Death of Hussein sons
Ahmed Mohiuddin, Banani, Dhaka
I am not a military analyst. But common sense says that capture or kill means kill if you can't capture. General Ricardo Sanchez dodged the question in Wednesday's press conference in Baghdad if enough or any realistic attempt was made to capture them.What resistance could three or four persons with a few AK-47s put up? It seems the mission was only to kill them. If lives of a former Arab leader's sons are so cheap targetstheir alleged atrocities are not in question here, that should have been the matter to be resolved in a court in The Hague or Brussels -- then what about an ordinary Arab? Uday and Qusay Hussein were not leading the resistance to the occupation anyway as they themselves were helplessly stranded in rival Kurdish controlled Mosul with virtually no brothers in arms, themselves almost unarmed, as far as resistance is concerned. The resistance came spontaneously from the occupied people. And leaders are created in abundance. I have two questions: Has assassination now officially replaced the courts now? Are we in the 21st or in the 17th Century? *** We heard the briefing given by the Commander of the Coalition Force in Iraq, describing the assault on a Mosul house that killed Uday and Qusai Hussein -- sons of the deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Heavy weapons were used in the operation and all the occupants died. This looks like yet another demonstration of the disproportionate use of force that characterises the attitude of the occupation force. The Mosul episode raises the question whether a prolonged siege of the house could have secured the surrender of these two "high value" targets or not. Lives would have been saved; if guilty, as claimed, fair investigation including fair judicial trial could have been conducted. This was an execution without trial. The world at large and the Iraqi people in particular will never know for sure what really happened. Zakir Husain, One e-mail
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