There can be little doubt Washington hoped Saddam Hussein would be killed during their Iraq invasion. During the massive preliminary aerial bombardment, a Stealth bomber deliberately targeted a restaurant where it was believed the Iraqi dictator was eating. However when Saddam was pulled from an underground bolt hole near Tikrit, it became inevitable that the Iraqi leader would face his day in court and that he would use the platform to strike back at his enemies.
His trial in Baghdad cannot be making easy listening for the White House. The connection has not been made but it does seem possible that last week’s admission by President Bush that pretty well all the intelligence justifying the invasion was wrong may have been an attempt to short-circuit protests from Saddam that he was overthrown on the basis of a lie. In the event the fallen dictator yesterday cleverly protested that he had been tortured and beaten by the Americans and dismissed their denial that any such thing had happened as being as much as a lie as all the pre-invasion intelligence. It really does not matter that Saddam is a ruthless politician who never hesitated to perpetrate the greatest violence upon his fellow countrymen, Iranians and Kuwaitis. The fact is that his charges about his own abuse bear consideration, simply because the Americans have been so economical with the truth throughout their Iraqi involvement.
The scandal of Abu Ghraib, the CIA “extreme rendition flights”, the Guantanamo Bay gulag and the torrent of falsehoods that underpinned the attack on Iraq have cost Washington a great deal of trust. It really does not matter that once the abuse of Iraqi detainees became known, the US acted to prosecute the perpetrators and fired the female general in charge of the prison regime. This behavior should never have been allowed to happen in the first place. Indeed, it might not have, had decent minds in Washington thought through the challenge of bringing peace and stability to postwar Iraq. The dismantling of the police and army and the woefully inept struggle to fill the vacuum that Saddam’s ouster created demonstrate the deadly stupidity of the Bush administration. Washington was knocked off balance the minute Iraqis failed to welcome them unconditionally as liberators. They have been stumbling ever since.
Few people doubt that Saddam, as a fearsome dictator, was directly responsible for the terror with which his country was run. But the man’s trial might have been cathartic for all Iraqis, in that it tabulated the horrors of the Baathist thugs and thus brought closure for a deeply violated society.
That however is not what is happening. Saddam has recovered his composure and is turning the legal process against him into his last hurrah. The Americans have handed him all the ammunition with which to do this. Instead of being allowed to concentrate upon the terrible facts of the charges against him and his co-defendants, the court is in danger of being turned into a circus in which Saddam re-fights the origins of the war.
