Victor's
justice
Case for US trial for Saddam Hussein
December 23, 2003
The Iranian
The shock-and-awe campaign in Iraq demonstrated
America's military prowess; the tens of billions of dollars in
appropriation money for the reconstruction shows off America's
economic power. The capture of Saddam Hussein by the US forces
provides an opportunity to now showcase American justice. No other
country can boast an equally on-the-ready legal and judicial infrastructure
and experience to provide an open, speedy and fair trial of Saddam
Hussein.
There is precedent to guide us. On December 20, 1989, the former
President Bush ordered some 27,000 US troops into Panama to arrest
Manuel Noriega, the one time US ally gone bad. He surrendered unceremoniously
at the Vatican Embassy in January and was flown to Miami to face
trial for a variety of charges under US law, for which he received
a 30-year sentence. That proceeding, however, did not impair the
Panamanian government's own prosecution and conviction of Noriega
in absentia. Similarly, while the US trial of Saddam is on-going,
the Iraqis can proceed with their trial of Saddam in absentia,
while an international court can look into his crimes against humanity.
A US warrant should issue for the arrest of Saddam to stand trial
for the crimes committed by his government against the citizens
of the United States, for some of which the death penalty is also
available as punishment. On the basis of an already available body
of evidence, in the minimum, four areas of indictment should be
explored:
1. The attempted murder of the former president Bush in April
1993 while he was visiting Kuwait is well documented by the US
and there
is clear and convincing
evidence to pin responsibility for that assassination plot on Saddam Hussein
and his government.
2. The Iraqi mistreatment of the US prisoners of war, men and
women, during the 1991 Gulf War in violation of the Geneva Convention
is well documented
and the accounts of the inhumane ordeal suffered by the likes of the former
Navy pilot Robert Wetzel and Army Specialist Melissa Coleman provide powerful
testimony.
3. The evidence of the role of the Iraqi government in the bombing of the
World Trade Center in February 1993 is substantial and Saddam Hussein should
be tried
for the ensuing murders, injuries and destruction of property.
4. The Iraqi government's support for Arab organizations that
conducted acts of terror in Israel is a matter of Iraqi declarations
and sufficient documentation.
This may well prove the Iraqi leader's responsibility for the deaths and
injuries suffered by American citizens in consequence of such acts of terror.
Saddam Hussein is not a common criminal; he was also a leader
of a country
and as such he was also a witness to or participant in the events of the
last thirty years in and around the Persian Gulf region. As such, it is
imperative that he be given a forum for providing his thinking on some
of the larger
regional
mysteries, such as his reason for attacking Iran in 1980, or miscalculating
America's position with respect to Iraq's claim to Kuwait in 1990.
Unfortunately,
far too often, the repositories of information about contemporary history,
perish all too soon in the throes of revolutionary justice meted by a
new order animated by vengeance. Ours in Iraq should be the victor's
justice, one which requires some semblance of order and due process, for
propaganda's
sake if nothing else.
The trial of Saddam in the US for violation of US laws will serve a variety
of other proposes as well. His trial in the US can begin shortly. The
Iraqis will thus gain some badly-needed time and perspective in order
to develop
a viable and credible system of justice to deal with this prickly defendant.
The circus-like and prejudicial atmosphere that is likely to imbue the
proceedings in Iraq will be averted by his absence from the jurisdiction.
Mob vengeance
will be averted. His right to call former and present US officials as
witnesses, such as in the case of an international tribunal, will be
curbed under
the US rules of procedure. Foreign claims and briefs against him, from
countries
like Iran, Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia -- and even Iraq
-- can be addressed against him here and with efficiency.
This is no time for the US to pass the buck to an imperfect and
inadequate Iraqi judiciary. For the moment, it is time for the
US to go first, again. Author
Guive Mirfendereski practices law in Massachusetts (JD, Boston
College Law School, 1988). His latest book is A
Diplomatic History of the Caspian Sea: Treaties, Diaries, and Other
Stories (New York and London: Palgrave 2001)
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