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To: unclewest who wrote (41932)	5/3/2004 8:57:27 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 793597

Crimes and Punishment in Iraq In the next few weeks justice and reckoning will be brought to the members of Saddam's regime. by Stephen F. Hayes 04/30/2004 9:25:00 AM AFTER WAITING FOR MORE than three decades, Iraqis brutalized by Saddam Hussein and his regime will begin to see justice "in the next few weeks," according to Salem Chalabi, the director-general of the tribunal system established to try regime criminals. The court proceedings themselves are not likely to start until early next year, Chalabi says, but the investigations will be transparent and some of the interrogations will be shown on television. "Under the civil law system, individual judges question defendants before their trial," says Chalabi, nephew of the head of the Iraqi National Congress, Ahmed Chalabi. "You can begin to show the atrocities. You can begin to show the shit that the old regime did and you'll see this in the next few weeks. We'll have meetings with the defendants and we'll show them on TV." The current plan is to try low and mid-level Baathist functionaries first and work up to senior regime figures and Saddam Hussein. "It's easier to try people who are lower-ranking because it's easier to try someone for one crime than twenty," says Chalabi. Once investigative judges have established that crimes have been committed by specific individuals, they will begin to work their way up the chain of command. The one known exception to this plan will be Ali Hassan al Majid, better known as "Chemical Ali." Majid's crimes are well known--he was responsible for the chemical attacks on the Kurds in 1988 and for putting down the Shiite rebellion in southern Iraq after the Gulf War. Because the Kurds lived outside of the control of the regime--in the northern no-fly zone--since 1991, investigators already have at their disposal reams of evidence related to the attacks collected over the past decade. Investigators are arrayed at five locations throughout Iraq, taking down eyewitness accounts of atrocities. One person they may want to talk to is Ali Mohamedawi, an Iraqi who helped lead the Shiite uprising in 1991, and who returned with U.S. troops last spring to help liberate Iraq. He told me his story as he waited in Kuwait to return to Iraq. AS HE FLED Republican Guard soldiers and local Baathists in March 1991, Mohamedawi was still wearing his Iraqi Army uniform to avoid suspicion. He encountered an elderly woman on the nearly-deserted streets of Basra. The woman offered him some food and some water. "My son, why you walking by yourself?" she asked. "I'm going to my unit," he answered, though it was clear from her expression that she didn't believe him. Mohamedawi continued: And she said, "Okay I'll ask God to keep you." And I said, "You don't need to cry." And she wants to bring some water and some food to her family. She saw the people at the corner laid down next to each other, and she told me some of them still move and they're bleeding. And she looks like she lost her mind. And she said, "Be careful, maybe they going to kill you." And she saw the disasters. And she saw also guys who belong to [Chemical Ali] force these guys to drink the gasoline, and then they shoot them. They had a special kind of bullet--at the front it's red, and when it's shooted at the night, it's not going just the bullet, it's going with the fire. And when it takes the bodies of the people filled with gasoline it makes the people explode--like a bomb. Each corner, goddamn it. OFFICIALS WORKING FOR the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq predicted last fall that the preparations for the trials would take at least two years. But Bush administration officials, aware of the need for swift justice for Iraqis and almost certainly mindful of the presidential elections, insisted that the process be expedited. The Justice Department has dispatched several dozen lawyers, judges, and prosecutors to work alongside their Iraqi counterparts, but Chalabi maintains that Iraqis are in charge. The trials will naturally concentrate on crimes the regime committed against Iraqis, but investigators are also working with Kuwaitis and Iranians to construct cases related to Saddam's persecution of his neighbors. "It will be a mix between Iraq and international crimes," says Chalabi, "but we'll place a large focus on Iraqi atrocities." Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard. © Copyright 2004, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved. weeklystandard.com.

