Saddam Hussein would be found guilty by any court in the civilized world of horrific crimes against his “own” and neighboring peoples. Are Iraqis better off without him? The great majority of them undoubtedly welcomed his ouster, but there can be even less doubt of the outcome if Iraqis were asked, “Which existence would you prefer, that of 2002 under Saddam, or that of 2006 under Bush?” 98 to 2, maybe?

Saddam is presently on trial for his genocidal campaign against the Kurds of northern Iraq in 1988, during the final months of the Iran-Iraq War. Some 182,000 died in the campaign known as Anfal. Throughout the war, Saddam had a staunch ally in U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who dropped sanctions against the “state sponsor of terrorism”. European and American companies, including Dow Chemical and DuPont, profited from sales of technology and materials for biological, chemical, and conventional weapons.

Reagan’s vice-president, George H. W. Bush, had charge of the Iraq desk. As stories of horrific gassings began to emerge in 1984, the US formally “censured” Iraq but at the same time dispatched Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad to assure Hussein that its support for his war and for the normalisation of diplomatic relations was “undiminished”. The Commerce Department continued to approve sales of things like anthrax, and Iraqi scientists were invited to conferences on nuclear weapons technology.

Anfal could not have been such an outstanding “success” without satellite photos of potential targets provided by the U.S., and the massive disinformation campaign mounted by the U.S., based on the crude lie that Iran also used chemical weapons.

An insightful overview of this subject, by Joost Hiltermann of Human Rights Watch, is available at http://www.merip.org/mero/mero011805.html. The names of the 24 American corporations and their dealings with Iraq were first revealed by Andreas Zumach in "Die Tageszeitung", based on the 8,000 pages that Bush attempted to expunge from the official document submitted by Iraq to the U.N. in December 2002.

Bush is taking a calculated risk in putting Saddam Hussein on trial for the Anfal war crimes. Apparently he is confident that he can simply “pull the plug” if Saddam tries to bring up U.S. complicity. Perhaps this is why, for the second time in two trials, the presiding judge has been removed.

These removals alone constitute rather irrefutable proof that Saddam’s trials are occurring in a kangaroo court. The Iraqi victims certainly aren’t served by the show trials, and no competent observer anywhere, outside the Green Zone or Washington, takes them seriously.

To convince the world that true justice is being done, and to give the Iraqi people a hope for closure, the trials should be moved to a neutral country, say the Netherlands, at The Hague. But to accomplish the goals of justice and closure, room will have to be made alongside Saddam in the dock for George H.W. Bush, Rumsfeld, and their surviving accomplices, many of whom still occupy positions of power in the White House.

Saddam is on trial for the mass murder of up to 200,000 of his countrymen. A recent study conducted by Johns Hopkins University and published in "The Lancet" estimates that 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of Bush Junior’s illegal war. Surely, we’ll need another courtroom at The Hague to try him and his accomplices. Whatever Saddam gets goes three-fold for them, no?

Don’t forget to tune in to KSKA on Wednesday at 7:00p Alaska Daylight Time for our little debate. That’s 11:00p Eastern, 8:00p Pacific, 0300 Thu. GMT (0400 London time) and 0700 Baghdad time, unless you folks have already turned back your clocks.

Hang in there, Baghdadis. I’ll try to send a small ray of hope.