Fathers usually beam with pride when their sons decide to go into the family business and follow in their footsteps. Saddam Hussein must have positively burst with joy when his son Qusai helped devise the defense of Baghdad in the last days of his regime. One of the documents found among the cache captured when Baghdad fell reports an order from Qusai to put Kuwaiti POWs -- apparently from the 1990 invasion that prompted the first Gulf War -- around critical military facilities in order to use them as human shields:

Presidential Office/ Special Office The Secretary: Re / Kuwaiti POW’s

Regarding the execution of Mr. President, Commander Saddam Hussein’s (God protect him) orders, according to the decision of the Revolutionary Command Council on Friday, March 4, 2003.

Transfer all Kuwaiti POW’s / a total of 448 captured Kuwaitis who are located at the Al-Nida Al-Agher Prison and the Intelligence / General Center and Kazema Prison in Al-Kazema, to make them human shields at all locations that are expected to be attacked by the American aggressors. Put them in communication locations and essential ministries, radio and television, Military Industrial Commissions, and all other locations expected to be attacked by the criminal Anglo-American aggressors.

Transporting them should be in coordination with:
Intelligence Services Directorate
Republican Guard Chief of Staff

Under direct supervision of the Special Security Organization / Organization Security

[Signature]
Qusai Saddam Hussein
Supervisor of the Republican Guard Secretariat
March 14, 2003

The first question that needs answering is why Iraq continued to hold 448 Kuwaitis as POWs after the end of the Gulf War in 1991. Twelve years later, the Husseins still had them in custody -- an act that constitutes a critical breach of the cease-fire that preserved Saddam's reign over the Iraqis. Now we also have proof that the Iraqis not only failed to live up to their initial commitments under the agreement, but also committed a war crime that should bring the death penalty to Saddam Hussein, in whose name and under whose orders Qusai demanded this action.

The Kuwaitis will want to know what happened to these POWs, and their fate should result in further war-crimes trials against those who may have carried out Qusai's orders.

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