[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 114 (Friday, September 22, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1567-E1570]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SADDAM HUSSEIN AS A WAR CRIMINAL
______
HON. JOHN EDWARD PORTER
of illinois
in the house of representatives
Thursday, September 21, 2000
Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, September 19, 2000, the
Congressional Human Rights Caucus (CHRC) held a briefing on building
the case against Saddam Hussein as a war criminal. This week our
Administration urged the United Nations to establish a war crimes
tribunal to try Saddam Hussein and eleven other Iraqi officials in the
deaths of up to 250,000 civilians in Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and elsewhere.
David Scheffer, the Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues,
testified before the CHRC on September 19th. His remarks present the
evidence which has been gathered by the U.S. against Hussein. This
evidence includes crimes committed during the Iran-Iraq War, the
massive use of chemical weapons in Halabja against his own citizens in
1988, the invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1990 and 1991 and the
killing of his political opponents which continues today.
Ambassador Scheffer's remarks are a thorough account of the
horrendous crimes Saddam Hussein has committed and continues to commit,
and what the U.S. is doing to promote justice in Iraq. I commend to
Members' attention Ambassador Scheffer's remarks and hope that the U.S.
Congress will strongly support the Administration's effort to bring
Hussein to justice.
The Case for Justice in Iraq
(By David J. Scheffer, Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues)
Thank you. It is good to be among so many groups and
individuals who are dedicated to the pursuit of justice,
democracy and the rule of law for the Iraqi people. I am here
to tell you all that the United States looks forward to the
day when justice, democracy and the rule of law will prevail
in Iraq.
I want to do three things this morning, by way of starting
us all on a series of interesting presentations on different
aspects of the case for justice in Iraq. First, I want to
call to everyone's attention the reason we are here--the need
to address the continuing criminality of Saddam Hussein's
regime. Second, it has been almost a year since I saw many of
you here in Washington last October, when I spoke at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on the subject of
Iraqi war crimes, or at the Iraqi National Assembly in New
York shortly thereafter. I want to update you on what the
U.S. Government has been doing to promote accountability for
Saddam Hussein's 20 years of criminal conduct. Third, I think
you will find of interest some of the reaction, in Baghdad
and elsewhere, to what we--and many of you--have been doing
to promote the cause of justice in Iraq.
Let me be clear at the outset. Our primary objective is to
see Saddam Hussein and the leadership of the Iraqi regime
indicted and prosecuted by an international criminal
tribunal. If an international criminal tribunal or even a
commission of experts proves too difficult to achieve
politically, there still may be opportunities in the national
courts of certain jurisdictions to investigate and indict the
leadership of the Iraqi regime. The United States is
committed to pursuing justice and accountability in the
former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Cambodia, Sierra Leone and
elsewhere around the world. We are also committed to the
pursuit of justice and accountability for the victims of
Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
The Criminal Record of the Regime of Saddam Hussein
Let me turn to my first main point, the need to address the
criminal record of Saddam Hussein and his top associates for
their crimes against the peoples of Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, and
other countries. To the United States Government, it is
beyond any possible doubt that Saddam Hussein and the top
leadership around him have brutally and systematically
committed war crimes and crimes against humanity for years,
are committing them now, and will continue committing them
until the international community finally says enough--or
until the forces of change in Iraq prevail against his regime
as, ultimately, they must.
This may seem self-evident to all of you here today.
Interestingly, in my discussions of this issue I have found
some people who will agree that Saddam Hussein is a criminal,
but who
1. The Iran-Iraq War. During the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam
Hussein and his forces used chemical weapons against Iran.
According to official Iranian sources, which we consider
credible, approximately 5,000 Iranians were killed by
chemical weapons between 1983 and 1988. The use of chemical
weapons has been a war crime since the 1925 Geneva Protocol
on poisonous gas, to which Iraq is a party. Also during the
Iran-Iraq War, there are credible reports that Iraqi forces
killed several thousand Iranian prisoners of war, which is
also a war crime as well as a grave breach of the Geneva
Conventions of 1949, to which Iraq is a party. Other war
crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Saddam
Hussein and the top leaders around him against Iran and the
Iranian people also deserve international investigation.
2. Halabja. In mid-March of 1988, Saddam Hussein and his
cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid--the infamous ``Chemical Ali''--
ordered the dropping of chemical weapons on the town of
Halabja in northeastem Iraq. This killed an estimated 5,000
civilians, and is a war crime and a crime against humanity.
