Saddam is gradually moving from the defendant's bench back to the dais from which the U.S.-led coalition forces had thrown him.
The first trial focused on the Dujail tragedy, in which the defendants were accused of ordering the murder of villagers from Dujail after a failed assassination attempt on Hussein in 1982. The subsequent reprisals conducted by the ruling Baath party claimed the lives of 148 Shiites.
Three more lives can be added to the list: three defense lawyers for the ex-president and his team were killed during pauses in the many-month-long hearings. The top judge, who was shocked by the brutal methods used by supporters of the prosecution, accused the government of interference and resigned. The verdict in the Dujail trial will be read out by his successor on October 16.
This is only one brushstroke in the picture of Iraqi justice's general inefficiency created by the first trial. Human Rights Watch writes in a special statement, "None of the Iraqi judges and lawyers has shown an understanding of international criminal law. The court's administration has been chaotic and inadequate, making it unable to conduct a trial of this magnitude fairly."
The point at issue is not the fine legal points, such as the court's heavy reliance on anonymous witnesses for the prosecution, which "has undercut the defendants' right to confront witnesses against them and effectively test their evidence." The trouble is that the trial reflects the deplorable state of Iraqi government bodies and democratic institutions after three years of American occupation. It can be described only as chaos and window dressing.
An undeclared civil war is underway in Iraq, with about 2,000 improvised bombs blown up a month. The number of civilian casualties makes the Israeli-Lebanese conflict look like a minor saloon spat. Under these circumstances, security in Iraq is becoming an unattainable objective, compounded by the helplessness of the Iraqi administration and the unwillingness of U.S. President George W. Bush to risk American lives before the November elections.
No wonder the trial of Saddam Hussein is becoming a caricature. Minor legal clerks, whom the people view as the occupiers' puppets, are trying to orchestrate a trial where shooting the defendant in the back is seen as a form of fair competition.
This is shocking. Saddam Hussein's alleged crimes are so big that they deserve a trial of a comparable scale and competence, which should convincingly unmask a dictator who is still considered a national hero, if not a demigod, in the Arab world.
The Anfal trial, in which Saddam Hussein and Ali Hassan al-Majid will be accused of genocide, presents many more opportunities for doing this. The Anfal (The Spoils of War) trial will focus on the Baath Party's extermination campaign against Iraqi Kurds, which included the use of poison gas, in 1988. About 100,000 Kurds suspected of collaborating with Iran, the sworn enemy of Hussein, were exterminated.
The campaign was led by Hussein's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, the secretary of the Baath Party's Northern Bureau who became known as "Chemical Ali". The survivors claim he ordered the use of poisonous gas against them, which is a serious reason for qualifying the crimes as genocide.
But there are grounds to assume that, just like during the first trial where he was accused of crimes against humanity, Hussein will turn his bench into a dais for addressing his one and only favorite witness - the TV camera. Through it, the former dictator can address the Iraqi people and the whole of the Arab world.
I am sure that he will question the legitimacy of the court, appointed by the occupation forces and operating in conditions of foreign occupation. Hussein will denounce the U.S. invasion of a sovereign state, Iraq, in 2003 without a UN mandate and under the false pretext that Iraq was creating weapons of mass destruction. Hussein will also appeal to his supporters to continue fighting to expel American troops from Iraq.
Shooting him would be the best solution, of course, especially because his words will appeal to hearts bleeding from explosions, rampant death and destruction. Weary of the war and anarchy, Iraqis cannot understand why they are being subjected to horrors they had not suffered under Hussein's rule.
Iraqi justice may encourage the people to pay undue homage to Hussein, who will go to the gallows, if he is found guilty, with a martyr's halo.
