thousands upon thousands have ALREADY died.
REMEMBER SADDAM HUSSEIN’S ATROCITIES
By Pastor Grant Swank, Jr. (1/06/03)
Lest we grow numb to Saddam Hussein’s atrocities, let us keep in the forefront of our ethics what devilment this "evil" fiend has been up to. Such is the crucial component regarding what a free, morally sensitive global citizenry must do in response to Hussein’s ongoing dark presence in our world.
He is a hatchet man of the first order:
Sheikh Taleb Al Souhail, outstanding Iraqi leaders and chief of the Bani Tamim tribe, was murdered by Hussein’s intelligence service, the Mukhabarat.
The Faylee Kurds, mainly men ages 16-28, were tortured in Hussein’s detention camps while their families were sent away to Iran.
Hetau Ibrahim Ahmad, prominent Kurdish spokesperson, tells of her having to flee her entire lifetime, in fact becoming a daily refugee. She sets forth detail of killings, oppression and displacement of Kurds by Hussein terrorists.
Dr. Katrine Michael, 1988 victim of chemical weaponry, had to flee to Turkey because of the ongoing chemical bombardment of Kurds by Hussein.
Nidhal Mhuk Shalal Aljuburi, Sabria Mahdi Naama and Peyman Halmat relate women’s public beheadings (while family members were forced to watch), women being dragged through village streets, rapes by Hussein’s security forces, kidnapping and mass killings, and displacements.
Nidhal Muhi Shalal Aljuburi told of the practical extinction of her Jibour tribe, such including relatives, by Hussein. She related Hussein’s purposeful polluting of southern Iraq marsh areas, such yielding the dying out of animal life. (1)
Further crimes by Hussein include:
Draining of the southern part of Iraq during the 1990s, such "cleansing" thousands of Iraqi Shiites.
More ethnic obliteration of the non-Arab population of Kirkuk, blatantly murdering thousands of Hussein’s political opponents.
Overseeing the murdering of more than 1000 Kuwaitis after his invasion of Kuwait, as well as holding foreign diplomats as hostages, stealing from Kuwaiti citizenry, raining down missiles upon Israeli civilians and seeing through war crimes against American militia.
Amassing weapons of mass destruction and instigating global terrorism.
Committing enough crimes so as to fill millions of pages of documentation on the part of the Clinton administration’s investigative teams who culled data for bringing Hussein and his henchmen to international justice.
"Yet no Iraqi official (at least 10 are of extreme interest) has ever been indicted for some of the worst crimes of the 20th century. My efforts to obtain UN Security Council approval for an ad hoc international criminal tribunal encountered one obstacle after another in foreign capitals, in New York and even within the Clinton administration. The usual excuse was that a tribunal would jeopardize either the United Nations' inspections regime or its sanctions regime. We needed Hussein's cooperation, which a criminal indictment might discourage," Mr. Sheffer states. (2)
Additional crimes include:
Daily executions, secretly carried out, at the whim of Hussein. "In Iraq, not a day passes without us hearing that someone from a family we know has been executed," one refugee is quoted as saying.
"For example, my neighbor's son was shot outside her house and no one could save him. When he died, the special security forces came and asked her to pay 50,000 Iraqi dinars per bullet to be able to recover the body. She sold everything she had and paid to be able to bury him, on her own, with two police cars accompanying her, and the police buried him. Three days later they came to demolish her house and she was left on the street with her three daughters. I saw that with my own eyes," the refugee added.
Brainwashing of children, beginning at age five. They are enrolled in "Ashbal Saddam" ("Saddam’s Cubs") where they must undergo military training, the latter including cruelty to animals. "From the age of nine, children are put through ‘proper’ military training. A firearm is a physical part of the child's body," a mother was quoted as saying.
Children are at times arrested, put in prison because a parent opposes Hussein, or merely because a soldier decides it is necessary. One mother told that her children, ages eleven and thirteen, were put behind bars for six months—all because her husband, prior to his being executed, refused to preach in favor of the Hussein war against Iran. Finally, to see her offspring set free, she had to pay the government.
Another witness sates: "In 1999, while I was under arrest in Abu Ghreb, I saw a group of women brought into prison with children of between three and five. It became standard practice to arrest women and children to put pressure on husbands, brothers, and father. They were kept from one to three months and released only if they confessed," the witness said.
"We children were between four and twelve in 1981 when we were taken to prison with my mother and my aunt. I can remember the hunger that I felt. When we ran to embrace my mother, who had instruments on either side of her head and was screaming, we felt pain because she was full of electric current," another witness quoted in the report said.
One million of internally displaced persons in Iraq is due to "forced population removal, known as Arabization. Under this program, farmland is confiscated, citizens are harassed, imprisoned, tortured, and not permitted to inherit or purchase business or real estate. "The terror in Iraq is ubiquitous," the report says. "Every Iraqi, man, woman and child is a potential enemy -- of the party, of the regime, of the leader Saddam Hussein -- and must be dealt with accordingly." (3)
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These testimonials were forthcoming at the National Press Club to an overflow crowd when distinguished Iraq-Americans spoke concerning their personal experiences of the Hussein regime. Moderator was Safia Taleb Al Souhail, Advocacy Director for Middle East and Islamic World at International Alliance for Justice. Joining her was the Honorable Zakia Ismail Hakki, first female judge in Iran and founding member of the Iraqi-American Council, as well as Hetau Ibrahim Ahmad, noted Kurdish activist, and Dr. Katrine Michael, an Iraqi Chaldean and Christian who became a part of the Kurdish resistance movement.
"Try Him For His Crimes," David J. Scheffer, The Washington Post, September 12, 2002.
International Federation of Human Rights Leagues and the Coalition for Justice In Iraq / NGO Reports Human Rights Abuses by Saddam Hussein. |
