I've been reading the occasional news report about Saddam's trail. It all seems to be a bit of a joke to me.

I'm no expert in law, so it's perhaps understandable that the whole thing leaves me with a lot of questions.

To start with, on what basis can they sue Saddam? Everytime I suggest that someone should try Bush, Blair or Howard as a war criminal, I get told that as presidents/prime ministers they are exempt.

While I don't much like that idea, I feel it should apply to Saddam if it's going to apply to them. And so does his lawers, too, it would seem, as they're always going on about how the whole trail is illegal.

Now, we all get told that Saddam is a horrible, horrible person who's had many people killed (unlike our wonderful leaders), but the more I follow the case the more I hope he'll win. It's probably underdog syndrome or something.

Anyway, his case is still dragging on, and apparently you can watch it on TV even (I still haven't bothered to tune mine, so I wouldn't know). Of course, they censor anything out that could breach national security (mostly stuff Saddam says. He knows a lot of stuff about national security, it would seem).

But how long will it go on, and what will be the result? They've gone through a lot of lawers, a judge, and I gather they might have changed the trail's location at some point. I don't think they've had any evidence that Saddam was actually guilty of what he was accused of, either.

But the thing which made me really pay attention was a recent session where Saddam didn't turn up. It makes you think the matter isn't being taken seriously.

Of course, when you get right down to it, should lack of evidence get him off each and every charge that can be brought against him, he'll just end up in a concentration camp - uh, I mean detention center - on suspicion of being a terrorist.

And even if he does somehow manage to get away free, whoever has been hunting down his lawers will surely catch up with him.

So I guess the case doesn't matter, in the end.

I might not like Bush, but to call him a war criminal is absurd.

I have no doubt that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who fully deserves to be executed for the misery and death he has inflicted on his own people, as well as those of Iran and Kuwait. However, there are a lot of difficult legal problems associated with putting him on trial.

Firstly, as BB pointed out, Bush and his allies launched a war of questionable legality and with no UN mandate which has caused a great deal of suffering for the Iraqi people. How can we be fit to put Saddam on trial when our leaders are not even able to reassure us that their decision to invade Iraq was legally sound? It also means that we cannot put Saddam on trial for invading Iran or Kuwait...

A lot of the atrocities Saddam committed were carried out before he invaded Kuwait, including the infamous gas attack on a Kurdish village. At the time, America and its allies saw Saddam as a key regional ally against militant Islam, so we tended to look the other way whenever he felt like butchering some Kurds and Shiites. We have no moral right to suddenly decide that Saddam's actions back in the 1980s were crimes against humanity.

And what if Saddam is found guilty and sentenced to be executed? That would create a new legal problem because Britain is a signatory of a European treaty abolishing the death penalty. We would not even be allowed to continue to occupy Iraq as that would make us a party in Saddam's execution.

Odds are they'd send him to another country for the sentance to be carried out.

Bush started a war based on entirely false prentences. People from the various intellegence departments were going on TV to tell us that what was going into Bush's office, wasn't coming out of Bush's mouth - they didn't know if there were WMD's in Iraq, Saddam vowed and declared there were none, but that's the reason why we all went to war.

It's hardly worth noting that no weapons were found.

If starting a war on false pretences, which would have been illegal even if there were WMD's in Iraq, doesn't make Bush a war criminal, then I don't know what does.

The only 'punishment' he got was the obligation to try and clean up the massive mess he made. Of course, if he really doesn't get to stay on for another term, I guess that won't be his problem forever.

Personally I can't dissagree with anything said here, I just shrug my shoulders and wonder how this can be done on a global theatre.

To answer BB "how long can this go on" I think aslong as it takes. With all the critisism handed out to those two spin monkeys Blair and Bush they will have to see this through to the end.

It's odd - before the west invaded Iraq (and not I-raq as Blair has started calling it) no one had any time for Saddam and yet now he has simpathy from many quarters.

Underdog? no, I think it;s just a sence of justice.

It doesn't matter how good Saddam's defence is, or who he has representing him. He's going down for the count, because there's simply no other way the US and UK and other associated countries can justify what they've done. "He's guilty, we tried him fair and square, we're justified in everything we did."

I think he knows that there is no way he can personally win, and the best he can do is to convince the people of Iraq and other muslim countries that he is the innocent victim of Bush and B_Liar. By doing so, he can ensure that there is a good chance that his favourite son, Ali Hussein, will become a future president of Iraq.

Bush and Blair erroneously thought that they had got rid of Saddam's chosen successors when they killed Uday and Qusay Hussain, but they miscalculated badly. Saddam knew that they were just sadistic playboys and he planned for Ali to succeed him. Although they certainaly did not live like true muslims, many Iraqis felt that they made up for that by their heroic last stand against the Americans and they were disgusted by the way Bush showed off the bodies, a breach of both Christian and Muslim sensibilities.

Ali Hussein is still a teenager, but he has a lot of support from the Sunnis in central Iraq as well as the nomadic tribes of western Iraq and eastern Syria because his mother is from one of those tribes.

As far as Saddam can see, there is still plenty to play for.

The international system is a state of anarchy. Illegal war is just a buzzword.

Could well be a buzzword for all I know. But it does seem to be a relevant one. Bush and co were supposed to pay attention when the UN said 'no', and they shouldn't have lied to everyone.

But how could politicians operate without telling lies?

No idea. Maybe one day one will try it, and we'll find out.

Saddam still is refusing to go back to court.

They're thinking about forcing him.

...

It's been quite some time since I heard anything at all about the Trial. What's going on and are they coming to any kind of 'conclusions' yet?

Well, it doesn't look like much is really happening. Apparently he went on a hunger strike, that according to a US spokesman lastest a single meal.

About half a month later he was in hospital due to lack of food. Doesn't look like the trial will be over soon.

The Saddam Wiki article seems to hold quite a bit of history on the matter. There's also an article devoted to the trial itself, but it seems to be going out of date.

Can't seem to find many news posts on the matter, though I did find one that I thought to be quite interesting.

Only that he's a very naughty man.

I think it's still going on. He had a court appearance a few weeks ago, where he said the usual stuff about resistance. He's not very healthy.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5207874.stm

Why they haven't shot him already I don't know. I mean, what exactly is Sadam's defence?
It seems to me, it's pretty pointless to have a trial when the whole world know's it's pretty much a forgone conclusion and knows what the final outcome will be.

Because that sort of behavior is the exact sort of thing that these trials are supposed to be against?

well, they have to try him, but apparently he isn't going to be convicted for like 20 years at the rate its going

it could be considered something like 'Lets keep this going as long as possible and maybe you'll die in jail instead of by execution'

It is actually quite a tricky case to make. Remember that the legality of the entire issue is at question, as the war was started in breach of international law.

I'm still wondering why Saddam can be prosecuted, but not Bush. Though I did hear somewhere that once Bush is out of office it'll be open hunting season. That should be interesting to see.

Bush hasn't done anything bad enough to get arrested, a lot of people might really dislike him but he hasn't executed people for not doing what he wanted