Rallies continue after Saddam verdict [Archive] - Marine Corps

thedrifter

11-06-06, 08:12 AM

Justice for Saddam
But he remains the face of our enemy in Iraq.

Monday, November 6, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

The temptation, and in some quarters the desire, is to dismiss yesterday's conviction of Saddam Hussein for war crimes as a historical footnote. Would that this were possible. While it is certainly a case of justice being done, it should also remind us about the enemy our troops continue to face, and the U.S. could yet lose to, in Iraq.

For even as Saddam will now hang for his crimes, his legacy survives in the vicious insurgency that his former intelligence agents and Baath Party colleagues are prosecuting. This continues to be the main enemy in Iraq, aided by the likes of Syria and Iran. Its assaults are what finally this year caused the Shiites to respond with death squads of their own that are contributing to the "sectarian violence" so evident in Baghdad. And it is one of the main mistakes of the Bush Administration during this war that it has failed to maintain military and American public attention on the nature and strategy of this enemy.

There's an honest debate over whether Saddam planned the insurgency before he was ousted from power. Whether or not it was planned in detail, however, there is little doubt that the Sunni element of the insurgency has long since formed into an organized movement. At its heart is Saddam's old intelligence service, the Mukhabarat. The Baath Party also continues to function in secret and to communicate to the extent it can.

Only last month, newly independent Iraqi newspapers obtained and reported on a terrorist assassination list with the names of 60 government, military and political figures. The document was dated September 5, 2006 and issued from Thi Qar Operation HQ in the name of the "Martyr Qusay unit/Karkh sector," which is Baghdad. Qusay is Saddam's son, who was killed in Mosul in 2003.

Addressed to "comrades" and "commanders of Special Operations," the order translated into English declares that "Approval of deputy combatant comrade, treasure of the country (Baath Party-Iraq branch), and the supreme commander of armed forces was granted, and communicated to us by the letter from the country treasure office . . . Execution punishment regarding criminals, agents, apostates, names below, in addition to their first, second, and third degree relatives. Execution (of the order) by your units is according to the plan and to your suitable timing discretion."

The list includes major Shiite, Kurdish and Iraqi political figures, as well as Sunnis who are participating in the government. And the killings seem to have already begun with the murder of several relatives of men on the list. We keep being told by our own intelligence services that the Sunni insurgency is leaderless. But tell that to those on this list or to their relatives.

The goal of the terrorists who created this list is to intimidate Iraqis from joining the government, and to maintain as much disorder and violence as possible so the U.S. will lose patience and withdraw. Then they will take their chances with the majority Shiites, who they have beaten before. The Saddamists will have won, even if Saddam himself is dead.

None of this is intended to diminish the importance of Saddam's conviction and likely execution after appeal. The verdict reminds the world of his crimes, specifically the 1982 murder of 148 Shiites in Dujail, which in its systematic revenge recalls Hitler's slaughter at the Czech town of Lidice during World War II. That the U.S. and its allies were willing and able to depose, and his countrymen then try and punish, a national leader who ordered those crimes is a warning to other tyrants. The U.N. routinely deplores the Saddams of the world but never has the will to act against them--whether in Rwanda, Darfur, Kosovo, Bosnia, Cambodia, or Kurdistan. In Iraq, the U.S. finally acted.

Justice for Saddam is one admirable legacy of the American sacrifice in Iraq. But to make it permanent, the U.S. must also defeat the insurgency that battles on in Saddam's name. No matter what happens in Tuesday's election, the U.S. commander in chief who ended Saddam's tyranny has to find a strategy and generals who will finish the job.

Ellie