Alleged War Criminals 
Michael Byers
The CIA could not break the former Iraqi president. After nearly seven months of interrogation and solitary confinement, a fit and imperious looking Saddam Hussein surveyed the US-financed Iraqi special tribunal, smiled and then pronounced: ‘This is theatre. Bush is the real criminal.’
Dishevelled, confused and compliant when captured, Saddam must have seemed the perfect puppet for an election-friendly show trial. Salem Chalabi, the nephew of the until recently omnipresent Ahmad Chalabi, was handpicked by the US envoy, Paul Bremer, to direct the production. A quick cut-and-paste job provided a statute for the tribunal; a slate of safely anti-Saddam judges was rubber-stamped by Bremer’s Iraqi Governing Council. And after the council had been hastily transformed into a supposedly sovereign interim government last month, one of its first acts was to reintroduce the death penalty. Everything was ready except the star defendant – whose resilience should have come as no surprise.
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Michael Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
Other articles by this contributor:
On Thinning Ice · When the Ice Melts
The Laws of War, US-Style · No Way to Fight a War
In Pursuit of Pinochet · Michael Byers discusses the legal implications of the arrest of Augusto Pinochet in London in October 1998
Woken up in Seattle · WTO woes
Jumping the Gun · Against Pre-Emption
Back to the Cold War? · Missile Treaties
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