The Inevitable End Of Saddam
By Hasan Abu Nimah
05 January, 2007
The Jordan TimesLike all the make-believe in the "New Iraq", the masquerade surrounding the execution of Saddam Hussein quickly fell apart.
Shortly after the announcement that Saddam had been hanged on the early morning of Eid Al Adha, the Iraqi government released a video segment showing the former leader being led in the execution chamber. Without sound, it was supposed to convey the impression of a solemn and dignified end to the former president's life, to the extent that capital punishment (something the world increasingly rejects) ever can be.
But in subsequent days, the true, even more disturbing, picture emerged as illicit videos began to circulate. As The New York Times put it, the execution was allowed to "deteriorate into a sectarian free-for-all that had the effect, on the video recordings, of making Mr Hussein, a mass murderer, appear dignified and restrained, and his executioners, representing Shiites who were his principal victims, seem like bullying street thugs."
The newspaper also revealed that American officials were alarmed at the Iraqi government's rush to carry out the death sentence with such haste, dubious legality, and on the Eid when it was not only illegal, but would do maximum damage to the feelings of millions of Iraqis.
Several Arab leaders meekly criticised the execution on the grounds of its timing. But it was not just the timing that was wrong.
Saddam brought enormous misery both to the people he ruled and to those of the countries he invaded, including Iran and Kuwait. For his crimes, he deserved a fair and complete trial. His victims deserved that too. But the proceeding and execution they witnessed represented justice neither in an Iraqi, nor an international context. Far from being an exercise that could bring justice for his victims, throw light on the long, dark years of his rule, and promote national reconciliation, it turned into a sectarian revenge killing that seems certain to exacerbate the hostilities which daily claim dozens of innocent lives and have led to ethnic cleansing in large parts of Baghdad.
In the international context, the trial did nothing to enhance the rule of law or indeed ensure accountability for those who commit egregious violations. Even Western human rights organisations have pointed out that the trial of Saddam failed to meet minimal standards of due process and fairness, and was conducted while his enemies rule the country backed by foreign occupiers.
The Iraqi government rushed the execution, but it was not the only one who had an interest in seeing Saddam's speedy end.
Saddam was only convicted for the killing of 140 men and boys in the village of Dujail, as a reprisal for an attempt on his life. Because he will never be tried for his other crimes, we may never know the full extent of Western, particularly American and European, complicity in supplying him with the chemical and other weapons he used, and the extent of the cooperation with his regime. The testament to this deliberately forgotten history is the grainy photograph of former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld firmly clasping Saddam's hand.
Many truths which the world deserved to know have perished forever with that savage execution. Yet, even if Saddam's trial had been impeccably handled, the fundamental principle of justice is equality before the law. Such "justice" has no chance of winning over the masses in this region when they observe that punishment is so swift and brutal when the accused is an Arab, Muslim head of state, while other accused former leaders, like Slobodan Milosevic, receive elaborate trials in The Hague (so long in Milosevic's case that he died of natural causes several years into the proceeding).
The United Kingdom, which had General Augusto Pinochet in its custody, released him, and he, too, died peacefully, never having answered a charge against him.
Even worse, when attempts were made to initiate legal action against Ariel Sharon and other major Israeli war criminals in Belgium and other European capitals, the countries involved were subjected to enormous pressure to even change their legislation to obstruct justice and protect the accused.
In December, a United States district court in Washington, DC, dismissed a lawsuit against former Israeli chief-of- staff, General Moshe Yaalon, by some of his Palestinian victims, on the grounds that he is immune from the action because he wore a uniform at the time of his alleged crimes. This shocking reversal of some of the fundamental principles established at the Nuremberg trials passed almost without notice.
And, of course, there is the war that brought us to this point in the first place. Dozens, if not hundreds, of Iraqis are dying every day. Will those who justified a war through lies and fabrication, who flouted the UN Charter, who tried to use Iraq as a source of wealth and plunder for their corporations and contractors ever answer for their misdeeds? It seems more likely that they will retire as respected "statesmen" whose wise advice will be sought for decades to come.
At the end of an overstretched process which lasted for more than 16 years, including two major wars, separated by 12 violent years of harsh UN sanctions against Iraq and the innocent Iraqi people -- following the fatal invasion of Kuwait in 1990 -- the termination of Saddam and his regime was inevitable. What was not, is the ugly and costly manner in which this has been "accomplished" and, more frightfully, the lows to which superpower politics towards our region have degenerated.
The ugly killing of Saddam will do nothing to restore peace to the region, nor will it help Iraq. It is a mark of the savagery that has come to replace politics and diplomacy in international affairs, and of the reduction and humiliation of the Arab nation. It is no more than another blunder contributing further to the aggravation and the deterioration at a time when correction measures are urgently required.
Which of the rulers between Africa and Afghanistan, whether they now enjoy Western patronage or count the West as their enemy, cannot see themselves at the centre of the same horrifying and tragic drama? Perhaps that was the point all along.
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