It is very difficult to gloat upon the miseries of others especially the ones who have been the most controversial of human beings having their supporters as well as detractors. Noose around Saddam’s neck, like the downfall of Shakespearean Tragic Hero affects everyone around him.

Saddam was the centre piece of the universe he had created for himself; therefore, his end affects some cataclysmic changes and causes some ripples across the political board of global village. His end is of great significance and entails implications of some magnitude requiring our attention.

This is the first judicial condemnation of any dictator in the Middle East  whose history is replete with despotism, absolutism in politics, autocracy,  exploitation, coercion and jingoism on the part of usurpers of authority. It sets an enviable example for the people who have the potential to appreciate the rule of law and have the infusion of an ideology that appreciates and encourages its people to run their affairs on democratic lines discussing their affairs threadbare among themselves.

Saddam is implicated and condemned only for the murder of 148 people of Dujail although his arbitrary style of governance has blood of thousands of innocent men, women and children to its count, yet, despite the difficult conditions and unenviable judicial history of the country, by passing a strong judgment on a former dictator, the five member panel of judges have made it clear that everyone, whatsoever authority one may have, he is accountable for every life and no manipulation of the law or the judiciary, can exempt a ruler from the responsibility of safeguarding the life and dignity of innocent citizens.

Although both, Bush and Saddam, are over ambitious and politically corrupt zealots banking on dissimulation and procrastination for petty political gains in the name of humanity, dignity, sovereignty and national interests,  however, Saddam, falling from grace, has exposed the moral bankruptcy of many a western leaders especially of George W. Bush. Iraq , rather Saddam, has cost Bush very dearly. Republicans have lost both the Houses and next two years Bush will sit in the White House licking his wounds.

His intransigence was yet another cause of his and his party’s downfall. The US policy in Iraq was not working for the last two years: it had proved to be a complete failure and noting in Iraq went in favour of the US and its allies. Last month new UK Army Chief, Richard Dannatt, talking to Daily Mail newspaper said that British troops from Iraq should be withdrawn “soon”. He said Britain ’s troop presence was ‘exacerbating’ security problems and that they should withdraw “sometime soon.”

Although it caused a political storm across the Atlantic yet what he had said hinted at on the ground reality that only the most myopic could shut himself out. He went on further to say that post-war planning for the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq was ‘poor’ and the presence of troops there was hurting British security globally.

The trial took place under trying circumstances and there were some 
procedural irregularities as well as political intervention, however, the trial went on for months and there were more than 42 Court sessions and scores of witnesses as well as extensive paperwork and despite Saddam’ s vitriol in almost all court sessions he was forced to attend the court sessions. It can be said that the defense team was not provided enough protection as three defense lawyers were assassinated that might have influence the outcome of the trial, however, the facts betray this assertion.

Their murder was due to the overall situation pertaining in the country where on the average daily 50 people were killed, maimed or permanently incapacitated to live normal life through out the trial. Considering the bulk of evidence oral and written against Saddam it is difficult to conclude that any such thing might have affected the outcome of this trial.

However, if the culpability of the US and other major powers in the crimes of the Baathist regime in Iraq is not established then Saddam’s trial is nothing more than a travesty of justice: he deserves gallows along with his masters. A John Hopkins University study has found that the US Government is responsible for the deaths of 655,000 Iraqis. Preceding the war, the United Nations sanctions from 1991 to 2003 cost the lives of one million Iraqis through malnutrition and disease.

Successive US governments since 1960s have provided political and financial  support to Hussein and the Baathists to massacres Communist Party members and socialist-minded workers. In 1980s with the support of the US Saddam slaughtered Shias of the South and the Kurd nationalists opposing the regime.

The US directly encouraged Hussein to invade Iran in 1980 and provided Iraq with political, financial and military support throughout the eight-year conflict whose human cost is staggering: around one million Iranian and Iraqi lives. Even in 1991, following the Gulf War, under the directives of Bush Senior the US military did nothing to prevent Hussein’s slaughter of Shiite and Kurdish revo-lutionaries staging uprisings against his despotic rule because Bush feared Iran’s dominance in the Gulf. Of course Saddam pulled the trigger but those who provided him the gun to do their dirty job are to be held equally responsible.

The trial was significant in another respect when we consider it in the backdrop of the judicial history of the region. Saddam was the first dictator of the region to be brought before the court of law to face up to his alleged crimes. Although Special Tribunal was established by an edict issued by US proconsul Paul Bremmer in 2003 it was a five-judge Special Tribunal and not a revolutionary court as we saw many of them in the wake of French Revolution of 1789.

Therefore, the criticism of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on certain counts is not acceptable and is in disrespect to the sentiments of Saddam’s victims.

The trial has yet another important dimension. It has psychologically liberated the oppressed and dispossessed Iraqis from a sense of terror, coercion and oppression. They have seen that the dictator who had appropriated the role of the judge, the jury and the executioner to himself for so many years has been brought to his knees; mortified and withdrawn to his fate. Iraqi society itself should find in the fate of Saddam a renewed respect for the rule of law after more than a generation of despotism, absolutism and jingoism of an autocratic regime.

The trial of Iraqi nation, however, is not yet over. It has to bear with its tragic past and the present and step into the future with dignity, serenity and an honour that is worthy of such cultured and civilised nation as Iraq . A lot depends on its leadership now that must help Iraqis crush the spectre of sectarianism to advance towards enlighten-ment, progress and prosperity.

Information

Saddam was the centre piece of the universe he had created for himself;  therefore, his end affects some cataclysmic changes and causes some ripples  across the political board of global village. His end is of great significance and  entails implications of some magnitude requiring our attention.

First appeared in Pakistan Observer on November 14, 2006