Here:
Saddam Hussein’s chief attorney denied on Thursday that the ousted president had confessed to ordering executions and waging a campaign against Kurds in which thousands of people are said to have been killed.
“There was no confession by the president and all the investigations in this case do not implicate him at all,” Khalil Dulaimi said in a statement sent to Reuters.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told state television on Tuesday that an investigator who questioned Saddam told him he had extracted important confessions from him and that the ousted leader had signed them.
Talabani did not say whether Saddam had actually admitted to committing any crimes, or had merely acknowledged that he was head of state and commander in chief of the army at the time of various military operations.
“Saddam deserves a death sentence 20 times a day because he tried to assassinate me 20 times,” Talabani said, recalling his days as a Kurdish rebel leader fighting the Baghdad authorities.
While this is clearly absurd, it underscores a real problem. Saddam is absolutely guilty, but we still need for there to be a fair trial ijn order for people to accept the results. This kind of nonsense makes the possibility of such a trial difficult, to say the least.
TallDave
I don’t know, this seems no more silly than trying Pinochet, or the Nazis at Nuremberg.
Meanwhile, this sounds like a major victory in Iraq.
Krista
Saddam’s trial is going to have to be absolutely transparent, and the proof is going to have to be airtight and irrefutable. Otherwise, it’ll create an absolute s**tstorm.
jobiuspublius
Guilty before being tried? Guilty of what?
demimondian
That’s why we need a transparent trial. Guilty of something, yes: at the very least, being a tyrant. In my experience, though, that’s not a crime which is usually punishable, however.
You may disagree with Cole, and I certainly often do, but he’s not a fool.
Nelson Muntz
You probably should have thought about that before letting Bush loose in the mideast. Now it’s your problem, what do you plan on doing about this? Typing some more?
Ha Ha!
jobiuspublius
Huh? Where did that come from? Is it possible we could try to not personalize everything?
Mike S
I think Talabani has been watching too much Nancy Grace.
KB
I hope so but that’s the 3rd time since september 2004 the MNF
have had to attack the city.
demimondian
Sorry, Jobius. I thought you were being snide in general. I misinterpreted you.
If you were just asking: guilty of what? I don’t know, I just want to know that we didn’t make something up for the purpose.
TallDave
Holy sh*t, they’re saying the Iraqis should know where Speicher is:
Time for someone to cut a deal.