The Verdict is in

The death penalty was likely inevitable in Iraq, but it wasn't the best choice. He will be seen as a martyr by the Sunnis, rather than just fading quietly into history if he been allowed to rot in prison for the rest of his life. It will reinvigorate the Sunnis in their fight agains the Shiites, who are determined to rule Iraq with the same tight fist that the Sunnis did under Saddam.
The real conflagration has yet to begin. It will be the showdown that Sunnis and Shiites have been waiting to happen for the past 1400 years. As we know, both sides are prepared to fight to the last man (and child).

Every dog has his day...Bush and Blair should take note.

I'm not surprised...I'm really more concerned as to how and if this will affect innocents in the region. I know they had stepped up security for the verdict. I haven't had time yet to watch the news to see the reaction around the world.

Tony, we didn't care then because he was doing what we wanted him to do with the weapons we gave him. Silly man, did you forget about that?

Tony you have the right to talk like that in this country because of our government and the men and women sworn to protect it.

Bill, thank you for your insight.

It's about fricking time.

I wonder who is two-faced...

George Bush...can you answer it?

Tony, (gulp!) you have a vigorous way of making your point.
No evidence has ever been found to link 9/11 to Saddam or Iraq. No evidence will stand up to the accusation that the US went into Iraq for oil. No evidence has ever been found to suggest that Iraq has ever been a threat to the US (the feeble declaration of war by Saddam before his disappearance notwithstanding).
The US invaded Iraq because it was a good way to set one flavour of Islam against another (Shiites--the majority of population but not represented by the regime--versus Saddam Sunnis). The US would never pull out of Iraq until it can be certain that the two sides will certainly face each other in a religious war.
Now you know the real reason why it was significant that the fundamentalist and evangelical Christian movements in the US supported Bush so strongly.
No American wants to say that publicly. As I am not an American, I have no fear of Bush bullies.

The death penalty is their way of justice for him so I must respect it. I am not sure a life sentence is the best way to go for that person anyways. He is a tricky individual very disrespectful to mankind. As far as our government role, I am neutral on that subject.

Well put, Tony, well put. In fact it bears repeating...allow me:

"But for the record, there isn't ONE soul in Iraq fighting for OUR freedom. Our Freedom is fine and dandy, and Saddam, nor his elusive WMD's have SQUAT to do with 9/11 or my freedoms.

So you know what you can do with that convoluted notion that somehow our boys and girls are in iraq fighting for our freedom.

Maybe fighting for facists freedom to impose their will on ppl that did nothing to them. Nothing more. "

EXCELLENT!!!

And what we have allowed ourselves to ignore, Tony.

It is interesting to read American views on Saddam, what he has done and what he does or does not deserve. Remember that he has 30 days to appeal the court's decision, which I have absolutely no doubt that he will. It is not over yet.

I agree with Tony. We are not fighting for our own freedoms. We are interfering where we don't belong.

As for the death penalty, I agree it will make Saddam a martyr among the Sunnis. Sad situation overall.

But just in time for the mid-term elections. Is this fortuitous or what. Timeliness is next to godliness.

While this 'foregone conclusion' news is begin shovel onto the public by the corporate media...the real humdigger of a story is being kept under wraps...namely, the news that the neocons have turned on the White House and there's back-stabbings left and right:

Richard Perle: "In the administration that I served [Perle was an assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan], there was a one-sentence description of the decision-making process when consensus could not be reached among disputatious departments: 'The president makes the decision.' [Bush] did not make decisions, in part because the machinery of government that he nominally ran was actually running him. The National Security Council was not serving [Bush] properly. He regarded [then National-Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice] as part of the family."

Michael Ledeen, American Enterprise Institute freedom scholar: "Ask yourself who the most powerful people in the White House are. They are women who are in love with the president: Laura [Bush], Condi, Harriet Miers, and Karen Hughes."

Frank Gaffney, an assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan and founder of the Center for Security Policy: "[Bush] doesn't in fact seem to be a man of principle who's steadfastly pursuing what he thinks is the right course. He talks about it, but the policy doesn't track with the rhetoric, and that's what creates the incoherence that causes us problems around the world and at home. It also creates the sense that you can take him on with impunity."

Kenneth Adelman: "The most dispiriting and awful moment of the whole administration was the day that Bush gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to [former C.I.A. director] George Tenet, General Tommy Franks, and [Coalition Provisional Authority chief] Jerry [Paul] Bremer—three of the most incompetent people who've ever served in such key spots. And they get the highest civilian honor a president can bestow on anyone! That was the day I checked out of this administration. It was then I thought, There's no seriousness here, these are not serious people. If he had been serious, the president would have realized that those three are each directly responsible for the disaster of Iraq."

David Frum: "I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words. And the big shock to me has been that although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything."

Michael Rubin, former Pentagon Office of Special Plans and Coalition Provisional Authority staffer: "Where I most blame George Bush is that through his rhetoric people trusted him, people believed him. Reformists came out of the woodwork and exposed themselves." By failing to match his rhetoric with action, Rubin adds, Bush has betrayed Iraqi reformers in a way that is "not much different from what his father did on February 15, 1991, when he called the Iraqi people to rise up, and then had second thoughts and didn't do anything once they did."

Richard Perle: "Huge mistakes were made, and I want to be very clear on this: They were not made by neoconservatives, who had almost no voice in what happened, and certainly almost no voice in what happened after the downfall of the regime in Baghdad. I'm getting damn tired of being described as an architect of the war. I was in favor of bringing down Saddam. Nobody said, 'Go design the campaign to do that.' I had no responsibility for that."

