saddam was able to respond and expose the other co-conspirators..."
This is a brilliant point. I wish I had thought of it.
January 2, 2007 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whereas President Clinton mislead the Independent Prosecutor when he lied about Monica, President Bush mislead the whole Nation when he lied about Iraq. Which of the two lies is more damaging to America? So, why should'nt President Bush face impeachment?
I just was watching CNN and was completely shattered by injured american soldiers'images. One of them uttered to his colleagues:"please, don't let me die". That really made me feel unconfortable.
So far, 3002 Americans have died. Yet, is America really more secure? It's true no act of terror has been committed in the U.S. since 9/11. However, Anti-Americanism sentiments, unfortunately, have grown up throughout the world.
January 1, 2007 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
The perpitrators of the Anthrax attacks which killed postal workers occurred after 911 and have never been solved. The attack on our Constitutional protections by Bush & Co are, in my opinion, acts of terror. The fact that this administration has reiterated over and over that no act of terror has occurred since 911:
1. Doesn't make it true (see Athrax above).
2. Even if it WERE true, the Iraq "War" has nothing to do with it, since they had nothing to do with 911 in the first place.
3. Other than the poor slobs in Florida who were accused of plotting a terrorist attack, (even though they had NOTHING with which to do it) - not one terrorist spy ring has been foiled --> that we know of [and why would they not advertise when they do something right?]
4. This administration has repeatedly cried wolf (WMD's, etc) and then claimed credit when nothing happened.
5. OH! And 911 occurred on this president's watch --> after warnings which were ignored, and during which he stared into space for 7 minutes and then hid away waiting for someone to tell him what to do! How in the hell he gets creds for 911 is the most disgusting and amazing bit of PR spin in the history of politics! This AWOL coward got more military respect than a person who actually fought in Vietnam! What is wrong with people who follow talking points?
I don't think more people should vote, I think that only people who can actually THINK for themselves should bother to vote!
It is indeed a crime that our sons and daughters who are motivated by pride in their country, and a devotion to it are being blown to bits for little more than a desire to be a "war president" and to enrich one's cronies. It really makes me sick. There is not way to defend this mess.
Jan Knaus
January 1, 2007 6:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it a little wierd that people are put off by the fact that Saddam got verbally insulted, but not by the fact that he was HUNG?
I mean, if you're OK with walking a person up a flight of stairs, and having a couple of guys with black masks put a honking HUGE noose around his neck, and dropping the floor out from under him with an AUDIENCE watching him twitch his last time...
Oh, I could list many things that are more repulsive than that -- I think of one every time I hear a personal story about the latest dead soldier, just out of high school or college -- always funny, always friendly, always with dreams of the future -- now gone forever. And for what? So that a nasty old guy whom Ronald Reagan and Rummy helped to empower could swing and thereby take our secrets to his grave.
Jan Knaus
January 1, 2007 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
The taunting you hear on the video is very significant.
What made the whole execution disgusting was the sloppy legal path that led to it. There was no process; it was more of a lynching.
Most people might not appreciate what will sound like a tortured legal explanation of due process, but even if you're not a lawyer, the taunting in the video explains it all. It makes immediately apparent to anyone the rinky-dink process that made this more of a lynching than an execution.
January 2, 2007 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Thanks for the Memories: Saddam"
This video retrospective of the US-Saddam relationship can be viewed here.
January 1, 2007 7:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Boy hangs himself 'like Saddam' story here.
January 2, 2007 12:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Saddam Hussein was dictator of Iraq from 1979 until 2003, when his regime was overthrown by a United States-led invasion. Hussein had joined the revolutionary Baath party while he was a university student. He launched his political career in 1958 by assassinating a supporter of Iraqi ruler Abdul-Karim Qassim. Saddam rose in the ranks after a Baath coup, and by 1979 he was Iraq's president and de facto dictator.
Taken from: http://www.who2.com/saddamhussein.html
Ronald Reagan won the Republican Presidential nomination in 1980 and chose as his running mate former Texas
Congressman and United Nations Ambassador George Bush.
