Former Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, has been sentenced to death by hanging for crimes against humanity.
Personally, I expect the sentence to be commuted to life in the next week or two to prevent him becoming a martyr.
The trial has been criticised for the interference of the US government and has been called it a “victors’ trial”.
The current president of Iraq, George Bush Jalal Talabani, opposed the death sentence.
The death sentence carries an automatic appeal but will Saddam exercise that right? His execution will turn him into a martyr and means that even after death, revenge attacks by his supporters will disrupt the lives of millions of Iraqi’s and maybe even westerners and result in countless deaths in his name.
Whether he appeals or not will depend on his strength – will he throw himself at the mercy of a judiciary and president he has so far refused to accept the authority of or will he face his execution smiling, safe in the knowledge that his death will do far more harm than he could alive?
It is remarkable that Saddam has been sentenced for a crime he committed in 1982, at a time when the USA was more than eager to provide support to Saddam Hussein’s regime and was complicit in some of his crimes. As usual, this fact has not even been mentioned by our amnesiac media. Donald Rumsfeld, the incarnation of this administration’s moral bankruptcy, went to Baghdad shaking hands with Saddam, on December 20, 1983 (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/).
At that time, Rumsfeld knew that Saddam was a dangerous dictator (contrary to 2003, when he wasn’t dangerous any more). He knew about the 1982 massacre that has now been recognized as a “crime against humanity”. Donald Rumsfeld knew that Saddam had ordered the use of chemical weapons against Iran in breach of the Geneva conventions (contrary to 2003, when Rumsfeld knew exactly that there were no chemical weapons). And he went to Baghdad in 1983, shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, offering him the support of the United States. That’s the story that will be told in the history book.