Saddam statues are melted down
FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) — When Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq, a pair of monuments stood as symbols of his iron-fisted domination: towering bronze statues depicting a heroic Saddam as the mighty conqueror, on horseback, sword aloft. But U.S. troops blew the statues off their pedestals after the invasion of Iraq, giving the soldiers who pulled Saddam out of his hiding hole a keepsake to bring home.
The 50-foot-tall statues were melted down and recast by a skilled Iraqi artist who turned them into a new memorial that depicts a GI mourning his fallen comrades while a young girl tries to console him. The new statue, mounted on a black granite base, is the centerpiece of an Iraq war memorial being built outside the 4th Infantry Division's museum at Fort Hood in central Texas. 7/14/2004
http://1-22infantry.org/current/4idmonument.htm
Legally, 'we're in for a long haul' (click title to entry - thank you)
Case against soldier accused in mass shooting faces many hurdles
By LYNSI BURTON and STEWART M. POWELLWASHINGTON BUREAU
Nov. 9, 2009, 9:57AM
UPDATE (10:52 a.m. Monday): An Army hospital spokesman says the Fort Hood shooting suspect is conscious and able to talk.
WASHINGTON — As Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan lay under heavy guard at Fort Sam Houston on Sunday, military prosecutors and the accused Fort Hood gunman's family were preparing for what could be a long and complicated legal proceeding.
Military justice experts told the Houston Chronicle that Hasan, if he recovers, could face the death penalty in a military court-martial — unless civilian prosecutors conclude that he was part of a terrorist plot that would justify moving his case into federal criminal courts under U.S. anti-terrorism laws.
But veterans of the military justice system say that any case against Hasan could take many months and could be delayed by medical assessments of the Army officer's physical and mental health. And even if a death sentence is handed down, the military justice system's lengthy appeals process has effectively thwarted all executions since 1961....
