Judgment Day

Footage of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in 1983, a year after the Dujail massacre for which Saddam was sentenced to death.

Christopher Dickey:

I keep thinking about that video of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam in Baghdad. Yes, that was a long time ago: December 20, 1983. But not as long ago as the massacre in the town of Dujail, in July 1982, for which Saddam was just condemned to death. And not so long ago that the Reagan administration did not know full well Saddam was using chemical weapons. A State Department memo written on Nov. 1, 1983, talked about "what now appears to be Iraq's almost daily use of CW." That was more than six weeks before Rumsfeld’s trip to Baghdad as a special envoy of Ronald Reagan.

... the Republicans would like us to believe that holding Saddam responsible for what he did means, for some reason, they should escape responsibility for what they've done. Perhaps they believe Americans are just suckers for sagas of redemption. All you have to do is turn your eyes toward the sky, pray for forgiveness, and rake in the votes.

Certainly they've made it clear that the only jury they listen to is the electorate. You remember President George W. Bush smugly telling The Washington Post in January 2005, "We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections."

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