Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 2007, pages 32-33

European Press Review

Saddam’s Execution: “We’ve Shut Him Up,” Says The Independent’s Robert Fisk

By Lucy Jones

Saddam Hussain’s death at the gallows on Dec. 30 “marks the end of a terrible chapter in Iraq’s history,” wrote The Sun, a British tabloid, on Jan. 1.

“Nobody is suggesting the journey to a peaceful and healed Iraq will be easy,” the newspaper said. “But Saddam’s death is a huge step in the right direction.”

Italy’s La Stampa of the following day viewed Saddam’s death as “possibly a turning point for a country finally united by the disappearance of the person chiefly responsible for its ruin.”

However, the majority of newspapers shared the opinion of Italy’s Il Sole of Dec. 31—that Saddam’s execution “does not mark the beginning of a new Iraq.”

Dialogue is urgently needed in Iraq, editorialized that day’s Il Messagero, also in Italy, but “the necessary conditions [for dialogue] do not exist. The death of Saddam will not help this situation,” it added.

“The condemnation of Saddam Hussain does not change anything on the ground,” opined France’s La Journal du Dimanche that day.

“Saddam’s death does not solve any of the problems that the military campaign against him created,” said the Dec. 31 edition of the German weekly Bild am Sonntag.

In the opinion of that day’s El Pais in Spain, the “precipitate and quasi-clandestine” hanging of Saddam meant Baghdad had “lost an opportunity to show the magnanimity that Iraq desperately needs.

“It has also lost the chance to carry on judging Saddam for his crimes against humanity,” the paper added, “and to expose to Iraqis the truth behind his appalling reign in all its gore.”

This theme was picked up in Germany by Deutsche Welle’s chief correspondent, Peter Philipp.

“The quick elimination of Saddam means Iraq has missed an historic chance to thoroughly deal with and come to grips with his reign of terror,” Philipp wrote Dec. 30 on the radio station’s Web site.

“He was convicted for the murder of 148 Shi’i, but what about the 100,000 dead and those persecuted in the Anfal campaign? What about the murdered Kurds of Halabja, the murdered Shi’i of the Kuwait war? What about the thousands of victims of the wars that Saddam started, particularly against Iran but also against Kuwait?” he asked.

“We’ve shut him up,” wrote Robert Fisk in Britain’s Independent the next day. “The moment Saddam’s hooded executioner pulled the lever of the trapdoor in Baghdad, Washington’s secrets were safe.

Saddam’s execution “does not mark the beginning of a new Iraq.”

“The shameless, outrageous, covert military support which the United States—and Britain—gave to Saddam for more than a decade remains one terrible story which our presidents and prime ministers do not want the world to remember,” Fisk said.

“And now Saddam, who knew the full extent of that Western support—given to him while he was perpetrating some of the worst atrocities since the Second World War—is dead,” he added.

“Many in Washington and London must have sighed with relief that the old man has been silenced for ever,” Fisk concluded.

Also in Britain, The Times of Jan. 4 described Saddam’s hanging as “tawdry and chaotic” and worried that the execution could actually worsen the situation in Iraq.

“Most moderate Shi’i leaders have been embarrassed by the affair, as have almost all Western leaders,” the newspaper said. “This is unlikely to appease all Sunnis, some of whom are searching for reasons to be outraged.”

However, said Britain’s Observer on Dec. 31, if Saddam’s death is to be a turning point “we needed to grit our teeth and talk.

“Only a regional approach to the Iraqi quagmire will bring any success. That of course will involve allies such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Kuwait, but it needs to involve enemies too,” the newspaper concluded.

British Muslims Told to “Join the British Army and Become a Martyr”

In the U.K. a government-backed Islamic organization is teaching young Muslims that dying while fighting for the British armed forces is an act of martyrdom, The Sunday Times reported on Dec. 10.

According to The Times, the British Muslim Forum (BMF) is telling young people that even if a Muslim soldier dies in combat while fighting in an Islamic country such as Afghanistan, he will still be regarded as a martyr and a hero of the country.

The newspaper said that in BMF forums, imans are citing Lance-Corporal Jabron Hashmi, a 24-year-old British Pakistani from Birmingham, who was killed in combat in July in Afghanistan.

Pointing out that Islam teaches loyalty and the need to abide by the laws of the land, they say that Hashmi died a martyr because he died fighting for his country.

In an editorial, The Sunday Times said that whether or not British Muslims can be persuaded to be martyrs “can be questioned.” But the newspaper praised the initiative for showing “imaginative thinking, which is what we need.”

