MGG Pillai Commentary View

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Saddam Hussein on trial holds his own against the United States

THE SADDAM HUSSEIN TRIAL, like Slobodan Milosevic's, is political but conducted in Baghdad as a legal trial. The motto seems to be: First the trial, then the execution. It is presumed the defendants have no no case, so it is presumed by the prosecutors. And are shocked when the strong defence is made. They are tried under laws that did not exist at the time at the time the officences were allegedly committed, and became laws only after he was overthrown. The British. in its imperial glory, would have hanged them all before they were faced with scenes now shown to the world, if they thought they would get into the mess the Americans are now. But it is the Americans who rule, and they believe in the Queensbury's Rules even when fighting a war. The procedures of the court have not been fixed. Every hearing of the trial has been a slanging match between the judges and the defendants over whether the court was legal. The witnesses are allowed to make their statements in absentia. The witnesses are afraid to show their faces twenty years later, and when it clear Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants are history.

The insurgency in Iraq is fuelled by the Sunnis, of whom Saddam Hussein remains a leader. The bulk of the insurgency is a Sunni reaction to the United States providing the legal mechanism to ensure the Shiias are in power in a land the British had ensured Sunni dominance more than 80 years ago. The last prime minister before the Baathists took over was a Sunni under British overlordship dressed himself in women's clothers when he was killed the crowd. Saddam was the fourth leader after that, and had remained in office from the early 1970s until his overthrow. The Americans were more interested in having Saddam under its control than seeing him dead. CNN is still showing pictures taken at the time of his arrest of soldiers peering into his mouth. US attempts to humiliate Saddam has fallen flat. Saddam, the street fighter, has taken over, and made mincemeat of his prosecution. There will always be a feeling that his trial in Baghdad was flawed.

The Americans wanted him tried in Baghdad, that he would be tried by Iraqi judges. A laudible move, but can turn into farce if not handled properly. As this trial has not. The special court, US-appointed and controlled, ran into difficulties from the start. The court has had three chief judges, two flawed. Every hearing starts with a harange by the defendants, whose lawyers have been prohibited to act for them, or have withdrawn. The proceedings of the court is bizaree. A reporter has to depend on videotapes, given our 20 minutes later and after the US officials had erased what it does not want Iraqis, and the world, to hear. That the court is broadcast live on television and radio reflects the difficulties the US administration is facing in Iraq. One cannot also be not sure how much the trial ensures the Sunni and Iraqi insurgency fuels.

Saddam Hussein, like all Middle Eastern dictators, expect to be killed. He knows Iraq's history as an independent country. His four predecessors were killed by their successors. The US has allowed him to be a martyr, and he wins whether you hang him or not. The trial has been to his advantage. He has thrown so many technicalities into his trial that a fair trial is now impossible. The Americans were unsure where he would be executed if he was so ordered by the court. Various centres in the Middle East were suggested as the court continued to hear, and ignore, his protestations. When the trial is held when the US, or so we are told takes orders from the new Iraqi government it stalled. But Saddam is under US custody, the US remains in the background, and every move the trial takes is under its control. In fact, his trial is held under US authorisation. When it became too 'hot', responsibility was handed to its protege, the Iraqi government, and will be blamed whatever happens. The trial is held under US auspices.

Whatever the US does in Iraq, Saddam trial included, does not work to its advantage. It has come out in public with more damaging information that it is in control, by its actions. It is bothered by its home ground that it has to reveal more than it should. The Saddam Hussein Trial is, if you like, one of the US's reasons why it should never hold a trial to prove a point. It did not hang Mugtada Al Sadar when it could, as as the British would have, and allowed him to be a powerful leader of the Shia clerics. It continues to make mistakes which make the insurgents on the offensive. The US administration now faces five insurgencies in Iraq: the Sunnis fueled by the Saddam Hussein trial, the Shia religious wing, the Sunni clergy that opposes it, the Iraqis who do not like their country invaded, the enemployed who see no other future for them. The longer this mess in Iraq continues, the less likely that Iraq under US control would be better off.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com