PROCEEDINGS AND DEATH VERDICT AGAINST SADDAM
HUSSEIN
BY A PUPPET COURT ARE ILLEGAL, UNFAIR AND INVALID
By Prof. Jose
Maria Sison - Chairperson, International Coordinating Committee International
League of Peoples' Struggle
The proceedings and death verdict against
Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq, by a court of the puppet government under the
US Occupation in Iraq are illegal, unfair and invalid.
The court is a product and instrument of US aggression. As the 1945 Nuremberg
Charter states, "To initiate a war of aggression 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."
The US invasion of Iraq was made on the basis of lies and in violation of the UN
Charter. Contrary to the claims of Bush, the Hussein government of Iraq did not
have any weapons of mass destruction, did not have any connection with al Qaida
and did not pose any threat to the US.
Under the Nuremberg and UN Charters, everything that has followed the US
aggression is illegal, from Mr. Bremer's laws under the so-called coalition
authority to the so-called new constitution of the puppet government.
Saddam Hussein is supposed to be a prisoner of war of the US under the Geneva
Conventions and is in fact under the custody of the US military.
In this connection, he cannot be tried under the US Occupation for any alleged
crime committed before the war of aggression unleashed in 2003.
The unfairness of the trial of Saddam Hussein has been underscored among others
by the series of murders of his lawyers (as well as the lawyers of his
co-defendants) and by the politically motivated substitution of judges. Even the
timing of the death sentence on Hussein on Sunday, November 5 is meant to
influence the impending November 7 midterm elections in favor of the Republican
party of Bush.
The charge against Hussein and his co-defendants for having allegedly murdered
143 people in retaliation for a failed assassination attempt on his life in 1982
pales in comparison to the far more colossal crime of aggression perpetrated by
the US against the Iraqi people.
The US has already killed more than 650,000 Iraqi people since 2003, not to
mention the death of more than 1.5 million Iraqis, including more than 500,000
children, during the 12-year period of bombings and economic sanctions from 1991
onwards. The killing rampage of the US is unabated. The US has also incurred
nearly 3000 US death casualties and nearly 40,000 wounded casualties.
US imperialism is the plundering and murdering monster in the eyes of the Iraqi
people and the people of the world. As the imperialist chieftain, Bush should be
brought to court for having committed the worst possible crime, which is
aggression. His crimes against humanity are incomparable to the charges being
leveled against Saddam Hussein who has emerged as a patriot and martyr in the
eyes of so many Iraqis and Arabs.
The brutal occupation of Iraq by the US and its accomplices is inciting the
people of Iraq to wage armed resistance to attain national liberation and
democracy.