Kenneth Adelman: "The problem here is not a selling job. The problem is a performance job.… Rumsfeld has said that the war could never be lost in Iraq, it could only be lost in Washington. I don't think that's true at all. We're losing in Iraq.… I've worked with [Rumsfeld] three times in my life. I've been to each of his houses, in Chicago, Taos, Santa Fe, Santo Domingo, and Las Vegas. I'm very, very fond of him, but I'm crushed by his performance. Did he change, or were we wrong in the past? Or is it that he was never really challenged before? I don't know. He certainly fooled me."

Maybe, it can be hid till after the elections...the media is working very hard towards that end.

Hanging? He got off easy.

I think Saddam is an evil that needs to be purged.

I wish he had gotten life. I do not support the death penalty. I know that is not a popular opinion, but it is mine. He murdered, so now he will be murdered. Yea, makes sense to me.

It seems he was judged by a jury (or a judge) of his peers....it just goes to show what goes around comes around.

...Tony above try to maintain your composure! Kind Sir!

Nothing America does makes sense unless Ah Ha OIL there's OIL in them thar hills!

Then BUSH and shareholders, and stockholders crawl out from under the rock and the rock cried out no hiding place.

It seems to me as I recall last United States suspects Osama Bin Laden - a wealthy Saudi dissident based in Afghanistan - as behing behind a string of terrorist attacks was the thrust of our involvement in Afghanistan, in IRAQ oil, protect the oil, or not, it's changed from day to day, week to week, month to month I've lost track already, imagine that!

Julie,
wow did you start a great conversation! I personally am worried about a retaliation... from some of his buddies. And obviously, the safety of my son and his fellow soldiers.

I to worry about retaliation Adele. that is why they beefed up securitynaround ther area. I hope it will be enough. I am waiting on my husband to call within the next hour. That is his wake up time. I am horribly sick in bed so I am forcing myself to stay awake to get the call. i have only left the bed a few times today beccause I dob't have te energy ton walk. So please excuse the typos. as I can barely hold my head up.

Julie I hope you feel better

I think Saddam deserves to be punished for his crimes. However, I am a bit fearful. Someone else in their comment called Saddam a martyr. I do believe a segment of Iraq's population will fight the court decisions. When he dies, I think they will act out. Not sure how, they will strike out, but I do feel that it will lead to more violence.

Yes, hang him from the highest tree!! But will they retaliate and cause more harm to our service men and women? Will Saddam become a Martyr if he is executed, I think that is the most likely scenerio. Remeber the best thing anyone famous can do for their career is DIE. If they asked me, which no one will. I would say deport him to another place, a secret place, and jail him for life.

I hope people do realize that this ruling from this kangaroo court set up by a puppet regime under occupation by a hostile enemy nation has absolutely no legitimacy under international law. This is strictly for 'invader' home consumption...especially just before an election to make it look like we are actually doing something constructive in Iraq.

The proceedings being taken to impose victors' justice on the Iraqi people, including their former President Saddam Hussein, are nothing more than another example of the United States' unfortunate disregard for international law.

The carefully edited pictures of the trial that are allowed to be broadcast and printed show few Americans in the Courtroom, but behind every door and more disturbingly behind almost every action there are Americans pulling the strings.

Why is this so disturbing? Shouldn't Americans be proud that they are putting the Iraqi regime that they hate so much on trial? The answer is unfortunately a resounding no. In fact the trial has become such an embarrassment to the United States that the American puppeteers are likely committing war crimes themselves.

Illegal from the Start

The glaring illegalities of the current process begin with illegal origins. The invasion and occupation of Iraq is widely understood to be illegal. On 5 March 2003, three of the five members of UN Security Council and Germany, which was then a non-permanent member, unambiguously declared that a US-led invasion without further Security Council authorization would violate international law. On 16 September 2004, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan reiterated what was by then obvious to almost every international lawyer, that the invasion and occupation of Iraq is illegal. In fact, this is a textbook case of illegal aggression in violation of the prohibition of the use of force by one country against another found in article 2(4) of the Charter of the United Nations and under customary international law.

The Nuremberg Tribunal described such illegal aggression as "essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

It is not the person on trial in Iraq who committed this crime, but the American President George W. Bush and his allies. Rather than being brought to justice for their crimes, the Bush administration and it allies resorted to trying their victims in a manner that insults longstanding concepts of justice and fair trial — both a central Islamic value and an international human right. To the Bush administration their actions apparently justified or at least distracted attention away from their own illegal actions.

One of the ends of this illegal act was to capture, detain, try, and execute the President of Iraq who had dared to stand up to the will of a powerful country like the United States. The creation of the Iraqi Special Tribunal (IST), which is sometimes known as the Iraqi Higher Criminal Court, and the subsequent trials are acts taken to fulfill this goal.

Under international law, when illegal acts have such consequences, all states are obliged not to recognize them. This rule, which is adopted in article 41(2) of the famed International Law Commission's Draft Article on State Responsibility, prevents states from benefiting from their own illegal act.

As if the inherent illegality of the court were not enough, the United States has constantly taunted the international community by orchestrating a trial that is as widely criticized as unfair as the invasion of Iraq is illegal.

see: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2006/04/farce-of-law-trial-of-saddam-hussein.php

Saddam became irrelevant to Iraq the moment US troops invaded and drove him underground...executing him now may provide an emotional catharsis, but it won't change anything on the ground