SADDAM IN HIS PANTS.... GROSS

[Evin]

Take it you've all seen the news, oh and the uproar (yawn!). Here's the BBCs take on things:

The US is holding an inquiry into how photos of Saddam Hussein were leaked to UK newspaper the Sun, which has now printed more pictures of him.

The US military vowed to "aggressively" investigate how the photos of Iraq's ousted leader appeared in the paper.

After printing images on Friday of Saddam Hussein in his underpants and doing his washing, its Saturday edition pictured him behind barbed wire.

The paper has defended its decision to publish the photos.

It said they were obtained from a US military source.

The Sun's new photos show Saddam Hussein fully dressed, in a white robe-like garment, in a prison compound.

The newspaper also ran photos of two top members of the former Iraqi regime, who were identified as Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as "Chemical Ali" and Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash dubbed "Mrs Anthrax".

It said it would fight any legal action after Saddam Hussein's chief lawyer pledged to sue the newspaper.

'Barbaric and backwards'

US President George W Bush said he did not think the photos would encourage insurgents in Iraq.

"I don't think a photo inspires murderers. I think they're inspired by an ideology that's so barbaric and backwards that it's hard for many in the Western world to comprehend how they think."

However, several Arab commentators have suggested the photos could increase anti-American feeling in the region.

The Arabic satellite network, al-Jazeera, did not show the photo of Saddam Hussein in his underpants, saying they were "not news". However, al-Arabiya TV did include the picture in its bulletins.

'Breaching Geneva convention'

A statement from the US military on Friday said it was "disappointed at the possibility that someone responsible for the security, welfare, and detention of Saddam would take and provide these photos for public release".

The US military and legal experts also said the photos - possibly taken more than a year ago - may breach Geneva Convention rules on the humane treatment of prisoners of war.

The conventions say countries must protect prisoners of war in their custody from "public curiosity".

Saddam Hussein is being held by US troops at an undisclosed location in Iraq as he awaits trial on numerous charges, including murdering rivals, gassing Iraqi Kurds and using violence to suppress uprisings.

Friday's photos showed the 68-year-old former leader with a moustache, rather than the beard he sported when he was captured in December 2003, and again when he appeared in court last July.

The Sun's front page showed him wearing a pair of white underpants in his prison cell.

Other pictures showed him washing his trousers, shuffling around and sleeping.

The photos also appeared in the New York Post, which - like the Sun - is owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Defending the decision to publish, the Sun's managing editor Graham Dudman said: "People seem to forget that this is a man who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children and all that's happened to him is someone has taken his picture," he told BBC Radio 4's PM programme.

"This is a sort of modern-day Adolf Hitler. These pictures are an extraordinary iconic news image that will still be being looked at the end of this century."



"may breach Geneva Convention rules on the humane treatment of prisoners of war"

Geneva convention my @ss, humane treatment is only applicable for humans, this sad excuse of a man don't count in my book, what do you guys think.... all say 'aaaaaaaw' for Saddam, NOT!

[Evin]

Oooops, sorry Medya, hadn't realised there was more than one forum here, duh

[cheryl]

you know, evîn, i could understand all the fuss if this were strictly a geneva conventions argument that was being used.

however, the things that really get me are statements like these:

"Saddam's chief lawyer, Ziad al-Khasawneh, said his legal team would sue The Sun for publishing what he said represented "an insult to humanity, Arabs and the Iraqi people."

"He said the photos were part "of a comprehensive war against the Islamic and Arab nations" that included the abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and allegations by Newsweek, which were later retracted, about Quran desecration at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "

'"This is an insult to show the former president in such a condition. Saddam is from the past now, so what is the reason for this? It is bad work from the media. Do they want to degrade the Iraqi people? Or they want to provoke their feelings,". . ."

"In northern Kirkuk, Marwan Ibrahim, a 31-year-old civil servant, said the pictures were a "humiliation for a man who in the near past was the leader of Iraq and a top Arab leader in the region."'

"Pictures and video images of Saddam being examined by a medic after his arrest were widely criticized even by the Vatican. A top Vatican cardinal said at the time that American forces treated the captured Iraqi leader "like a cow."'

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=775285

how are these photos an insult to humanity? to the iraqi people? isn't saddam's very existence the REAL insult?

and then to go on blaming the publication of these photos as one example of a crusade (yes, crusade) against the arab/islamic world is more of the psychological denial and fantasy that pass for moral indignation and intellectualism among the arab elites. with this kind of thinking rampant in the arab world, will there ever be any kind of reconciliation with the bashurî and rojavayî kurds?

these kinds of statements are typical of all the apologists for arab nationalism and have been so since the gulf war, at least. i am not sure if apologetics like this went on in support of saddam for the iran/iraq war, but definitely these morally flaccid arguments were used as intellectual defense for the gulf war.

frankly, i do not give a damn what happens to this tikriti dirtbag. anything is too good for him.