Re: Only 150 children, sorry for the mistake...

Well, this story came from the Agence France-Presse or (French Press Agency) Our equivalent of the AP service. (you would see this if you read the entire story, the reference and links to the AFP are at the bottom) Since the French are so against the war, I wonder why they would release a story that puts Saddam in a bad light. After all, only Americans are bad and evil and go to war.

What I find interesting is that you have tried to spin this into a negative thing. Children were imprisoned, children not adults, for making a decision not to join the Baath party. Some of them had been imprisoned for 5 years. The fact that they were even expected to make a decision like this is testimony to the horror that the Iraqi people face every day.

>>>Discovered in a document in this southern Iraq town's Baath Party headquarters, the rule states, in essence, that the death penalty is mandatory for party disloyalty. That includes hiding one's previous membership in another political party. Joining another political party while a Baath Party member also is a capital offense.<<<

This is a snippet from an article regarding the Baath Party that these children were expected to join. To read the entire article please go here

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-war-baath6apr06002857,0,1139498.story?coll=la-headlines-world

You may "wonder how many children were and will be blown to bits to save these 150..." but I wonder how many were executed for the "sins" of their relatives.

>>>Those who have crossed the Baath Party for any reasons say retribution is swift and severe. "They used a heated knife and cut me here with a machete," said Adnan Mohamed Yousef, 32, a soldier who deserted in 1998. He lifted his sleeves and pant legs to show several long, distended scars. "It was so painful. They also used electric shocks on me."

Yousef's story could not be independently corroborated, but human rights experts say it's in keeping with a clearly documented pattern.

Yousef said he was caught and placed in the Laith Abid jail in Basra under a seven-year sentence during which he was tortured for three months. He said jailers tried to get him to admit he was either an Iranian, an Iranian agent or an enemy of the Baath Party. At the end of each session, he said, they would toss him into a tiny cell the size of a dog cage.

After three months, he said, he was forced to sign a confession even though he couldn't read and didn't know what it said.

He was then transferred to a jail near Baghdad, serving out four years of his sentence, he said, before a general amnesty was declared last year.<<<

But no, how could we believe that the benign Saddam would treat people this way? Sarcasm completely intended.

Wake up, there are lots more sides to this than you seem willing to look at.

Link to info on Baath Party