Your presence is requested in Baghdad.
Your presence is requested in Baghdad.
By most codes of justice, his execution would be fitting retribution for a brutal life. But it won't extinguish the fires of sectarian hatred any more than it will relieve the pain of his victims
By ROMESH RATNESAR Posted Friday, Dec. 29, 2006
By the time you read this, Saddam Hussein may be dead. When Iraq's Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Saddam's appeal of his death sentence, the tyrant's luck finally ran out. That there would be no reprieve was apparently evident to Saddam himself, who penned a farewell letter to his former subjects in which he seemed to welcome a martyr's death — while adding that if he somehow managed to escape the noose, that would be OK too. "If [God's] decision is postponed, then He is most merciful," the letter said. In all likelihood, the world will never see him again.
To anyone interested in holding the world's worst despots accountable for their crimes, the Iraqi High Tribunal's conviction of Saddam for the 1982 massacre in Dujail should be cause for celebration. And considering that the 148 people killed in Dujail amount to only a tiny fraction of the thousands who died under Saddam's murderous rule, it's perverse to claim that capital punishment did not fit the magnitude of his crimes. By most codes of retributive justice, execution is the only worthy end to such a brutal life. But it is also a mistake.
"He's dead, Jim..."