Saddam
Hussein’s Death Sentence:
A Travesty Of Justice
By James Cogan
07 November, 2006
World
Socialist Web
The
death sentences handed down yesterday against Saddam Hussein and three
other prominent figures in his regime are the outcome of show trial
concocted for political purposes. Amid unspeakable atrocities being
committed against the people of Iraq every day by the US occupation
forces, a hand-picked court has condemned the former Iraqi dictator
to die. The very timing of the sentence is an attempt to lift the electoral
fortunes of the Republican Party in Tuesday’s congressional elections
by energising its right-wing base with the prospect of a high profile
legal lynching.
Saddam Hussein and the leading
personnel of the Iraqi Baath Party should be tried for the litany of
crimes they committed against the Iraqi people. The Bush administration,
however, and the American ruling class as a whole, have no right to
oversee the trial of anyone in Iraq for crimes against humanity. The
invasion of 2003 was a war crime, an unprovoked act of aggression that
was justified with lies and carried out in defiance of international
law.
In the subsequent three-and-a-half
years, the US occupation has attempted to subjugate the Iraqi people
through mass killings, torture and the destruction of entire cities.
A study conducted by the John Hopkins University—the only credible
attempt to estimate the number of casualties inflicted by the war and
occupation—found that the US government is responsible for the
deaths of 655,000 Iraqis. Preceding the war, the United Nations sanctions
from 1991 to 2003 cost the lives of one million Iraqis through malnutrition
and disease.
The pro-war media are predictably
highlighting the instances of celebration among Shiite and Kurdish Iraqis
in response to the death sentence against Hussein. There can be no concept
of justice in Iraq, however, until the individuals in Washington, London
and elsewhere who are responsible for 15 years of death and suffering
are brought to trial and the illegal occupation of the country by tens
of thousands of American and allied troops has been ended.
Moreover, US governments
going back to the 1960s provided political and financial support to
Hussein and the Baathists as they carried out some of their most brutal
atrocities—from the massacres of Communist Party members and socialist-minded
workers in 1963 and again in 1979, to the slaughter of Shiite fundamentalist
and Kurdish nationalist opponents of the regime during the 1980s.
The very killings for which
Hussein has been sentenced to death—the execution of 148 Shiite
men and boys from the village of Dujail in 1982—took place within
the context of the setbacks being suffered by the Iraqi military in
the US-backed Iraqi war against Iran. The US directly encouraged Hussein
to invade Iran in 1980 and provided Iraq with political, financial and
military support throughout the eight-year conflict because it viewed
the theocratic Shiite regime, which came to power in Tehran in 1979,
as a threat to its interests in the Middle East.
The war ultimately cost the
lives of more than one million Iraqis and Iranians. In the midst of
the carnage, the US supported the so-called “Anfal” campaign
that was ordered by Hussein to wipe out the Iranian-backed Kurdish rebellion
in the north, for which he is also on trial. In 1991, following the
Gulf War, the first Bush administration ordered the US military to do
nothing to prevent Hussein’s forces from suppressing Shiite and
Kurdish uprisings.
Any legitimate trial of Hussein
would expose the culpability of the US and other major powers in the
crimes of the Baathist regime in Iraq. The travesty that has taken place
did the opposite. It prevented any evidence being presented that documented
the relationship between a brutal dictatorship and great power interests.
There has been no accounting with the past or justice for those who
were murdered. Only the most selective evidence relating directly to
the events in Dujail was presented. As an additional precaution, the
television broadcast from the court was delayed by 20 minutes so censors
could delete anything that was considered damaging to the American occupation.
The entire process has been
a shameless show trial. The Iraq Special Tribunal was established by
an edict issued by US proconsul Paul Bremmer in 2003. Its judges and
prosecutors were selected by American officials and instructed by American
advisors. The court’s lack of credibility and impartiality has
been sharply criticised by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International
and other international observers. On numerous occasions, court proceedings
took place in the absence of the defendants or under conditions where
they were denied the right to have their own lawyers present.
In January, the chief judge
was pressured to step down after the US media and Iraqi government accused
him of not doing enough to prevent Hussein from using the witness stand
to denounce the court’s legitimacy. Three lawyers representing
the defendants were murdered and others forced to flee the country,
most likely by death squads working for the Shiite fundamentalist parties
that dominate the US-backed government in Baghdad.
The American ambassador in
Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, hailed the death sentence against Hussein yesterday
as an “important milestone” in the “building of a
free society based on the rule of law”. President Bush declared
that the verdict was “a milestone in the Iraqi people’s
efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law”.
The cynicism of these statements
is staggering. Numerous leaks to the US media indicate that officials
like Khalilzad have spent the past several months plotting a coup against
the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki and
its replacement with some form of military junta. There is a growing
consensus among both Republicans and Democrats that US interests in
Iraq would be better served by a regime very similar to that of Hussein.
Even as Hussein is sentenced
to hang, the US political establishment is discussing putting many of
the Baathist killers and thugs that underpinned his regime back in power,
in exchange for ending their guerilla war against American forces and
agreeing to an arrangement for the US corporate plunder of Iraq’s
oil resources. The prelude to any move to rehabilitate the Baathist
elite will be a bloodbath by the US military against the Shiite militiamen
in areas like Sadr City in Baghdad who paraded in the streets yesterday
to celebrate the outcome of the Hussein trial.
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