What do y’all think of this article?
I almost skipped over this, read several pieces about Saddam’s VP getting streched, all rather clone-like. Except for this line, “amid worrying reports that Iraqi insurgents used children in a suicide atack”, that grabbed my eye! What do you news junkies think of this article, overall and in particulars.
Saddam’s deputy hanged on anniversary of US-led invasion
Compiled by Daily Star staff
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Saddam Hussein’s former vice president was hanged for crimes against humanity early Tuesday, the fourth anniversary of the US-led invasion, amid worrying reports that Iraqi insurgents used children in a suicide attack this weekend. US Major General Michael Barbero, deputy director for regional operations in the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, said adults in a vehicle with two children in the backseat were allowed through a Baghdad checkpoint. The adults then abandoned the vehicle and detonated it with the children still inside, he said, raising worries that the insurgency has adopted a new tactic to get through security checkpoints with bombs.
“Children in the back seat, lower suspicion, we let it move through,” he said. “They parked the vehicle, the adults run out and detonate it with the children in the back.”
“The brutality and ruthless nature of this enemy hasn’t changed,” Barbero said.
The general called that incident a new tactic, but noted US forces had only seen one such occurrence involving children.
Former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan was buried on Tuesday in Saddam’s home village of Awja in northern Iraq outside a hall in which the dictator himself is laid to rest.
Ramadan, aged almost 70, was the fourth regime official to be executed for his role in the killings of Shiites from the village of Dujail after an attempt on Saddam’s life there in 1982.
Government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said the execution of Ramadan, carried out at 3:05 a.m., went according to plan and measures were taken to ensure there was no repeat of controveries surrounding the earlier hangings of Saddam and his half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti.
Shortly after Ramadan was hanged, a car bomb near a Baghdad police station killed at least five people and wounded 17 and another bomb in Baghdad killed three. Mortar bombs later killed seven in southern Baghdad. At least 32 corpses of men killed execution-style were found in the capital, security officials said.
In western Anbar Province, tribal fighters and police clashed with Al-Qaeda linked militants near Fallujah. A provincial official in Ramadi said 39 militants were killed, along with nine tribal fighters and eight policemen.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb
In Amman, Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani described Iraq’s situation as disastrous and predicted it would worsen if US troops suddenly withdrew.
“The security situation was better in Iraq in 2003 ... But in other cases, of course Iraq 2007 is better,” Barazani said.
He said he wanted US troops out of Iraq, but stressed that could only happen once “Iraqi forces and the Iraqi government control Iraq and guarantee [its] security and stability.”
“If the civil and sectarian war continues in Iraq and the country is divided, the Kurds will have their own position and take their own decisions,” he added.
US President George W. Bush warned skeptical Americans Monday of the dire consequences of a swift troop withdrawal. Bush appealed for more time for his plan to send in nearly 30,000 additional troops, mostly to stabilize Baghdad.
In his news conference, Barbero said the use of chemical bombings has increased and become a tool of the insurgency, as the three chlorine bombs detonated this past weekend brought the total to six such bombings since January.
“High-profile” suicide and car-bomb attacks by Sunnis against Shiites also have not abated, Barbero said.
But he said increased force in Baghdad had yielded some success, such as a reduction in murders and executions of civilians.
Asked about the Shiite militia led by radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, Barbero declined to say whether US forces were in negotiations with the group.
“I think where we are with the leaders of his movement is at a pretty delicate point and I probably don’t want to talk any more about his followers, where we are in our relationship with them,” Barbero said. “That’s probably best left unsaid.”
But the general said US and Iraqi forces were operating freely in Baghdad’s Sadr City, a Shiite militia stronghold, and that he believed the cleric was still in Iran. - Agencies
I scan the headlines and summary in the Daily Star everyday, usually read at least one article and I just got to ask. Is this an oddly assembled article or what?
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