SADDAM

Asia Times: Will Saddam go on trial?

NO: US cannot afford embarrassment of public trial

'SADDAM Hussein was wise not to wait too long,' said Colonel James Hickey, commander of the American forces that took the former Iraqi leader prisoner on Sunday.

'We were about to clear that (underground facility) in a military sort of way,' he added, explaining that 'things like that are cleared with hand grenades, small arms, things like that.' But Col Hickey's instructions were to 'capture or kill' Saddam, and the latter managed to get his hands up in time.

The Bush administration is probably wishing quite hard by now that Saddam had waited a little longer and been killed in his hole. While others debate where he should be tried and by whom, and whether he should face the death penalty or not, United States President George W. Bush's people will be realising just about now that they can't afford to give him a fair trial at all.

He would certainly be convicted in the end: Evidence of Saddam's crimes over the years is overwhelming. But in a fair trial, with normal rules of evidence and reasonably competent defence lawyers, it would be impossible to stop the defence from pointing out that every US administration from 1980 to 1992 (all Republican administrations, as it happens) was directly or indirectly complicit in his crimes