Why Was the Saddam Trial Rushed?

Question

Why was Saddam Hussein charged, convicted and executed for a fraction of the deaths he was actually responsible for? I could well understand if many of the Kurdish people felt that their cases had not been tried due to the undue haste in hanging Saddam Hussien.

He is now 'officially' responsible for around 150 deaths as opposed to the more realistic figure which goes into the thousands. Why was the trial rushed? Who forced it and who is benefitting?

Answer 1

it wasn't. that is typical in Iraq. in fact the execution didn't happen as fast as wanted.

Answer 2

It was rushed because under Islamic law it is prohibited to execute anyone over the age of 70. Saddam would have turned 70 in April 2007. There's the plain truth for you.

Answer 3

He was our captive , alot of our servicemen died to catch him , he then became our responsibility , regardless of the outcome we should have tried him if he was to be tried . I suspect there are international laws regarding turning over captive prisoners in the manner we did though admittedly I have no answer at this time.
A few years ago we supported him and even gave him chemical weapons when Iraq was at war with Iran , the war ended and he was of no longer any use to us and he simply became the man who knew too much . He was imprisoned and killed before he could spill the beans so to speak , that's basically it in a nutshell . I don't condone the man in the least but he had help , we gave him the tools to use to do what he did , who is accountable for that is what I would like to know.

Answer 4

Because he was not guilty even in the deaths of those 147 ppl in the village. Thas lie. That crime did other Iraqis and Saddam had paid for that with his life. You are all idiods. You gave rights the Shiites to judge Saddam whom they hated and were looking to kill for so many years.

Answer 5

The US government and its Iraqui puppets could get away with it as a reward/revenge for their Shia supporters.

Australian, David Hicks, on the other hand has been held without trial in Guantanamo Bay for more than 5 years because in that case the US administration cannot guarantee the result they want.

Answer 6

I heard it was because Bush wanted him executed before his State of The Union in January. Makes sense to me-something else to get false credit for !

Answer 7

Rushed? It wasn't. No one forced it. If anything it took longer than it should have.

Once you have reached the maximum sentence you can get, does it make sense to keep going? If you have life in prison, why should the prosecution go for life plus another 20 years? Once you are found guilty of a crime which has death as the penalty, who go beyond that? Would you have him hanged twice?

Answer 8

My understanding was that they had something like 18 or so trials lined up, the next one being more severe if the prior one failed. I don't that anything was really rushed though.

Answer 9

Why was the trial held at all, since the verdict was decided upon before Saddam's capture?

Answer 10

Saddam's trial was not rushed. It lasted a little longer
than usual because of the many delays!!!!!No one forced it or is there anyone benefitting from it!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 11

Saddam needed to be executed because he is extremely embarrassing to the United States.

This link is from The National security archives and has a photo of Rumsfield shaking hands with Saddam-back when they were good friends...also documents declassified in 2003.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush, and James Baker who was Secretary of State, and Robert Gates, who was the C.I.A. Director in the 1980's, how they met what was called a tilt policy in favor of Iraq and against Iran in the 1980's and developed what they thought was strategic reasons were for the United States to be doing that. Then the sad story of how it got out of control, how Vice President Bush was deeply personally involved in illegal arms transfers to Saddam Hussein in the late 1980's that shouldn't have happened, and how the Bush Administration, that's Bush one, then proceeded with the help of Boyden Gray as White House general counsel and others to cover up a scandal that in my judgment was significantly larger than Watergate. Lets put it into historical context. In the 1980's, the Reagan White House wasn't just busy defeating the so-called evil empire of the Soviet Union and out spending and bankrupting the Soviets, they were also engaged in a Middle East Policy in Iraq and Iran, that was aimed at obviously trying to defeat and neutralize the Islamic fundamentalists of Iran which were Americas perceived enemy at the time. To defeat Iran, we will fortify Saddam, he may be a killer. He may be a butcher, but he's our guy. We will keep him to keep a balance of power between Iran and Iraq.

Donald Rumsfeld went to Baghdad, was met by Saddam Hussein at the airport. That's right. Donald Rumsfeld. With a big Rumsfeld grin on his face said, "I'm really glad to be here in Baghdad with my good friend, Saddam Hussein," and proceeded to carry messages back and forth for the Reagan administration of active military and economic support for Saddam Hussein. I think it's important you don't need to be a conspiracy theorist of course because there are people who make up stories. You just need to look at the facts to understand that the same Rumsfeld and the same Bush advisers, the coterie of C.I.A. and military types who have been around the family of the father and are now in the administration of the son, are the same people who built up Saddam Hussein as our guy, and turned a blind eye at his atrocities, and slapped him on the back, literally, physically, Rumsfeld in his jovial way, slapped Saddam on Iraq Saddam and said, great to do business with Iraq, our friend. And the same people used the same funds to support Osama bin Laden in the late 1970's and early 1980's in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union.

The US has a terrible habit of allying itself with really bad people and then we're surprised at the results?