SADDAM ARRESTED

The US Defence Department said it had no confirmation of the report.

AP - EHRAN, Iran - Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has been detained in Iraq, Iran's official news agency reported Sunday.

"Saddam Hussein was arrested in his hometown of Tikrit," IRNA quoted top Iraqi leader, Jalal Talabani as saying. It gave no further details.

Nazem Dabbagh, a representative of Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdestan, confirmed Talabani's statement when reached by phone Sunday by an Associated Press reporter in Tehran.

In Iraq, a separate rumor that Saddam was captured or killed near Tikrit sent hundreds of exultant people into the streets of this northern Iraqi city Sunday. They fired in the air in celebration and congratulated each other.

A spokeswoman for the U.S.-led occupation in Baghdad notified reporters that a "very important" announcement will be made at a news conference scheduled for 7 a.m. EST, but did not say who would be the speaker. The spokeswoman requested anonymity.

In Tikrit, rumors that the former dictator was in custody were making the rounds, but reporters attached to the 4th Infantry Division, the U.S. unit in charge of security in the area, said there was no unusual activity there overnight or early Sunday.

"We are celebrating like it's a wedding," said Mustapha Sheriff, a resident of Kirkuk. "We are finally rid of that criminal."

"This is the joy of a lifetime," said Ali Al-Bashiri, another Kirkuk resident. "I am speaking on behalf of all the people that suffered under his rule."

Saddam, who ruled Iraq for 23 years until his ouster in April, has been a fugitive since then with a $25 million bounty on his head.

Rumors about Saddam's capture or death periodically surface, and a hotline set up by the occupation authorities for tips on his whereabouts is flooded with callers.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAH!

And so I fade back into the background.

\(^o\)

(/o^)/

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has possibly been captured in a raid near his hometown of Tikrit, U.S. officials say. However, the officials told CNN on Sunday that the identity of the individual, who was one of a number of wanted Iraqis caught, was still being confirmed.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. military captured Saddam Hussein alive in his hometown of Tikrit on Sunday, eight months after the fall of Baghdad, the Iraqi Governing Council said. Celebratory gunfire erupted in Baghdad.

The statement said Saddam was captured in a joint operation by troops from the U.S.-led coalition and Kurdish Iraqi forces.

"He was wearing a fake beard and laboratory tests have proven his identity beyond any doubt," said the statement.

U.S. officials said only that the U.S. military captured a man in the basement of a building in Tikrit during raids seeking Saddam and that initial efforts to verify his identity indicate he is the deposed Iraqi dictator.

"It certainly looks good," one senior U.S. official said, cautioning more scientific testing, possibly DNA, was being done early Sunday morning to try to confirm the identity.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair welcomed Saddam's capture.

"This is very good news for the people of Iraq. It removes the shadow that has been hanging over them for too long of the nightmare of a return to the Saddam regime," he said in a statement released by his office.

Saddam was trapped in a cellar, dug a hole and buried himself as U.S. soldiers moved into the house where he was hiding, an Iraqi official said Sunday.

"The American soldiers had to use shovels to dig him out," Entifadh Qanbar, spokesman for Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi, told The Associated Press.

Qanbar, basing his account on reports from members of the U.S.-led occupation authority, said Saddam had a salt-and-pepper beard when he was captured. Soldiers photographed him, shaved the beard and photographed him again before running DNA tests, he said.

"The DNA test confirmed 100 percent Saddam Hussein's identity," he said.

Qanbar said the capture took place "in a town very close to Tikrit," Saddam's hometown 100 miles north of Baghdad.

'We got him' [CHEERS]

What an arsehole

Best question in the press conference (Italian journalist): 'Is it really likely he was controlling the whole guerilla resistance from that hole?'

The answer is of course no. And that leads to the thought that the resistance to the US occupation is not just coming from 'Saddam loyalists'. A thought the US administration does not want us, under any circmstances, to think.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/12/14/wterr14.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/12/14/ixportaltop.html

(NB: the Proconsul quip is John Snow's, not mine)

QUEER EYE STRIKES AGAIN!

Although this is being trumpeted as a triumph for the rule of law, and we're told the Iraqis will judge Saddam themselves, it's obvious that there is no adequate legal system in place in Iraq to do that, and furthermore the Americans have refused to sign up to the International Criminal Court in case their own troops get indicted for war crimes. The legality of their invasion is itself dubious, and no retrospective justification has been found in the form of WMDs.

Saddam was captured according to a wild west, wanted dead or alive, cattle-rustling reward logic, and it seems likely that, since he 'knows too much' about the role of the US in aiding his military build-up, he will probably be dispatched in a wild west, cattle-rustling sort of way long before coming to anything resembling an objective court: he will 'commit suicide' in custody or be shot 'trying to escape'. Questions will be raised, but the Bush junta will keep everything quiet and win the next election regardless because, alas, this is the type of logic people understand and care about, whereas a Euro-constitution just isn't.

Of course, I was off 3 days, and I'm probably making up the whole "Bush knew where to find him all along" thing.

*sees Clinton photo* Oh my.

fyi calum, he PROPOSED a budget cut (he called it a "spending cap"). the legislative budget session hasn't even convened yet. he won't have a chance to "slash" the medical budget until wednesday may 14th, when he submits his revised state budget. in fact, he won't even be submitting a written budget proposal until jan. 10th 2004 - so who's to say he's slashed anything?

the former democratic governer, mr. gray davis, proposed similar spending medical caps in may of 2003.

agreed talking about saddam's capture (or medicare for that matter) in terms of 'is this a boost for bush in 2004?' is myopic and dull, and would've much preferred either 1) gloating that an awful man is potentially going to face justice or even "justice" at the hands of those he oppressed even if the justice he receives is very similar to the justice mussolini received or if the only reason he's facing it is cuz he miscalculated and managed to offend the sheriff that either turned a blind eye or lended a hand when he actually committed alot of his crimes 2) (smarter option perhaps) discussion of how he will be tried and how he should be tried or even 3) general news update thread with conspiracy theories and chuckling/venting over the immediate media crush fallout. instead we got, like 90% of ilx "political" discussions, bush and israel.

