Washington Decoded
Washington Decoded 11 December 2019 The Charm of Saddam: Part 2 Trial, Execution & Aftermath By Gary Kern Michael A. Newton & Michael P. Scharf Enemy of the State: The Trial & Execution of Saddam Hussein St. Martin’s Press. 320 pp. $7.99 (Kindle) Will Bardenwerper The Prisoner in His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards and What History Leaves Unsaid Scribner. 247 pp. $26 Lisa Blaydes State of Repression: Iraq Under Saddam Hussein Princeton University Press. 354 pp. $35 Ali Khedery “Why We Stuck with Maliki—and Lost Iraq” The Washington Post, 3 July 2014; Frontline Documentaries: “Losing Iraq,” July 2014 & “The Rise of ISIS,” October 2014, updated 2015. James Risen, et al., “The Iran Cables: Leaked Iranian Intelligence Reports Expose Teheran’s Vast Web of Influence in Iraq” The Intercept, November 2019 Washington Decoded The Arraignment On the morning of 1 July 2004, Saddam Hussein was taken by helicopter from Camp Cropper to Camp Victory and escorted, probably by Humvee, to a building he knew as the Baghdad Clock Tower, which put on display all the gifts he received as president. Recently, however, it had been converted from museum into courtroom, and he entered dramatically to television cameras, reporters, and a newly assembled team of jurors. He was dressed in an outfit that would mark his public transformation: a dark suit and a starched white shirt without tie; his black hair combed, his whitening black beard trimmed, his leaner body looking almost dapper. This transformation had been effected by his keepers at the prison. Notified two weeks in advance, they had requested special funds, obtained his measurements and those of his eleven co-defendants, and purchased new suits, shirts, belts, shoes, and socks for the lot, plus stylish sunglasses with brand names, probably knock-offs.
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