Taken from: http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/rr40.html
Rummy was Secretary of Defense from 1975-1977. From 1977 to 1985 he served as Chief Executive Officer, President and then Chairman of G.D. Searle and Company and Co. a worldwide pharmaceutical company. So ... was he selling pharmaceutical supplies to Iraq to put Saddam into Power in 1979? I'm confused.
Who put Saddam Hussein into Power? Saddam was already in power by the time Rummy was involved in any Middle East Politics and that was during the Iran/Iraq war.
Ariana who picked the judges? And you came to this conclusion based off what facts?
Who humiliated Saddam? What Americans took video of Saddam being hung? What Americans were present at this event? What Americans were shouting and taunting him? I'm just wondering because in the most recent videos I've seen I have yet to hear a single English word being spoken.
Who gave Saddam Weapons of Mass Destruction? Just because America traded goods with Saddam to help advance the Technology of Iraq (which he did), does not mean America did so with the knowledge that he was going to use and alter those items to kill.
People, I'm not a supporter of execution but your sitting here feeling pity for a monster and blaming America for hanging a man that America didn’t put on trial and America didn’t execute is ignorant. By all accounts, witnesses, photos and his own confession in the courtroom Saddam had utilized weapons of mass destruction again civilians. In fact, he bragged about using such weapons against the Iranians during the Iran/Iraq war. The United States aided in the capture of Saddam and aided in the detainment of Saddam. We did not put him on trial, we did not hang him, we did not video the execution, we did not release the video; we did not pull the hatch while he was in the middle of a prayer and we did not sit there taunting him right before his death. Saddam himself posted for his supporters to not blame America for this, he blamed the Iraq judicial system.
However flawed the judicial system may be, giving him any sort of trial was still giving him far more rights than he had ever given any of his victims. Did any of you watch the trial or did you just watch the execution video?
So, what secrets did Saddam bring to his grave about Bush or Rummy? Fact is, there may not have been any secrets. Saddam had ample opportunity to divulge these "secrets" yet he never did that we know of. Why is that? Did he have some sort of devotion or respect that prevented him from airing America's dirty laundry? I'm in doubt.
Why doesn't the Bush administration advertise when they "do something right"? They have. Sorry if sometimes they are too busy doing their job to make certain to let you know every time they want/need a pat on the back. Many times they are too busy just trying to keep up with the latest threat, communicating this information to the necessary parties, etc. to have time to make you feel better by showing you their effort.
Oh! During 911 Bush was "staring into space for 7 minutes"? And you read this where? From my recollection he was speaking to students. I don't remember any "fact" about him staring into space for 7 minutes while waiting for someone to tell him what to do. I'd love to see where this "fact" came from.
It seems to me we have a bunch of people here coming to conclusions based off information that may or may not be true. The exact same thing people accuse Bush for doing to gain support to bring our troops into Iraq. The difference being, at least the decision Bush and his administration made was based off some degree of fact. Because the fact is, under Saddam’s own account, he had and utilized weapons of mass destruction against civilians. The UN prevented the US from going in for over 6 months so they could do their search for weapons of Mass Destruction. A large portion of the time Saddam was preventing the UN from gaining access. Are you under some impression that these weapons could not have been dismantled and transported in this 6 month period?
What are many of you doing other than feeling "repulsed" at seeing our soldiers out there fighting and dying? Fact is many of these soldiers find people like you repulsive for sitting around pointing fingers while doing nothing but complain. How do I know this is a fact? Easy, my husband is one of them and has read your posts. You should be ashamed of yourselves because if you do have sound grand idea to help stop this war and bring peace, please step up to the plate, I’d love to not have to see my husband go off to fight this war again. Until then, stop coming up with conspiracy theories and stop babbling propaganda that does nothing but make you look weak and ignorant. Come up with opinions based off fact and show your intelligence. Most of these solders are fighting with the belief that their efforts are going to make a positive difference in the world. They are out there dismantling IEDs that are targeting not only themselves but innocent civilians and some of them are dying doing so. That’s because some of these soldiers are willing to take that chance to help prevent another child, another mother, another innocent person from being slaughtered. Please don’t demean their sacrifices.
