WASHINGTON - November 3 - The verdict and sentencing of Saddam Hussein are scheduled to be announced on Sunday, November 5, just two days before the U.S. midterm elections. The following analysts are available for interviews:

RICHARD FALK, rfalk@princeton.edu, http://www.transnational.org/tff/people/r_falk.html

Falk is an emeritus professor of international law at Princeton University and coauthor most recently of the book "Crimes of War: Iraq." He said today: "It should come as no surprise that the final verdict in the Saddam Hussein criminal trial seems timed to coincide with the November U.S. midterm elections. ...

"The U.S. government should be ashamed to have debased international justice by orchestrating every phase of this trial in Baghdad from start to finish to divert domestic public opinion in this country from the dismal failure of its Iraq policy. It is a sad day for American democracy if the citizens of this country fall for such a cheap propaganda trick amid a dreadful war that is wasting the lives of its young soldiers and bringing massive suffering to the Iraqi people."

SUREYA SAYADI, MD, drpeacess@yahoo.com, http://www.peacepalpitations.com

A Kurdish doctor and academic now living in the U.S., Sayadi said today: "I've been watching the trial very closely -- the Kurdish channels on satellite TV show it late night. Hearing the stories from the victims, how they were blinded, how their families were killed is just heartbreaking. But now the U.S. government is using these people's death and suffering for an election. Since the 1970s, the U.S. government has played with Kurdish lives. They are playing with Iraqi lives and now they're even playing with American lives.

She added: "The trial is supposed to show justice, but it doesn't. It doesn't examine who gave Saddam the chemical and biological agents to kill people -- it was the U.S. and Germany. If we were really after justice, there would be an international tribunal, like for Rwanda. Instead, the U.S. government just wants to use the trial of Saddam to continue its policies in Iraq today. I don't know whether to laugh or cry."

See: "November Surprise? Why Hasn't Mainstream Media Connected the Dots Between Saddam's Judgment Day and the Midterm Elections?" by Tom Engelhardt .

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