/snide comment intended to acknowledge that people who have not grown up here (or in some other country that is the point of discussion)--and yes, there's a big fucking difference between living here a couple of years and living most or the entirety of your life here as far as assimilating and absorbing the culture goes--frequently talk out of their asses and, without knowing it or acknowledging it, come off as completely ignorant, arrogant, or otherwise.

at the haig with milosevic heading the defense

Republicans are no different from Democrats in this respect.

Happy holidays.

Thank you!

G'Night!

arnold proposes a $1.9 billion cut for this year with enrollment limits for many children's programs (here in pdf form) conceivably if the children of CA have a healthy year we'll be ok.

davis proposed a $1.35 billion cut with outright enrollment denial for many adult programs (here in pdf form)

and it goes without saying that the problem of iraq's reconstruction makes the ca budget look like a cakewalk, and hardly amenable to analysis by people who can't tell a bullet hole from a bullet bruise.

Coincidentally, when I think of the fucktastic problem in Iraq, I almost always think of California as a scaling model. It's not only a dollar issue--it's a geography issue and a manpower issue. Nevermind the collossal cultural undertaking Iraq is; consider how hard it is to police the state of California and then consider the discrepancy in size between law enforcement in Cali and in Iraq.

(i'm not being argumentative, i'm just wondering why you chose the early 50s as the turning point, as opposed to say the mid-60s or the mid-40s or, well, whenever else)

http://www.kuci.org/~brianm/ile/javajive/saddam_05.jpg
http://www.kuci.org/~brianm/ile/javajive/saddam_04.jpg
http://www.kuci.org/~brianm/ile/javajive/saddam_01.jpg

(iraq2 is the beginning of the imperium's overreach and unravelling) (bcz the central bureaucracy isn't remotely strong or smart enough for the project in plan)

And since Arnold hasn't slashed Medicare yet either--hmm, did you read that he did that in the LA Times, too--maybe you were wrong on this. But hey, I'm a patient dude. I'll give you a benefit of the doubt and wait to see your proof that Bush slashed Medicare.

"[New York] Times/CBS News polls spanned the days before and after Mr. Hussein's capture, offering a vivid demonstration of the extent to which public opinion can shift in reaction to a momentous event. From Saturday night to Sunday night, Americans' view of the success of the war soared, as did their opinion about whether the nation is on the right track and their approval of Mr. Bush.

There was even a slight bump between the two polls in the number of Americans who thought the economy was on the mend, a number that had already been growing in polls since October.

In the most apparent demonstration of the shift, 47 percent of respondents said the war was going well for the United States in the poll that ended Saturday night. That number jumped to 64 percent in the second poll. Before the weekend, 47 percent of Americans disapproved of the way Mr. Bush was handling foreign policy, the worst rating of his presidency. After the weekend, that number had slid to 38 percent.

Mr. Bush's approval rating jumped to 58 percent after Mr. Hussein was captured, from 52 percent, and the number of Americans who disapproved of his performance fell to 33 percent, from 40 percent."

Open question: is this true? Do voting Americans care more/know more about domestic politics than about foreign policy. UK press, when it shows US electioneering, tends to concentrate on Bush's Patriotism and his success in the War on Terror. Is that skewed?

The World Wars alone boogied civil rights in the name of war, but as the next few decades progressed the federal courts became activist, the draft came up, the Great Society began, the War on Poverty began, the EPA, blah blah blah. All kinds of wild assed government expansion and power, which inevitably led to a much stronger federal government. This provided an excellent, irreversible foundation for lobbying and the like, a system built to keep people in power and not serve a representative democracy.

It's also the era of monopolies, wild-assed expansion of corporate/military power (including military Keynesianism). But what's wrong with the 'war on poverty' or indeed, the other major domestic theme of this era, civil rights? And when was the USA, in the era of segregation, a 'representative democracy'?

Obviously (?) there is nothing wrong the federal government taking on domestic themes or campaigns, most importantly when those themes encompass constitutional issues such as freedom. But the appetite for federal power is so prevalent and so concentrated that almost immediately those great causes become corrupted and rights get trampled in the name of justice or redress. I'm not opposed to federal action on these issues, I just think they should be limited rather than all-encompassing. And similar to the war in Iraq, there's never an exit plan, standards of action, benchmarking, or other conditional clauses to address status. These programs get started and only grow ad finitum.

The US has always been a representative democracy in design. It's just that a lot of people have decided along the way that it was a democracy and that alone has caused a lot of confusion. (And in that, the "right to vote" is a bit of a misnomer in itself.) The feds have accordingly stepped in from time to time to address inconsistencies from state to state vis a vis voting but that's more a manner of electoral procedure than something inherent to being a representative democracy.

the skewed part is the idea that it has anything to do with success. americans are for the most part hawkish, enrique. the point is that nobody is going to be able to attack bush effectively for his foreign policy.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr031218.asp

In no way were women or most black Americans "represented" prior to the Civil War and suffrage (and to a great extent, the civil rights movement).

If you have no say in the electoral process, your wishes and views are not represented. Having decisions made for you without input or any legal standing to challenge these decisions is not representation.

xpost