SADDAM HUSSEIN appeared in court on 1 July, and was charged with a list of
crimes. Formally, he is now in the hands of Iraqis. But in reality, the
Americans are still in charge of the ex-dictator’s fate.
Kevin Parslow
The CIA and the FBI have interrogated him. Fifty officials from the US
Justice Department have been involved in the preparation of charges. The judge
at the trial was handpicked by the Americans and feared for his life if his
name was disclosed; the tribunal charged with running the prosecution is led
by Salem Chalabi, nephew of former US-backed exile Ahmed Chalabi, now on the
run from his former masters.
The court, we are told, was filled with plain-clothed US soldiers; but the
Iraqi media were barred from their ‘own’ legal system!
It seems the Americans still want to run the trial; because of George
Bush’s refusal to sign up to the International Criminal Court, there will be
no war crimes trial like in Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia. And there is good
reason for this.
The US ruling class in particular – and Western governments in general –
were complicit in the rise to power of the Ba’ath Party in Iraq, and of Saddam
Hussein himself.
The CIA backed the Ba’ath coup in 1968 to try to prevent bigger social and
political upheaval. They supported Saddam’s promotion to president in 1979 as
a bastion against the rise of political Islam in Iran, and egged him on to
declare war against Iran in 1980, a bloody conflict that lasted until 1988.
Donald Rumsfeld, current US Secretary for Defense, was pictured shaking
Saddam’s hand in 1983 in a visit to Baghdad. The US government shed no tears
when Kurds were gassed in 1988.
The American ambassador to Iraq was even ambivalent when Saddam asked what
would be the US reaction to an invasion of Kuwait. Only when the invasion
actually happened and the threat to oil supplies and America’s strategic
position in the Middle East became clear did the US government, led then by
George Bush senior, eventually change its mind about Saddam.
There’s a lot for US imperialism to fear in a trial of Saddam. That’s why
it will be stage managed, and almost certainly won’t happen before the US
presidential elections in November. Revelations of the true extent of US
collaboration with Saddam, which he will undoubtedly use in his defence, could
finally end Bush’s chances of re-election.
As one Iraqi commented: "If they give Saddam a fair trial, they will all
end up with him in the dock – Kissinger, Reagan, Thatcher, Blair, the two
Bushes and [new Iraqi prime minister] Allawi."