“There is a hearts and minds battle to be fought—here on Britain’s streets,” the newspaper concluded.

Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust Denial Said “Unworthy of His Own Country

The open forum given by Iran Dec. 11 and 12 to support President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s contention that the Holocaust was a “myth” was described as “odious” by the UK’s Guardian on Dec. 13.

“It is hard to imagine anything remotely analogous to his questioning—in the face of overwhelming historical evidence—of the industrial-scale murder of 6 million Jews during the Second World War,” the newspaper said.

“Mr. Ahmadinejad’s repulsive promotion of Holocaust denial is unworthy of his own country, insulting to Jews and damaging to the Palestinians he claims to care about,” the newspaper continued.

The London Times of Dec. 12 pointed out that the conference’s organizers had censored the proceedings by denying a visa to an outspoken Palestinian lawyer who said the denials of the “monstrous horror” harmed the Palestinian cause.

“The more thoughtful Palestinians have already understood that the refusal to acknowledge the wartime persecution of the Jews gives credibility to the assertion that critics of Israel are motivated by anti-Semitism,” The Times said.

Berlin Mosque Row Said to Highlight Debate Over Integration of Muslims

Protests over plans to build the first mosque in former East Berlin were covered by Germany’s Der Spiegel on Dec. 28.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim community has won approval for a new mosque to be located in Heinersdorf at the end of a street where a defunct sauerkraut factory stands.

However, the publication quoted Joachim Swietlik, who says 90 percent of Heinersdorf don’t want the mosque to be built.

The Pankow-Heinersdorf Citizens’ Interest Group said their objections included traffic chaos and falling property prices, and expressed concern about “an Islamic-Ahmadiyya parallel society, which would have the goal of overturning our liberal-democratic order.”

“The row highlights a Europe-wide debate about the integration of Muslims,” the magazine wrote, “ranging from calls for improved schooling and language teaching and tougher tests for immigrants to a discussion about whether veils and headscarves hinder the integration of Muslim women.”

Momentum To All-Out Civil War in Iraq Will Grow, Predicts BBC Editor

In his Dec. 21 predictions for 2007, BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson thought chaos in Iraq would deepen in the coming year.

“The momentum toward all-out civil war will grow,” he wrote, “and U.S. forces (even if reinforced from home) will fail to contain it.

“The Shi’i majority of the country will rejoice at Saddam Hussain’s hanging, while the 20 percent or so who are Sunni Arabs will be more alienated and angry than ever,” Simpson added.

“The Kurdish northeast will slip further and further away from Baghdad’s control, and the calls for Iraq to be partitioned will grow—especially from those who know little and care less about it,” he continued.

“As the U.S. and British soldiers begin to withdraw, it will become harder and harder to find out what is really happening in the country. By the end of the year it will be a problem to get much serious news out of Iraq at all,” he said.

However, the BBC’s top correspondent predicted Bush would not invade Iran with ground troops, as his secretary of defense has made it clear he does not approve, and the U.S. military does not have the capacity to do it.

“Bush will, however, feel an increasing urge to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities,” Simpson said, “since he is still being informed that this will bring about an uprising against the elected government of President Ahmadinejad. There will be no uprising, especially if Iran is attacked,” he concluded.

9/11 Conspiracists Described as Asking, But Never Answering, Questions

In its December issue, France’s Le Monde Diplomatique examined the contention that the World Trade Center towers were demolished by explosive charges previously placed within them. The publication quoted engineer Pierre Sprey, designer of the F-16 and A-10, who said that to collapse a major building requires sizable charges, large enough to do a lot more than emit the puffs of smoke cited as evidence for the hypothesis.

“It is inconceivable that our demolitions expert would time his surreptitious explosions to blow hours after the impact,” Sprey added. “He couldn’t be certain that the impact fires would even last an hour, so to mask the booster explosions he would have to time them to follow right after the impact,” he explained

“Any demolitions expert concocting a plan to hit a tall building with a plane and then use pre-placed explosives to ensure the undetectable collapse of the building would never place the explosives 20, 30 and 60 floors below the impact point,” Sprey said.

“What is the goal of the 9/11 conspiracists?” asked the article’s author, Alexander Cockburn. “They ask questions but never answer them; they never propose an overall scenario,” he claimed. “Who do they expect to answer their questions? When answers are put forward, they are dismissed as fabrications or rebutted with another question,” he added.

Lucy Jones is a free-lance journalist based in London.

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