Iraqi Governing Council Says It Wants to Try Hussein

[kskiska]

Watch them bungle this one.

Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council intends to put Saddam Hussein on trial in a special Iraqi court for three decades of violent misrule and abuse of power, officials in Baghdad and Washington said yesterday.

The Bush administration expects to advise Iraqi investigators and judges, but will leave the principal decisions to Iraqis barring an unforeseen change, State Department officials said. The administration has spent more than $10 million gathering evidence against Hussein and his top lieutenantsHussein "will face the justice he denied to millions," President Bush told an international television audience.

Any trial of Hussein would be a hugely complicated undertaking, especially for an Iraqi justice system that barely exists. Everything from rules of criminal procedure to the legal code itself must be defined before a trial can begin. Evidence has not been consolidated, and analysts maintain that no trial could take place for many months.

Human rights organizations raised questions yesterday about the ability and credibility of the still-unformed Iraqi court and its connections to the U.S. occupation authority. The Governing Council, hand-picked by the Bush administration, is responsible for the court's procedures and will name its members.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64561-2003Dec14.html

[Newsjock]

1. How conveeeenient

and analysts maintain that no trial could take place for many months.

Say, right around the time of the Republican National Convention.

[caledesi]

2. Three decades of violent misrule?

So we were friends w/ this evil dictator when we KNEW he tortured and killed?

[proud patriot]

3. Saddam needs to go to the Hague

NOW !

[sistersofmercy]

4. I agree 100%

[Djinn]

6. Iraqi "Governing Council"

has less authority to do this than even the US - they were not elected or chosen by the Iraqi people and on the whole were absent for Saddam's rule and brutality.

The Hague would seem a good place to start but ANY trial opens up the possibility of testimony and evidence relating to the US war crimes in the area appearing and that will not do - my guess a short "mea culpa" from saddam owning up to WMD's, terrorist links, immiment attck plans against the US and planting that pretzel followed by a nice execution

[IndianaGreen]

5. We need to air out the full extent of Saddam's crimes and US complicity!

The Iraqi council is unelected and it is largely a puppet of the US. The International Crimes Court is the proper forum to try him. We also need to make public the full extent of American complicity in Saddam's crimes, including the military help the Reagan Administration gave Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War.

Here is more about this from the BBC:

BBC Middle East correspondent Paul Wood says an unpalatable fact for the Americans is that Saddam was seen as a rallying point for those who saw the US as an imperial power in the Middle East.

That is why it is so important for the Americans to put Saddam through a Nuremberg-style prosecution, our correspondent says.

They want a minute examination of what are held to be his many crimes:

• The invasion of Kuwait
• The war against Iran
• The gassing of the Kurds
• The mass executions of the Shia
• Everyday acts of brutality by his secret police

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3318143.stm

[Dirk39]

7. to just disappear like Milosovic?

Did you ever be astonished about how much was reported about Milosovic, when the trial started. And then we didn't here anything anymore?
How credible is the Hague? Bush isn't there, Powel isn't there and Clark isn't accused, he's a witness????
I'm getting mad in Germany,
Dirk

[IndianaGreen]

8. Just because the American media doesn't report about Slobo's trial

Full transcripts of which are available online.

Here are a few tidbits about Saddam's career that have "Made in the USA" written all over it:

Hussein emerged within this complex and contradictory movement as part of a layer of bourgeois nationalists who were fanatically hostile to communism and were prepared to do business with the major imperialist powers. In 1958, he was jailed for assassinating his brother-in-law, a Communist Party member. Five years later, he returned to Iraq from exile after the Baath Party joined a coup that overthrew the left-nationalist leader General Abdel-Karim Kassem and brought the party to power briefly. The overthrow of Kassem was carried out with the support of the CIA, which supplied the coup’s organizers with the names and addresses of Iraqi Communists so that they could be rounded up and executed.

In 1968, a second military-backed coup brought the Baathists to power, which they maintained until the US invasion earlier this year. Hussein took charge of internal security, becoming the real power in the new regime.

The Baathists came to power in Iraq in the context of a strategic alliance between Washington and the dictatorship of the Shah in neighboring Iran. Together, the US and the Shah’s regime pressured Iraq during this period to make unfavorable concessions in relation to the disputed boundary on the Shatt-al Arab.

Both to further Iranian interests and in retaliation for the Baathist regime’s nationalization of US oil interests in Iraq, Washington and Teheran, with the collaboration of Israel, acted to foment and support a Kurdish nationalist rebellion against Baghdad. CIA arms and funding were supplied to the Kurdish groups, while the Iranian military provided direct logistical support.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/dec2003/sadd-d15.shtml