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FLASH: Uday and Qusay Hussein killed? Reports are coming in that both of Saddam Hussein’s mass murderous sons may have been killed during an attack by US Forces on a house in Mosul in Northern Iraq. Early reports said ‘seized’ but SkyNews is currently (17:40 GMT) reporting live from Mosul saying US reinforcements are “pouring into the area” and bodies at the house “have a strong resemblence to Uday and Qusay”.
Let’s hope the reports are confirmed soon!
 Yes! it is being confirmed that Uday and Qusay are dead. Good riddance to two of the most evil psychopaths to walk the earth in recent times…
…and to the US forces who did it: way to go, guys! 
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I heard that a “senior intelligence official” was the source of the story…in which case it MUST be true!! 🙂
Seriously, we’ve been burned on identical reports before, but I do hope this one pans out to be correct. It would be a major victory for the coalition to be sure, but most of all it would be long-overdue justice for the victims of those two monsters. Here’s keeping my fingers crossed.
<sigh> How many times are we going to kill these guys before we, like, kill these guys?
I want to see a heaping plate of cream of Uday on toast before I believe a word of it.
Yes, it would be nice to see their heads on spikes before we get too excited.
Uday and Qusay in the same room? I suppose they might be that stupid but it is more probable that they are not…
I’m surprised they’d have been found in Mosul. I didn’t realized they’d have been welcomed in that area. We’ll see what happens over the next 48 hours.
You people are sick. Hoping for the deaths of your fellow human beings. Even making jokes!
I would like the brothers found unharmed and taken in to custody, to eventually have a fair and impartial trial before an international tribunal. In fact, I pray for their safety.
Kevin White, you kill me. Now THAT is what I call making jokes.
Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it too. If they look remotely like the brothers they need to show it on Iraqi TV and Al Jazeera.
Hehe, glad it was obvious. 8)
I wonder if the brothers Hussein had body doubles like their father.
The sons of Saddam do have body double. Not as many as Saddam himself, but they do have doubles as well.
It appears that we probably did kill them.
If so, there are good reasons for us to put their bodies on public display (mangled as they apparently are).
DEAD DEAD DEAD DEAD DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The official CENTCOM statement:
July 22, 2003
Release Number: 03-07-68
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
STATEMENT REGARDING OPERATION IN MOSUL, IRAQ
Statement from US Central Command:
On Tuesday, July 22, forces associated with the 101st Airborne Division and Special Operations Forces conducted an operation against suspected regime figures at a residence in Mosul, Iraq. The site is currently being exploited. Four Iraqis were killed in the operation. We have confirmed that two of the dead were Saddam’s sons Uday and Qusay.
Drinks & Cigars all around! Good Riddance!
I understand that officially “the Beeb” has put out it black mourning sack cloth for Uday and Qusay and are questioning the seriousness which which the Americans tried to capture them alive.
Meanwhile senior Beeb management is breathing a sigh of relief that Uday and Qusay didn’t spill the beans on Beeb coverage agreements /b/r/i/b/e/s/ with them before they were killed by American paratroopers.
Now that you all have that out of your systems, pls explain how this helps — except (of course) as deserved justice to tyrants.
I doubt that the “boys” provided indispensible, or even competant, leadership to the resistance.
Sadham seems unlikely to surrender following their executions, if he is in fact leading the resistance. They might even become martyrs (stranger things have happened).
Worse, with these two psycho-boozos gone Sadham might find a competant successor.
In America we tend to personalize things. Our enemy is Bin Laden, or Sadham & Family — both probably not true, ignoring somewhat robust and complex institutional groupings at war with us.
Uday and Qusay certainly did provide leadership as effective as any Saddam would have had at his disposal. More importantly, they were two of the only remaining people on earth Saddam could trust.
It also means that someone was willing to sell them out, and that the terror they inspire in the populace will be gone. This is an absolutely critical and necessary victory, if we are ever to establish in the minds of Iraqis that the Baathists aren’t coming back, ever.
As to “successors,” I simply can’t imagine that Saddam felt himself unable to appoint the kinds of leaders he wanted out of dynastic deference to his sons–and that now, with them out of the way he can get the kind of men in place he REALLY wants. That’s just crazy talk.
Then there’s the fact that morale is going to get a shot in the arm, not that I believe it to be in shambles now.
The issue of justice, too, is too big to brush off. With Iraqis celebrating in Baghdad, we’re a very big leap forward in establishing a stable peace.
This is huge, and I’m tossing back a beer over it. Kudos to our 101st Airborne Rangers.
Sage is right on. This sends a powerful message to the whole world in a language Neanderthal man would have understood. These guys took on the USA and its allies, and now they are dead. That will help quell further bad behavior from any number of sources. Plus, its plain justice that these mass murderers have been killed. Anyway, they were participating as commanders in an ongoing war against the USA, so they were military targets. Another factor is the ongoing fear in Iraq that the regime will return, that the US and the other Coalition countries will just cut and run. Hunting down and killing Uday and Qusay sends a message to the Iraqi people that the victorious powers are serious about tearing out the former regime root and branch. That will help create confidence and cooperation among the Iraqi people. All in all this 100% good news for the Coalition, for Iraq and for the world.
Bravo, 101st Airborne.
“Worse, with these two psycho-boozos gone Sadham might find a competant successor.”
That’s just a batty statement. To be sure, this may not slow down the attacks on our troops nor tangibly make the rebuilding easiear (though, I think it could), but they are dead so we know THEY won’t be succeeding in anything, including the various forms of tortures they both specialized in. That statement is carping of the shrillest kind. It’s like the people who say going after bin laden will only cause more terrorists.
