World War II Hiroshima A-bomb Pilot Dies

By JULIE CARR SMYTH, Associated Press Writer

Paul Tibbets, who piloted the B-29 bomber Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, died Thursday. He was 92 and insisted for six decades after the war that he had no regrets about the mission and slept just fine at night.

Tibbets died at his Columbus home. He suffered from a variety of health problems and had been in decline for two months.

Tibbets had requested no funeral and no headstone, fearing it would provide his detractors with a place to protest, said Gerry Newhouse, a longtime friend.

Tibbets' historic mission in the plane named for his mother marked the beginning of the end of World War II and eliminated the need for what military planners feared would have been an extraordinarily bloody invasion of Japan. It was the first use of a nuclear weapon in wartime.

The plane and its crew of 14 dropped the five-ton "Little Boy" bomb on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945. The blast killed 70,000 to 100,000 people and injured countless others.

Three days later, the United States dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Tibbets did not fly in that mission. The Japanese surrendered a few days later, ending the war.

"I knew when I got the assignment it was going to be an emotional thing," Tibbets told The Columbus Dispatch for a story published on the 60th anniversary of the bombing. "We had feelings, but we had to put them in the background. We knew it was going to kill people right and left. But my one driving interest was to do the best job I could so that we could end the killing as quickly as possible."

Morris Jeppson, the officer who armed the bomb during the Hiroshima flight, said Tibbets was energetic, well-respected and "hard-nosed."

"Ending the war saved a lot of U.S. armed forces and Japanese civilians and military," Jeppson said. "History has shown there was no need to criticize him."

Tibbets, then a 30-year-old colonel, never expressed regret over his role. He said it was his patriotic duty and the right thing to do.

"I'm not proud that I killed 80,000 people, but I'm proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did," he said in a 1975 interview.

"You've got to take stock and assess the situation at that time. We were at war. ... You use anything at your disposal."

He added: "I sleep clearly every night."

Tibbets took quiet pride in the job he had done, said journalist Bob Greene, who wrote the Tibbets biography, "Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War."

"He said, 'What they needed was someone who could do this and not flinch — and that was me,'" Greene said.

Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. was born Feb. 23, 1915, in Quincy, Ill., and spent most of his boyhood in Miami.

He was a student at the University of Cincinnati's medical school when he decided to withdraw in 1937 to enlist in the Army Air Corps.

After the war, Tibbets said in 2005, he was dogged by rumors claiming he was in prison or had committed suicide.

"They said I was crazy, said I was a drunkard, in and out of institutions," he said. "At the time, I was running the National Crisis Center at the Pentagon."

Tibbets retired from the Air Force as a brigadier general in 1966. He later moved to Columbus, where he ran an air taxi service until he retired in 1985.

The National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton plans a photographic tribute to Tibbets, who was inducted in 1996.

"There are few in the history of mankind that have been called to figuratively carry as much weight on their shoulders as Paul Tibbets," director Ron Kaplan said in a statement. "Even fewer were able to do so with a sense of honor and duty to their countrymen as did Paul."

Tibbets' role in the bombing brought him fame — and infamy — throughout his life.

In 1976, he was criticized for re-enacting the bombing during an appearance at a Harlingen, Texas, air show. As he flew a B-29 Superfortress over the show, a bomb set off on the runway below created a mushroom cloud.

He said the display "was not intended to insult anybody," but the Japanese were outraged. The U.S. government later issued a formal apology.

Tibbets again defended the bombing in 1995, when an outcry erupted over a planned 50th anniversary exhibit of the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian Institution.

The museum had planned to mount an exhibit that would have examined the context of the bombing, including the discussion within the Truman administration of whether to use the bomb, the rejection of a demonstration bombing and the selection of the target.

Veterans groups objected, saying the proposed display paid too much attention to Japan's suffering and too little to Japan's brutality during and before World War II, and that it underestimated the number of Americans who would have perished in an invasion.

They said the bombing of Japan was an unmitigated blessing for the United States and the exhibit should say so.

Tibbets denounced it as "a damn big insult."

