surprise! i'm in minnesota! i'm visiting the inlaws, and the inlaws have wifi, so the people out there in blog-land probably won't notice a difference
we arrived a few hours ago, and ended up watching about an hour of CNN as they waited and waited for the execution of saddam. i don't watch TV news that often, so it was strange and a bit ghoulish to watch newscasters stalling until they could announce someone had been killed. in the meantime they interviewed various experts. each one they asked whether the death of saddam would improve the situation in iraq. and each one said the same thing: that it will make no difference at all.
which begged the question what the whole point was for the execution. at one time the trial and execution on "the butcher of baghdad" was supposed to showcase the new iraqi judicial system and to help achieve national reconciliation by exposing and adjudicating saddam hussein's crimes. the iraqi government issued an indictment charging saddam with crimes stemming from seven separate incidents, and the iraqi government promised that more were forthcoming. thereafter, it was decided (by who is unclear) that saddam would be tried separately for each incident in succession, rather than handling them all at once in one big trial. the dujail massacre was the first incident to go to trial, an odd choice because it involved the death of about 150 people, small potatoes compared to, say the anfal campaign which killed between 50,000 and 200,000, involved the use of chemical weapons, and probably fit the definition of genocide. but if he was going to be tried for each offense in the indictment, the order didn't really matter.
somewhere along the line, prevailing wisdom changed. as i mentioned in a prior post, iraqi and american officials began just viewing the trial as a way to kill saddam, rather than a way to showcase the iraqi judicial system or achieve national reconciliation. maybe that's because the televised dujail trial was a total disaster, showcasing the chaos and ineptitude of the iraqi judiciary more than anything else. the last straw for me was when the chief judge was replaced because the iraqi government said he was "he is biased towards the former Iraqi leader." apparently they only had a passing familiarity with the presumption of innocence allegedly enshrined in the iraqi constitution. and by no means was the removal of the chief judge the only irregularity with the trial.
in any event, along the way the powers that be decided they just wanted saddam dead. after the death sentence was handed down in the dujail case, they started the anfal trial which included the charges of genocide. because saddam was executed tonight (or rather, tomorrow morning iraqi time), the anfal charges and all other charges against saddam will now be dropped. because saddam is innocent until proven guilty, he will now remain legally innocent of all of the worst accusations against him.
there's another aspect to this too. the dujail incident was about the massacre of shia. the anfal incident was about genocide directed against the kurds. the decision to execute saddam right away for dujail and have the charges dropped for anfal is not going to help sectarian tensions in the country.
in their rush to kill saddam, iraqi and american officials have managed to both of the original reasons to put saddam on trial. rather than showcasing the new iraqi judicial system, the dujail trial exposed its lack of independence and how far it fell short of both international norms and the requirements of the iraqi constitution. and by foreclosing trials on the more serious charges, iraqi and american officials have created a barrier to national reconciliation rather than fostering it.
so can anyone tell me what was the point of that trial?
