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 Hussein 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 Saddam's 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"