Saddam's Well-Timed Execution

By Robert Parry
January 10, 2007

Saddam Hussein’s rushed execution looks even more suspicious now that the trial of his co-defendants has resumed with prosecutors playing an incriminating tape recording of the dead Iraqi dictator discussing chemical weapons – but now without any possibility of him fingering U.S. officials and others who may have helped him get the poisons.

President George W. Bush and his supporters are sure to cite the tape recording as further evidence of Hussein’s guilt and thus vindication of Bush’s decision to press ahead with Hussein’s controversial hanging on Dec. 30.

But the troubling reality – virtually ignored in the major U.S. news media – is that Bush also silenced a particularly dangerous witness who could have implicated prominent U.S. officials from both his father’s and his own administrations.

The hasty execution prevented the Iraqi judges from turning to Hussein after the tape was played on Jan. 8 to question him about its authenticity and its context. Another obvious follow-up would have been how had Hussein obtained the dangerous chemicals that he allegedly deployed to kill tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds.

In that sense, Hussein’s silence was golden for the international arms dealers who supplied his regime and for government officials who facilitated the shipments.

Read on.