Iraq trial revives bitter memories of "U.S. betrayal"

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSCOL04488220070820

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Fifteen former members of Saddam Hussein's regime go on trial in a U.S.-backed court on Tuesday for their role in the crushing of a Shi'ite uprising in 1991, but many Shi'ites still talk bitterly of an American betrayal.

The trial is likely to revive debate over former U.S. President George Bush's decision not to invade Iraq after forcing Iraqi troops out of Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War.

With no threat of invasion, Saddam was able to use his elite Republican Guard units to swiftly suppress uprisings in the Shi'ite south and Kurdish north that erupted just days after the February 28 ceasefire ending the Gulf War.

Bush has since argued that while he hoped a popular revolt would topple Saddam, he did not want to see the break-up of the Iraqi state and feared the collapse of the multi-national coalition, including Arab states, that he had assembled.

"I just want to laugh when I hear American politicians talk about spreading democracy in the Middle East. I ask them: 'Why then did you allow Saddam to kill women and children when the Iraqi people revolted against his dictatorship?" said Mohammed al-Jawahiry, 32, a doctor in the southern city of Basra.

Saddam was eventually toppled in the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. President George W. Bush went further than his father, ostensibly in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction which have never been found.