Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: Saddam Hussein

  • US Justice Is on Trial in Iraq

    In a courtroom in Baghdad, there are two defendants – Saddam and the coalition forces.

    Justice, like evil, has a banal face. The dock to which former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was brought sat in one of those familiar blond-wood courtrooms which feature on television whenever celebrities face the might of the US judicial process. If the set looked borrowed from LAPD Blues, then the detail belonged to the sort of magistrates’ bench rendered comatose by offenses involving absent tax returns.

    Saddam himself looked diminished, as all captured tyrants do, especially those delivered to their day of reckoning in shackles.

    Newspapers called him shabby or haggard, but he didn’t look too bad, in a white shirt worn over worked-out pectorals. The orthodontist called in, post-spider hole, for some televised emergency flossing seemed to have done a good job. Nothing in this tableau of groundbreaking justice leapt out to frighten the spectators.

    But there are many questions to disturb not only the Iraqis whose lives Saddam wrenched apart but also global conscience. Many think the process begun last week is a blatant example of US stagecraft. Salem Chalabi, the tribunal head and nephew of one of the most vocal (and unsavory) Saddam opponents, is not a name to conjure impartiality. Nor does the sidelining of lawyers for the accused, and the exclusion of most Iraqi journalists, augur well for a process that may culminate in a hastily resurrected death penalty.

    Much of the anxiety is justified, but not all. The statute under which Saddam stands trial bears the name of Paul Bremer, the departed US proconsul, but its drafters were a battery of international human rights lawyers. The charge sheet, though generic in content and silent about the war against Iran – when America tacitly backed Saddam – is clearly framed. Procedures for including independent prosecutors and judges are in place, as are provisions for a fair process.

    So far, so good. Those who see the Hague as the better way must also acknowledge the endlessness of Slobodan Milosevic’s trial. The initial judge is dead; the defendant begins his account tomorrow. This may be scrupulous justice, but such slow-lane catharsis offers at best a scenic route to reconciliation. Some experts, including Peter Carter, chair of the Bar Council’s human rights committee, much prefer the Baghdad model.

    But Carter rightly worries that the US risks ruining everything, and says its interference so far has been “unforgivable.” Film from the courtroom went out silenced. Arab television stations were excluded, and the tapes of the court proceedings on CNN were marked “Cleared by US Military.” Reports of disgraceful acts of censorship, destroyed videotapes of Saddam with a chain around his waist and other deletions not only blight justice, they also suggest to many Iraqis that, in a process manipulated by a hated occupier, some of the horrors perpetrated by the defendant may be cooked up as well.

    On the face of it, the proof of Saddam’s crimes is everywhere, but evidence is flimsy stuff. Command responsibility, blurred in the Milosevic trial, may be easier to ascribe to Saddam the arch-controller. Even so, the occupation forces have already allowed some of the paper trail to be shredded. Witnesses may never divulge their testimonies if fear or intimidation ordain their silence. Some Iraqis argue that basic security is more important than bringing a dictator to trial, but justice is not a matter of ticking one box or another.

    The success of the process against the dictator depends on whether the invisible legions he persecuted feel safe to tell their stories.

    As the legal process begins, the coalition also has a case to answer. It is no good for George Bush to pretend that last week’s stage-managed display of freedom reigning is Iraqi justice for Iraqis, when the signs are it could be nothing of the kind. It is indefensible, too, for the government to suggest that we shall have to condone the death penalty if that is the course chosen by a semi-sovereign Iraq. A country pledged never to return citizens to regimes where they might be executed cannot, because expediency or obeisance to the US demands it, suddenly decide there is a corner of the world where it is fine for the state to kill people. Such a view, shaming to the British government, would also demean the new Iraq.

    Perhaps Iraq will look to its history. In 1963, five years after the overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy, rebels executed Brigadier Qassim, the country’s “Sole Leader.” As his bullet-riddled corpse was paraded on Iraqi television, the Baath Party moved toward power, and the scene was set for a new savior.

    Saddam, rumored to have extracted a bullet from his leg with a razor blade before swimming the Euphrates and fleeing to Syria, was already a legend-in-waiting.

    Now, in his disgrace, he retains one hope of potency. The power of pity is available even to monsters, if they are seen to be suitably ill-treated by their captors. Saddam clanking in chains is a more persuasive figure, for all his viciousness, than a tyrant offered the protective panoply of the law. But what, exactly, is that?

    It is assumed, patronizingly, that the Iraqi model of justice is some tinpot effort of questionable legitimacy, propped up by the exemplary jurisdictions of the West. But recent lessons, from Guantánamo to Abu Ghraib, show how shoddy and rough that justice can be. In England and Wales, the process of picking senior judges is so biased that, according to a report last week, appointments should be suspended.

    Though good at exporting justice and giving places such as Trinidad and Jamaica written constitutions, we retain for domestic use a constitutional shambles and a Human Rights Act that Peter Carter calls “wimpish.”

