PROTEST - Dr. Saadi’s Outrageous Imprisonment
Comments by Tom Manning, US Political Prisoner in Leavenworth KS, May 19, 2004 Here in a federal prison’s general population, we have television and radio. Newspapers and magazines can be sent in from publishers. I read the papers daily, mags, when I can, and listen to NPR, and especially Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now! But very rarely do I watch television. When asked why I don’t watch TV news, I ask, “if you sat with the same person everyday in the chow hall, and he told you nothing but lies every time you ate with him, wouldn’t you stop sitting with him after awhile? I did make it a point to watch Colin Powell’s performance in Feb. 2003, telling the world about Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction. He told it with such conviction, as though he was an eye-witness to all that he declared, with practiced hand and eyebrow gestures, photos and props. I also watched the rebuttal by Amer al-Saai, the Iraqi scientist, who so eloquently and clearly took Powell’s performance apart bit by bit, telling how Iraq’s WMD’s, such as they had been, were dismantled and destroyed piece by piece. Dr. Saadi has been confined for more than a year now, held in solitary confinement in an American prison at Baghdad’s international airport. He is denied the right to read newspapers or magazines, listen to radio or watch television. He is even denied pen, pencil and paper, except for his once a month Red Cross facilitated, one page letter to his wife, who lives just a mile or so from where he is held, but is not allowed to visit. He is restricted in his letters to and from his wife, to family matters only. No politics or news of the world can be discussed. So Dr. Saadi does not know that Colin Powell is now telling the world that he spoke lies back in Feb. 2003, when he declared he had proof of Iraq’s WMD’s, that he now claims someone else put in his mouth. Pretty ironic, eh? More than ironic. It is criminal to hold this man in total isolation, being repeatedly interrogated by the CIA. We have recently seen and heard what that can be like. I think the world ought to forcefully DEMAND that the Americans release Dr. Saadi, Immediately and Unconditionally. He should be allowed to leave Iraq to be safe from American military and government persecutions, and/or “accidents,” if he so wishes. America should be sanctioned for the kidnapping and holding hostage this man who, before the world, has only and always been completely truthful and forthright. And what of Colin Powell? This man who claims that he mouths the words of others as his own. Is this man a puppet? A fool? Or, a sellout? Lackey is more like it.
Tom Manning
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