The execution of Saddam Hussein and the death of General Pinochet invite comparison. Both men were guilty of horrible crimes, including the torture and murder of thousands of innocents. Both held power with the approval of successive US administrations, tacit or otherwise. Both went to their deaths without any sign of remorse: deceitful, arrogant and distastefully self-righteous, long after the veil of power had slipped away to disclose shameful pasts. And both have had apologists-usually those least affected by their crimes-willing to argue that each was a necessary evil: Better the devil you know than the Communists, or Khomeinists, you don’t.
Unfortunately, history will record that neither man received real justice. Pinochet was spared by the law’s delay, Saddam by its perversion. The legal proceedings which delivered him to the hangman pleased no disinterested observer. The politically opportune timing of the verdict (two days before the US midterm elections) and the unseemly haste with which the appeal process was handled, have conspired to ensure that Saddam’s final days will be remembered for his captors’ legal, political and moral misjudgements instead of his gruesome crimes. This parody of justice might have pleased the Butcher of Baghdad in his day, but his victims deserve something better.
Rushing Saddam to his execution allows several countries to avoid deeply embarrassing questions. For a start, it allows them to gloss over the fact that the crime which led to his death sentence was carried out while he was still formally an ally of the British and American governments. Later on, when he carried out a genocidal campaign against the Kurds, the US legislature was reluctant to punish his regime because of the impact sanctions might have had on US agribusiness. Troublesome details about the sources of his weapons of mass destruction also melt into the air. Like the shipments of “materials which assisted in the development of Iraqi chemical, biological and missile-system programmes” according to the 1992 Senate report. Shipments which continued when the US had full knowledge of the gassing of more than 5,000 people in Halabja.
The weapons which Saddam displayed proudly, Mirage fighters from France, MiGs from Russia, and Chengdus from China, were only part of his extensive dealings with the global arms trade. When the German daily Die Tageszeitung, leaked parts of Iraq’s official declaration of weapons to the UN in the runup to war, no fewer than 80 German and 24 US companies appeared on its list. Blushes were spared with the figleaf explanation that these deals dated back to when Iraq was still an ally. As if it didn’t matter what was happening inside a country, just so long as the State Department hadn’t deemed that country ‘unfriendly’. Wasn’t this sort of hypocrisy meant to end with the new strategic clarity of the war on terror?
Prime Minister Maliki is unequivocal about the execution. The New York Times quotes him as saying: “Anyone who rejects the execution of Saddam is undermining the martyrs of Iraq and their dignity.” A satirist could not improve on this remark. The phrase ‘martyr of Iraq’ is a good approximation for what Sunni extremists will soon be calling Saddam if his death helps to widen the civil war. The tone of the statement also accords well with a government that can do little to stop a burgeoning civil war on its doorstep, except make sure that the hated Americans don’t leave town too soon.
In their condemnation of the death sentence, Human Rights Watch mentions ‘political interference’-a judicial decision is not usually announced by a national security advisor-as a polite reference to the frontier justice that is taking place. It is not likely that insurgents will respond so delicately. A month from now, when several hundred more civilians have died needlessly in increased violence, will the Iraqi government ask itself whether these lives were worth it, just to make the point that they could send Saddam to his death? Don’t bet on it. In the new Iraq, there is so much blame to go around that nobody needs to worry about their mistakes.
Pinochet died at liberty because of his natural cunning. Saddam has been executed because it was politically expedient for him to die. Neither ending is satisfactory, and neither is justice.
