The White House, President George W. Bush
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
December 29, 2006
President Bush’s Statement on Execution of Saddam Hussein
[With editorial notes, commentary and news reports in brackets]
STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT
Today, Saddam Hussein was executed after receiving a fair trial — the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime.
Fair trials were unimaginable under Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical rule. It is a testament to the Iraqi people’s resolve to move forward after decades of oppression that, despite his terrible crimes against his own people, Saddam Hussein received a fair trial. This would not have been possible without the Iraqi people’s determination to create a society governed by the rule of law.
[Is Shrub capable of noticing that the paragraphs above are dripping with irony? or not? There are a couple of thousand people who he declared enemy combatants and has for years kept in prison and/or tortured here and abroad without even charges, much less a trial. These people have even been denied the right to know what they are in prison for. Such is shrub’s rule of law.]
Saddam Hussein’s execution comes at the end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops. Bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq’s course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself, and be an ally in the War on Terror.
[From the AP Wire: Bombings killed at least 68 people in Iraq on Saturday, including one planted on a minibus that exploded in a fish market in a mostly Shiite town south of Baghdad.
The attacks came hours after Saddam Hussein was hanged in Baghdad for ordering the killings of 148 Shiites in the city of Dujail in 1982. Despite concerns about a spike in unrest, Saturday’s violence was **not unusually high** and there was no indication it was related to the execution.
In northwest Baghdad, two parked cars exploded one after another, killing 37 civilians and wounding 76 in a mixed neighborhood of the Iraqi capital, police said.
(This month) through Thursday, at least 2,139 Iraqis have been killed in war-related or sectarian violence, an average rate of about 76 people a day, according to the AP count. That compares to at least 2,184 killed in November at an average of about 70 a day, the worst month for Iraqi civilians deaths since May 2005.
On Friday, a suicide bomber killed at least nine people near a Shiite mosque in Baghdad, and 32 tortured bodies were found across the country.]
We are reminded today of how far the Iraqi people have come since the end of Saddam Hussein’s rule - and that the progress they have made would not have been possible without the continued service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform.
[AP Wire: The U.S. military also announced the deaths of three Marines and three soldiers, making December the year’s deadliest month for U.S. troops in Iraq, with 109 service members killed. Their deaths pushed the December death toll past the 105 U.S. service members killed in Iraq in October. At least 2,998 members of the U.S. military have been killed since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.]
Many difficult choices and further sacrifices lie ahead. Yet the safety and security of the American people require that we not relent in ensuring that Iraq’s young democracy continues to progress.
[Tell us shithead, how is the safety of Americans related to your debacle in Iraq? And what fucking sacrifices are you or your friends making? You are too full of pride and arrogance to admit that you fucked up royally and too ignorant and incompetent in world affairs to make any choices by yourself. In your warped reality I’ll bet you think the choice of what tie to wear is difficult.]