[Red Moon]

Given that British Troops had to demolished the headquarters of the city's Serious Crime Unit in Basra to stop the prisoners held there being executed and to stop others being tortured, has the war to ousted President Saddam Hussein actually archived a safer Iraq?

Is the world a safer place than it was before the war or have we made Iraq the terrorist training ground for years to come?

Is Iraq right to execute President Saddam Hussein and what will it do to the Country?

Any opinions out there?

[bonnie43uk]

Yes, Iraq is much safer now, me and my family are planning a 2 week holiday in Baghdad next summer, we cant wait to visit all the historical monuments, and sample the local hospitality. We've been told by the Home Office it's very safe for Westerners. I for one dont believe all this stuff on the news. Even Tony Blair says the situation is much better, .. AND HE'S THE PRIME MINISTER .. SO IF YOU CAN'T TRUST HIM, WHO CAN YOU TRUST???

Baghdad here we come!!!!

[Red Moon]

Personally I don't trust any politician, especially ones that tell lies about weapons of mass destruction, and avoid answering questions. So since I can't trust the prime minster, who do I trust. What I see, hear and read for various sources through out the world.

Someone else I don't trust is the Pentagon. Any organisation a "Office of Strategic Influence" which gives out misinformation propaganda clearly can't be trusted. It is well funded, is being run by a general and its aim is to influence public opinion abroad.

I hope the home office is right. I don't think it is otherwise why keep the troops in the country. Why not send them home? You don't need that many Troops in a safe country to keep the peace. most counties have police forces you can trust and you don't need the back-up of lots of tanks and guns.

How I feel about Iraq is it is just as bad now as it before USA and British Troops arrived. Bush and Blair should have sent someone in to get President Saddam Hussein if they really wanted him out of power. Always thought it was funny how the US and British Government supported him for years when it suited them and then destroyed the country with sanctions that never really worked.

I hope you have a safe trip to Baghdad. I'm sure some areas are safer than others. Take Care.

[Bells]

I think the whole Iraq situation’s become just one huge, complete mess and I still don’t feel things have been resolved at all. There’s always going to be tension, but all I do hope is that of course it doesn’t become a training ground for terrorist troups in future! I could say that perhaps the UK and US will pick up on this idea and put a stop to anything of the sort before it actually happens. But judging by their interference recently, I really can’t say.

[James]

The Foreign Office doesn't advise against all travel to Iraq (Chad, Ivory Coast and Somalia are complete no-goes according to them) - they say there are parts of Iraq that it is safe to travel to.

Maybe Tony Blair should go there on his holiday instead of Tuscany. Or Margaret Beckett could take her caravan!

http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?...=1007029390590

I think the worst thing about Iraq for us is that the two reasons we were qiven for the war have been false - Iraq didn't have WMD, and it had nothing to do with 9/11.

Not much good when your government is misleading you about the reasons for a war.

[bonnie43uk]

my wife has just told me she does'nt want us and the kids to go to Baghdad in the summer now .. apparently there is a high possibility we will all get kidnapped and tortured and end up in a gutter in Sadr City with our heads decapitated.


... looks like it might be Weymouth for us again this year then.


###########################################

BREAKING NEWS::::::::::::::::
Saddam Hussien has lost his appeal against the death sentence, and he will be killed within 30 days. I say give him back his country, and lets get the hell out of there!! Blair has made made the mother of all cock-ups!!!!

[Lauren]

It's a vicious circle and I don't believe there is a definitive answer.
In certain circumstances it is safer in Iraq for normal Iraqi's, and in others it's not. For foreigners I think it's more dangerous, but the atmosphere has always been volatile since the early 90's.

[Tanser_Man]

I was talking about this with my mate.

Killing Saddam is going to create hundreds of new saddams so personally i don't see the point. What is anyone gaining? Fine if the iraqi people want him dead and buried, they should kill him but the whole process has been a farce from start to finish.

I hate the man for how he gased the kurds, but you have to ask yourself is it what iraq needs right now while trying to get the country standing on both feet?

We should stand down from the occupancy after saddam is killed.

[Red Moon]

I'm like you Tanser_Man, I cant see the point in executing him. Saddam should be locked up forever that is clear together with the people who aided him in his crimes against his people. But killing won't achieve anything and will probably make things worse. What the country needs is courts of reconciliation designed to find out the truth and answer the questions the people have about the past.

It's funny how they are going to execute him before the current trial has finished. I wonder if that has something to do with if he live to April they won't be able to execute him at all. The Iraq constitution states that you can't execute people over 70.

What Iraq needs right now is strong leadership and the problem is I can't see that happening without some else like Saddam taking power. Iraq was a made up country of many tribes and I can never see them being truly united.

