A legal sham: first charges laid against Saddam Hussein

[IndianaGreen]

We are only fooling ourselves if we think that executing Saddam will have an effect on the insurgency. Most insurgents are the same type of religious fanatic that Saddam used to kill or imprison when he was in power. Al-Qaeda in Iraq hates Saddam as much as the Shia.

A legal sham: first charges laid against Saddam Hussein
By Peter Symonds
20 July 2005

The decision announced July 17 to file the first charges against deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein has set the stage for what can only be called a political show trial later in the year. Confronting deep popular hostility and fierce armed resistance, US authorities and the puppet regime headed by Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafaari have decided to put Hussein on trial in a bid to both cow public opposition and garner support from sections of the Shiite and Kurdish communities that suffered most under the Baathist dictatorship.

So blatant are the political machinations that the New York Times reported: “The tribunal officials said they had faced a swirl of pressures that have been more overtly political. Some government officials, they say, have been insistent that Mr. Hussein face trial before elections scheduled for December in which Iraqis are to vote for a full, five-year government. Their assumption, the tribunal officials say, has been that a detailed recounting of Mr. Hussein’s atrocities in court will consolidate popular support behind the Shiite and Kurdish leaders, and isolate Sunni Arab hardliners.”

Raeed Juhi, the 35-year-old judge handpicked for the task, told the media that Hussein would be tried over the 1982 massacre of more than 150 people in the Shiite village of Dujail. Juhi is the chief investigative judge for the Iraqi Special Tribunal established in December 2003 by US occupation authorities following the capture of the former Iraqi president. If found guilty, Hussein faces the death penalty.

The choice of the little known Dujail massacre is no accident. The village, about 80 km north of Baghdad, is a Shiite enclave in a predominately Sunni area and has long been regarded as a stronghold of Jafaari’s own Islamic fundamentalist Dawa Party. On July 8 1982, several of Dawa’s gunmen attempted to assassinate Hussein by firing on his motorcade as it passed through the area.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/iraq-j20.shtml

[applegrove]

1. I don't think it is a sham. A few people revolted and 100s being killed

is a war crime. How psychopaths rule. Not nothing. I think the Iraqis need a few months of a trial on T.V. to help them have a shared experience and heal. The sooner the US can be booted out.

[Sandpiper]

2. This will be an expensive lynching party

The biggest reason why this didn't go to the Hague is because the ICC is a legitimate independent body and there would be no guarantee of achieving the desired guilty verdict.

[IndianaGreen]

3. The reason this is a sham is because the US helped Saddam

commit many of the crimes he is now accused. It was Rumsfeld, acting on behalf of Ronald Reagan. that went to Baghdad to offer Saddam intelligence assistance and WMDs to use against Iran. It was the US that encouraged Saddam to go to war against Iran. We cannot lynch Saddam, without also lynching several top US government officials, including Poppy Bush.

There is also evidence to suggest Iran had a role in gassing Kurds.