How does this not violate the Geneva Conventions?
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Wouldn't this somehow fall within the realm of displaying a prisoner of war for ridicule?
I mean, sure, I found it interesting in the prurient manner to which the article panders—and for which we Americans are unfortunately so well known despite our opinions of ourselves to the contrary. But I want to know why the Pentagon only "had no comment" and why none of the human-rights groups (hello, Amnesty International?) have Freaked Out! about it yet.
Seattle Times: Saddam devoured Doritos, dispensed advice, guards say
By Richard Pyle
The Associated Press
NEW YORK—Saddam Hussein loves Doritos, hates Froot Loops, admires President Reagan, thinks President Clinton was "OK" and holds dim views of both Presidents Bush. The former dictator talks a lot, worries about germs and insists he is still president of Iraq.
Those and other details of the deposed Iraqi leader's life in U.S. military custody appear in the July issue of GQ magazine, based on interviews with five Pennsylvania National Guardsmen who went to Iraq in 2003 and were assigned to Saddam's guard detail for nearly 10 months.
The magazine, which reached newsstands yesterday, said the GIs could not tell their families what they were doing and signed pledges not to reveal the location or other details of the U.S.-run compound where Saddam was an HVD, or "high-value detainee."
Iraqi authorities are gearing up to bring him to trial. He has been accused of the gassing of Kurds in northern Iraq in the 1980s; the massacres of Shiites and Kurds in 1991, when those communities rose up against Saddam at the end of the Gulf War; and the 1992 draining of southern marshes that drove many Shiites from their homes.
Saddam, who took power in 1979, was captured Dec. 13, 2003, while hiding in a "spider hole" behind a farmhouse near his ancestral hometown of Tikrit.
The five soldiers told GQ of their personal interactions with Saddam, saying he spoke with them in rough English, was interested in their lives and even invited them back to Iraq when he returns to power.
"He'd always tell us he was still the president. That's what he thinks, 100 percent," said Spc. Jesse Dawson, 25, of Berwick, Pa.
A Pentagon spokesman had no comment on the article.