MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS

FROM: RANDY SCHEUNEMANN, Member of the Board of Directors

SUBJECT: Is Iraq "better off"?

On this day last year, Saddam Hussein celebrated the 34th -- and final -- anniversary of the Baathist party's murderous rule. Today, he remains hidden as his supporters do all they can to attack Iraq's liberators and prolong the misery of the ordinary Iraqis who suffered under decades of Baathist dictatorship. With the president's domestic opponents doing all they can to inflict political damage on him, it may be a good time for supporters of liberation to again forcefully point out (on the floor of the House and Senate and the airways) just how many men, women and children are dead today because of the Baathist regime - a regime incidentally that would still be in power today had the president heeded the calls of his loudest critics.

Saddam's wars abroad killed over one million people, and his domestic executioners were just as brutal. Yesterday, Tom Friedman of the New York Times pointed out that over 20 mass graves have already been uncovered and dozens more need to be exhumed. He notes that just one grave is estimated to contain 10,000 victims. And Reuters reports today on another mass grave near Mosul which locals say may contain up to 400 bodies. According to Reuters, the military has, thus far, identified "25 human remains - all women and children with bullet holes through the skull." Not too long ago, a leading presidential contender commented that he "suppose[d]" getting rid Saddam "was a good thing," but he didn't "know whether in the long run the Iraqi people are better off" by getting rid of him. The Iraqi people - those who escaped Saddam's graves - beg to differ.