Photographic and videotape evidence of this attack and its
aftermath exists. Some of this is available to scholars and--
God willing--to prosecutors through the efforts of the
International Monitor Institute in Los Angeles, California.
More visual evidence is available from Iranian cameramen, who
collected their images of the victims of this brutal attack--
most of whom were women and children--in a book published in
Tehran. The best evidence of all is from the survivors in
Halabja itself.
I am proud to say that the United States has been working
with groups such as the Washington Kurdish Institute and
scientists like Dr. Christine Gosden to document the
suffering of the people of Halabja and--just as importantly--
to find ways to help the people of Halabja treat the victims
and bring hope to the living. Working with local authorities,
we are looking for ways to help investigators, doctors and
scientists document this crime and plan the help that the
survivors need and deserve. We know they will not get that
help from Saddam Hussein. As one example, to help war crimes
investigators, the U.S. Government is today announcing the
declassification of overhead imagery products of Halabja
taken in March 1988, the best image we have that was taken a
little more than a week after the attack. We hope this will
serve as a photo-map to enable witnesses to describe to
investigators, doctors and scientists what they were during
those terrible days of the Iraqi chemical attack and its
aftermath.
3. The Anfal campaigns. Beginning in 1987 and accelerating
in early 1988, Saddam Hussein ordered the ``Anfal'' campaign
against the Iraqi Kurdish people. By any measure, this
constituted a crime against humanity and a war crime.
Chemical Ali has admitted to witnesses that he carried out
this campaign ``under orders.'' In 1995, Human Rights Watch
published a compilation of their reports in the book ``Iraq's
Crime of Genocide,'' which is now out of print. Human Rights
Watch needs to reprint this book. Human Rights Watch
estimated that between 50,000 and 100,000 Kurds were killed.
Based on their review of captured Iraqi documents, interviews
with hundreds of eyewitnesses, and on-site forensic
investigations, they concluded
4. The invasion and occupation of Kuwait. On August 2,
1990, Saddam Hussein ordered his forces to invade and occupy
Kuwait. It took military force by the international community
and actions by the Kuwaiti themselves to liberate Kuwait in
February 1991. During the occupation, Saddam Hussein's forces
killed more than a thousand Kuwaiti nationals, as well as
many others from other nations. Evidence of many of these
killings is on file with authorities in Kuwait and at the
United Nations Compensation Commission in Geneva. Saddam
Hussein's forces committed many other crimes in Kuwait,
including environmental crimes such
[[Page E1568]]
as the destruction of oil wells in Kuwait's oil fields,
massive looting of Kuwaiti property--Saddam's son Uday
appears to have treated Kuwait as his personal used car lot.
As well, Saddam Hussein's government held hostages from many
nations in an effort to coerce their governments into pro-
Iraqi policies. During the war, Iraqi authorities also
committed war crimes against Coalition forces. War crimes
against American servicemembers were detailed in a report to
Congress and in an article by Lee Haworth and Jim Hergen in
Society magazine back in January 1994.
5. The suppression of the 1991 uprising. In March and April
of 1991, Saddam Hussein's forces killed somewhere between
30,000 and 60,000 Iraqis, most of them civilians. The story
of the uprising of the Iraqi people is one of courage and
hope for the people of Iraq and has been told by men such as
former Iraqi General NaJib al-Salihi in his book Al-Zilzal,
``The Earthquake.'' The story of the uprising that started in
the south, a part of the country traditionally neglected and
deprived by Saddam Hussein's government in Baghdad, deserves
to be better known outside of Iraq. Most of those killed were
civilians, not resistance fighters--a distinction that Saddam
Hussein did not respect in 1991 any more than he has before
or since. This qualifies as a crime against humanity and
possibly also a war crime.
6. The draining of the southern marshes. Beginning in the
early 1990's, and continuing to this day, Saddam Hussein's
government has drained the southern marshes of Iraq,
depriving thousands of Iraqis of their livelihood and their
ability to live on land that their ancestors have lived on
for thousands of years. This is clearly not a land
reclamation project, or a border security project as some of
Saddam's defenders have claimed. Instead, as groups such as
the Amar Foundation have begun to document, Saddam's efforts
have served to render the land less fertile, and less able to
sustain the livelihood or security of the Iraqi people. This
qualifies as a crime against humanity and may possibly
constitute genocide.
