Cherif Bassiouni
February 13, 2004 Episode no. 724
December 30, 2005
Read more of Tim O'Brien's interview with Cherif Bassiouni, professor of law at DePaul University and president of the International Human Rights Law Institute:
Q: We are talking about justice for Saddam Hussein. Where do we begin?
A: I think we begin probably in the second term of the Clinton administration. At that time, there was extreme concern about Saddam Hussein getting away with the gassing of the Iranians, gassing of the Kurds, with the crimes he committed in Kuwait, and with the crimes he was committing in Iraq. The Clinton administration, essentially due to Madeleine Albright, was pushing for the establishment of an investigating commission similar to the one established in the former Yugoslavia by the [UN] Security Council, which I chaired. In fact, I was approached by the Clinton administration to see if I was willing to chair that commission as well. Being from Egypt originally, being a Muslim, they thought it was important for somebody with my experience, as well as those types of credentials, to investigate Saddam Hussein. I, of course, agreed.
Unfortunately, some major powers in the Security Council -- and that included Russia, France, the UK -- were opposed to the idea of a commission. Now, these governments were, of course, doing business with Iraq at the time, as were other major governments in Europe: Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, even Australia. They have concession contracts for extraction of the oil, but they are also selling a lot of stuff to Iraq -- as, I should say, was the United States; and the United States, particularly in the Reagan era, was not only providing Iraq with equipment but also with intelligence information. So there is a whole political undertone to the issue of justice, which is now not visible, but all of these issues are behind the scenes at this point as well. The Security Council did not go for [a commission]. The Clinton administration, to its credit, tried twice to push for it. It didn't go...read more...
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week724/interview2.html