Revenge, Not Justice

The execution of Saddam Hussein in the early morning hours of December 30 had nothing to do with justice. Like so many other killings in Iraq, it was just another act of sectarian violence. With farcical legal proceedings under the guise of a foreign occupation and a hasty execution by masked Shiite militiamen at the start of the Sunni Eid al-Adha holdiay, the US succeeded in doing what Saddam tried for nearly three decades to do. They made him into a hero in the eyes of millions throughout the Arab world. The reaction in Iraq was, however, mixed. As the head of a regime that they saw destroy their country and torture and murder hundreds of thousands of their compatriots, many Iraqis likely felt relief when they heard he was dead. A feeling of relief does not necessarily imply a sense of justice served. Revenge is not justice. Even the revenge, however, was sectarian in nature. Saddam was put to death for the murder of 148 men in 1982 while he was beginning a trial for the gasing of 5,000 Kurds. If justice was a serious concern, then every effort would have been made both to have an impartial trial, address all of his crimes, and launch procedings his co-conspirators, including foreign backers. The execution was both a rejection of justice and an assertion of dominance by Shia radicals.
Putting former leaders on trial and organizing truth commissions are an important part of a transition from dictatorship to democracy. It acknowledges and condemns past crimes, bringing those responsible to justice. In doing so, it provides the basis for a new government based on the rule of law. The trial and execution of the Iraqi dictator met none of these critera. The trial was roundly condemned by human rights groups and international legal experts.
Few outside of the US believe the trial to have been anything more than a farce. One judge resigned in protest of interference, while another was forced from the case after he openly announced his bias. Three members of the defense team were assassinated, while the occupation forces and Iraqi government refused to provide them with security. The use of secret testimony from anonymous witnesses prevented the defense from effectively challenging evidence against their client. Citing a report by Human Rights Watch, independent journalist Nir Rosen argues, “the Iraqi judges and lawyers involved in prosecuting Saddam were ill prepared and relied on their American advisers. American minders shut off the microphones and ordered the translators to halt whenever they disapproved of what was being said by the defendants.” Furthering this point, author and journalist Patrick Cockburn wrote, “The US made every effort to portray the trial of Saddam as an Iraqi-run affair, but the former leader was right in seeing it as orchestrated by Washington. If confirmation of this were needed, it came when the date for announcing his death sentence was moved to November 5, so it could be the leading item on the news the day before the US midterm elections.”
The execution of Saddam at the start of Eid al-Adha for the murder of 148 Shiites when he was on trial for the murder of 5,000 Kurds was an assertion of dominance by the newly triumphant Shia radicals. In Sunni Islam, Eid al-Adha, a holiday traditionally marked with celebrations and temporary truces, begins on December 30, while for the Shia it begins on the 31. The timing was a diliberate affront, confirmed by anti-Sunni chants during the execution. With Sunni being the denomination of the vast majority of people in the region, this affront transcended national borders and helped make him into a martry. The decision to begin a series of trials with the crimes committed at Dujail was also a sectarian move. The murders in 1982 came following an attempt on Saddam’s life by Dawa activists. Dawa is now one of three major political parties in the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite political bloc that dominates the Iraqi government. The murders in Dujail, while serious, pale in comparison to the dictator’s other crimes. His hanging after this one trial also prevents other groups of Iraqis from, albiet in a rigged trial, feeling like their grievances were being addressed.
The prevention of future trials also precludes any hope of bringing Saddam’s collaborators to justice. While noticeably absent from the coverage of the trial and execution, the bulk of the dictator’s most serious crimes came at a time when he was a staunch US ally. Indeed, in 1982 the US removed Iraq from the State Department’s list of nations that sponsor terrorism. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld served as President Ronald Reagan’s special presidential envoy to Iraq to renew diplomatic relations with Saddam over the course of the next several years. Throughout the 1980s the US also provided Iraq with funds and logistical support both in its war against Iran and later in the genocidal campaign against the Kurds from 1988-9. The first President Bush even went so far as to veto a bill that would have cut funding to Iraq in protest of the genocide. Saddam’s execution therefore may also serve as to avoid a series of inconvinient trials that would implicate former and current US officials. Commenting on this point, Iraq expert Michael Swchartz recently wrote, “Given a chance to defend himself, Saddam made it clear that his defense would include fully documenting American complicity in his use of chemical weapons, the tacit (or maybe explicit) endorsement by the Bush Sr. administration of his invasion of Kuwait, and the general complicity of all manner of foreign governments in his various crimes.”
The execution of Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with justice, and will do nothing to improve the situation in Iraq. It is merely one of an ever increasing number of “turning points” in the occupation. The Bush Administration has argued that the death of Saddam will help to difuse an important section of the Iraqi resistance and help the occupation forces in their fight against al-Qaeda. The reality of the situation is far different and much more complex than the adminstration admits. Saddam has long been irelevant to the resistance movement and while their domination of the headlines may indicate a different picture, al-Qaeda fighters, by virtually all accounts, number in the hundreds and only represent a tiny faction of the anti-occupation forces. The Iraqi resistance is predominantly native in origin with varrying degrees of nationalist and religious motivations. The execution of Saddam will not undermine the movement against the occupation. It will only serve to inflame sectarian tensions and anti-American sentiment both in Iraq and the region as a whole.
-RP