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  • A Show Trial and a Show Execution

    A Show Trial and a Show Execution
    Saturday, December 30, 2006 by _The Nation_ (http://www.thenation.org/)

    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_
    (http://hrw.org/backgrounder/mena/iraq1005/ ) , 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_
    (http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/11/ 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_ (http://www.madison.com/)
    . Nichols is the author of two books: _It's the Media, Stupid_
    (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/15 83220291/commondreams-20/ref=nosim)
    and _Jews for Buchanan_
    (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ 1565847172/commondreams-20/ref=nosim)
    .
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