IRAQ: SADDAM TRIAL

Guardian: A show trial
The trial of Saddam is a distraction tactic that will do nothing to stop the growing Iraqi resistance, argues George Galloway

Today is the start of a show trial. It's intended to deflect attention from the absolute failure of the occupation to either get the electricity and water back on, still less to subdue the Iraqi resistance - which is giving them a bloody good hiding all over the country. I think it will fail in that regard, just as the capture of Saddam Hussein last December failed.

The dog that did not bark is the Iraqi invasion of Iran, with which - lo and behold - Saddam is not to be charged. Why? Because he invaded Iran at the behest of the US and Britain. He fought the Iranian army and attacked the Iranian cities - and the civilians within them - with weapons given to him by Britain and America and with maps supplied personally by Donald Rumsfeld. The trial could scarcely cover the invasion of a foreign country by Iraq in which a million people died when we would have to be indicted as co-conspirators.