7. Ethnic cleansing of ethnic ``Persians'' from Iraq to
Iran, and an ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing of the non-
Arabs of Kirkuk and other northern districts. This ongoing
campaign of ethnic cleansing was documented by the former
U.N. Special Human Rights Rapporteur for Iraq, Max van der
Stoel in his reports in 1999.
8. Continuing unlawful killings of political opponents.
Many groups have documented Saddam Hussein's ongoing campaign
against political opponents, including killings, tortures,
and--lately--rape. As some of you may know, the regime has
been using sexual assaults of women in an effort to
intimidate leaders of the Iraqi opposition. We salute the
courage of opposition leaders such as General Najib al-Salihi
for speaking out about this crime.
Who is responsible for these crimes? Like Slobodan
Milosevic, Saddam Hussein did not commit these crimes an his
own. He has built up one of the world's most ruthless police
states using a very small number of associates who share with
him the responsibility for these criminal actions. The non-
governmental group INDICT some time ago developed a list of
12 of those most deserving of international indictment. To
refresh everyone's recollection, they are:
1. Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq and chairman of the
Revolutionary Command Council (RCC). I will have more to say
about the, RCC shortly.
2. Ali Hassan al-Majid, ``Chemical Ali,'' reviled for his
enthusiasm in using poison gas against Iraqi Kurds and in the
Iran-Iraq war. He also turned up in Kuwait during the
occupation and, more recently, as governor in the south of
Iraq during recent periods of repression against the people
there. When someone shows up at crime scene after crime
scene, the pattern of evidence becomes clear.
3. Saddam's elder son Uday, a commander of a ruthless
paramilitary organization that maintains Saddam's hold on
power.
4. Saddam's younger son Qusay Saddam Hussein, the Head of
the Special Security Organization, reputed by many to be
Saddam's likely successor.
5. Muhammad Hamza al-Zubaydi, Deputy Prime Minister of
Iraq.
6. Taha Yasin Ramadan, Vice President of Iraq.
7. Barzan al-Tikriti former Head of Iraqi Intelligence.
8. Watban al-Tikriti, former Minister of the Interior.
9. Sabawi al-Tikriti, former Head of Intelligence and the
General Security Organization.
10. Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri vice chairman of the
Revolutionary Command Council and former Head of the
Revolutionary Court.
11. Tariq Aziz, Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq.
12. Aziz Salih Noman, Governor of Kuwait during the Iraqi
occupation.
II. Building the Case: What the United States Has Been Doing
The charges are clear. The targets of prosecution are
identified. Let me turn to a brief description of what the
United States has been doing in the past year to gather the
evidence of Iraqi crimes against humanity, war crimes and
genocide.
First, we have undertaken an analysis of the de jure case
against Saddam Hussein. This is important because a more
straightforward de jure case can greatly simplify the work of
prosecutors. As some of you know, the International Criminal
Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia took advantage of Slobodan
Milosevic's official role as President of the FRY in 1999 to
indict him for crimes against humanity in Kosovo, whereas he
has not yet been indicted for his responsibility for crimes
committed during the 1991-95 wars in Bosnia and Croatia, when
he was nominally only President of Serbia.
The de jure case against Saddam Hussein and his top
associates is rock-solid. To summarize briefly, Article 37 of
the current Iraqi constitution names the Revolutionary
Command Council (RCC) the supreme body in the state. Articles
42 and 43 state that the RCC has the power to promulgate laws
and decrees that have the force of law. Article 38 states
that the RCC chairman is also the President, who is
responsible under Article 57-59 for the acts of the Iraqi
military and security services. The RCC chairman and Iraqi
president is, of course, Saddam Hussein.
We have also been doing our part on the de facto case. Our
second area of work has been in connection with one of the
most important archives of evidence--millions of pages of
captured Iraqi documents taken out of northern Iraq by Human
Rights Watch and the U.S. Government. We scanned these onto
176 CD-ROM's. Last October, we announced we had given a set
of the 176 CD-ROM's to the Iraq Foundation, along with a
grant to make the full collection of these documents
available on the Internet to scholars, journalists and,
eventually, prosecutors worldwide. I know the Iraq Foundation
and the Iraq Research and Documentation Project have been
working hard on that project, which I will let them describe
further.
