The genocidal tyrant will, if he is smart, take great delight in reminiscing in the witness box about his old friends Donald Rumsfeld and Jacques Chirac. We can wait for Saddam to start reminding the world of the support he was offered by Western leaders for decades – or we can seize this moment and pre-empt his attacks. The coalition could establish an international truth and reconciliation process where our politicians would confess and apologise to the Iraqi people for their complicity in Saddam’s crimes. If they choose to hand him over to an international tribunal, fine, but it is their choice. (And all those who offer a cynical sneer at the thought of a democratic Iraq should pay a visit to Northern Iraq, which has been a free democracy for the 12 years since it was liberated by the US from Saddam.)The second opportunity is far less likely to be grasped. Now, they can dispense their own justice – a crucial element in restoring Iraqi dignity.Saddam should be held until there is a democratic Iraqi government who can dispose of him as they wish. The first is for the Iraqi people to seize control of dealing with their own tyrant.
They could not liberate themselves, because the dense totalitarian matrix crushing them was too vast. Nor about jailing the 12-year-old children of dissidents, one of his charming eccentricities. No; Saddam’s lessons will instead be to challenge both the global political ?tes who armed and supported him, and the mass movements who opposed his dethronement.
His trial offers two extraordinary opportunities. Not about forcing democrats into acid baths, although his expertise in that form of law enforcement is undoubted. I am glad Saddam Hussein was taken alive because he still has a great deal to teach us all. The same hooded men are now appearing on the streets of Baghdad
More from Robert Fisk. Five of them now check cars on the Tigris river bridge outside Samarra, apparently fearing their identities will be discovered if their faces are not concealed.
They wear militia uniforms and, although they say they are part of the new American-backed “Iraqi Civil Defence Corps”, they have neither badges of rank nor unit markings. Further south, near Saddam’s home town of Tikrit, a roadside bomb wounded three American soldiers, two of them seriously. Occupation security documents – which were not publicly released – show there have been 30 attacks on US forces around Baghdad alone in the past 24 hours.A disturbing new phenomenon in this environment of growing military violence has been the appearance of hooded and masked gunmen – working for the Americans – on road checkpoints north of Baghdad. “When you take this leader, who is (sic) at one time a very popular leader in this region, and you find him in a hole in the ground, that’s a pretty powerful statement that you’re on the wrong team.”This kind of statement, however, could not obscure the continuing decline in security.
In Mosul, for example, a policeman working for the American-organised local Iraqi security forces was killed and another wounded during a pro-Saddam demonstration. After journalists were taken in circumstances of great secrecy to Baghdad airport for “a story you won’t be sorry to cover”, General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, admitted it would take “some time” before there were any military effects of Saddam’s arrest. Two Abrams tanks, Bradley troop carriers and hundreds of American troops moved towards the building which is supposed to be controlled by soldiers of the 82nd Airborne. Airborne troops maintain rooftop positions only 200 metres from the mayor’s building but there was no indication last night if they participated in the killings.The Americans were yesterday trying to smother news of the deaths with further statements about the capture of Saddam.