The price of disobedience

Now I wonder why Saddam would have done this:

Al-Tikriti, an engineer, had supervised an operation to bury a significant quantity of Saddam’s chemical weapons before United Nations weapons inspectors arrived last November. Some weapons were buried near the river Tigris in the Baji area north of Baghdad during the operation, which was carried out by a specially formed group in the SSO.

The Iraqi sources said that, in a chilling attempt to ensure that the location of the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) remained secret, the SSO members who concealed them were executed. Al-Tikriti then tried to escape. “I think that he knew he would be executed after the killing of the people who participated in the burial of the WMD,” said Abu Hajjaj, an Iraqi exile.

Further evidence of merciless oppression has emerged in another incident. Several weeks ago, the Iraqi president decreed that anyone discussing reports that he might step down to avert a war would face execution. According to a western intelligence source who has verified the information, an Iraqi civilian named Mohammed Hadid, was later overheard talking of Saddam’s possible exile.

He was arrested by members of Saddam’s Fedayeen, a militia headed by the president’s eldest son Uday, and brought to Baghdad. There, he was tied to a post, his tongue was cut out and he was left to bleed to death.