Word: saddamism
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...question is whether the sectarian tumult surrounding his execution will lend Saddam a new stature, allowing his loyalists to portray him not as a convicted killer but as a victim, mercilessly lynched by a vengeful, U.S.-backed Shi'ite government. Indeed, some have been planning to do so all along. One afternoon last October, I watched the televised Saddam trial in the company of Abu Hamza, a former senior officer in the Republican Guard. Watching his former boss sitting sullenly in the dock, Abu Hamza shook his head. Even a loyal follower could see no dignity there. Then...
...generally accepted that the hanging of Saddam Hussein was a disaster. But at least it wasn't our fault. "Would we have done things differently? Yes, we would have," said U.S. military spokesman Gen. William B. Caldwell in Baghdad. "But that's not our decision. That's an Iraqi government decision." At the White House, the President's men have been all too eager to lie low and let someone else take the fall for the latest mess. "The President is focused on the way forward," the deputy White House press secretary Scott Stanze told reporters. "So these issues...
...complicity in Saddam's execution dates back to 2003, when the Administration refused to consider the establishment of an international tribunal to try Saddam and his henchmen. Even before the fall of Baghdad, State Department working groups had begun drafting plans to prosecute Baathist leaders for war crimes. As documented by the International Center for Transitional Justice, the U.S. insisted that the war-crimes trials would follow "an Iraqi-led" process. Though the U.S. said it welcomed international participation in the trials, Administration officials pointedly ruled out th e idea of creating international courts modeled on the U.N.-run tribunals...
...Would an international tribunal for Saddam, sanctioned by the U.N., have been preferable to the trial conducted by the Iraqis? As I argued before Saddam's hanging, I don't think the tyrant got a raw deal. His trial, though flawed and highly compromised by violence, ultimately resulted in a just verdict supported by the evidence. The trouble is that because the court that tried Saddam was set up by the occupying power and run by a partisan Shi'ite government, few Sunnis believed the proceedings were legitimate, or accepted the court's verdict as impartial. And that was before...
...Critics of the U.N.-driven approach say that had Saddam, like Slobodan Milosevic, been prosecuted by international lawyers in a third country, his trial would have been too remote to have provided Iraqis any sense of closure. But does anyone feel closure now? Rather than a moment of national reckoning, the execution of Saddam will be remembered by many as a brutal act of sectarian vengeance. Of course, the death penalty is prohibited in U.N. tribunals - a point often raised by defenders of the Iraqi courts. They argue that war criminals should face the toughest penalties allowed by their respective...