The number of newspapers is increasing day after day, when I went to buy newspapers a couple of days ago (most of the papers are weeklies or come out twice a week, cost concerns) I found two new ones. A paper called al-qasim al mushtarak (the common ground) and a cultural weekly called al-Adeeb (the literary). Almost all the papers, the ones which are purely local, have Saddam either on the cover or have supplements about Saddam. What triggered this Saddam coverage was the announcement that Saddam is to be considered POW.
Al-Itijah al-khar has this strange picture of saddam being tied down by an American soldier, and splashes on its front “Picture proves with pictures what we have said earlier: Saddam was drugged when arrested”, the picture is so obviously doctored I have no idea why someone like Mr. Mishaan al-Juburi puts something like that on the front of his paper. The paper says that the picture was leaked by the US government and this is a violation of the international laws and conventions concerning POWs. The paper says the its “source” says that because Saddam has been so reluctant to say anything in the US investigations the US investigators have been using “very modern and rare equipment which make him compliant to the demands of the investigators only during the hours he is being cross examined” – [oh dear, we are getting in twilight zone here] – and the paper says that Saddam did not want any visits by his daughters or wife because he feared that the US might put them in custody as well. [as if they have not been seen in Amman in shopping malls escorted by bodyguards and loaded with shopping bags] On the same issue have you read this post on Juan Cole's blog:
The experts in international law quoted in most news sources on Saturday said that it would be illegal now for the US to simply turn Saddam over to the Iraqi Interim Governing Council! The IGC is alarmed at this turn of events.aren't we all.
