A Show Trial and a Show Execution
Saturday, December 30, 2006 by _The Nation_ ()
by John Nichols
Convicted in a show trial that certainly appeared to have been timed
to finish on the eve of last month’s US elections, Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein was hanged in a show execution that just as certainly
seems to have been timed to be carried out before the end of the worst
year of the Iraq War.
Hussein was a bad player — a totalitarian dictator who, with tacit
approval from the U.S. and other western nation during the 1980s,
killed his own people and waged a mad war with Iran. He needed to be
held to account. But even bad players deserve fair trials, honest
judgments and justly-applied punishments. The former dictator got none
of these.
According to _Human Rights Watch_
( ) , which has a long and
honorable history of documenting and challenging the abuses of
Hussein’s former government, the execution early Saturday morning
followed "a deeply flawed trial" and "marks a significant step away
from respect for human rights and the rule of law in Iraq." "The test
of a government’s commitment to human rights is measured by the way it
treats its worst offenders," says Richard Dicker, director of Human
Rights Watch’s International Justice Program. "History will judge
these actions harshly."
For fifteen years, Human Rights Watch had demanded that Hussein be
brought to justice for what the group has rightly described as
"massive human rights violations." But the group argues that Hussein
was not brought to justice.
In addition to objecting at the most fundamental level to the use of
the barbaric practice of state-sponsored execution–which is outlawed
by the vast majority of the world’s nations–Human Rights Watch notes
that Hussein was killed before being tried for some of his most
well-documented acts of brutality.
The group notes the trial that did take place was fundamentally
flawed. A niney-seven-page _report_
( 20/iraq14589.htm) by Human
Rights Watch, issued late last month, details the severe problems with
the trial. The report, based on close monitoring of the prosecution of
the former president, found that:
* "(The) Iraqi High Tribunal was undermined from the outset by
Iraqi government actions that threatened the independence and
perceived impartiality of the court."
* The Iraqi administrators, judges, prosecutors and defense
lawyers lacked sufficient training and expertise "to fairly and
effectively try crimes of this magnitude."
* The government did not protect defense lawyers–three of whom
were killed during the trial–or key witnesses.
* "(There were) serious flaws in the trial, including failures to
disclose key evidence to the defense, violations of the defendants’
right to question prosecution witnesses, and the presiding judge’s
demonstrations of bias."
* "Hussein’s defense lawyers had 30 days to file an appeal from
the November 5 verdict. However, the trial judgment was only made
available to them on November 22, leaving just two weeks to respond."
The report did not study the appeals process, But the speed with which
the tribunal’s verdict and sentence were confirmed suggests that the
Iraqi Appeals Chamber failed to seriously consider the legal arguments
advanced by Hussein’s able–if violently harassed–legal team.
"It defies imagination that the Appeals Chamber could have thoroughly
reviewed the 300-page judgment and the defense’s written arguments in
less than three weeks’ time," said Dicker. "The appeals process
appears even more flawed than the trial."
There will, of course, be those who counter criticism of the process
by pointing out that Saddam Hussein did not give the victims of his
cruel dictates fair trials or just sentences. That is certainly true.
But such statements represent a stinging indictment of the new Iraqi
government and its judiciary. With all the support of the United
States government, with massive resources and access to the best legal
advice in the world, with all the lessons of the past, Iraq has a
legal system that delivers no better justice than that of Saddam
Hussein’s dictatorship.
This is the ugly legacy of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq: An
awful mess of a country that cannot even get the trial and punishment
of deposed dictator right, a justice system that schedules the taking
of life for political and propaganda purposes, a thuggishly brutal
state that executes according to whim rather than legal standard.
According to Britain’s Telegraph newspaper, "There was no comment from
the White House, which was determined that the execution should appear
to be an Iraqi event." The central role played by the US government in
the process was not lost on the Telegraph, however, as the newspaper
noted that: "the transfer of Saddam from American to Iraqi custody
meant his death was imminent."
The term "transfer" is of course being used in a loose sense, as
Hussein was hung not in an Iraqi prison but within the
American-controlled Green Zone in central Baghdad.
Now that the killing is done, the governments of Iraq and the United
States have confirmed what may have been the worst fear of those who
condemned both Saddam Hussein and the US invasion and occupation that
removed him from power. The crude lawlessness of Hussein has been
replaced by the calculated lawlessness of a new regime.
John Nichols, The Nation’s Washington correspondent, has covered
progressive politics and activism in the United States and abroad for
more than a decade. He is currently the editor of the editorial page
of Madison, Wisconsin’s _Capital Times_ ()
. Nichols is the author of two books: _It’s the Media, Stupid_
( 83220291/commondreams-20/ref=nosim)
and _Jews for Buchanan_
( 1565847172/commondreams-20/ref=nosim)
.