Saddam Hussein never cared for truth or justice when he ruled Iraq and those who suffered under him might think it perverse to care about his fate now. But his trial for genocide and war crimes against the Kurds has degenerated into black farce, a chaotic travesty of what should have been due process to call him to account. Saddam was back in the dock on Wednesday after being thrown out for urging insurgents to fight United States-backed security forces — and then rebuking the judge for turning off his microphone. A fellow defendant punched a clerk. The previous judge was sacked by the government when he opined that the ex-president was not a dictator. Three defence lawyers have been murdered, one after being abducted and tortured. Witnesses have been threatened.
Judicial procedure and decorum may seem irrelevant in a country that is reeling under seemingly unstoppable sectarian violence. Even if the human toll since March 2003 is less than the horrific, if contentious, new estimate of 655 000, Iraq seems to be bleeding to death and falling apart. Still, when Saddam was captured in December 2004, trying him was seen as a way of obtaining retribution for ordinary Iraqis, drawing a line under the past and thus helping a new democratic political system to take root. Only the most diehard Ba’athists denied, after all, that he had terrible crimes to answer for.
Cat-and-mouse games between celebrity defendants and judges are familiar from Slobodan Milosevic’s trial at the United Nations tribunal in the Hague. Milosevic’s death robbed his victims of satisfaction. But other Balkan figures have been convicted of war crimes in a calm and neutral atmosphere. Since the March 2003 invasion, however, Iraq has never been peaceful or stable enough to allow a case of this kind to proceed in anything approaching an orderly manner. And if this and other trials do run their course, what will be the likely effect on a fractured country of the hanging of Saddam and others?
The international criminal court in the Hague cannot try Saddam because it has no jurisdiction over Iraq, so another UN criminal tribunal should be created abroad to handle his and related cases. Nuri al-Maliki’s government is unlikely to agree. But justice cannot be done or be seen to be done in Iraq today. The old tyrant may be getting a far better deal than anything that existed when he was in charge. But that is not saying much. And it is not nearly good enough. — Â