[bonnie43uk]

from what i understand, Saddam Hussein is'nt being tried for the gassing of many innocent Kurds in Halabja in the early 80's ( apparently the West were more than happy to turn a blind eye to what he was up to at the time.. there were a few murky deals going on at the time involving arms deals with the West)
As George Galloway famously said in those senate hearings.. "I met Saddam Hussein the same amount of times as Donald Rumsfeld.. but i was'nt the one selling him weapons"!

The situation in Iraq is utterly dire, and are getting worse .. i try to take my mind off it by playing Scrabble on the old Playstation2. ( i can give the computer a good game at level 3)

[lily.]

Executing him might make him into some kind of martyr for his crazy followers, and like you say, more Saddams will just pop out of the woodwork.

I personally was never in agreement with the war in Iraq in the first place. Also, have any of you seen Fahrenheit 9/11. It's very interesting indeed. We can't trust our government or the media to portray it like it really is. It's sad that we live in the free world, yet we have to rely on a documentary maker to tell us the facts.

[Red Moon]

Looks like Saddam Hussein doesn't have long now. I can't see them letting him live into 2007. They will be trying to get over and done with as soon as they can. Anyone know why his in American custody when this is meant be an Iraqi case? Seem a bit odd that the Iraqi authorities allowed this to happen. If he is in American custody surely he is there prisoner. Iraq is not going to be a safe place for months to come after his death. As it is it gets worse by the day and his death won't help matters.

[lily.]

Meanwhile innocents lose lives... it's not going to end, is it?

[Red Moon]

Originally posted by Stropz
Meanwhile innocents lose lives... it's not going to end, is it?

Not for quite a while. Thousands died at Saddam Hussein's hands to keep the stable and in the unsuitability thousands more will die. It's going to go on for years and years.

[Siouxsie]

It will never end in fact it will get worse

[Dan_]

The main problem I had with the Iraq war was the lies we were told about weapons of mass destruction being able to reach us within 45 minutes and the small amount of time the weapons inspectors had before the war begun.

We also never had an exit strategy put into place from the start and we have not even got a proper one now which is quite galling and the situation continues to get worse, what with a near civil war going on within Iraq between the seperate tribes all fighting for power.They may have a government in place but for all the good it does.Iraq I feel will never become a civilised country at this rate as the fight for power carries on.

I did feel that the hanging of Saddam was justified despite the unrest it will and has caused by his supporters just for all the pain he caused for decades to his own people.I'm never normally in favour of the death penalty but for evil tyrants like Saddam I make an exception.

[Red Moon]

I don't think that the killing of Saddam Hussein will have any beneficial effect the situation in Iraq. It just ends the war officially for the US government, British government and the puppet government of Iraq by showing that they have the power to kill the leader of the opposing force after a show trial in Iraq. Thinking back it is quiet obvious why the US in particular didn't want a International trial of Saddam Hussein because they would have been shown to be complicit in some of the acts of genocide. They knoew about them and even aided Saddam Hussein at the time they took place.

If anything his death will increase the insurgent attacks as his supporters carry out his instructions to join forces with Islamists rebels and disrupt the civilian infrastructure of Iraq. While the insurgent raids continue Iraq can never be stabilised. My fear is that Iraq will never be united and will fragment into a fire fight which will lead to even greater acts of genocide as one group tries to wipe the other off the face of the earth.

As the days and weeks go on the celebrations in Shia areas at the death of Saddam will only make the divisions in the country worse. And the Shia's will see it as license to do as the want to the minorities in the country. Of course you can't deny the pleasure felt by many who suffered at the hands of Saddam's tyrannical regime, but to then use his reign as an excuse to start a new period of tyranny is unforgivable.

You can already see the start of this in police stations through out Iraq, where prisoners are being tortured and murdered without trial. Only the other week the British forces had to raid a police station to save a group of prisoners from the bullet. A lot of these prisoners will be Saddam Hussein supporters caught up in the revenge of Shia rivals who are running the armed forces and the police. What have they to lose by joining the fight break up the country. As far as they are concerned it is better to fight than to sit around to wait to be arrested and end up dead in by some form of victor's justice at the hands of their Shia rivals.

All this isn't going to be helped by Iraq Government and Christian West insistence that the trial was fair. Human Rights Watch who observed every day of the process were highly critical of the trial process. And they concluded in their report it was not a fair trial, and the soundness of the verdict was questionable. Human Rights Watch criticised the management of the trial, protection given to witnesses, the lack of material given to the defense, prejudicial comments made by Iraqi politicians and the defense for using the court as a political grandstand. This report and the feeling of Governments in the region will give justification to those who supported Saddam in taking arms with the Islamists rebels to remove the Iraq Government by destabilising the Country.