Oh and lastly, it was the UN that instructed the US to abandon the Kurds and Shiites after the Gulf War, it was the UN that wanted Saddam left in power. It was the UN that ordered us out, it was the UN that then abandoned them. Again, make an intelligent argument based off the facts please.
January 2, 2007 9:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Vit, welcome to TPM Cafe - land of opportunity for the opposing view. A call for fact-based argument is a good thing, in my view. Your comments, however, strike me as very tenuous insofar as facts are concerned. Your opening chronology asks us to make some very far reaching inferences based not on facts but rather some pretty malnourished rhetorical devices. It's sort of like arguing that the US did not put Shaw Reza into power in Iran after the CIA undermined the democratic goverhment that existed there, because the Shaw was already the king.
The rest of your comments are very polemical with no facts to back up your claims. Your attack on the UN is a good example. Did the UN really "instruct" the US to abandon the Kurds and Shiites? What facts do you have at hand to support this assertation? It looks like bunk to me. Did the UN really want Saddam left in power? Again, where are the facts? How did the UN "order us out" (assuming you mean U.S.- don't forget that we have members here from other countries)? Facts, please. What facts support you assertion that the UN blocked searching for WMD for 6 months?
I apologise for using the pot-kettle-black argument here. And there's nothing intrinsically wrong with a polemical argument. But there is something wrong with attempting to frame a polemical argument as a factual argument.
Again, welcome to TPMcafe. I look forward to your contributions to this blog.
NeobohoJanuary 2, 2007 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh! During 911 Bush was "staring into space for 7 minutes"? And you read this where? From my recollection he was speaking to students. I don't remember any "fact" about him staring into space for 7 minutes while waiting for someone to tell him what to do. I'd love to see where this "fact" came from.
Michael Moore, F. 9/11. All on videotape...
Sources:
Plus, you know, the actual videotape footage of all this happening.
The truth, though, does tend to have a liberal bias, so all of this is probably suspect.
Dissent Protects Democracy.
January 3, 2007 8:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
It was so top secret that they let multiple men out of that limited group of 20 bring in cellphones with video functions, and then allowed them to record the execution. Here we are seeing 21st century psychological operations. It's hard to know who is directing this internet traffic, but it can be concluded there were elements within America's government and/or military...
Since we know the fall of Saddam's statue was a staged, theatrical event, I wouldn't put it past us to have the same kind of involvement with Saddam's hanging.
But you also shouldn't underestimate how far our culture (globally...) has been "youtubed." And it's very possible that people just didn't think of checking for cameras in cell phones -- I think there's a very big digital divide between people who think nothing of video-recording events with their cell, and people who still don't realize every phone comes with a camera.
It would be interesting to know if every cell in Iraq was sold with a camera as it is here now -- my bet is they are. If they aren't, then the psy-op theory becomes more plausible.
Anyway, I think the significance of this event lies more in the visual than conspiratorial aspect of the story. The fact that we've gone so far to blur the lines between public and private, how we're losing all sense of privacy, and how we're creating a climate of digital panopticism, where we're all willing participants in each other's surveillance.
Dissent Protects Democracy.
January 2, 2007 9:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Middle East reporting about indignities continues, so the cost to the US escalates:
January 2, 2007 5:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reference: American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition - Cite This Source
Persian Gulf War
A war between the forces of the United Nations, led by the United States, and those of Iraq that followed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. The United Nations forces, called the Coalition, expelled Iraqi troops from Kuwait in March 1991.
Quote from Former President Bush' memoirs: "Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish."
The Persian Gulf War was a war between the Forces of the United Nation's and Iraq. I'm not attacking the UN, I'm pointing out that the Persian Gulf War was the UN's war ... not the United States' war.