The museum changed its plan and agreed to display the fuselage of the Enola Gay without commentary, context or analysis.

He told the Dispatch in 2005 that he wanted his ashes scattered over the English Channel, where he loved to fly during the war.

Newhouse confirmed that Tibbets wanted to be cremated, but he said relatives had not yet determined how he would be laid to rest.

Tibbets is survived by his wife, Andrea, and three sons — Paul, Gene and James — as well as a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A grandson named after Tibbets followed his grandfather into the military as a B-2 bomber pilot currently stationed in Belgium.

Admitting Strategy Error, Bush Adds Iraq Troops

Culled From MSNBC

Bush says 21,500 new troops will help quell violence, hasten homecoming

Defying public opinion polls and newly empowered Democratic lawmakers, President Bush told Americans Wednesday that he is dispatching 21,500 additional U.S. troops to Iraq. And in a rare admission, he said he made a mistake by not deploying more forces sooner.

“The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people, and it is unacceptable to me,” Bush said in a televised address from the White House. “Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.”

With American patience running thin over his handling of the war, Bush said he would put greater pressure on Iraqis to restore order in Baghdad and used blunt language to warn Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that “America’s commitment is not open-ended.”

“If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people, and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people,” Bush said.

Bush said his new strategy, in which Iraqis will try to take responsibility for security in all 18 provinces by November rather than just three now, “will not yield an immediate end to suicide bombings” and other violence.

But he said the increased military presence would help break the cycle of violence gripping Iraq and “hasten the day our troops begin coming home.”

Bush said that 17,500 troops would go to Baghdad and 4,000 to the volatile Anbar province, Senior administration officials said before the president spoke that the first wave of troops is expected to arrive in five days, with others joining about 130,000 U.S. troops already in Iraq in the coming weeks.

Bush’s decision will push the American presence in Iraq toward its highest level and puts him on a collision course with the new Democratic Congress.

Democrats: Strategy bound to fail
Democratic congressional leaders said shortly after Bush spoke that Bush's failure to impose a deadline on the Iraqis to assume responsibility for their own security doomed the initiative to failure.

“Iraqi political leaders will not take the necessary steps to achieve a political resolution to the sectarian problems in their country until they understand that the U.S. commitment is not open-ended," said the statement by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democratic Whip Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. "Escalating our military involvement in Iraq sends precisely the wrong message and we oppose it.”

Anticipating such reaction, Bush warned in his speech that “to step back now would force a collapse of the Iraqi government, tear that country apart and result in mass killings on an unimaginable scale.”

Senate and House Democrats are arranging votes urging the president not to send more troops. While lacking the force of law, the measures would compel Republicans to go on record as either bucking the president or supporting an escalation.

Usually loath to admit error, Bush acknowledged in his speech that it was a mistake to have allowed American forces to be restricted by the Iraqi government, which tried to prevent U.S. military operations against fighters controlled by the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a powerful political ally of al-Maliki. This time, the president said, al-Maliki had assured him there will be no such interference and that “political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated.”

The president also accused Iran and Syria of allowing use of their territory for terrorists and insurgents to move in and out of Iraq and vowed, “We will interrupt the flow of support from Syria and Iran. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”

Ahead of a visit to the Middle East by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Bush said Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Persian Gulf states needed to understand that a U.S. defeat in Iraq ”would create a new sanctuary for extremists — and a strategic threat to their survival.”

Last chance to sway public opinion?
After nearly four years of bloody combat, the speech was perhaps Bush’s last credible chance to try to present a winning strategy in Iraq and persuade Americans to change their minds about the unpopular war, which has cost the lives of more than 3,000 members of the U.S. military as well as more than $400 billion.

Bush’s approach amounts to a huge gamble on al-Maliki’s willingness — and ability — to deliver on promises he has consistently failed to keep: to disband Shiite militias, pursue national reconciliation and make good on commitments for Iraqi forces to handle security operations in Baghdad.

“Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents,” the president said. “And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have.”

He said American commanders have reviewed the Iraqi plan “to ensure that it addressed these mistakes.”

