On Thursday, 2 July, the US imperialist-led occupation brought the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, to face trial before a kangaroo court presided over by an Iraqi puppet appointed by the US. The purpose was to divert attention away from the prison abuse scandal, ever-rising Iraqi resistance and, above all, to legitimise the imperialist predatory war against, and occupation of, Iraq. Additionally, it was meant to humiliate and belittle Saddam Hussein. But it failed abysmally to achieve any of its aims. Saddam turned the tables on his accusers in the brief altercation between himself and the so-called judge in this travesty of a tribunal. This is how the proceedings unfolded:
JUDGE: Are you the former president of Iraq?
SADDAM: I am the president of Iraq and I am an Iraqi.
JUDGE: Are you the former president of Iraq?
SADDAM: I am the current president of Iraq.
JUDGE: Were you leader of the Ba’ath party and head of the armed forces?
SADDAM: Yes. Can you introduce yourself?
JUDGE: I am the judge of the investigative court.
SADDAM: You represent the coalition forces.
JUDGE: I represent the people of Iraq.
SADDAM: Everyone here knows this is all a theatre. The real criminal is Bush and it’s for his campaign.
JUDGE: You are charged with seven crimes (including the 1990 Kuwait invasion).
SADDAM: How can you charge me with this? You are an Iraqi and everyone knows that was our right. Kuwait is part of Iraq. I was protecting the Iraqi people from the Kuwaiti dogs. They were trying to raise the price of oil and turn Iraqi women into 10 dinar prostitutes.
JUDGE: Words like that are not permitted in this court.
SADDAM: The armed forces went to Kuwait. Where is this law upon which you are conducting investigations?
JUDGE: You have a right to a defence lawyer.
SADDAM: Everyone says I have millions of dollars in Geneva – why shouldn’t I be able to afford lawyers.
SADDAM: (To guards leading him away) Take it easy. I’m an old man.
So frightened were the occupation forces, that Saddam’s words were censored so that the audiences in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East could only see, but not hear, Saddam Hussein defiantly gesticulating and accusing the judge and the occupiers of an illegal trial following an illegal invasion, who had appointed him to try the president of Iraq.
Lalkar declares emphatically that US imperialism, this counter-revolutionary international gendarme, this mass murderer of the people of Korea, Indo-China, Indonesia, Chile, Nicaragua, Bhopal (India), and countless other places, has no right whatever to try the leader of the sovereign state it has illegally invaded. On the contrary, it is the leaders of Anglo-American imperialism, who should be tried as war criminals before an international court on the lines of the Nuremberg tribunals for Nazi war crimes.
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