Tag: Saddam Hussein

The Problem with Trying Cases in UN-Sponsored Tribunes

After the capture of Saddam Hussein, a lot of the usual suspects began arguing that rather than try him in some U.S. military or Iraqi court, that instead he should be handed over to some sort of UN-sponsored international tribune like those who perpetrated the Rwandan and Yugoslavian genocides were.

In the case of the Rwandan genoicide, though, the United Nations tribune has turned into a classic case of justice delayed and denied. Here’s how the BBC described the attitudes of the Rwandan government — which has tried hundreds of peopel accuse of genocide itself — toward the UN tribunal,

Rwanda has expressed its anger at the tribunal’s lck of results in prosecuting the chief perpetrators of genocide, given the resources at their disposal.

Rwanda’s Attorney General Gerald Gahima said the tribunal has had little impact on Rwandans.

After spending over half a billion dollars and with more than 800 staff, the tribunal has achieved only 12 convictions in eight years.

That’s right — as of November, the UN tribunal was spending in excess of $40 million per conviction (that’s as much money as the per capita income for 160,000 people living in Rwanda). In fact from the start of the 1994 genocide, the United Nations has repeatedly acted, both intentionally and unintentionally, to benefit and protect those who carried out the genocide.

Nobody’s going to want to hand over those convicted of war crimes to the United Nations for trial until that organization proves it can effectively and efficiently try such crimes. At the moment, handing such individuals over to the UN makes about as much sense as it would be to ask Marcia Clark to step in to prosecute the Kobe Bryant case.

Source:

Rwandan leaders on genocide trial. The BBC, November 27, 2003.

Attempt to Kill Saddam Was a Setup

Back when the war against Iraq was going full bore and we had the occasional “we’re sure we got Hussein this time” followed later by the “well, now it looks like Saddam got away,” I’m sure a lot of people were as curious as I was to know what was going on behind the scenes.

Now one of Uday’s bodyguards is talking and apparently a) there was an informant relatively close to Saddam who was tipping of the Americans and b) Saddam suspected him and set the informant up in one of the higher profile attempts to kill the Iraqi dictator. Here’s The Times of London’s report on the bodyguard’s claims,

The bodyguard said the Americans’ next “decapitation” strike came a lot closer, and that Saddam survived only because several safe houses had come under attack and he suspected there was an informant within his camp.

Saddam asked the suspect, a captain, to prepare a safe house behind a restaurant in the Mansour district for a meeting. They arrived, and left again, almost immediately, by the back door. “Ten minutes after they went out of the door, it was bombed,” the bodyguard said.

Saddam had the captain summarily executed while the Pentagon was claiming that the strike had probably finished off Saddam and Uday.

Source:

Bodyguard Tells of Saddam and Sons’ Life on the Run. The Times of London, July 25, 2003.

Oh, No, Not Another Saddam Statue . . .

The New York Times has an interesting story on the folks who had to make all of those statues of Saddam Hussein that littered the Iraqi landscape.

“Of course we were amazed all the time about the orders for statues,” said Farid Hussein, a supervisor at the factory and no relation of the deposed leader, as he roamed the abandoned grounds. “We would think, `Oh, no, not another statue of Saddam.’ “

Cranking out statues of Saddam — now that sounds like a job that really would have sucked. In the end, though, the joke was on Saddam. Yes, they cranked out 4-5 giant statues of the imperious leader ever year, but according to the Times, “They [the factory workers] also made their own sculpture here, secretly using the foundry’s facilities and storing their own works at home.”

Source:

Giants of Iraqi History Linger in Pieces. Neela Banerjee, The New York Times, May 26, 2003.

Eliminate Saddam Hussein, Satisfy Arabs and Europeans and For Only $250 Million

Since George W. Bush seems intent on ridding the world of Saddam Hussein, I offer this foolproof plan for cheaply eliminating the dictator while at the same time winning kudos from Arab nations and Europeans for killing him.

The problems with going to war with Iraq are numerous. First, waging war is very expensive, likely to kill many innocent Iraqi civilians, and proving unpopular with Arab and European countries. Even though Hussein is spending millions of dollars to fund Palestinian suicide bombers, many of the United States’ erstwhile allies have reasons to oppose an all out war against him.

Fine. The United States should offer $250 million to the individual(s) who can kill Hussein, which will also be payable to the families of that individual(s) should the attackers die in the process. If Hussein can promise $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers killing Israeli civilians, why can’t the United States promise $250 million the families of any suicide bomber who manages to kill Hussein? (And maybe a lesser finders fee of say $10 million to people who try but for one reason or another fail to kill the Iraqi dictator).

This plan may seem extreme but it has an additional advantage — it will, of course, meet with resounding approval from Arabs and Europeans. If I read the Arab and European mindset correctly, when a country like Israel goes to war by traditional means, trying to target terrorists and eliminate the infrastructure used by those terrorists, it is horribly wrongheaded. But when Palestinians send suicide bombers to target civilians at religious ceremonies, they are acting in an understandable and defensible way.

So once the U.S. version of the suicide bomber compensation program is offered, we should expect a cascade of compliments from the Arab world and Europe for rejoining the civilized world and dealing with our problems like the progressive, peace loving society we aspire to.

It’s a win-win proposition on all sides (except for Hussein’s).