Third, the U.S. Government has another archive of millions
of pages of documents captured by U.S. forces in Kuwait and
southern Iraq during Operation Desert Storm. I announced on
August 2 that we have been working to declassify these
documents and that we were giving the first of these to the
Iraq Foundation. Today, I am announcing that we have given
several hundred more to the Iraq Foundation, as well. I will
let the Iraq Foundation describe further what is in this
collection.
Fourth, the U.S. Government has an extensive archive of
classified documents relating to Iraqi war crimes during the
Gulf War. Since October, staff from my office have located
and reviewed these materials. If you remember the final scene
of ``Raiders of the Lost Ark'' where the Ark is being wheeled
into a warehouse of crate upon crate, I should tell you that
that warehouse does exist--it's in Suitland, Maryland--and
that my staff found these materials on Iraqi war crimes . . .
located safely right next to the Ark of the Covenant. U.S.
Army lawyers and investigators did a truly outstanding job of
compiling this evidence and organizing it in ways that will
prove valuable to the staff of a tribunal or commission. Some
of the materials can eventually be declassified. While we do
not intend to make all of these documents public, we have
worked closely with past commissions of experts and tribunals
to allow them access to classified material in accordance
with U.S. laws that protect sources and methods. We would be
willing to do the same for a commission or tribunal looking
into the crimes of Saddam Hussein and his henchmen.
I must also salute the work of Kuwaiti prosecutors, the
Center for Research and Studies on Kuwait, and others there
in documenting Saddam Hussein's crimes against the Kuwaiti
people. After the liberation, Kuwaiti authorities undertook a
systematic effort at collecting evidence and documenting
Iraqi war crimes in Kuwait. As some of you know, Kuwaiti
prosecutors recently completed a thorough trial of Alaa
Hussein, installed in August 1990 by Saddam Hussein as the
quisling governor of Kuwait during the early weeks of the
occupation. Kuwaiti prosecutors showed, through their
professionalism in that trial their ability to present
evidence of Iraqi war crimes committed 10 years ago.
Fifth, U.S. Government officials have been meeting with
witnesses and former Iraqi officials to gather evidence of
Iraqi war crimes. There is no substitute for eyewitness
accounts in any criminal prosecution, before an international
tribunal or in national courts. We have learned a lot in
these interviews. As a rule, we treat information provided to
us in confidence, so we leave it to those who talk to us
whether to go public with what they have experienced. There
have been a number of cases where valuable leads have come
forward. We understand other groups are also active in
interviewing witnesses, but I will leave it to them to
describe their own work.
Sixth, to support our other work the U.S. Government has
undertaken a review of imagery to declassify potential
evidence of both historical and more recent Iraqi criminal
conduct. We have made public imagery products showing the
ongoing work to drain the southern marshes, and destroy Iraqi
villages. Recently, the Iraq Foundation received a report of
the destruction of the southern Iraqi village of Albu Ayish
on March 28 and April 5, 1999. We were able to locate imagery
products from September
[[Page E1569]]
1998 and December 1999 that confirms this account. Those of
you familiar with Jamie Rubin's press briefings of the
conflict in Kosovo will recognize this presentation. [Show]
On the left is Albu Ayish as it existed before Iraqi forces
moved in. You can see the school near the river, here. The
buildings surrounding it have roofs on them. In the ``after''
picture, here, the school is intact. That is more than you
can say for the buildings surrounding the school, which bear
the signs of destruction from ground level. I will leave it
to Rend Franke if she wants to say more about what happened
to the families at Albu Ayish and surrounding towns in
southern Iraq. Albu Ayish is but one example of what the U.S.
Government is doing to review imagery of Iraqi war crimes.
All in all, we have had a productive year in developing and
preserving evidence of Iraqi crimes against humanity and war
crimes. We are the first to say there is much more that needs
to be done. To that end, we are hoping the Congress will give
us the President's full requested appropriations so that this
important work can continue for another year. We also
anticipate further strong contributions to this work by the
Iraqi opposition. The Iraqi National Congress, in particular,
tell us they plan to devote substantial efforts to this cause
as part of its upcoming $8 million work program.
