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US presence no longer justified after Saddam capture: Palestinian press
Khaleej Times, (AFP)
15 December 2003
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM -
The leading Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds said on Monday that US forces could no longer justify their presence in Iraq after the capture of Saddam Hussein, while some commentators said that the fallen dictator deserved a more dignified end.
“After the capture of the former Iraqi president, the maintenance of American and other foreign forces in Iraq has no more justification especially as his arrest was one of the main reasons for the occupation over the last eight months,” said Al-Quds in an editorial.
The daily said that the coalition forces must explain “the reasons for their occupation of Iraq and the (absence of) weapons of mass destruction” now that Saddam was being interrogated.
For Al-Quds, Saddam’s capture “demonstrates the fragility of the Arab regimes when they are abandoned by large parts of the population.”
“It is sad and shameful that in this case the regime of Saddam has fallen and then he is arrested in the course of an operation by the occupation forces.”
Describing the capture as a “day of joy for traitors”, columnist Ahmed Dahbur wrote in the Al-Hayat Al-Jadida newspaper that Saddam had “never compromised over Iraq”, recalling how Iraqi forces fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel during the 1991 Gulf War.
Danbur recognised that the rule of Saddam was “very harsh and non-democratic” but said that it was also characterised by bravery.
“Saddam Hussein was a repressive leader but also a man of principle” who did not simply bow down before the “Americans and the Zionist enemy”.
Another Al-Hayat columnist, Adli Sadeq, also argued that there was no need for the US forces to humiliate 66-year-old Saddam, whose disheveled image was broadcast around the world after his capture on Saturday night in a farmhouse near his hometown of Tikrit.
Sadeq said that he recognised Saddam had killed many Iraqis and Arabs as he sought to secure his place in history.
But he said that Saddam was at the same time “a dictator and bedouin who was ambitious for a role in history espousing the cause of the Arab nation.”
The Palestinian leadership, which supported Saddam during the 1991 conflict, has so far issued no official reaction to his capture.
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