2 Latvian Soldiers, 111 Iraqis Killed, Ba'ath Party Threatens to Retaliate Against US Interests Worldwide if Saddam is Executed

An Editorial Note From Al-Jazeerah: News articles may be reduced in size or slightly changed to conform to the Conflict Terminology guide adopted by Al-Jazeerah. Changes also include correcting Arabic names and editing. So, readers are advised that news articles may not represent their original form in verbatim or size, according to the mentioned original sources.

The following news report is edited and may not represent the original version. See Al-Jazeerah Editor's note below for more details. The following number of deaths represents what is only reported by news agencies, not the real daily figure, which exceeds an average of 100 everyday.

An appeals court order upholding President Saddam Hussain's death sentence might not require the Iraqi president's approval, a presidential spokesman said Wednesday. If it does not, the captured Iraqi President in the US custody will have no other legal means of avoiding execution.

Violence struck Baghdad again Wednesday, with a car bomb explosion killing eight civilians and wounding 10 near an Iraqi army checkpoint, police said.

Two Latvian soldiers were also killed and three were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded under their Humvee, the Latvian Defense Ministry said. Latvia has about 130 troops serving with a Polish contingent in Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad.

(It is beyond any logic to even think about why the government of Latvia would send its soldiers to kill Arabs and Muslims in Iraq, and create bad blood with Arabs and Muslims!!!).

In its ruling Tuesday, the appeals court said Saddam must be hanged within 30 days for ordering the killings of scores of people in the city of Dujail in 1982. An Iraqi tribunal convicted Saddam on Nov. 5 after a nine-month trial.

Iraqi officials had said such a decision must be ratified by President Jalal Talabani and Iraq's two vice presidents. But a presidential spokesman said that was not necessarily the case.

"Some people believe there is no need for his approval," said Hiwa Osman, Talabani's media adviser. "We still have to hear from the court as to how the procedure can be carried out."

Lawyers were debating whether an Iraqi High Tribunal provision mandating the imposition of the death penalty could take precedence over a law in the constitution that requires the president to approve death sentences.

The appeals court also affirmed on Tuesday death sentences for two of Saddam's co-defendants, including his half brother. It ruled that life imprisonment for a third was too lenient and demanded he too be sentenced to death.

Some Iraqis said Saddam should be hanged immediately, but others feared Iraq's bloodletting could escalate if he is executed at a time when sectarian attacks are already on the rise.

"Executing him now is dangerous. The situation is very bad. Things need to be calmer," said Sa'adia Mohamed Majed, a 60-year-old Shi'i in Baghdad who wants the penalty to be postponed for at least three years.

The court's decision came on a particularly bloody day in Baghdad, when at least 54 Iraqis died in bombings and police discovered 49 apparent victims of sectarian reprisal killings.

Many Baghdad neighborhoods were jittery on Wednesday amid fears that Iraqi resistance fighters would target groups forming the US-backed Iraqi government in revenge attacks. There was a heavy police presence in the downtown area of Karrada, and parents picked up their children from a school after reports of a car bomb in the area.

Some Saddam loyalists threatened to retaliate if the captured Iraqi leader is executed, warning in an Internet posting that they would target U.S. interests anywhere.

The statement appeared on a Web site known to represent the Arab Ba'ath Socialist Party, which was disbanded after U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The site is believed to be run from Yemen, where a number of exiled members of the party are based.

"The Ba'ath and the resistance are determined to retaliate, with all means and everywhere, to harm America and its interests if it commits this crime," the statement said, referring to the Ba'ath Party fighters as "the resistance."

Saddam's defense lawyers, who are based in Amman, Jordan, urged Arab governments and the United Nations to intervene to stop the execution.

"Otherwise, all may be participating in what is going on, either actually or due to their silence in face of the crimes, which are being committed in Iraq in the name of democracy," the lawyers said in an e-mail statement to The Associated Press.

The statement signed by "the Defense Committee for President Saddam Hussein" said the court's rejection of Saddam's appeal was part of the "continued shedding of pure Iraqi blood by the current regime in Iraq, which (is) directly connected with the American occupation."

An expert on war crimes speculated the sentence might be carried out very quickly.

"I won't be surprised if there's just an announcement in several days saying the sentence has been carried out. The ruling says the sentence has to be carried out within 30 days, but it doesn't say you need to wait," said Michael Scharf, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

The execution should be "properly witnessed and documented with a lot of photos because you don't want rumors popping up years later that he's only been exiled or something," he said. "But I don't think it's in anybody's interest to make a public showing of his hanging, that could be the trigger for a lot of violence."

Human Rights Watch, an international rights group that opposes the execution, said the law creating the Iraqi High Tribunal mandates that death sentences can never be commuted. However, international law says that when a death sentence is given, there must be an opportunity for it to be commuted, the group said.

"There's some real confusion as to who has the authority to ratify the death sentence," said Richard Dicker, director of the group's International Justice Program.

Saddam is currently in the midst of another trial, charged with genocide and other crimes during a 1987-88 military crackdown on the Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. An estimated 180,000 Kurds died during that civil war to prevent the Kurdish secession. That trial was adjourned until Jan. 8, but experts have said the trial of Saddam's co-defendants is likely to continue even if he is executed.

Saddam is being held at Camp Cropper, an American military prison close to Baghdad's airport. U.S. military officials did not say whether the US-captured Iraqi President will now be turned over to the Iraqis in anticipation of his execution.

On daily basis, US and other Western corporate media report on few attacks in Iraq, which usually result in killing less than fifty Iraqis. This has been a disinformation effort to make the war sound like violence between Shi'is and Sunnis.

However, reports from the UN, US military commanders, and Iraqi officials have showed that more than one hundreds Iraqis are killed every day.

Apparently, corporate media have been participant in a concerted effort to cover up the horrors of the US War in Iraq, and make it sound less intense than what it is in reality.

Sometimes, the Western corporate media do not report any war news at all from Iraq or Afghanistan. They even systematically call daily fighting "violence" to make it sound like "domestic violence," not war.

It is inaccurate to describe the war in Iraq as if it is fought between Muslim Shi'is and Muslim Sunnis, as the US and other Western corporate media have been trying hard to do.

It is more accurate to describe it as fought between US-led forces and Iraqi resistance fighters. Even killing civilians is part of the war, as the evidence earlier demonstrated that Interior Ministry death squads and British soldiers were caught either targeting or attempting to target civilians to make the war appear as if it is between Shi'is and Sunnis.

This purported Shi'i-Sunni civil war in Iraq aims at distracting Iraqis and dividing their country into three regions, in preparation for a final partition and dismemberment of Iraq. Previous statements of Iraqi elected officials pointed fingers to death squads of the Interior Ministry.

Moreover, on September 19, 2005, two British soldiers were arrested by Iraqi police for driving a car bomb in a Basra street. They were freed by British forces before being interrogated by Iraqi police. This incident sheds some light on who might be behind car bomb explosions in Iraq.