Read The Dude on Saddam’s capture and some of its implications (via Michael Totten):
He wore a different uniform every day and built himself a vulgar palace in every city of his miserable country. Nice… to see him found like a rat in a hole, covered with grime, sprouting a dirty grey mane, and being shaven and combed for lice.I actually think that is a better, more humane, reaction than this one (which is not to say it would be acceptable to treat Saddam brutally in custody) from Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican’s Justice and Peace department: ‘I felt pity to see this man destroyed, (the military) looking at his teeth as if he were a cow.’ Anyone can understand the sentiment of sympathy for another human being brought down; but there’s also the proper relief and satisfaction at seeing a filthy tyrant humbled, and it’s not clear why the balance between these two things here has tilted in the direction it has. The Cardinal also made the following point:
“It’s true that we should be happy that this (arrest) has come about because it is the watershed that was necessary… But it is not the total solution to the problems of the Middle East.”He’s a clever man.
I find it surprising that so much detail is being given out about the exact mode of Saddam’s interrogation. See this story.
Christopher Greenwood, professor of international law at the London School of Economics, sets out the case for trying Saddam in Iraq. There are problems, he says, but ‘a trial in Iraq offers both justice and the chance for Iraq to break with its past’.
In the Jerusalem Post (registration required) Rafael Medoff has some interesting and obliquely relevant information on reactions, at the time, to the Eichmann trial. (Hat tip: SdeW.)
Al-Arabiya television has reported the surrender of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the highest ranking member of the former regime still at large. (Via Matthew Stinson).
It’s loosely related only, but this is good news:
In the strongest sign yet that antiwar European leaders are prepared to help rebuild Iraq’s devastated economy, France and Germany issued a joint statement with the United States on Tuesday, saying the three nations would work together to provide “substantial” debt relief for Iraq.See also here and here.