What If Saddam Is Declared Innocent?

By James Donahue

Nov. 30, 2005

We noticed a small little news blurb the other day that apparently involved a question put before a Bush Administration spokesperson by an enterprising news reporter . . . What if Saddam Hussein is found not guilty in his trial?

“There will be more charges filed against him, and more charges after that, if needed,” the unnamed spokesman answered. “He has committed tremendous crimes.”

Indeed, it appears as if the world is sitting smugly back and watching this well-publicized “trial” of a former ruler of a most unruly Middle Eastern nation, and pretending to think that Saddam will be treated with the utmost fairness. Yet everybody is expecting Hussein to be found guilty and either shot or hung in the town square. The media hype has been so carefully orchestrated it may not have occurred to anyone that Hussein might be innocent of crimes leading to his execution as a war criminal.

Actually, the US-appointed kangaroo court that is trying Hussein is not considering war criminal charges against him at all.

The man is on trial for the 1982 massacre of Shiite villagers. And if all of the facts were known about that incident, it may be that Hussein was justified when he ordered the execution of certain people following a failed assassination attempt on his life. As the accepted dictator of that Moslem nation at the time, few questioned his authority. 

And if by some slim chance this U.S. appointed court forgets its duty for one moment and dares to find the man innocent of the 1982 massacre, the prosecution has a line of other charges waiting in the wings.

In other words, the Bush Administration wants Saddam Hussein dead. A number of Iraqis also want Saddam Hussein dead. And by jeepers that is what they are going to have.

Hussein is in no position these days to expect justice in the court established by the military powers that illegally invaded his country and threw him out of office. He is a doomed man and he knows it. Everybody in the world knows it.

This is why Hussein is behaving as a defiant ruler, talking down to the judges, military personnel and lawyers involved in his detention and his trial. He is behaving as only a king would and should behave.

Remember that Hussein has declared that he is going out as a Moslem martyr, and that is exactly what he is doing. Every move he makes and every word he says is being televised. And it is carefully orchestrated by Hussein to stir the fires of rebellion among the thousands, if not millions of Moslems throughout the world that hate the United States.

Saddam Hussein successfully ruled a nation that was dangerously divided among three warring tribes. He did it by maintaining an iron fist that instilled fear in his enemies. Yet while he was in power, the people of Iraq lived relatively well. They had good jobs, good homes, and as long as they kept their noses out of the politics of the nation, they were generally safe from government harassment.

This is not to say that Hussein was a great man, or a righteous one. But he was backed by the CIA and the U.S. government for many years because he served a political purpose and did it well. He waged wars when wars were needed to keep a balance among the unruly Arab nations and keep the crude oil flowing.

There is a lot more to this story than meets the eye.

Now that Hussein has been removed from power, Iraq is on the verge of civil war. This is why the U.S. military cannot leave the place it appears to have conquered. Our soldiers are not only threatened daily by radical suicide bombers, they are needed to keep the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds from slaughtering each other in a bloody civil war.

It is beginning to look as if Bush and Tony Blair made a serious blunder when they plotted in 2002 to invade Iraq, quickly throw Hussein out of office, set up their own puppet government, and gain control of a large portion of the Middle Eastern oil field.

They didn’t understand how masterfully Hussein was keeping that explosive powder keg from going array.