    If Iraq and those who saw their loved ones die are to have their reconciliation, it will not be signed in a tyrant’s blood or delivered by Western hypocrisy. Violence is rarely assuaged by more of the same. The cycle of hatred brought no peace in Northern Ireland and it will bring none in Iraq.

    The Saddam trial may promise an end to division and a better future. It may help cement the rule of law that is the cornerstone of all democracies. But if the former occupiers censor and interfere, the process could instead symbolize the collapse of justice that disfigures citizens’ lives in all centuries.

    The image lingers of a prisoner with a bad beard, a murderous reign and a fantasy of being King Lear. Saddam is not the only defendant. In the years to come, the conduct of those who ended his tyranny will also be on trial.

    Originally published in The London Observer on July 4, 2004

  • The Bush Administration’s Assault on International Law

    The Bush Administration’s Assault on International Law

    Originally Published in World Editorial & International Law

    A war initiated by the United States to oust Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq under the present circumstances, and without U.N. Security Council authorization, would be tantamount to a “war of aggression,” an international crime for which high-ranking leaders of the Axis countries during World War II were held to account at the International Military Tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo.

    The chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Robert Jackson, described such war as “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” Thus, the seriousness of the international law violation that such a war would entail would exceed the seriousness of the Iraqi violations that the Bush administration has cited to justify it. Such a war would also symbolize the complete reversal of official U.S. policy toward international law since World War II.

    In the immediate aftermath of the allied war against Nazi and Japanese aggression, the United States led other nations in establishing the United Nations Charter “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,” and in founding the United Nations “to maintain international peace and security,” “to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace,” and “to bring about by peaceful means” settlements of international disputes.

    A war against Iraq at this time, whether initiated by the United States alone or with authorization from the U.N. Security Council, would violate these founding U.N. principles by permitting an unprovoked major war to occur, most likely with massive loss of life and the threat of wider conflict and conflagration.

    Furthermore, because the law of the U.N. Charter is less than ideal—reserving permanent Security Council membership to the great powers, including the United States, with veto authority over the council’s resolutions—a U.S.-imposed Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq would highlight and exacerbate the U.N.’s weaknesses, and would constitute a major setback to its fundamental goals and aspirations.

    If noncompliance with U.N. resolutions and secret weapons programs were legitimate grounds for the Security Council to authorize force, then the United States, if it were consistent, would be preparing a force-authorizing resolution for its own invasion, as well as for invasions of other permanent members of the council, and of Israel, India, Pakistan, and others.

    If the Security Council, however, manages to withstand U.S. pressure to authorize an invasion, and if, as it has threatened, the Bush administration invades Iraq without such authorization, the damage to international law would be equally great, given that the United States would be demonstrating its contempt for the U.N. Charter and the United Nations in the clearest possible terms.

    As the chief architect of the U.N. Charter, and as the world’s most powerful nation—militarily, economically, and politically—the United States has a special responsibility to uphold the founding principles of the United Nations, and to lead the world, not repeatedly to war, but in setting international precedents and developing global models for the peaceful resolution of conflict consistent with the rules, principles, and procedures of the U.N. Charter.

    With such leadership, the world could then turn its attention to broader applications of international law to other areas of profound concern, including global warming, preserving the oceans, protecting human rights, raising standards of living for the world’s poor, ending global starvation, ending the global arms bazaar, ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a just solution, and ending the threat of nuclear war—issues for which the Bush administration has shown only hostility. The alternative is international anarchy, irreversible environmental degradation and destruction, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and perhaps also a proliferation of wars unconstrained by the principles of a peaceful world order that the United States helped establish a half-century ago. Even the Bush administration’s efforts to reduce the terrorist threat to the United States would likely be damaged by an unprovoked war against an Arab state in the Middle East.

    International law is essential in the twenty-first century because powerful technologies and integrated economies cannot be constrained by national boundaries. The adverse effects of pollution, disease, and weapons of war are uncontrollable without standards contained in law. The sanctity of the earth’s biosphere, including human survival, has become dependent upon the strengthening of these standards. Sadly, however, the United States under the Bush administration has initiated an intense assault on international law in order to pursue short-term and short-sighted interests that avoid, evade, ignore, or violate the standards painstakingly developed by the international community, including the United States, over many decades.

    If the United States continues to shirk, even denounce, its responsibilities to uphold international law across a range of global problems and concerns, it will tear open the fabric of world security and international cooperation, and leave the future of the human race, including the United States, in extreme peril.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. His most recent book isChoose Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age.

  • Don’t Attack Saddam

    Originally Published in the Wall Street Journal

    Our nation is presently engaged in a debate about whether to launch a war against Iraq. Leaks of various strategies for an attack on Iraq appear with regularity. The Bush administration vows regime change, but states that no decision has been made whether, much less when, to launch an invasion.

    It is beyond dispute that Saddam Hussein is a menace. He terrorizes and brutalizes his own people. He has launched war on two of his neighbors. He devotes enormous effort to rebuilding his military forces and equipping them with weapons of mass destruction. We will all be better off when he is gone.