III. The Reaction from Baghdad and Elsewhere
Let me turn to my third main point. One of the most
interesting aspects of our work on documenting Iraqi war
crimes, and engaging with other governments on this issue,
has been the reactions we have received. Let me first talk
about Baghdad's reaction. Saddam Hussein recognizes that he
is vulnerable to calls for accountability for his crimes
against humanity,
There is another important aspect of the Iraqi reaction, as
well. Saddam Hussein realizes that international discussion
of his crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes
reveals the truth about his policies towards the Iraqi people
for the last 20 years. This is a regime that maintains its
power through crime--whether it be by crimes against humanity
and war crimes, or by killings, torture or the threat of
killings and torture, of Iraqi citizens, and by looting the
property that rightly belongs to the people of Iraq or Iraq's
neighbors. Make no mistake--those crimes are continuing to
this day.
Saddam Hussein clearly fears the truth. Journalists who
travel to Iraq all have ``minders.'' It takes courageous
journalists, and documentary film producers like Joel Soler,
to tell any story other than the one that Saddam Hussein's
regime wants you to tell. (I hope you all can see Mr. Soler's
documentary, ``Uncle Saddam'' at 1:00 this afternoon.) One
recent visitor to Iraq traveled to Baghdad earlier this year
and was shown hospital beds with two patients to a bed. It
was only when he slipped away from his minder that he found
out that around the corner, out of sight, was a room full of
empty hospital beds. Last week, as you read in Barbara
Crossette's story in September 12th's New York Times, Saddam
Hussein kept U.N. humanitarian experts from traveling to Iraq
to assess the true living conditions in Iraq. She wrote,
``President Saddam Hussein, whose government is now probably
the world's most repressive, wants to control all contact
between Iraqis and outsiders, and can in effect veto the
assignment to Iraq of even United Nations officials.'' Large
aid organizations based in Europe have been barred from areas
in Iraq under the regime's controls. Instead, only small,
anti-sanctions protesters, ``who bring in relatively small
amounts of aid, are welcomed for their propaganda value.''
Any statistics from Iraq, or taken by Iraqi officials for the
U.N., are seriously suspect. A recent Fellow at the U.S.
Institute of Peace, Amatzia Baram, documented in this
Spring's issue of Middle East Journal how the Government of
Iraq denies U.N. relief agencies accurate and reliable
statistics on the true conditions inside Iraq. No reporter
should uncritically accept as true any Iraqi statistics,
based on the research and data shown in this article. Iraqi
human rights and opposition groups frequently must work hard
and take risks to get the truth out of Iraq, and I am honored
to be here with some of their representatives today. Saddam
Hussein refused every year to allow the former U.N. Special
Human Rights Rapporteur for Iraq, Max van der Stoel, to visit
Iraq to find out the truth about Iraqi human rights abuses.
The new rapporteur, Andreas Mavrommatis of Cyprus, has not
been allowed into Iraq, either. Efforts to keep U.N. arms
inspectors from the truth about Saddam's nuclear, chemical
and biological weapons are so well-known I will not repeat
them, except to say there were many ``full and final
disclosures.'' Russian diplomat Yuli M. Voronstov was this
year denied entry to find out the true fate of more than 600
missing Kuwaitis taken captive by Iraq during the occupation
of Kuwait and, thus far, never returned to their families.
Their fate is known up until the time they were taken to a
prison in Basrah, southern Iraq, and they have never been
heard from since. It is true that, a few years ago, Iraq
All this effort to conceal the truth about what is going on
inside Iraq today is hard to explain without understanding
the context of Saddam Hussein's 20-year record of crimes
against humanity by the Iraqi regime. We know from those who
have been in Saddam's inner office that he admires Josef
Stalin, and he has clearly tried to emulate Stalin's methods
of brutality, terror, covering up the truth, and using
propaganda to project a different image. An awareness of the
criminal character of Saddam Hussein's regime puts in context
his current propaganda campaign. No wonder Saddam Hussein is
concerned about efforts to establish an international
tribunal that would document the truth of his 20 years of
crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes. It would
end international support for Saddam Hussein's campaign to
gain personal control of billions of dollars of Iraqi oil
revenues that is now dedicated to the Iraqi people through
the U.N.'s oil-for-food program. Make no mistake--the United
States is committed to finding ways of improving conditions
for the Iraqi people, but we cannot foresee the suspension of
U.N. sanctions except through full compliance with the
Security Council's resolutions that were adopted precisely as
a result of Saddam Hussein's crimes against humanity,
genocide, and war crimes against the peoples of Iraq and
Iraq's neighbors.