To: unclewest who wrote (41932)	5/3/2004 10:48:32 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793597

All I can say is WOW! If this story is accurate, it's going to be a bad day for Kerry tomorrow..... Kerry 'Unfit to be Commander-in-Chief', Say Former Military Colleagues By Marc Morano CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer May 03, 2004 cnsnews.com. (CNSNews.com) - <font size=4>Hundreds of former commanders and military colleagues of presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry are set to declare in a signed letter that he is "unfit to be commander-in-chief." They will do so at a press conference in Washington on Tuesday.<font size=3> "What is going to happen on Tuesday is an event that is really historical in dimension," John O'Neill, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Navy as a PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) boat commander, told CNSNews.com . The event, which is expected to draw about 25 of the letter-signers, is being organized by a newly formed group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. "We have 19 of 23 officers who served with [Kerry]. We have every commanding officer he ever had in Vietnam. They all signed a letter that says he is unfit to be commander-in-chief," O'Neill said. O'Neill, currently a Houston, Texas, based attorney, is no stranger to Kerry. O'Neill served in the same naval unit as Kerry and commanded Kerry's swift boat after Kerry returned to the United States. Kerry's command of the PCF boat lasted four months and ended shortly after he received his third Purple Heart. According to naval regulations at the time, any soldier who received three Purple Hearts could request a transfer out of the combat zone. Kerry and O'Neill engaged in a nationally televised debate in 1971 on The Dick Cavett Show over Kerry's allegations that many Vietnam soldiers had routinely engaged in atrocities such as raping and cutting off ears and heads of Vietnamese soldiers and citizens. Kerry was the then spokesman for the anti-war group Vietnam Veterans Against the War. "We are going to be presenting a letter that deals with Kerry's unfitness to be commander and chief that has been signed by hundreds of swift boat sailors, including most of those who served with Kerry," O'Neill explained. "The ranks of the people signing [the letter] range from admiral down to seaman, and they run across the entire spectrum of politics, specialties, and political feelings about the Vietnam War," he added. Among those scheduled to attend the event at the National Press Club and declare Kerry unfit for the role of commander-in-chief are retired Naval Rear Admiral Roy Hoffman, who was the commander of the Navy Coastal Surveillance Force, which included the swift boats on which Kerry served. Also scheduled to be present at the event is Kerry's former commanding officer, Lt. Commander Grant Hibbard. Hibbard recently questioned whether Kerry deserved the first of his three Purple Hearts that he received in Vietnam. Hibbard doubted both the severity of the wound and whether it resulted from enemy fire. "I've had thorns from a rose that were worse" than Kerry's wound for which he received a Purple Heart, Hibbard told the Boston Globe in April. Organizers are confident that Tuesday's event and the letter with hundreds of signatures will educate people about Kerry. "It is one of the largest outpourings of concern about him being commander-in-chief that anybody could have in a presidential campaign and it is by the people who know him best," O'Neill said. 'Unfit Commander-in-Chief' Swift Boat Veterans For Truth maintains that Kerry's fellow Vietnam veterans are almost uniform in their disdain for his military service and anti-war protests. "Not only a majority of the people who served with him feel that way, but a vast and overwhelming majority," O'Neill said. He added that more than "ninety percent of the people contacted by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth responded to the request to sign their name, with only 12 declining to sign. "Comrades who actually served with him, almost all of them, are opposed to him, and believe he would be an unfit commander in chief and intend to bring the truth of his actual record to the attention of the American people," O'Neill said. O'Neill hopes the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth can reveal to the American people what he sees as Kerry's flawed character. "In the military, loyalty between commanders and the troops serving them is a two-way street. We have here a guy (Kerry) that with all of us in the field [in Vietnam] -- actually fighting the North Vietnamese -- came home and then falsely accused all of us of war crimes at a time when the people in uniform couldn't even respond," O'Neill said. "And he did that knowing that was a lie," he added. 'Real John Kerry' B. G. Burkett, author of the book Stolen Valor and a military researcher, believes that Tuesday's event will not be dismissed easily by Kerry's campaign as a "partisan" attack. "There are probably just as many Democrats amongst sailors who sailed swift boats as there are Republicans. What Kerry fails to realize is this has nothing to do with politics -- this has to with Vietnam Veterans who served, who have a beef with John Kerry's service, both during and after the war," Burkett told CNSNews.com. "The American people do not know John Kerry and hopefully the swift boat crews and other Vietnam veterans will make sure that the American public knows the real John Kerry," he added. Jim Loftus of Kerry's press office referred questions about Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's event on Tuesday to spokesman David Wade. Wade did not return CNSNews.com's requests for comment.