    That said, we need to think through this issue very carefully. We need to analyze the relationship between Iraq and our other pressing priorities — notably the war on terrorism — as well as the best strategy and tactics available were we to move to change the regime in Baghdad.

    Saddam’s strategic objective appears to be to dominate the Persian Gulf, to control oil from the region, or both.

    That clearly poses a real threat to key U.S. interests. But there is scant evidence to tie Saddam to terrorist organizations, and even less to the Sept. 11 attacks. Indeed Saddam’s goals have little in common with the terrorists who threaten us, and there is little incentive for him to make common cause with them.

    He is unlikely to risk his investment in weapons of mass destruction, much less his country, by handing such weapons to terrorists who would use them for their own purposes and leave Baghdad as the return address. Threatening to use these weapons for blackmail — much less their actual use — would open him and his entire regime to a devastating response by the U.S. While Saddam is thoroughly evil, he is above all a power-hungry survivor.

    Saddam is a familiar dictatorial aggressor, with traditional goals for his aggression. There is little evidence to indicate that the United States itself is an object of his aggression. Rather, Saddam’s problem with the U.S. appears to be that we stand in the way of his ambitions. He seeks weapons of mass destruction not to arm terrorists, but to deter us from intervening to block his aggressive designs.

    Given Saddam’s aggressive regional ambitions, as well as his ruthlessness and unpredictability, it may at some point be wise to remove him from power. Whether and when that point should come ought to depend on overall U.S. national security priorities. Our pre-eminent security priority — underscored repeatedly by the president — is the war on terrorism. An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counter-terrorist campaign we have undertaken.

    The United States could certainly defeat the Iraqi military and destroy Saddam’s regime. But it would not be a cakewalk. On the contrary, it undoubtedly would be very expensive — with serious consequences for the U.S. and global economy — and could as well be bloody. In fact, Saddam would be likely to conclude he had nothing left to lose, leading him to unleash whatever weapons of mass destruction he possesses.

    Israel would have to expect to be the first casualty, as in 1991 when Saddam sought to bring Israel into the Gulf conflict. This time, using weapons of mass destruction, he might succeed, provoking Israel to respond, perhaps with nuclear weapons, unleashing an Armageddon in the Middle East. Finally, if we are to achieve our strategic objectives in Iraq, a military campaign very likely would have to be followed by a large-scale, long-term military occupation.

    But the central point is that any campaign against Iraq, whatever the strategy, cost and risks, is certain to divert us for some indefinite period from our war on terrorism. Worse, there is a virtual consensus in the world against an attack on Iraq at this time. So long as that sentiment persists, it would require the U.S. to pursue a virtual go-it-alone strategy against Iraq, making any military operations correspondingly more difficult and expensive. The most serious cost, however, would be to the war on terrorism. Ignoring that clear sentiment would result in a serious degradation in international cooperation with us against terrorism. And make no mistake, we simply cannot win that war without enthusiastic international cooperation, especially on intelligence.

    Possibly the most dire consequences would be the effect in the region. The shared view in the region is that Iraq is principally an obsession of the U.S. The obsession of the region, however, is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If we were seen to be turning our backs on that bitter conflict — which the region, rightly or wrongly, perceives to be clearly within our power to resolve — in order to go after Iraq, there would be an explosion of outrage against us. We would be seen as ignoring a key interest of the Muslim world in order to satisfy what is seen to be a narrow American interest.

    Even without Israeli involvement, the results could well destabilize Arab regimes in the region, ironically facilitating one of Saddam’s strategic objectives. At a minimum, it would stifle any cooperation on terrorism, and could even swell the ranks of the terrorists. Conversely, the more progress we make in the war on terrorism, and the more we are seen to be committed to resolving the Israel-Palestinian issue, the greater will be the international support for going after Saddam.

    If we are truly serious about the war on terrorism, it must remain our top priority. However, should Saddam Hussein be found to be clearly implicated in the events of Sept. 11, that could make him a key counter-terrorist target, rather than a competing priority, and significantly shift world opinion toward support for regime change.

    In any event, we should be pressing the United Nations Security Council to insist on an effective no-notice inspection regime for Iraq — any time, anywhere, no permission required. On this point, senior administration officials have opined that Saddam Hussein would never agree to such an inspection regime. But if he did, inspections would serve to keep him off balance and under close observation, even if all his weapons of mass destruction capabilities were not uncovered. And if he refused, his rejection could provide the persuasive casus belli which many claim we do not now have. Compelling evidence that Saddam had acquired nuclear-weapons capability could have a similar effect.

    In sum, if we will act in full awareness of the intimate interrelationship of the key issues in the region, keeping counter-terrorism as our foremost priority, there is much potential for success across the entire range of our security interests — including Iraq. If we reject a comprehensive perspective, however, we put at risk our campaign against terrorism as well as stability and security in a vital region of the world.
    *Mr. Scowcroft, national security adviser under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, is founder and president of the Forum for International Policy.

    Dated: Wall Street Journal 15 Aug 2002 p.A12