The United States has held discussions in the last year
with a number of governments and non-governmental
organizations who share the desire for an international
tribunal to indict Saddam Hussein and his top aides for their
crimes. We have also compiled a collection of arguments from
those who don't want to support a tribunal. As you would
expect, none of them withstands scrutiny. Let me share some
of the answers we have given and let you be the judge.
Until recently, some people said there was no reason to
bring Saddam to justice since most of his crimes took place
long ago, starting right after he seized absolute power in
1979. That argument doesn't work any more, since other recent
efforts for justice in Europe and Asia have reached back
prior to 1979, when Saddam Hussein murdered his way to the
presidency of Iraq. The worst abuses of the Pinochet era took
place in 1973-1979, and the crimes against humanity of the
Khmer Rouge era took place in 1975-1979. As Secretary
Albright has long made clear, there is no statute of
limitations for genocide or crimes against humanity.
Some have said that the Security Council should not
establish another ad hoc international tribunal and instead
wait for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to come into
force. The ICC Treaty will not come into force for at least
two more years, and it will not have jurisdiction over crimes
committed before the Treaty comes into force. Therefore, the
ICC will be not able to hold Saddam Hussein and his
associates accountable for between a hundred thousand and a
quarter of a million civilian deaths, nor for the tortures,
rapes, lootings and other crimes against humanity and war
crimes of the past, nor for crimes against humanity that are
still going on inside Iraq today. Nor, under Article 12 of
the Treaty, is the ICC going to be able to indict Saddam for
crimes he commits in the future inside Iraq unless the
Security Council acts to establish the court's jurisdiction
over his crimes, which we, and others, say should happen
right now.
Our pursuit of justice in Iraq is entirely consistent with
the objectives of the International Criminal Court,
objectives we have long supported. Governments that support
international justice need to work together in real time on
the most demanding issues of accountability of this era--in
places like the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone,
Cambodia--and Iraq. It would be ironic indeed if the
generation of leaders who drafted the ICC Treaty turned their
backs on some of the most egregious crimes of our time. The
ICC will not succeed if its supporters are not willing to
demand accountability for war criminals like Saddam Hussein.
Finally, there used to be those who said that the threat of
indictment of officials around Saddam Hussein would deter
them from leading a coup against him. The nature of the Iraqi
regime--both in fact and in law--is that Saddam Hussein and a
very small group of men around him have wielded absolute
power. They are not likely to be the ones to lead an uprising
against Saddam. They deserve to be the ones held responsible
for the regime's crimes against humanity, genocide and war
crimes. When Saddam passes from the scene--and this will
happen sooner or later--there will need to be a process of
truth and reconciliation for the bulk of Iraqi society if it
is to make peace with itself. We owe it to the victims of 20
years of the crimes of this regime to hold accountable those
at the top who wielded absolute power and ruined the lives of
millions of Iraqis.
The last argument that never gets made, at least publicly,
is money--that there is profit in doing business with the
Baghdad regime despite its criminal character. Countries that
have ratified the ICC treaty have
[[Page E1570]]
already expressed, explicitly or implicitly, their policy
decision that economic grounds are insufficient to let a war
criminal off the hook. We believe there is much more to gain
for international peace and security from pursuing
international justice against Saddam Hussein than would ever
be possible to gain for private profit from pursuing
international commerce with Saddam Hussein. Moreover, in the
end, Saddam Hussein's criminal regime will go. At that time,
the Iraqi people will look up, around them, and see who stood
up for justice for the victims of Saddam Hussein's criminal
regime, and who opposed efforts to bring the regime to
justice. It is in everyone's long-term interests--economic,
political, and moral--to side with justice for the peoples of
Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, and elsewhere.
IV. Conclusion
In conclusion, let me say this. Iraq is a proud nation. Its
heritage goes back to the days of Hammurabi the lawgiver and
the four schools of Islamic law of the Abbasid Caliphate
(Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali), and the great Shi'ite
schools of Islamic theology that Saddam Hussein has sought to
destroy. Saddam tries to liken himself to the great
Nebuchadnezzar II, when it is more likely history will judge
him as a latter-day Hulagu Khan, the Mongol conqueror who
left Iraq a legacy of death, devastation and misrule. Mongol
conquerors built a pyramid of the skulls of their victims;
Saddam Hussein used helmets of Iranian soldiers killed during
the Iran-Iraq War. The time has come for Saddam Hussein and
his top associates to be held accountable for their 20 years
of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. I hope
you will join with me these next few months in advancing the
cause of justice in Iraq.
____________________