US to hold "Chemical Ali" until Iraqi leaders agree

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

US to hold "Chemical Ali" until Iraqi leaders agree
02 Dec 2007 15:30:15 GMT

BAGHDAD, Dec 2 (Reuters) - The United States said
on Sunday it will hold Saddam Hussein's cousin, known
as "Chemical Ali", and two other former officials
sentenced to death, until Iraqi leaders reach a
consensus on their fate.

Iraq's prime minister, president and a vice president
have been at odds over who has the authority to order
the execution of Ali Hassan al-Majeed, former Defence
Minister Sultan Hashem and former army commander
Hussein Rashid Muhammad.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said:
"They are in United States custody and ... once the
government of Iraq has reached a consensus on what
they wish to do with these detainees we will then
take action."

The Iraqi government said on Friday Prime Minister
Nuri al-Maliki had asked U.S. President George W.
Bush to order the handover of the three so they can
be executed. Negroponte said he would not comment
on diplomatic communications.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02368336.htm

[floridablue]

1. How Many

Chemical Ali's does this make now. Is it once a quarter now that we kill,capture, or convict one of them. I am surprised they had that many chemical weapons to share. No wonder we couldn't find any more of them.

[ohio2007]

2. They want to "Saddam-ize" him ASAP

Saddam was strung up within hours of handing him over .

[acmavm]

3. The irony? We wouldn't be calling him 'Chemical Ali' if it hadn't been for

the help of Rumsfeld and the Raygun administration now, would we?

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0908-08.htm

<snip>

How Did Iraq Get Its Weapons? We Sold Them

THE US and Britain sold Saddam Hussein the technology and materials Iraq needed to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction.

Reports by the US Senate's committee on banking, housing and urban affairs -- which oversees American exports policy -- reveal that the US, under the successive administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr, sold materials including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs and botulism to Iraq right up until March 1992, as well as germs similar to tuberculosis and pneumonia. Other bacteria sold included brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene.

Classified US Defense Department documents also seen by the Sunday Herald show that Britain sold Iraq the drug pralidoxine, an antidote to nerve gas, in March 1992, after the end of the Gulf war. Pralidoxine can be reverse engineered to create nerve gas.

<snip>

The shipments to Iraq went on even after Saddam Hussein ordered the gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja, in which at least 5000 men, women and children died. The atrocity, which shocked the world, took place in March 1988, but a month later the components and materials of weapons of mass destruction were continuing to arrive in Baghdad from the US.

-MORE-

[rAVES]

4. He was later known as "Chemicaless-Ali" the media never bit :(