The Politics of Iraq

The Politics of Iraq

November 3, 2006

On Sunday, the nine month trial of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and seven co-defendants is expected to conclude, with the court delivering its verdict. Should Hussein be convicted, it will be a welcome development for the Iraqis who suffered under his rule. But the White House is already trying to make it into a political spectacle. Yesterday on CNBC, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said the verdict would be “a factor” in Tuesday’s midterm elections and proof that the “Iraqi government has been doing what the president has said all along.” And with The New York Times report on the Internet posting a do-it-yourself guide to building a nuclear weapon at the request of Congressional Republicans, it is clear that the administration and its allies are willing to politicize Iraq to the point of endangering our national security. They instead should be spending more time focusing on the fact that violence in Iraq is spiraling out of control as the country edges closer to complete chaos.

• Neoconservatives placed our national security at risk in order to bolster their pre-Iraq weapons claims. The New York Times reports that in an effort to push their discredited claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, backers of the Iraq war disregarded accepted practices, pushed aside normal checks, and posted on the Internet detailed explanations of how to build nuclear bombs and how to make chemical and biological weapons. The neoconservatives relentlessly mocked the UN experts and the intelligence professionals before and after the invasion of Iraq. Now, it is these experts who must intervene to stop members of Congress, led by the chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, from releasing sensitive materials that could help terrorist groups and hostile nations build the very weapons the congressional leaders falsely claimed existed in Iraq.
  
  

• The scheduling of Saddam’s verdict appears to be politically timed. The verdict is expected to come just two days before the midterm elections. The timing has raised eyebrows, especially because the Bush administration exercises considerable influence over the trial. The court itself was created by the administration-controlled Coalition Provisional Authority. The Washington Post reports, “The U.S. Embassy and the U.S. Regime Crimes Liaison Office run much of the day-to-day arrangements for the trial. Plainclothes security workers—many of them Americans—and Iraqi soldiers guard the turreted, fortress-like former Baath Party headquarters in the American-held Green Zone where the trial is playing out.” The New York Times reports, “American influence...has been undeniably pervasive, with about 90 percent of the $145 million in annual costs for the court and associated investigations paid for by the United States Justice Department, and lawyers sent by Washington acting as advisers.”
  
  

• The verdict could prompt a spike in violence that the Iraqi government is not ready to handle. While the White House is spinning the verdict as “a benchmark episode,” many believe that, no matter what the outcome, violence could increase. Ibrahim Khalid, 52, a Sunni from Baghdad’s Azamiyah district, told the AP that if Saddam is sentenced to death, “Violence and killings will increase and Saddam will turn into a national hero among Sunnis.” One of Saddam’s lawyers predicted that the death penalty would “’open the gates of hell’ to U.S. forces in Iraq.” Meanwhile, if he avoids the death penalty, “Many Shiites...will be enraged.” The nine month trial has “widened the gulf between Iraq’s ethnic and religious groups at a time when sectarian reprisal killings are spinning out of control.”