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The
search is on for Saddam Hussein. And despite the system
of government having virtually collapsed in Iraq,
leaving the US as the only effective coordinating
force, the Osama Bin Laden experience leaves enough
room for doubt that Saddam will ever be captured.
The US would dearly love to detain and parade him
in full view of an international audience - a public
spectacle depicting a vain and brutal man whose ‘evil’
was ultimately vanquished by the Western democratic
forces of ‘good’. But given his reported
comments when almost captured behind Iranian lines
as a result of a map reading error - he ordered an
associate to shoot him dead if it appeared he might
fall into enemy hands - the chances of him ever heading
for Guantanamo Bay must look exceedingly dim.
The
double standards of US foreign policy which seeks
to try Saddam and those who staffed his regime for
crimes against humanity while at the same time affording
immunity to war criminal Henry Kissinger and refusing
to join the International Criminal Court, should not
blind those of us opposed to the war on Iraq to the
very real crimes of Saddam Hussein.
According
to the journalist Lara Marlowe it is not possible
to chronicle in detail how violence has been used
to terrorise Iraq for the past three decades. In her
account the megalomania of Saddam was boundless: ‘he
compared himself to the Prophet Mohamed; the ancient
Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar; Saladin, the Muslim
warrior who defeated the crusaders in Jerusalem.’
In 35 years of ‘absolute power’, a combination
of muscle provided by the Baath Party and his own
personality cult came to define Iraqi political and
cultural life. His 20 palaces summed up the personal
corruption of the man. Although having invested very
heavily in health and education this was easily funded
from the oil industry and was guided by a determination
to dilute any possible opposition to his rule.
Having
Joined the Baath Party in 1955 it would take only
13 years before he would become the power behind the
throne although he did not proclaim himself president
until 1979, staging a ‘Stalinist-style purge’
to clear his way. 60 of his colleagues were executed
by himself and a close coterie of the like minded
in a basement beneath the hall where a Baath Party
conference was being held. From this point on rather
than being shunned by the West, Saddam Hussein, in
the words of Bill McSweeney (who teaches international
politics in Trinity College Dublin) ‘became a
pawn of Western economic interests and a useful idiot
to manoeuvre into battle with Islamic fundamentalism
in Iran … He became a political danger to his
neighbours only with the encouragement of major powers
in the West.’ It was only when the West had a
direct interest in maintaining his neighbours that
decisions were taken to clip his wings - invading
Iran was not objectionable, Kuwait was a different
matter. Saddam the dictator did not pose a problem
- Saddam the disobedient dictator clearly did. Otherwise
the monstrous abuses of human rights would have been
allowed to continue unchecked to this day without
even the remotest murmur about ‘shock ad awe.’
People
do not have to rely on The Republic of Fear
by the Iraqi dissident Kaanan Makiya for evidence
of the atrocities perpetrated by Saddam. Noam Chomsky
has made the point that Saddam ‘is as evil as
they come, ranking with Suharto and other monsters
of the modern era. No one would want to be within
his reach.’ At the same time Chomsky adds to
a more fuller understanding of Saddam’s brutality
by reminding us that ‘it's useful to ask how
frequently the impassioned denunciations and eloquent
expressions of outrage are accompanied by three little
words: "with our help".’
And
without such help the present war may never have taken
place. Even after the Gulf War in 1991 the State Department
continued to ban all contacts with the Iraqi democratic
opposition. Chomsky raises the most pertinent queries:
The
world would be better off if he weren't there, no
doubt about that. Surely Iraqis would. But he can't
be anywhere near as dangerous as he was when the
US and Britain were supporting him, even providing
him with dual-use technology that he could use for
nuclear and chemical weapons development, as he
presumably did ... Washington's present justifications
to attack Iraq have far less credibility than when
President Bush Sr was welcoming Saddam as an ally
and a trading partner after he had committed his
worst brutalities - as in Halabja, where Iraq attacked
Kurds with poison gas in 1988. At the time, the
murderer Saddam was more dangerous than he is today.
Soon
perhaps, Brigadier General Vince Brooks will have
his wish to see Saddam either dead or captured realised.
Many things will undoubtedly improve when that happens.
But who shall benefit most from such improvements
remains to be seen. While the war on Iraq is not only
or even mainly about oil, it is in the post Saddam
management of oil that evaluations of this war shall
be contextualised and judgements made. Bigger and
better oil pipe lines and the need to ensure a regime
that will protect them rather than build hospitals
and schools are unlikely to produce a culture in which
human rights will have any more respect than they
did under Saddam.
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