Uday and Qusay dead; victims of a family dispute over money?

Jul 22 21:25 UTC 2003

NPR has been reporting this afternoon that Uday and Qusay Hussein,
the eldest sons of Saddam Hussein, are confirmed dead after a
3-hour firefight in the Iraqi city of Mosul.

The house in which they were killed is said to be owned by a tribal
leader who is also a cousin of Saddam; the owner was reported to
have been seen talking with US soldiers after the battle, leading
to suspicion that he turned in the two for the $15 million/head
reward.

response 2 of 122:

Jul 22 21:59 UTC 2003

Let that be a lesson to Muslim clerics who think capitalism is Anti-Islamic.
Hopefully this'll shut up all those ingrates who think they can have democracy
and home rule in a day; don't they realise if it was that easy they'd have
brought it in as soon as they gained independence from the UK?

response 4 of 122:

Jul 22 22:16 UTC 2003

Don't worry, there's plenty of money in the budget thanks to Bush's excellent
fiscal policies. 
</SARCASM>

response 6 of 122:

Jul 23 00:13 UTC 2003

nad it was a 6 hout firefight...

response 8 of 122:

Jul 23 02:24 UTC 2003

re resp:3: Given that we're not packing up and leaving Iraq to be re-
taken over by Baathists led by Saddam and/or his family... you'd have 
rather used another method of digging out these people, such as maybe 
occupation for another 10 years?

While I have a lot more misgivings over the invasion of Iraq than I 
did at the start of the war, I'd still say that

1) The Hussein sons were part of the problem we invaded Iraq to solve;

2) While they lived, they were very likely to be a continuing problem;

3) It was a whole lot cheaper to get someone to sell them out than to 
find and arrest and/or kill them

4) Even so, I bet $15 or $30 million in reward money was a drop in the 
bucket of the money we spent in trying to find these people.

We're spending a few billion per month or thereabouts in fighting in 
Iraq, as well as more American soldiers' lives every day.  This was 
not a big expense.  It was probably money pretty well spent.

response 10 of 122:

Jul 23 06:06 UTC 2003

Irrelevant.  The rewards had to sound big to Americans, because they need to
convince Americans that Bush is tough on Sadam.