It was not supposed to end like this.

Those who have wielded absolute power, who have cut a swath of destruction through their own society, all for the glorification of their outsized ego, do not contrive to end their days bearded and bedraggled, holed up in a dank crawl-space, waiting for their tormentors to expose them for the weak and pathetic figures that they are.  

And yet it did happen. Unlike his two sons who went out in a blaze of glory and gunfire last July, Saddam Hussein, dictator of Iraq, the self-professed reincarnation of Saladin, was pulled from a squalid, improvised one-man bunker on an Iraqi farmstead. Forlorn and disoriented, he appeared on television looking every bit the vagrant he has been since his fall from power. Ratted out by members of his own family and ruling clique, the late resident of Republican Palace is now a VIP at a secure US military facility at an undisclosed location in Baghdad.

This is hardly the romantic end that the Arab masses would have preferred for the ‘Lion of Baghdad’ – a man who, through his defiance of the United States and the wider world, had given them a measure of dignity. It was not just his apprehension. It was his physical state and the conditions in which he was living at the time of his apprehension that will deflate the myth of his omnipotence. Had he chosen to dispatch himself with the pistol he kept by his side, had he employed one of the poison pills known to all intelligence organizations, his death could have inspired generations of Iraqi and Arab nationalists who, like him, see glory even in defeat.

But if Saddam still harbours hopes of achieving some sort of political vindication, his decision to remain among the living is a completely rational one. Having lost his crown, he has had months to contemplate his fate as a man. At some point during his time on the lam he must have realized that there was literally nowhere for him to go. Unlike Osama bin Laden, he had no country to flee to and no base of support which could shelter him indefinitely. He could not have been unaware of the fact that his family and political entourage were either in US custody or under close surveillance. It was only a matter of time before the new landlords tracked him down.

What then? What do to when American troops arrived on his doorstep? A final stand with a group of loyal bodyguards or an unavoidably dishonourable surrender? For a man who has dealt out death and patronage with a wave of his hand, it was no easy choice.

Or maybe it was. By offering himself to occupation authorities, Saddam may have secured one last opportunity to score a political victory against his arch-nemesis. Since his defeat in the first Gulf War in 1991 he has, with some success, waged an asymmetric war against his adversaries – particularly the United States. Through an ingenious and cynical mixture of propaganda and appeals to the soul of the Arab ‘nation’, he has sought to transfer responsibility for Iraq’s and the region’s woes onto Washington’s shoulders. How will his capitulation further these ends?

By choosing life over suicide, Saddam ensures that he will be given a platform from which to air not only his political views, but his dirty laundry as well. The former are well known, and have been discredited in the minds of all but a stubborn few. But the latter may yield some embarrassing revelations for countries that have dealt with him in the past.

America will not welcome any reminders of the intelligence it provided to Saddam during his eight-year war with Iran. Nor will the current Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, recall with fondness his trips to Iraq between December of 1983 and March of 1984. As Ronald Regan’s informal Middle East envoy, Rumsfeld was mandated to explore areas on common interest between the two countries. In a textbook case of realpolitik, America gritted its teeth and dealt with a figure it knew to be unsavoury. Building on a shared enmity toward Iran, Rumsfeld played a key role in forging improved relations with Iraq and in facilitating the sale of ‘dual use’ goods to Saddam’s government. These included bacteria cultures for the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission, and light helicopters for transporting government officials. The latter were almost certainly re-configured for military use and may have been used to spray chemical agents on Iranian troops.  

This discomfort will not be confined to America. Russia cannot claim repayment of $4-billion in debts without recalling that the latter financed the construction of a huge military machine that Saddam hurled at Iran and Kuwait - with catastrophic results. Its remnants were then used to crush internal dissent.

Germany will wring its hands when and if Saddam recounts how German chemical companies supplied him with materials for manufacturing biological and chemical agents. France will squirm when reminded of how eager it was to sell Mirage F-1 jets and long-range artillery pieces that showered chemicals on Iranian positions. In 1976, then-Prime Minister Jacques Chirac arranged the sale of a 70-megawatt nuclear reactor capable of producing weapons-usable plutonium. The deal was consummated over the objections of his own officials who correctly discerned where Saddam’s strategic ambitions lay.

Now President of France, Mr. Chirac is shifting in his seat, hoping that Saddam will have the good manners not to thank him for trying to persuade the UN Security Council to lift sanctions on his country - even when the Council had agreed that Iraq had not fulfilled the disarmament terms laid out in the Gulf War cease-fire.

All these are facts, and yet their relevance to Saddam’s defence is questionable. Most of his most heinous crimes were committed against his own people. He would likely have committed them without Western aid. His years on the throne had more to do with his own ruthlessness than with outside patronage. As a secularist and social modernizer he was at one time a logical choice for governments looking to for a bulwark against the spread of Iranian theocracy.