Bush said that under his plan, U.S. forces will work alongside Iraqi units and be embedded in their formations.

‘Clearly defined mission’
Responding to concerns from U.S. commanders, Bush said American troops will have a "clearly defined mission" to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, assist in the protection of the local population and “to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs.”

While Bush is putting the onus on the Iraqis to meet their responsibilities and commit more troops, he did not threaten specific consequences if they do not. Iraq has missed previous self-imposed timetables for taking over security responsibilities.

But the president said that the risk of troop reductions at this stage of the conflict would be grave. “Failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States," he said. "A democratic Iraq will not be perfect. But it will be a country that fights terrorists instead of harboring them.”

But Bush warned that his strategy would, in a short term he did not define, bring more violence rather than less.

“Even if our new strategy works exactly as planned, deadly acts of violence will continue, and we must expect more Iraqi and American casualties,” he said. “The question is whether our new strategy will bring us closer to success. I believe that it will.”

‘Casualties are going to go up’
Bush’s warning was echoed by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a leading proponent of a troop increase. “Is it going to be a strain on the military? Absolutely. Casualties are going to go up,” the senator said.

Bush said he considered calls from Democrats and some Republicans to pull back American forces. He concluded it would rip Iraq apart.

“Such a scenario would result in our troops being forced to stay even longer and confront an enemy that is even more lethal,” the president said. “If we increase our support at this crucial moment and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home.”

Still, Bush said that “America’s commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people. Now is the time to act.”

In a signal that al-Maliki intends to make good on his vow to clamp down on Shiite militias, senior Iraqi officials told the Associated Press shortly before Bush spoke that al-Maliki had warned militiamen loyal to al-Sadr to surrender their arms or face an all-out assault by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces.

“Prime Minister al-Maliki has told everyone that there will be no escape from attack,” said a senior Shiite legislator and close al-Maliki adviser. “The government has told the Sadrists: ‘If we want to build a state we have no other choice but to attack armed groups.”’

Al-Maliki had previously resisted issuing an ultimatum to al-Sadr, a close political ally.

The U.S. move to ramp up its presence in Iraq came as there were indications that a key ally in the war was scaling back.

British reportedly to scale back presence
London's Daily Telegraph newspaper reported that Prime Minister Tony Blair is preparing to announce that Britain will cut troop levels in Iraq by almost 3,000 at the end of May. The newspaper, citing a timetable for withdrawal that it said it had seen, said Blair would make the announcement within two weeks.

The withdrawal would reduce the 7,200-strong British force based in southern Iraq by about 40 percent.

The cost of the troop increase would be around $5.6 billion, administration sources said before Bush spoke. An additional $1.2 billion would finance rebuilding and jobs programs with the aim of cutting down on the supply of new recruits for anti-government militias.

The $6.8 billion will be added to a broader war-spending package for fiscal year 2007 that was already expected to hit $100 billion. The current fiscal year is on track to become the costliest yet for the Iraq war.

Many of Bush’s own Republicans expressed unease with the idea of a troop increase, noting that an effort last year to try to stabilize Baghdad by adding troops was followed by more violence.

“I don’t know the numbers, but we’ve done 20,000 before,” Sen. Gordon Smith, an Oregon Republican, told CNN. “It has made no difference because the Iraqis whom we have trained have simply not shown up to the fight. This is their fight, it’s not our fight.”

It will be different this time, White House counselor Dan Bartlett responded.

“I think the concerns they’re raising is because in the previous attempts the Iraqis hadn’t stepped up with the number of troops that they said they would commit,” he said. “That is going to be a difference this time.”

One official said Bush believes there is a need to “muscle up to step back.” They expect that by summer, perhaps August, they can gauge whether the strategy is working.

GOP leaders vow support
Republican leaders emerged from the meeting promising to back Bush. “The fundamental decision to stay on offense and to finish the job, I think is correct,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

But many of their own were growing restless. “I do not want to embarrass the president, but I do not support a surge” in troops, said Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who said he told Bush as much last week.