The future doesn't look good. And I fear that the comments by the Christian West are only going to make things worse. Our troops will pay with there lives for execution of Saddam as will many of the Iraq people caught up in the violence of a disintegrating state. Further to this by executing Saddam when they did the Government effectively upset the Kurds by killing the chief defendant in the trail for gassing of the Kurds in the 80's. His execution won't solve the problems of the country but will make the divisions greater.

It makes you ask the question was it all worth it?

The US and British Government went to war to get rid of weapons of mass destruction which didn't exist. They were even told they didn't exist by UN weapon inspectors at the time. The US Government even told it's people that Iraq was a centre of international terrorism something that was so untrue. Saddam for many years had controlled the very terrorist with an iron hand. Any terrorist appearing on Iraq soil during his reign would have ended up dead. The acts of the US and British Government to the people of Iraq has done more harm to international peace than Saddam could ever had done. And even if Saddam had sided in the future with terrorists it would have only been in response to the sanctions imposed on the country by the US which killed so many of the poor and venerable people of Iraq during the 90's. Iraq isn't a western state and it can't be turned into western state overnight. Saddam was dictator because he had to be to run an inherently unstable country. He was the man they needed to unite the country and keep it under control. Yes he murdered 1000's in the process but even now without him 1000's are still being killed and will continue to be killed in the future.

The infrastructure of the country is in pieces and US firms are milking the oil money to rebuild Iraq which their country and ours destroyed. Iraq of the early 80's was a rich country, maybe over rich, and yes the people lived in fear but at least the country had prospects. Now it has nothing as money is leaked overseas. The winner in getting rid of Saddam at the moment is US multinationals and president Bush who did what his dad had failed to do, to kill and remove Saddam Hussein. The losers are the Iraqi people who are now giving up their lives for a western dream that can never come true.

[Tanser_Man]

Stupid move, showing his death on the TV isn't exactly the greatest idea they could have come up with.

If our troops stay there there going to die, if they don't stay there will be civil war. Simple as.

We should have just left them alone to sort there own problems out in the first place, at least the country wasn't lawless back then, even if he was an evil bastard.

[Captain.Remy]

This war is only for the money, there was never some weapons of mass destruction. It was a bull*hit. I'm against this war. Not only because France is against but because iraki people didn't ask anything, they didn't ask some help to the USA or UK. OK Saddam was a dictator, demoniac and evil but it wasn't a reason to destroy a country and kill innocent people. That's discusting. George Bush is stupid, manipulator and a bast*rd. By this war, it's was to occasion to be re-elected and people can talk about him. Go out Bush and Blair !

[rex3]

Its all for money, all the weapons made for the Soldiers are made by Bush's right hand man, Dick Cheyney and yes his made millions and so has the US with all the oil there taking day by day AND NO ITS NOT A LIE, AL JAZEERA FILMS THE AMERICA TANKS TAKING OIL AND PISSING BACK OFF, EVERY DAY!

GET YOUR UN-BIASSED MEDIA FROM ENGLISH-AL-JAZEERA, CHANNEL 514 ON SKY.

[DiamondDogTags]

America has left Iraq in shambles, to me it seems there are only a select few soldiers out of the American army (and the other armies backing them), that have the right set of mind and are there for the right reasons. The fear that this whole war has instigated in the children and next generation of Iraq is highly great. One of the main reason's America went into Iraq was pure retaliation due to 9/11, it was obvious from the begining that there was no connection, yet they still went through with the war. It's been proven that there was no connection with 9/11 and no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, therefore the only reason is pure retaliation and i think this is the key motivation for a large percentage of the soldiers, which doesn't make sense since there is NO Connection. However who is to say Iraq's next generation isn't going to retaliate later on, because of this war and what they are doing to their land and the people of their country.

[easypeasy]

Originally posted by rex3
Its all for money, all the weapons made for the Soldiers are made by Bush's right hand man, Dick Cheyney and yes his made millions and so has the US with all the oil there taking day by day AND NO ITS NOT A LIE, AL JAZEERA FILMS THE AMERICA TANKS TAKING OIL AND PISSING BACK OFF, EVERY DAY!

GET YOUR UN-BIASSED MEDIA FROM ENGLISH-AL-JAZEERA, CHANNEL 514 ON SKY.

you know what your talking about rex. dont forget Cheney also has the contract to sell genetically modified seed to farmers in iraq. rather than saving their own seed to sow from previous years crops they are forced to buy from Environ annually.

[easypeasy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfg2OGhuvyo