Last I checked, Saddam doesn’t have a nation to run. So, who “succeeds” him is pretty damn irrelevant. Any quick study of Iraq under Saddam shows that it was a nation run by a cult of personality as opposed to an ideology. That singular personality is Saddam. His sons were the closest extention of that personality. With them out of the way it reduces the power and alure of the “old days.”
It’s one thing to make the honest judgement that it won’t change anything in post-war Iraq, but quite another to think it’s bad because of who may theoretically move up the remnants of the Ba’athists hierachy. Besides, whoever would “succeed” Saddam is probably in that deck of cards that is rapidly running out of targets.
Talk show host quote: “Uday and Qusay are dead-ay.”
Going to be a real shitty couple of days in Froggieland,what with Chirq loosing a couple of bum-chums.
No doubt the Americans will be accused of operating a shoot to kill policy.
Larry: Now that you all have that out of your systems, pls explain how this helps — except (of course) as deserved justice to tyrants.
Well deserved justice to tyrants. What more reason does one need? SST.
Looks like I was right. The following courtesy of Balloon Juice.
The U.S. acted illegally when its soldiers attacked and killed Uday and Qusay Hussein, a leading Democratic congressman complained on Tuesday, before mocking the military maneuver that succeeded in eliminating the brutal duo.
“We have a law on the books that the United States should not be assassinating anybody,” Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-NY, told Fox News Channel’s “Hannity & Colmes.”
Rangel is just another one of National Socialism’s fellow travellers
What about a warrant ? Did the soldiers have a valid search warrant ?
“I understand that officially “the Beeb” has put out it black mourning sack cloth for Uday and Qusay and are questioning the seriousness which which the Americans tried to capture them alive.”
No question in my mind at all. Task Force 20 had no intention of capturing them alive, certainly not after the first shot was fired. And a good thing, too. Dead, they send a useful message. Alive, they are a potential flashpoint and endless pain in the ass – what would we do with them if they were alive? Can you imagine the nattering from the Euro-nannies?
“Worse, with these two psycho-bozos gone Sadham might find a competant successor.”
Well, then I guess we should have just left them alone.
“We have a law on the books that the United States should not be assassinating anybody,” Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-NY, told Fox News Channel’s “Hannity & Colmes.”
Its not an assassination when they are leading a gbuerrilla war against you, or when they are shooting at you themselves. I hope someone in the Republican Party takes the opportunity to ask the Democratic candidates if they agree or disagree with Rangel. Rule 1 of the Democratic Party is “never disagree with a black politician”, so it would be fun to watch.
And by God, did they get their Miranda rights read to them?!! BTW, Congressman Rangel, the rule against assassinations is a presidential order which could easily be rescinded. It’s not a typical “law on the books.”
Seriously, I think they very well might have been trying to take them alive. From the accounts of yesterday it was a very long fight and only a few dead bodies were taken from the joint and it was only small arms fire they were receiving. I think they very well might have been simply trying to wear them down with the hopes that they would surrender. Granted, this is all still early and carries with it the usual fog of war caveat. But, still it seems likely they WERE trying to capture them alive. But, a siege would have likely been worse and shown weekness.
But, with that said, I actually think capturing them alive might have been useful. I’d really like to have seen them in their orange jump suits and blind folds with the scare headlines from The Mirror regarding how awful people are treated at Guantanimo.
Keep in mind that Rangel is the one who wants to re-institute “the draft”, a form of indentured servitude (slavery) which many of us demonstrated against and some burned their draft cards.
I told a liberal friend in NYC the last time I was there that if Rangel succeeded, I’d come back over just to lead a march and burn him in effigy… along with any willing college kids with draft-slave cards.
Qusay was the mad psychopath that nobody liked (including me, although I never met him). I doubt he was a powerful figurehead to anybody and I suspect even Saddam would not be too unhappy if the idiot is dead. Inflicting injuries on the attacking troops was probably the most daring dead he might have ever done.
Uday was the calculating one who actually wielded some power and had strategies. Now that he might be dead I suppose we should give him a little respect. He held the apparatus of the state together by searching out those that opposed it and had them detained without trial, “robustly interogated”, pronounced guilty in a closed military court and executed in secret. Of course, some just died during interrogation. Which, by modern standards, is no big deal really is it?
It would have been nice to capture U. and Q., hand them over to the new Iraqi government, for a long trial, during which all the horrors of the regime would have been replayed in front of TV cameras. Then the customary hanging in Bagdad’s biggest square, in true ME style. That would have been a show and a propaganda coup. A pity the soldiers don’t appreciate the value of PR.
“Now that you all have that out of your systems, pls explain how this helps — except (of course) as deserved justice to tyrants.”
It helps because the Iraqi people really, really disliked Uday and Qusay. Sure, some Iraqis will complain that they got off easy, but the point is that the US has done something the Iraqi people are really happy about. This will probably regain some of the goodwill the occupying forces have lost.
Unfortunately, the Feds will doubtless squander that goodwill almost immediately.
Oh, brother, it’s started.
We “assassinated” them.
mad dog, I think you got your pyschopathic tyrannats mixed up.
All this assumes that Uday and Qusay would have allowed themselves to be taken prisoner. There is a report that Uday’s death appears self inflicted. Saddam has reportedly stated he will not be taken alive as well.
And the judgement by the Iraqi people is exactly what neither of these guys wanted. Other reports of interrogation of Iraqi Ba’athis prisons state that along with the magic word of “Gitmo”, the threat of a reconstituted justice system in Iraq and the possible trail by the Iraqi people, is a great way to get captured Ba’athists to talk.
It is assumed by Rangle that these boys were assassinated. The idea that these guys made their choice to go down the way they did, does not seem to occur to him. And he insults the professionalism of the 101st.