December 16, 2003

SADDAM HUSSEIN, A SECULARIST POLITICIAN

by Srdja Trifkovic

Saddam Hussein's capture proves three things: that he is indeed a secularist as often alleged, that even in adversity he remains an inveterate politician, and that Karl Rove is not in charge at the White House.

Only someone who rejects religious faith, and accepts only the facts and influences derived from the tangible world, can value his earthly life so highly that he would risk the unspeakable humiliation we all witnessed last Sunday rather than end it by making a hopeless gesture of resistance.

Only a true politician-along with some prostitutes and most neoconservative journalists-can be so utterly devoid of shame.

Last but not least, if Karl Rove were in charge Saddam would not be in American jail today. He would be allowed to rot for ten more months in his rodent-infested hideouts around Tikrit, at all times alertly but discreetly shadowed by the U.S. special forces. His capture would happen next October, when it would be worth a few percentage points to Bush. Now they'll have to do Usama, or bring back Elvis, for the same effect.

Saddam's going out "with a whimper," as Donald Rumsfeld put it, is undeniably a coup for the Bush Administration and a much-needed morale booster for the troops on the ground. The jubilation may be only temporary, however. Rocket-propelled grenade attacks and suicide bombings will not stop. From Saddam's looks and whereabouts it is evident that he was not commanding and controlling anyone. The attacks on Americans, their allies and their local helpers are fed by a mix of nationalist sentiment and Islamic radicalism that resents foreign presence. It is Usama Bin Laden, not Saddam, who inspires some resisters, while others may be stimulated by Saddam's pathetic performance to show to the world that they are not a breed of barefaced cowards. Feelings of many Arabs were reflected in the admission of the leading Palestinian daily Al-Quds (December 15) that the footage of Saddam's physical examination "is painful to watch and reflects the Arab nation's state of humiliation and degradation." Humiliation and degradation breed violence. As Israeli columnist Guy Bechor noted in Yediot Aharonot on the same day, "There is a Middle East paradox at play here: not only will his capture not stop terror, it is even liable to spur it... The Americans will yet pay a heavy price for those pictures." With Saddam's capture some of those Iraqis who did not want to be associated with him may be encouraged to join the resistance that will take a more nationalistic form.

Saddam's trial will present a separate dilemma. He richly deserves to hang but the mechanism of achieving that end is tricky. An "international" trial has been wisely ruled out. Slobodan Milosevic's televized show-trial at The Hague had many Serbs who had always loathed him cheering him on, because, whatever his real offenses, the stated case is largely bogus. The US is right to accept for Saddam an option, trial in his own country, that had been explicitly and erroniously rejected in Milosevic's case.

Mr. Bush says that there should be a trial in which the Iraqi people are "very much involved" and that can "stand international scrutiny." The two goals may be incompatible, and a special tribunal set up in Baghdad recently to decide on the fate of the most important heads of the old regime is a poor model. Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi Governing Council has already made the unambiguous statement that "Saddam will be punished for his crimes." He did not qualify the satetement with "if found guilty," and he does not have a jail sentence in mind. Mouwafak al-Rabii, a Shiite member of the Council, opined that death is the only appropriate punishment. Asked if the death penalty could be considered, Governing Council leader Abdelaziz al-Hakim said: "Yes. Absolutely." The government structure to which they belong has no mandate and no legitimacy, however, and nothing short of a general election can provide it. Saddam's family know that his prospects would be grim if he is tried in Iraq. His daughter Raghad Saddam Hussein-who, along with her sister Rana, has sought asylum in Jordan-said the family wanted her father to be tried by an international court rather than a special tribunal.

Handing Saddam over to Chelebi and his colleagues so that they can administer what would amount to summary justice-even if they are reconstituted as Iraq's sovereign government in the meantime-is not a promising start for the new Iraq that, according to Mr. Bush, should now embark unhindered on the task of building democracy. A hundred talking heads and editorial writers nevertheless claim that Saddam's trial would be "cathartic" for the Iraqis (funny how these buzz-words spread like computer viruses around the globe). That is worthless psycho-babble. Doing a Ceausescu on Saddam would be in tune with the Iraqi political tradition-its last king, Faisal II, was murdered with his entire family in 1958 by General Abdul Karim Kassem, who was in turn murdered by Saddam's mentor Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr-but let us not pretend that the deed would purify or enoble anyone, or cleanse anyone's sins. Saddam delendus, indeed, but no pompous pieties about it please.

There is also the embarrassing matter of what Saddam may disclose about his foreign contacts in the course of his trial, provided that the proceedings are public and the defendant is free to talk. He may provide some interesting details, for instance, on how the United States gave him the tools-allegedly including anthrax and bubonic plague virus-to make his Weapons of Mass Destruction during the Iran-Iraq war in the eighties. The Riegle Report of the Senate Banking Committee (1994) told only a part of the story when it concluded that the US provided Iraq with ‘dual-use' materials "which assisted in the development of Iraqi chemical, biological and missile-system programs." He may additionally explain if his meeting with Donald Rumsfeld in Baghdad in 1983 had anything to do with such goings-on.

Saddam could also recall the good, old days in 1988 when Washington lobbied to prevent international condemnation of Iraq's chemical attack against the Kurdish village of Halabja, instead attempting to place the blame on Iran. He may also disclose details of a covert program carried out during the Reagan Administration that provided Iraq with critical satellite intelligence and battle planning assistance, at a time-as The New York Times put it in 1992-"when US intelligence agencies knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons against Iran." He may provide some new information on how Great Britain secretly assisted him in building a chemical plant, although H.M. Government was fully aware that deadly gasses were used against both Kurds and Iranian troops in the 1980s. (The warning about possibilities to make chemical weapons was dismissed by Paul Channon, British trade minister at that time, who said that abandoning the project "would do our other trade prospects in Iraq no good.") He may give us his own version of that notable meeting with then-US Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, on July 25 1990-only eight days before he invaded Kuwait-when she stated that the US has "no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait." Saddam's public trial may prove "cathartic" in all kinds of unexpected ways.

On second thoughts Mr. Bush may conclude that delivering Saddam to Mr. Chelebi et al for a quick and irreversible dose of Arab justice may not be a bad idea after all. He should declare a glorious victory and leave Iraq. The American occupation has derived its legitimacy from the need to remove the "remains" of the old regime. With Saddam's capture the President has an excellent opportunity to speed up the transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis, to internationalize the transition, and to withdraw all U.S. troops before next November's election day. Dr. Wolfowitz will disagree and do his best to sabotage any such policy, but that is because he does not care about Bush's reelection and he does not care about American lives. Those in the Administration who do should go on the offensive now, and prevent the neocons from claiming that Saddam's capture proves their policy is working.

And yes, Karl Rove should point out to his boss that the scenes of GIs' joyous homecoming would be almost as useful next October as Usama's capture.

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