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Saddam's Trial Might Turn Out A Curse For The US

Angelique van Engelen - 5/26/2005

It is unlikely that Iraq's leader will go out with a bang by having a court trial that's going to vindicate the US for waging war against him. Yet perhaps the reason to believe that US influence in Iraq is finally going to recede on terms less favorable than looked likely just after the elections might really turn out to be a result of a trial of the former leader.

News around Saddam's trial, who only recently became the subject of some sniggering when pictures of him in his underpants were printed in the UK gutter press, is scarce and somehow dominated by controversy and conspiracy. There are some reports indicating that the US had been offering Saddam complete freedom in return for a promise that he'd televise a statement that he would leave the country for good and convince his former comrades to call an end to arms.

On official US and UK fronts, it´s gone awfully quiet on the issue of Saddam and his trial. Although it is mainly due to the tumultous situation in Iraq, the notion is not altogether misplaced that the international forces once so eager to make politcal gains on the capture of the leader would now best be rid of the man and not only because it would benefit the Iraq situation but also to protect their their own standing. Meanwhile the US administration's furore and investigation into the Saddam pictures is telling.

Experts say that ultimately, the Saddam trial is not going to be really all risk free for the US invaders of Iraq. The man might look ridiculous now, but he could muster up quite some support for issues that might unite a kind of neo Baath movement. A guilty verdict is pretty much a preconcluded, almost similar to the 1946 trial of captured Nazi leaders at Nuremberg. Yet the resistance in Iraq might be rekindled as a result of the trial.

The Hussein family has enlisted some of the Arab world's best lawyers, including the daughter of the Libyan leader. It is not excluded that things won't turn out nasty for the prosecutors on behalf of the US. The death penalty which Saddam Hussein so eagerly bestowed on anyone that could not escape only the slightest hint of doubt to his paranoid mind, is still very likely going to be given him too. Saddam however insists on being executed and not losing his country rather than signing a deal to lose his country and gain freedom.

It is not so much a reduction in punishment that the defense is likely to play on. This is likely an easy opener for them because they will only have to quote the US commander in chief who said that the war was entirely Saddam Hussein's fault. If the defense manages to turn attention to the US invasion into Iraq, the trial won't be the all-victorious affair that the US might have been hoping for.

Instead, the anti war camp that has recently been vindicated on a number of fronts not least due to the UK press discovery of a secret UK government memo evidencing that not all the parties really were in for something that the US had long agreed on even before getting the official go ahead.

Saddam's defense lawyers will likely conjure up an arguable case for the claim that he is the lawful president of Iraq and that the US has no jurisdiction whatsoever to subject him to a trial. Much like the former Serb leader Slobodan Milosovic' defense did, the Hussein defense might argue that the US did once recognize the legitimacy of the Baath Party's government. US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld visited Saddam in 1983 and 1984, for instance. This means that he is likely to be called before the court.

The US however will take Saddam and his former government to court, a group of over 50 former officials, accusing them of crimes against humanity, (mostly Kurds who they mass murdered by gassing them as well as dissident Shiites) as well as breaking international law, invading Kuwait.

The timing of the trial is dependent on a number of factors, including the wish by the Iraqis to see a speedy trial, the need not to alienate the Sunnis (who the Baath Party is made up of) and the international legal standards. The violence in Iraq and the sectarian strife is likely to play a role in the timing of the trial.

"If the investigative judges [of the tribunal] ultimately decide to include the invasion of Kuwait in the indictment, Saddam's lawyers will have a rhetorical field day comparing his actions to those of President Bush in invading Iraq. The investigative judges would be far better advised to limit the charges to the gassing of the Kurds and other obviously illegal actions that are unique to Saddam and his regime", according to Alan Dershowitz, a professor of law at Harvard, in an editorial on opinionjournal.com.

Even though the system is based on European law, the death penalty is in place for crimes involving murder. Civilians will be hanged and a firing squad will carry out the sentence for army officers. This has been very much contested by human right groups, who object to the death penalty. They also argue that judges have no experience of crimes against humanity. The system is flawed, they say. Furthermore so because there's a lack of explicit insistence that guilt must be proven beyond reasonable doubt.