Excerpts: Saddam -- the ultimate Arab leader.Kuwait to be pressured. 9 July
2004
+++JORDAN TIMES 7 July '04:
How to deal with Saddam
Hasan Abu Nimah -- former Jordanian ambassador to the UN and to BENELUX.. A
prior article by him (Jordan Times 3 July '04) concluded: "Israel should
prepare for the third Intifada".
QUOTES FROM TEXT:
"many people saw Saddam as the only Arab leader who defied the injustice
and the hypocrisy of the Western world and who courageously -- even if
madly -- stood up to that injustice."
"believed he was targeted because he was an easy target and because he
was an Arab."
"did rejoice at the rise of the resistance and probably wished that
Saddam were truly leading it, ...They simply hated the war more than they
hated Saddam."
"many in the region will forcefully demand that if Saddam is to be
tried for the crimes he did commit, Ariel Sharon and others should be tried
too."
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EXCERPTS:
Saddam Hussein was shown on television ... to demonstrate that his captors
were acting correctly: turning him over for trial, as required, to the new
Iraqi government. ...

... Saddam, whose capture in early December was supposed to mark a great
victory for the Bush administration, turned quickly into a burden. It is
most unlikely that throwing the burden on the shoulders of the Iraqis will
solve the problem of how to deal with him.
Towards the end of last year, the war on Iraq was getting bogged down. Iraqi
resistance was on the rise and the number of casualties amongst the American
soldiers was on the rise too. ... Only a spectacular development, such as
the capture or the killing of either Saddam or Osama Ben Laden, many
thought, would bolster the political and military morale of the war parties
in Washington and London ... . That was realised through the capture of
Saddam, which indeed was hailed by ... Bush as a great victory.
Saddam was shown to the world upon his capture ... Saddam, in that showing,
was the anticlimax of the image people had of him when he disappeared. He
looked humiliated ... . Many people could not believe that it was really the
Saddam they knew. Some were angry that he did not shoot himself to avoid
such a humiliation and avoid handing his enemies such an easy victory.
Others thought he must have been drugged before his capture and that was the
only explanation they could come up with for him not taking his own life or
for not fighting to the finish, as his two sons did.
I was in Cairo attending an Arab League meeting when the news of his arrest
started to break in. Until his capture was definitely confirmed, I argued
that his capture alive was unlikely. Every comment on the news I heard at
the time, from officials as well as ordinary people, was filled with anger,
disbelief and disappointment. But the anger, disbelief or disappointment
were not the result of love or any unawareness of how brutal Saddam was,
despite the fact that many people saw Saddam as the only Arab leader who
defied the injustice and the hypocrisy of the Western world and who
courageously - even if madly - stood up to that injustice.
Of course, he was cruel, and his record was soaked with crime and atrocity;
and for that he deserves what he is facing.
[IMRA: Our quick survey did not locate a single writing by Ambassador
Nimah critical of Saddam when Saddam ruled.]
But many people in this region, and probably elsewhere, did not see those
who volunteered to punish him and punish his country and his people with him
as being any better. They believed that he was targeted because he was an
easy target and because he was an Arab. Otherwise, why not Israel, whose
leaders have been committing worse crimes, and much more than Saddam? Why
not North Korea whose nuclear programme is admitted and whose defiance is
declared?
, , ,
The application of such double standards is one of many reasons which prompt
people in this part of the world to see Saddam as a victim of Western
hypocrisy and blatant injustice. ,,,All those who opposed the war on the
basis of their conviction that it was unjust, illegal, aggressive, motivated
by ulterior motives and driven by genuine disregard (to say the least) for
the Arabs, obviously wanted the war to fail, and its perpetrators to bear
the consequences. They did rejoice at the rise of the resistance and
probably they wished that Saddam were truly leading it, or part of it. They
simply hated the war more than they hated Saddam, and if they, in normal
conditions, would have condemned Saddam in the strongest terms for what he
committed locally, they were willing to tolerate that for a Saddam fighting
the Americans and the other occupiers: ,,,.
The humiliating image of a broken, spiritless Saddam submitting to his
triumphant American medical examiners last December was replaced last week
by a totally different one. Saddam, this time, much to the delight of his
by-default supporters, was more like his old self, questioning the young,
inexperienced judge and describing the trial as theatrical. He was again
defiant and self-asserting. ...saying that the true criminal was George Bush
and the judge was working for the occupiers.
Saddam may still say a lot more and he has nothing to lose when he does. For
both the Iraqi government and the occupying authority, the trial of Saddam,
fair or unfair, will cause serious problems. Except for the quite justified
voices from Iraq for dealing the heaviest punishment to the dictator, many
in the region will forcefully demand that if Saddam is to be tried for the
crimes he did commit, Ariel Sharon and others should be tried too.

+++JORDAN TIMES 8 July '04
'Iraq's new order may come at Kuwait's expense'

QUOTES FROM TEXT:
"An influential member of Kuwait's ruling family and former minister
Wednesday (7 July) expressed concern the United States may coerce
the emirate into making territorial concessions to Iraq as part of
a new
regional order."

"successive Iraqi leaders ... repeatedly asked the emirate to lease
the
two uninhabited islands of Warba and Bubiyan to expand Iraq's
coastal
area."
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EXCERPTS:
KUWAIT CITY (AFP) - An influential member of Kuwait's ruling family and
former minister Wednesday expressed concern the United States may coerce the
emirate into making territorial concessions to Iraq as part of a new
regional order.
"I am afraid that Iraq's new order may be arranged at our expense. ...,"
former Oil minister Sheikh Saud Nasser Al Sabah told Al Seyassah daily ... .
"I am afraid that someone may come tomorrow to say that the issue of Umm
Qasr (port) and Bubiyan and Warba (islands) needs to be reviewed. This time
the request will not come from Iraq. It may come from the Americans," ...
."Now, we should expect the unexpected, because (major) events may take
place in this region," added the pro-American former official who was
Kuwait's ambassador to Washington during the 1990-91 Iraqi invasion and the
Gulf War.
Apart from laying claim to Kuwait as part of Iraq, successive Iraqi leaders,
including Saddam Hussein, had repeatedly asked the emirate to lease the two
uninhabited islands of Warba and Bubiyan to expand Iraq's coastal area.
The border port of Umm Qasr is divided between Iraq and Kuwait, which was
allocated an additional portion of the area when the United Nations
demarcated the frontier between the two countries in 1993.
In January, Mudhar Shawkat, vice president of the Iraqi National Congress
headed by Ahmad Chalabi, said that the two Gulf islands of Warba and Bubiyan
were essential for Iraq's economic development. "Iraq's interests first of
all lead us to demand that we should have such a water terminal on the
Arabian Gulf," said Shawkat, whose remarks were strongly condemned in
Kuwait.
. . .
After serving as Kuwait's envoy in the United States for a decade, Sheikh
Saud was appointed information minister on his return in 1992. He was later
moved to the oil portfolio until he resigned in 2001.

Dr. Joseph Lerner, Co-Director IMRA