But by playing the moderate-secularist and petroleum cards, Saddam successfully manipulated these symbiotic relationships. His ‘allies’ cravenly muted their criticism of his excesses. Iraq’s use of chemical weapons went largely unreported and unopposed in Western capitals until the 1988 gassing of Kurdish villagers forced Washington to break its silence. Odds are that he will cite these policy flip-flops as evidence of American perfidy. 

Yes, choosing life means that Saddam will have his day in court. It will be a court of law, but it will also be a court of public opinion in which the accused will blame others for his misfortunes, discredit his tormentors, and appeal to his supporters to remain true to whatever nationalist goals he so disingenuously espoused prior to his overthrow. In short, he will throw the dice once more in the hope of engineering a political defeat for those who inflicted upon him a military one.

How this will come about is unclear. It is infinitely preferable for the former dictator to be tried by his own people. Iraq’s reconstruction has a physical dimension; critical infrastructure is slowing being repaired despite the best efforts of insurgents to destroy it. But reconstruction also has a political and, more importantly, psychological dimension. The majority of Iraqis want to purge their body politic of his legacy. For this they need to hold their former overlord to account. Closure demands it. And nothing less would send a message to the remnants of Saddam’s underground that the man who inspired them, even if only as a figurehead, is no longer worthy of their allegiance. 

But the lack of a constitution and of a system of courts will prevent Iraqis from achieving catharsis on their own. Unrealistic expectations regarding the pace of Iraq’s physical reconstruction have already led to public disappointment. The coalition must remind Iraqis that their understandable desire to see justice done quickly is at odds with their inability to deal effectively with Saddam at this point in time. Iraq’s fledgling police force cannot safely jail him, lest his supporters flock to his prison as if it were a shrine. The absence of an independent, home-grown judiciary and of laws covering crimes of such magnitude will make it hard to ensure that legal proceedings are instituted promptly, and that the trial is open and fair. These institutions must be given time to mature if they are to function properly. 

If swiftness is incompatible with fairness, will a more ‘internationalized’ approach offer a credible alternative? The newly-minted International Criminal Court can only address crimes committed after its establishment in 2002. An ad hoc international war crimes tribunal analogous to the ones dealing with crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia or in Rwanda is one option. The Iraqi Governing Council might also opt for a mixed tribunal (comprising indigenous and foreign jurists) modelled after the body trying cases in Sierra Leone. In the meantime a ‘truth and reconciliation’ commission should be established to give the various ethnic communities the opportunity to account for the sins committed by and against them during Saddam’s reign.

The apprehension of the man who inspired almost universal fear and loathing is not the last chapter in the sordid history of Baathist Iraq. Saddam’s cold hand may have only been temporarily stayed. He may yet reach out from the dock and exhort his countrymen to expel those who brought him down and the country to its knees. Few outside his home base around Tikrit may listen. And his capture may have a salutary effect on the widespread violence that has afflicted the country. The capture of prominent guerrilla leaders such as Abdullah Ocalan and Abimael Guzman knocked the stuffing out of insurgencies in Turkey and Peru.

But even if his words have no lasting effect, insurgent groups might increase their activities in the short term – either as a last gesture of defiance, or to demonstrate that his capture will not divert them from their efforts to restore dictatorship.

One suspects, however, that for most Iraqis, the fate of Saddam Hussein will gradually diminish in importance. Crowds will continue to bay for his blood, but the majority will soon turn their attention back to the travails of daily life. In 1989 Romanians celebrated the fall of Nicolae Ceausecu, whose mock trial and execution were replayed on television to great public acclaim. But their brief period of jubilation had to end. The task of transforming a political and economic system that had reduced them to penury could not wait. Years later they are still struggling to undo the legacy left by ‘The Genius of the Carpathians’.

Iraqis have an equally daunting task ahead of them. Their economic salvation lies below ground, but the infrastructure to extract it is decrepit and under constant threat by guerrillas. The organs of state are either non-existent or, in the case of the judiciary and security forces, in their embryonic stages. It is here that they and their coalition partners must devote their full attention.

In the fullness of time, a judgement reached by competent legal authorities will decide Saddam’s fate. It will not come too soon, nor will it be too lenient. He will likely escape the hangman, since his death – even at the hands of fellow Iraqis - would bestow an unwelcome degree of martyrdom on him. Instead he will be incarcerated for the rest of his days, preferably outside of Iraq so as to prevent him from influencing political life in his homeland. With the exception of family visits, he will be segregated from the humanity for which he had utter contempt; a latter-day Rudolf Hess prowling the grounds of his own Spandau Prison.

There will be no verses composed in his honour, no poetry written of his end. But having professed cynical love for the very people he oppressed, it would be poetic justice if he lived to see how much better off they are without him.

David Rudd is the President and Executive Director of the CISS.

Copyright CISS 2003

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