THE INTEGRITY OF SADDAM HUSSEIN

by Malcom Lagauche

By now, everyone has heard the verdict that Saddam Hussein will be hanged. And, many people have read the obligatory remarks from the stooge Iraqi government and the U.S. and U.K. governments. I will not get involved with these idiotic statements. All those who praise the decision do not take into consideration that the verdict will make Iraq a much more deadly place that it already is.
I will talk about Saddam Hussein, the man. This is not a history of his regime, but a view of him and his steadfastness after April 9, 2003.
To me, it is hard to conceive how a man of his age endured more than a lifetime of hardship, torture and personal bereavement in just three-and-a-half years without losing his mental faculties or selling out to his opponents.
In July 2003, Saddam Hussein saw photos of his two dead sons on television. Their bodies were ridden with bullet holes. His 14-year-old grandson was killed along with his sons in the hours-long attack on a house by hundreds of U.S. military personnel. The U.S. government probably considered it to be in bad taste to exhibit the grandson’s body on television.
In December 2003, Saddam was kidnapped by U.S. forces. However, he was not found in a "spider hole" as the commonly-accepted myth states. He was surrounded in a friend’s house by U.S. Marines. For a while, he fought it out with the Marines, but finally surrendered because he and his friend were well-outnumbered.
For the next two days, Saddam was drugged and tortured. Then, the U.S. administration showed a disheveled Saddam to the world in an attempt to denigrate him. Although he had been captured two days earlier in a house, the administration made it appear that the pictures they showed of Saddam were taken on the spot of his apprehending. The attempt at degradation backfired. Within minutes of the pictures being shown in Iraq, thousands took to the streets in pro-Saddam demonstrations.
For the next few months, he was not allowed to see a lawyer. In that time, he was tortured and questioned. Also, he was allowed deals by the U.S. that would get him an "out of jail free" pass if he cooperated. He never capitulated to their whims.
Saddam Hussein was not allowed to see his family. Most of his correspondence to them was either not delivered, or highly censored. By now, most humans would be willing to say anything their captors desired.
One day, I was talking to my friend Frank Morrow who produced the finest political show ever on U.S. television: Alternative Views. We discussed how Manuel Noriega collapsed in a few days in U.S. incarceration and spilled his guts. Frank said to me, "Saddam is made of sterner stuff." He could not have been more accurate.
On his first day in court, Saddam was a few minutes late. The judge asked him why he was not on time and Saddam told him that the elevators of the building were not working. The judge then said he would ask the Americans to try to fix the faulty lifts. Saddam looked the judge in the eye and said, "Don’t ask them. You tell them. You are an Iraqi." The judge was silent. The accused prisoner had to give him a lesson in citizenship.
We have read page-after-page of the illegality of Saddam’s trials. The anomalies are far too many to address in this column. However, with each preposterous turn, Saddam kept his ground and never capitulated to the court.
For months, every conceivable scenario emerged: Saddam was dragged out of court; his lawyers were kicked out of court; defense witnesses were tortured by the court; the judge destroyed a videotape that clearly showed the head prosecutor was lying; and Saddam and a few of his comrades went on hunger strikes.
Still, he showed up in court with the wit and physical appearance of a man decades younger. All the atrocities committed against him never made him appear to be desperate and he never showed signs of caving in.
Several times, Saddam was approached by U.S. officials to make a deal. The Iraqi resistance had grown to a formidable foe that was on the verge of forcing a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and they knew that Saddam still held enough power to persuade a major portion of the resistance to lay down their arms. Instead of accepting an offer for his freedom on some small island in the Pacific, Saddam retained his dignity. I must also add that other Ba’ath Party members who were imprisoned were given chances to be freed and made rich if they testified against Saddam. They all refused to sell out.
The farce of the first trial is over and Saddam has been sentenced to death. Although he is in the midst of another trial, he will probably be executed and the trial will resume with a dead man as the defendant.
Today’s headlines portray outrage from various groups, individuals and governments over the verdict. Many will try to get the U.N. to intervene in the fiasco, but the chances of justice are slim to none.
I read many quotes from Saddam’s foes and friends today. Two stick out. The most preposterous comes from the traitor Nouri al-Maliki, the so-called Iraqi prime minister:
This ruler has committed the most horrible crimes. He executed the best scientists, academics and thinkers.
The statement is so incredible that most people who read it will believe it. For the past year, we have read about hundreds of professors, scientists and doctors being killed in Iraq by agents of the Malaki government. During Saddam’s time, these professionals flourished and were the pride of Iraq. Malaki has now added them to the long list of fictitious victims of Saddam Hussein’s rule.
Here’s a very courageous quote from Haitham, a 42-year-old resident of Mosul:
I feel sad for Saddam, we have wronged him. We did not support him but now, after what we have seen, what has happened since he was toppled, it has become clear to us that he was the best man in the world.
I just received a message from someone who is knowledgeable about occurrences on the ground in Iraq. It stated:
We learned that demonstrations are all over Iraq in protest of the sentence.
In Baghdad American soldiers are busy painting over the slogans that people wrote on the walls and in intersections.
I am sending you some pictures. These are only a sample of what is going on.
Of course, the U.S. press will not show any of these photos. This is only the beginning. If, within a few hours of the verdict, demonstrations and destruction of U.S. vehicles are occurring, the backlash from the verdict will only increase.
In the U.S., we have the term "family values" shoved down our throats. But, it does not apply to those who are not U.S. citizens. We have already seen how the U.S. treated Saddam’s sons and grandson. Currently, his daughter and wife are living outside Iraq. Malaki has designated both as "terrorists" and they are on the country’s top-20 Most Wanted list.
The regulations for Saddam after his death are quite straight forward. After the hanging, his body will be available for family members to retrieve. No one will pick it up because they would be arrested on the spot. In lieu of this, the body will be buried with no funeral.
The U.S. government (Republican and Democrat alike) are the monsters, not Saddam Hussein. They are perverted and have an affinity for violence and delight in showing the bodies of dead enemies like they are trophies. But, the same people are aghast if someone utters an obscenity or make a joke about the president of the U.S. They are the misfits in the world who should be subjected to a show trial and then unceremoniously dropped into a hole in the ground. This is their version of "family values."

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