Tuesday, May 06, 2003

Even newspapers in Iran accept that the people of Iraq could only be exultant at the ousting of Saddam. Howard Dean has yet to be convinced, however.

The unprecedented persecution and killings of Iraqi Shiites during the barbarous and inhuman rule of Saddam and his henchmen clearly demonstrates the monstrous nature of the Baathist regime, condemned `Iran News' in its editorial on Tuesday.

Iraqi intelligence ministry Estekhbarat records recently made
public after the downfall of Saddam Hussein's regime revealed that 182
Shiite dissident clerics were murdered by the former Baath regime
during a 19 year period.

Apparently, these religious figures were either kidnapped or
arrested without any prior warning and never heard from again, it
wrote.

This tragic news clearly indicates the true wickedness and
monstrous nature of Saddam's brutal tyranny, the extent of which
may never be fully comprehended it said.

The wild celebrations by the Iraqi people after the fall of
Saddam's statue in Baghdad showed how rigged the former Iraqi
dictator's foreordained elections really were. He usually got a
perfect 100 percent of all votes cast, it noted.

The images of Saddam's terrifying prisons and the ledger of his
unspeakable crimes documented by the Estekhbarat as well as other levers of his state terror apparatus make Saddam and his Tikrit clan
of killers and torturers, if not unique, at least rare in the annals
of human history as far as savagery and brutality.In any event, where is the world media in extensively covering this unbelievable episode of crimes against humanity? asked the paper.

How do those who either directly or indirectly were trying to save
the Iraqi megalomaniac and keep him in power justify atrocities such
as this or the countless of others committed during his reign of
blood? further asked the paper.

"Aren't the people of that tortured nation, Iraq's neighbors,
the Middle East region and in fact the whole world better off not
having a mass murderer such as Saddam and his inhuman Baath apparatus still in power?" it questioned.

Of course, no editorial in an Iranian paper would be complete without the denunciation of America. What is funny about this one is that it is implied. We obviously know they must mean America. But, in truth, it was France, Germany and Russia that supplied Saddam with the vast majority of his military capability.

Saddam's chapter of inhumanity can never be fully closed until and
unless those Western powers who helped create the monster in the first place and to an extent share in his crimes are made to answer to
history and the world public opinion, the daily concluded.

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