SCOTTISH SOCIALIST PARTY
MEDIA RELEASE
FOX REACTS TO SADDAM EXECUTION
On The death of a Tyrant - End the Bloody Occupation of a 'Sovereign' Nation
SSP National Convenor Colin Fox commenting on the execution of Saddam Hussein today suggested Britain and USA examine their own consciences at this time.
“As some one who campaigned against the tyranny of Saddam Hussein for decades I shed few tears for his passing. But this is no time to let the fact that the British and US governments made it him what he was sink into silence. Saddam Hussein was their 'muscle in the middle east' for two decades. They funded him and armed him throughout, in the barbaric war with Iran and when they turned a blind eye to the massacres of his own people.”
“The statements by Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett in London and from White House infer that this execution was a matter of internal Iraqi politics and the independent decision of a 'sovereign nation”
“Unfortunately this smacks of a continuing duplicity from two governments which illegally invaded this sovereign nation in 2003 and occupy it still.”
"The execution of Saddam Hussien changes none of that. And neither does it change the horror that is the day to day reality for millions of ordinary IRAQI's. It is surely something to reflect upon that the Iraqi population will openly admit they preferred the days of Saddam to the miserable life and death they face now.”
“The key question facing the world today remains, was the US/UK invasion in
2003 the right way to get rid of Saddam Hussein's tyranny in Iraq. And the emphatic and inescapable answer is no it wasn't. “
'”Looking at the sectarian carnage in Iraq today, with more people dying each season than were killed on 9/11, the illegal invasion remains morally repugnant and Saddams execution even politically irrelevant amidst all that."
"The sickening sectarian carnage of violence which the US and British invasion unleashed is the daily reality for thousands of ordinary Iraqis and will continue and perhaps even be accelerated by Saddam's execution in the short term."
"The brutal truth is that the war and the occupation launched by Bush and Blair has spawned a horror against which the execution of Saddam is likely to be little more than a further bloody footnote."
"The SSP believes the war in IRAQ to be a catastrophic failure of policy by Bush and Blair and will define them forever more. “
“The longer the illegal US/British occupation continues the greater the bloodshed for the Iraqi people and the greater the defeat for Britain and America.”
'Today it is appropriate to repeat again the need for the immediate withdrawal of all UK and US troops from Iraq and bring this nightmare to an end"