But Sen. Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican who is eyeing a presidential bid, on Wednesday released a statement opposing a troop increase. That puts him at odds with two other prominent Republicans gunning for the White House: Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

After nearly four years of fighting, $400 billion and thousands of American and Iraqi lives lost, approval of Bush’s handling of the war hit a record low of 27 percent in December, according to an AP-Ipsos poll.

Among other steps by the United States is expansion of an existing program to decentralize reconstruction efforts. Ten units known as Provincial Reconstruction Teams will be expanded to 19, with the additional units based in Baghdad and in Anbar province, seats of most of the worst violence. The teams, under State Department control, will administer some of the economic aid, including an effort to provide small loans to start or expand businesses.

The president ignored key recommendations of the bipartisan, independent Iraq Study Group, including that he include Syria and Iran in discussions about efforts to staunch Iraqi bloodshed, the official said. Instead, he will call for increased operations against nations meddling in Iraq, aimed at Iran and, to a lesser degree, Syria.

The president’s address is the centerpiece of an aggressive public relations campaign that also includes detailed briefings for lawmakers and reporters and a series of appearances by Bush starting with a trip Thursday to Fort Benning, Ga.

Saddam boosted fitness training for hanging: lawyer

By Suleiman al-Khalidi

Less than 48 hours before he was hanged, Saddam Hussein said he had doubled the workout on his treadmill to be in good shape when he faced the gallows, according to his Iraqi lawyer.

Wadood Fawzi Shams Deen, who met the ousted leader at a U.S. military camp in one of his former palaces on December 28, says Saddam told him and another lawyer that he had done 35 minutes of exercise in the previous two days.

"I am making extra effort to prove to them that an Arab dies with honor and dignity defending honourable principles," Shams Deen quoted Saddam as saying.

Saddam's hanging, secretly recorded in footage distributed on the Internet, has turned him into a martyr in parts of the Arab world, overshadowing memories of his often brutal and bloody rule and of his conviction for crimes against humanity.

Pictures of his composed conduct and erect bearing in the face of taunting at a shambolic execution has helped the supporters who have already begun burnishing his image as a hero -- even as the court still trying Saddam's associates shows pictures of thousands of Iraqi Kurds killed in chemical attacks.

The value of posterity was not lost on Saddam. "The execution will turn Saddam Hussein into a symbol for another hundred years," he said, according to the lawyers, who took extensive notes of their last conversation with him.

Saddam, smoking a Cuban Cohiba cigar and wearing the same black overcoat he wore when he was hanged on December 30, told the lawyers he had turned down an offer of tranquilisers from a U.S. doctor when the appeals court upheld his death sentence.

"I told him that God has given me enough faith to do without them," Shams Deen said Saddam told him and Bander Awad al-Bander, the lawyer son of one of Saddam's co-defendants.

"I will face my creator with a brave heart and clean hands."

Offering cigars to his visitors and a nearby U.S. guard, Saddam said he had been crossing the Tigris River in broad daylight, swimming part of the way and using a small fisherman's boat for the rest, only days before his arrest in a tiny farmhouse cellar near his hometown, Tikrit, in December 2003.

POEMS

Saddam recited poems about chivalry, endurance, heroism and holy war (jihad), saying poetry had helped him deal with his years in U.S. captivity, much of it in solitary confinement, Shams Deen said.

"We have humbled the long nights and it has not broken our will," he quoted Saddam as saying. "Poetry was my window to the world."

Saddam said he had read the Koran, the Muslim holy book, eight times over during the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

Other titles he requested and got were poetry by the eminent Arab poet Al-Mutanabi and a copy of the U.N. human rights declaration.

Saddam said he had predicted to a senior American interrogator a week after his arrest in December 2003 that Iraq would be a magnet for all the groups that "hated America":

"They will fight America in Iraq, all in their own way and with their own agenda. It is better that you leave sooner rather than later."

Iraq would be a "bigger quagmire than Vietnam for the United States," Shams Deen quoted Saddam as saying, and by early 2007 U.S. troops would have been "driven out of Iraq in humiliation."

"They have reached a point of powerlessness," Saddam said, adding that the insurgency had gained strength throughout his detention.

"Maybe in the first three months they were in need of Saddam. But the resistance now doesn't need Saddam Hussein ... and will, God willing, defeat the occupiers of great Iraq," he said, according to the lawyers.

As he said farewell to his visitors, Saddam said he would leave his people "content that the moment of America's end in Iraq is fast approaching."

U.S. Launches New Attacks in Somalia

By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN, Associated Press Writer

U.S. helicopter gunships launched new attacks Tuesday against suspected al-Qaida members, a Somali official said, a day after American forces launched airstrikes in the first offensive in the African country since 18 U.S. troops were killed there in 1993.

The latest attacks killed at least 27 civilians in the town of Afmadow in southern Somalia, lawmaker Abdiqadir Daqane told The Associated Press.

At least one AC-130 gunship carried out an airstrike Monday evening against targets in the town about 220 miles southwest of the capital of Mogadishu, Somali officials said. It was not immediately clear how many people died in those attacks, but Somali officials said there were reports that many were killed.

The U.S. attacks were targeting Islamic extremists, said a Somali Defense Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak. Earlier, Somalia's president had said the U.S. was hunting suspects in the 1998 bombings of the two U.S. embassies in East Africa, and had his support.

The aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived off Somalia's coast and launched intelligence-gathering missions over Somalia, the military said. Three other U.S. warships are conducting anti-terror operations off the Somali coast.

U.S. warships have been seeking to capture al-Qaida members thought to be fleeing Somalia after Ethiopia invaded Dec. 24 in support of the government and drove the Islamic militia out of the capital and toward the Kenyan border.

The Islamic extremists are believed to be sheltering suspects in the embassy bombings, and the raids are designed to keep the militants from posing a new threat to the government.

The White House would not confirm the attacks, nor would the Pentagon.

A U.S. government official said at least one AC-130 gunship was used Monday evening. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the operation's sensitivity.

It was the first U.S. offensive in the Horn of Africa country since the Americans led a U.N. force in the 1990s that intervened in Somalia in an effort to fight famine. The mission led to clashes between U.N. forces and Somali warlords, including the "Black Hawk Down" battle that left 18 U.S. servicemen dead.

Witnesses said at least four civilians were killed Monday 30 miles east of Afmadow, including a small boy. The claims could not be independently verified.

"My 4-year-old boy was killed in the strike," Mohamed Mahmud Burale told the AP by telephone. "We also heard 14 massive explosions."

Government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said it was not known how many people were killed, "but we understand there were a lot of casualties. Most were Islamic fighters."

Witnesses said that in Tuesday's attack, the helicopters opened fire on the road that leads to the Kenyan border. They said they could not clearly make out the markings on the aircraft.

Daqane said two newlyweds were among the dead Tuesday.

The U.S. Embassy in Nairobi reissued a terror warning Tuesday to Americans living in or visiting the Horn of Africa.

Monday evening's airstrike came after the suspects were seen hiding on a remote island on the southern tip of Somalia, close to the Kenyan border, Somali officials said. The island and a site near the village of Hayi, 155 miles to the north, were hit.

The main target was Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who allegedly planned the 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed 225 people.

He is also suspected of planning the car bombing of a beach resort in Kenya and the near simultaneous attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner in 2002. Ten Kenyans and three Israelis were killed in the blast at the hotel, 12 miles north of Mombasa. The missiles missed the airliner.

Fazul, 32, joined al-Qaida in Afghanistan and trained there with Osama bin Laden, according to the transcript of an FBI interrogation of a known associate. He came to Kenya in the mid-1990s, married a local woman, became a citizen and started teaching at a religious school near Lamu, just 60 miles south of Ras Kamboni, Somalia, where one of the airstrikes took place Monday.

Largely isolated, the coast north of Lamu is predominantly Muslim and many residents are of Arab descent. Boats from Lamu often visit Somalia and the Persian Gulf, making the Kenya-Somalia border area ideal for him to escape.

President Abdullahi Yusuf told journalists in the capital, Mogadishu, that the U.S. "has a right to bombard terrorist suspects who attacked its embassies." Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Aideed told The Associated Press the U.S. had "our full support for the attacks."

But others in the capital said the attacks would only increase anti-American sentiment in the largely Muslim country.

"U.S. involvement in the fighting in our country is completely wrong," said Sahro Ahmed, a 37-year-old mother of five.

Already, many people in predominantly Muslim Somalia had resented the presence of troops from neighboring Ethiopia, which has a large Christian population and has fought two brutal wars with Somalia, most recently in 1977.

The U.S. Central Command reassigned the Eisenhower to Somalia last week from its mission supporting NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, said U.S. Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Charlie Brown in Bahrain, where the Navy's Fifth Fleet is based.

"Eisenhower aircraft have flown intelligence-gathering missions over Somalia," Brown told The Associated Press.

The spokesman said the Eisenhower was the only U.S. aircraft carrier in the region. The vessel is carrying approximately 60 aircraft, including four fighter jet squadrons, he said.

Ethiopia forces had invaded Somalia to prevent an Islamic movement from ousting the weak, internationally recognized government from its lone stronghold in the west of the country. The U.S. and Ethiopia both accuse the Islamic group of harboring extremists, among them al-Qaida suspects.

Ethiopian troops, tanks and warplanes took just 10 days to drive the Islamic group from the capital, Mogadishu, and other key towns.

Ethiopian and Somali troops had in recent days cornered the main Islamic force in Ras Kamboni, a town on Badmadow island, with U.S. warships patrolling offshore and the Kenyan military guarding the border to watch for fleeing militants.

The AC-130 is armed with 40 mm guns that fire 120 rounds per minute and a 105 mm cannon, normally a field artillery weapon. The gunships were designed primarily for battlefield use to place saturated fire on massed troops.

U.S. officials said after the Sept. 11 attacks that extremists with ties to al-Qaida operated a training camp at Ras Kamboni and al-Qaida members are believed to have visited it.

Leaders of the Islamic movement have vowed from their hideouts to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla war in Somalia, and al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden's deputy has called on militants to carry out suicide attacks on the Ethiopian troops.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said in an interview published Tuesday in the French newspaper Le Monde that suspected terrorists from Canada, Britain, Pakistan and elsewhere have been among those taken prisoner or killed in the military operations in Somalia.

Somalia has not had an effective central government since clan-based warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other, sinking the Horn of Africa nation of 7 million people into chaos.

A U.N. peacekeeping force, including U.S. troops, arrived in 1992, but the experiment in nation-building ended the next year when fighters loyal to clan leader Mohamed Farah Aideed shot down a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and battled American troops, killing 18 servicemen.

At least 13 attempts at government have failed since then. The current government was established in 2004 with U.N. backing.

Saddam speaks from beyond grave to give orders on genocide

By Ned Parker in Baghdad

Saddam Hussein spoke from beyond the grave when prosecutors played a purported audiotape of his voice yesterday during the trial for the genocide of Iraqi Kurds which resumed in the absence of the hanged dictator.

The seat that he had occupied for 15 months stayed empty as six other defendants took their places in the courtroom. Judge Muhammad al-Oreibi al-Khalifa announced that the court had dropped all charges against him over the 1987-88 military campaign against the Kurds.

Saddam had been on trial for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity over his offensive, named Anfal (the spoils of war), which prosecutors claimed killed 182,000 people. But his execution for ordering the deaths of 148 Shias from the village of Dujail in the 1980s brought an end to that case. The charges were dropped under a 1971 law terminating cases against a person who has died, said an official from the office of the Prime Minister.

Yesterday the chief prosecutor, Munqith al-Faroon, played an audiotape in which, he said, the dictator had given approval for using chemical weapons in places crowded with Kurds. “I will take responsibility for using the chemical weapons. No one can direct the strike without my approval,” the purported voice of Saddam was heard saying. “It is better to use this weapon in crowded places to be effective on as many people as possible.

“We have to remove the Kurdish people to other governorates and countries, to end the Kurdish nationality and to stop saboteurs’ acts. We have to allow them to live and work in Tikrit so that they will become Arabs.”

Mr al-Faroon did not reveal when the tape was recorded or to whom Saddam was speaking.The attention now shifts to Saddam’s cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, called “Chemical Ali” for using chemical weapons as he led the campaign against the Kurds. Mr al-Majid, like Saddam, has been charged with genocide; the five co-accused remaining are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

During yesterday’s session Mr al-Faroon presented a video clip that he claimed showed Mr al-Majid plotting chemical attacks. “I will attack them with chemical weapons,” he was heard shouting twice in the video, which also showed children and women killed by chemical weapons. Mr al-Majid, in military uniform, is shown expressing disdain for world reaction. “To hell with the international community,” he shouts. When the video was played, Mr al-Majid, now an ageing man who walks with a cane, stayed silent.

Some fear that Saddam’s death will undermine the prosecution’s case. On issues such as responsibility for criminal acts, the defendants can now refer all questions to him. “If I were Ali Hassan al-Majid, I’d say I had nothing to do with that, go ask Saddam Hussein,” Joost Hiltermann, of the think-tank International Crisis Group, said.

Yesterday Kurds seemed to have lost interest in the trial that had been their passion when Saddam was alive. “I lost my brother in Anfal. I was watching the trial, but I wanted to see Saddam die at the end of the Anfal trial. Now I don’t want to watch it,” said Nasireen Ahmed, 43, in Kirkuk.

Genocide charges against Saddam Dropped

By David Byers

Genocide charges against Saddam Hussein for the killing of 180,000 Kurds in the 1980s have been dropped in his absence as the case against six co-defendants resumed.

As the trial of those accused of the al-Anfal killings re-started this morning, including that of Saddam's cousin often referred to as 'Chemical Ali,' the accused ex-dictator's seat was empty after he went to the gallows on December 30.

Shortly after the case re-started this morning, the chief judge dropped the case against Saddam in his absence. The ex-dictator was hanged after being found guilty in an earlier trial of the killing of 148 Shia Muslims in the town of Dujail, but many Kurds were disappointed that he was executed before facing justice for his role in the al-Anfal campaign, which was numerically the most serious of his crimes and one which drew horror and revulsion around the world.

Speaking at the start of this morning's case, Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa, the chief judge, said the court decided to stop all legal action against the former president, since "the death of defendant Saddam death was confirmed".

Saddam was hanged in a chaotic execution which led to global criticism. As the tyrant was taken to the gallows, mobile phone footage taken by observers was transferred all over Iraq and placed on the Internet. It showed Saddam being taunted and becoming involved in slanging matches with his executioners and observers.

International observers feared that the manner of the execution could simply lead to an increase in the sectarian violence in the divided country.

All seven defendants in the al-Anfal case, including Saddam, had denied charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Saddam and one other man also pleaded not guilty to the additional charge of genocide.

After the decision to drop charges against Saddam, a bailiff called out the names of the other accused, and the six men walked silently into the courtroom one after another.

Saddam Hussein's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali" because of his alleged use of chemical weapons against the Kurds, started the trial by trying to read a prayer from the Koran in memory of Saddam, but the judge ordered him to stop. He also wore a long beard as a sign of mourning.

The defence claims that the campaign - codenamed al-Anfal, or "the spoils of war" - was a legitimate operation to quell a rebellion after some Kurds sided with the enemy during the Iran-Iraq war while the prosecution and the West labels it as a war crime and genocide.

The trial had been in recess since 21 December. Its resumption will throw the spotlight back on the Iraqi judicial system, which came under international criticism for the handling of Saddam's execution.

After the chaotic execution, the United Nations called for a stay of execution for two others sentenced to death in the Dujail trial, but the Iraqi Government says the execution of Barzan al-Tikriti and Awad al-Bandar - the other parties found guilty alongside Saddam - will take place this week.

Meanwhile, Tony Blair's spokesman said on Sunday that the manner of Saddam's killing was "completely wrong." The Prime Minister's comments, which he is expected to reiterate personally this week, followed similar condemnations by Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Mr Blair's expected successor when he leaves office later this year, along with John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, and Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary.

New Saddam Video posted on Internet

Culled From Yahoo News

A new video was posted on the Internet apparently showing the body of Saddam Hussein lying on a hospital trolley with a wound in his neck after being hanged.

The 27-second clip, the third illicit film to emerge since the former Iraqi president was executed for crimes against humanity on December 30, showed a sheet being removed to reveal a smear of blood on Saddam's left cheek and a vivid red wound, 5 cm (2 inches) in diameter, surrounded by beard on his throat.

The footage, seen on Tuesday, showed his neck severely twisted. The throat wound may have been caused by the rope.

The grainy film appeared to have been taken in a room lit by daylight. A man is heard addressing another familiarly as Abu Ali and urging him to hurry -- possibly because the people filming were aware of breaching regulations in doing so.

The Iraqi government had released an official video showing a dignified Saddam refusing a hood as the noose was placed around his neck. It showed the executioner persuading Saddam to have the folded hood wrapped around his neck. It did not show the drop through the trap or Saddam dead.

Shortly afterward on January 30, a television station run by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite Dawa party showed a grainy clip of Saddam lying in a shroud. It was similar to the newest film but not clearly showing the neck wound.

By the time Saddam was buried the following day, another piece of film, shot on a mobile phone, emerged on the Internet and Arab television stations showing the three minutes around the hanging. It showed Saddam and officials trading sectarian jibes and has prompted a government inquiry after it sparked widespread anger among Saddam's fellow minority Sunni Arabs.

New video of Saddam's Corpse on Internet

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer

A new video of Saddam Hussein's corpse, with a gaping neck wound, was posted on the Internet early Tuesday, the second leaked release of clandestine pictures from the former leader's hanging.

The video appeared to have been taken with a camera phone, like the graphic video of the hanging which showed guards taunting Saddam in the final moments of his life.

The footage pans up the shrouded body of the former leader from the feet. It apparently was taken shortly after Saddam was executed and placed on a gurney. He was hanged shortly before dawn on Dec. 30.

As the panning shot reaches the head region, the white shroud is pulled back and reveals Saddam's head and neck.

His head is unnaturally twisted at a 90 degree angle to his right. It shows a gaping bloody wound, circular in shape, about an inch below his jaw line on the left side of his neck. His left cheek is marked with red blotches, and there is blood on the shroud where it covered his head.

The newest video leak was likely to increase the angry reaction over the way the execution was carried out. There already has been a global outcry about the undignified manner in which the Shiite-dominated government hanged Saddam, a Sunni.

The 27-second video was posted on an Iraqi news Web site that is known to support Saddam's outlawed Baath Party.

"A new film of the late immortal martyr, President Saddam Hussein," the web site said in a headline over a link to the video.

Voices could be heard on the video. As the shroud is pulled back, one voice says, "Hurry up, hurry up. I'm going to count from one to four. One, two ... . Hurry up you're going to get us into a catastrophe."

Then another voice, apparently the man taking the pictures, says, "Just one second, just one second, Abu Ali. I'm about finished."

Then a third voice says, "Abu Ali, you take care of this."

It was the second clandestine video to have leaked, the first showing Saddam being taunted in his final moments. That clandestine video showed the former leader dropping through the gallows floor as he offered chanted prayers. It ends with his dead body swinging at the end of a rope.

The hanging video was in sharp contrast with an official video that was broadcast not long after Saddam's execution which showed him standing silently on the gallows as the noose was put around his neck. The official video was muted.

The leaked hanging video, however, was shot from the floor of the gallows chamber, looking up at Saddam. Voices could be heard taunting him with cries of "Muqtada, Muqtada, Muqtada," referring to radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia and a key support of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The prime minister pushed for Saddam to be executed before the end of 2006 and just four days after the death sentence was upheld by the appeals court. U.S. official sought to delay the execution.