The treatment he deserves: this prisoner should not be left to Jacques, Kofi, et al

For exactly that reason (and others) Saddam should be tried by Iraqis in Iraq. They are in a better position to evaluate both his crimes and the punishment he deserves. Again, the demand by the "international community" that he be sent to The Hague or some other world tribunal is open to several serious objections. It is, of course, not proposed in order to ensure that Saddam Hussein gets the best and most disinterested justice. Some of the judges on such a court would almost certainly be seconded from countries that were his allies and arms suppliers to the bitter end. (Contrary to what many "activists" seem to believe, Saddam's main arms suppliers were Russia and France, not the U.S. and Britain--both of whom provided not only very modest supplies but also less and less as time went on and Saddam's true character revealed itself.) Iraqi judges and prosecutors would have the strongest incentive to discover the truth about who helped Saddam. Nor does the "Nuremberg precedent" support an international tribunal. Again contrary to what is generally believed, Nuremberg was conducted by the legitimate German government of the day--namely the Four Victorious Powers--and later trials were conducted by the new federal German government. Precedent would therefore suggest that the Coalition should prosecute Saddam if the trial were held today but hand over that task to the new Iraqi government if one is in office by next July.

Of course, the proposal for an international trial is intended not to obtain justice for Saddam but to remind people that the U.S. still opposes the proposed International Criminal Court--and to hint that, whatever Saddam's crimes may deserve, the U.S. is not the best guardian of human rights in this or any other case. Those making the proposal merely reveal their bad faith, however, since the rules of the ICC (to whose authority and example they appeal) actually allow war criminals to be prosecuted in national courts unless there is good reason to suspect that such trials will be fraudulent. How anyone can suspect an Iraqi government that does not yet exist of fraud (or any other crime) is a mystery.

The third proposal makes explicit what is merely implicit in the first two proposals: U.S. authority and power should be reduced in Iraq. It should be replaced to some extent by grants of power to Iraqi national bodies. But if these seem likely to reflect excessively American interests and priorities--as previous Iraqi and Gulf regimes took orders from British imperial "residents"--then the international community should replace the U.S. as the supervising imperial power.

It should be obvious that there is very little prospect of these three aims' being realized. Iraqis will ensure that even if the U.S. were to weaken--in the interest of appeasing France, Russia, the U.N., Kofi Annan, etc.--no Iraqi politician or clerical leader with any ambition will agree to let Saddam be sent off to The Hague facing the prospect of a comfortable apartment in some Belgian or Swedish prison with conjugal visits and free weekend passes. The international agencies themselves, having departed Iraq after the first wave of guerrilla attacks, are unlikely to return until the U.S. Army has restored order. And since maintaining order will continue to depend on the U.S. presence, real influence will rest on the most senior American official in Baghdad, and not on Kofi Annan's representative, for the indefinite future.