My opening comments were not comments, they were facts. I don't know how to debate with someone who refuses to see facts. Its like arguing with someone who insists the sky is red when it is clearly blue. The only logical conclusion one could make is that the seer is either color blind, controversial or just doesn't know any better.
More info:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/decade/sect2.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021010-5.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/11/20021108-1.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030123-1.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/iraqchron.html#0002
http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/01fs/14906.htm
January 2, 2007 6:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's not surprising, Vit, that you'd use a basic reference text to try and prove this point. Conservatives like to imagine that the United Nations is this body with limitless agency of its own. While the Secretariat and certain specialized agencies have some power that can be wielded with little oversight, the Security Council is nothing more than the sum of its parts - again, nothing more than the sum of its parts. In this case, the Security Council authorized the intervention of the force led by the US at the urging of the US. China abstained from voting, and Russia had to be cajoled considerably. This was a US mission with a blue-hued helmet.
It would be pretty easy for you to demonstrate that the UN called off the overthrow of Saddam Hussein - please, show us a statement by the Secretary-General at the time that called on the coalition of which George H.W. Bush was the commander-in-chief to stop. Or, show George H.W. Bush stating that he wanted to continue the fight, but the UN stopped him in his tracks. Keep digging.
In fact, history shows the opposite. President Bush 41 decided that ousting the Iraqis from Kuwait and demolishing much of Saddam's conventional firepower was a sufficient operation on its own, and decided to leave Saddam in power. The UN's call to end the war was the codification of a decision made by American military commanders.
After H.W. Bush urged the Shi'ites and Kurds to overthrow their tyrant, and the US refused to push the fight onward, the carnage that resulted was well acknowledged to be a major mistake of the US. Resolution 688 (1991) of the Security Council condemned Saddam's actions, but did not authorize the use of force. In spite of this, the US with other powers eventually took unilateral action in 1992 to establish the no-fly zones to protect the Kurds and Shi'ites from Saddam's remaining military forces. Many traditional international legal thinkers said the no-fly zones and the air strikes used to enforce them were not authorized by Security Council Resolutions (the US response was that peace enforcement was required to respond to violations of the ceasefire).
This proves without a doubt that where the United States decided to continue the fight in Iraq, they were able to do so.
Much of the source material for this discussion is found in Damrosch et al's International Law, Cases and Materials, 4th edition, chapter 12, section 3.
January 2, 2007 11:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
As you state The Security Council is nothing more than the sum of its part. The United Nations Security Council is made up of 5 permanent members and 10 elected ones. The United States makes up one of the permanent members. The others being China, France, Russian Federation and the United Kingdom. So what is the sum of it's parts? Well using basic mathematics I come up with 15. Quoted from the United States Security Council's website "Decisions on substantive matters require nine votes". Link below.
http://www.un.org/sc/members.asp
Yet this was a US war with a blue-hued helmet?
In addition to that, how many nations fought in the coalition during the Persian Gulf War? I'll answer that ... 32.
Also, your reference is not a readily obtainable one unless someone wants to go digging through a University Law Library. Could you provide a link to this section please?
January 3, 2007 11:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, Vit. It was a US war with a blue-hued helmet. The Bush 41 admin. went to the UN and made the case for a UN intervention in Iraq. This occurred after a debate inside the administration of whether or not the US and its partners needed UN approval.
The coalition was let by US commanders. They made all of the operational decisions and led their 32 partners. The decision not to march on Baghdad was made in the White House - not in Turtle Bay. This is *common* knowledge. Your hayseed postings of links to the UN Security Council membership ignore the basic historical record that is accessible to anyone that takes the time to think about it for a few moments.
If you can please show any of us some other evidence of the claim that the UN made decisions independent of the US in the Iraq war, please start doing so. If you can demonstrate that the UN overruled a US intention to finish the job in Iraq in the early 90s, again, fork it over.
But you probably shouldn't bother. You won't be able to.
January 7, 2007 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink